Harold was a quiet and kind of withdrawn kindergartner, and didn't have many friends (or really any friends). He mostly spent breaks and recesses sitting by himself and drawing. At least, he usually sat by himself. Recently another kid had started to sit at his table during free time. It was the smart kid who sat next to him during class, he couldn't remember his name, but he thought it started with an "M"?
The other kid's presence made him anxious, but also kinda hopeful. Why was he here? What was he doing during free time? Did he not have friends either? Harold wondered all of these questions, but didn't dare to ask them. Instead he kept his head in his own drawings, and the other boy stayed focused on whatever he was doing.
This quiet companionship carried on for a few weeks. Throughout that time, Harold would glance at the smart kid during class (it didn't take long of the teacher calling names for him to learn that the other boy's name was Melvin. He knew it had started with an "M"), trying to figure out more about him. As far as he could tell, Melvin didn't realize that they sat at the same table during free time, and Harold was too shy to try and bring it up to him. So the silent sharing of space continued, until Harold finally worked up the courage to at least look at what his classmate was working on every time. Looking up from his sketching, he craned his neck to see what was on the table in front of the ginger. He gained more courage when he realized that the other boy was also drawing.
"That's a pretty cool robot" he dared to say, for the first time breaking the silence and acknowledging their shared space.
Melvin shot up, looking around and blinking as if broken from a trance, and finally his eyes found Harold.
"Excuse me?" he asked in response, sounding confused.
"Your robot drawing" said Harold, pointing at the paper spread out on the table before them, "It's really good. I like drawing robots too" he added, holding up his own paper sheet which was littered with creatures, super heros, and robots.
"I see" said Melvin in a neutral tone, looking over Harold's drawings with a critical look. After a moment, he asked, "So who are you and why are you talking to me?"
"Oh" stuttered Harold, his momentary confidence waning, and growing embarrassed, "Well, um" Melvin was looking unimpressed, and already finished with the conversation, so Harold re-mustered as much of his confidence as he could, stuck his hand out saying as confidently as he could, "I'm Harold Hutchins".
Melvin simply stared at his outstretched hand as if he didn't know what to do with it, and then turned his gaze back to Harold. Harold slowly put his hand down, and slumped in his seat. So much for his attempt to make a friend.
After a moment of mentally beating himself up for ruining everything so quickly, he suddenly heard from across the table, "Melvin Sneedly". He glanced back up, and saw that Melvin hadn't gone back to drawing, and was instead looking in his general direction, though his gaze darted from Harold to his drawings to the table.
"So you...like my design?" Melvin asked hesitantly, and Harold immediately beamed. It was happening! He was making a friend!
"Yeah!" he replied enthusiastically, "It's really cool! But" he said, creativity running away from him as he grabbed a crayon and made a doodle on his own paper, "It needs wings". He set to making his own version of the robot Melvin had drawn, adding some details, giving it wings, and missiles (every robot needed missiles). He was just getting to coloring it in, when he realized that Melvin was standing next to him and looking over his shoulder at his drawings.
"Hmm" Harold heard him mutter to himself, "Wings could be beneficial. And it couldn't hurt to add weapons…"
With that Melvin went back to his side of the table, and sat down with pencil in hand, focused back on his drawing once again. Now Harold was curious, so he left his drawings and stood over by Melvin, looking over his shoulder to watch Melvin draw.
"You should add some fire here" he commented, pointing excitedly at where Melvin had drawn a picture of just the robot's head, "that'll make the picture really exciting!"
"I'm not just going to add fire because it's 'exciting'" snapped Melvin, and Harold immediately shrank in fear that he had ruined everything again, "This isn't a picture, it's a blueprint".
Harold blinked at him, not knowing what he meant. Sure the paper was blue, but a drawing of a robot was a drawing of a robot, right?
Melvin sighed, but didn't seem as upset as before so that was encouraging, "This isn't just a drawing to look at. It's a detailed plan of the robot I'm going to build".
"What?!" cried Harold in amazement, "You're gonna make a real robot!?"
"Yes" replied Melvin, looking less angry and a lot more proud of himself. "I've been building advanced machines like this since I could walk. Before, even"
"Woah" was all Harold could say to that. After that, Melvin went back to his blueprint, making changes for the additions of wings and fully absorbed in the project. Harold smiled at his first real, good, interaction with one of his classmates, and went back to his own drawings. He kept drawing Melvin's robot, making it fighting various monsters and saving cities. Silence fell over the table again, but this time it wasn't tense or awkward. It was peaceful.
If you are looking for an explanation, I don't have one. I don't know why I suddenly liked this idea. But here it is. Anyway, hope you liked it. Thanks for reading, leave a review if you could be so kind, reviews make me happy and assure me I'm not doing something completely stupid.