Nick came in on Wednesday with, for a wonder, only one unfinished piece of homework, but as he uncapped his pen, it literally blew up all over him. Ink splattered his shirt, and his hands were absolutely coated in the stuff.

Charlie was sitting at their table, he saw with relief as he came into the form and hurried across the room. "Charlie, you don't have a tissue, do you? My pen just, uh, exploded."

"I think you're going to need more than a tissue. Much more." Charlie got to his feet. "Here, let me open the doors for you, or they're going to think a party of Smurfs came in overnight."

"Why would they think that, of all things?" Nick followed, glad for the help.

"What would you think, if the doorknobs were all blue?"

Nick couldn't think of a thing, so he went with the first answer that came to mind. "Captain America."

"What?"

"It always comes back to the Avengers." At Charlie's blank look, Nick shook his head. "Not a Marvel fan, I take it."

"No, not really." Charlie reached for the taps and turned the water on.

Nick began rubbing his hands underneath the faucet, adding soap and trying to work up a lather, but the ink remained stubborn. "It's not coming off."

"You're going to be blue forever."

He held his dripping blue hands up. "It looks like I'm wearing blue gloves!"

"You can make it the new school fashion."

"Or I'll pretend it's a tattoo." They both laughed. Nick scrubbed at his hands some more. "It may not be pretending, at that. This may be permanent."

"The things we suffer for our unfinished homework."

"Says the boy who always finishes his at home."

"Exactly." Charlie was grinning openly, and Nick couldn't help grinning back. "You should try it."

"I may have to. That was my best pen."

"If that was your best pen, I'd hate to see your worst."

"I should have been using it—it probably held less ink." Nick gave up the washing and dried his blue hands up. "Thanks for your help covering up my Smurfly misadventures."

"Anytime." Charlie held the bathroom door for Nick again, although the ink seemed to be adhering to his skin nicely by this point.

Later, as Nick washed his hands that night, trying to get more of the ink off him, he thought about how funny Charlie was. He'd like to spend more time with him. It was nice to just have a laugh occasionally.

During PE later that week, while the other lads were fighting over a football, Nick noticed a year 10 PE class running laps in the next field. He recognized Charlie out ahead of the rest of the pack. Way out ahead. Nick watched for a moment, impressed. Charlie could really run.

Their rugby coach had asked them to recruit some new boys to be on reserve, since they didn't have enough at the moment, and Nick immediately thought of that as he watched Charlie run. He should invite Charlie to come play rugby. And then they'd have a reason to see each other outside school and get to know each other better.

He wondered for a moment what the other lads would think. Charlie didn't look or act much like a rugby player. But they did need the reserves, or they couldn't play, and surely Charlie could learn.

Later in the afternoon, he found Charlie in the corridor, wrestling his books into his locker.

"Hey!" Nick called as he approached.

Charlie jumped, and the books came cascading down onto the floor. Nick helped to pick them up, handing them back, along with a pair of drumsticks.

"You play the drums?" he asked. School, running, now drums—was there anything Charlie wasn't good at?

"Yeah."

"That's so cool."

"Thanks."

"So, um, I had something I wanted to ask you. Do you want to join the rugby team?"

"What?"

"We have enough players for the team," Nick explained, "but we're not allowed to actually play against other teams without a reserve. And I saw you run in PE and you're, like, really fast. So … I thought you might be interested."

Charlie smiled awkwardly, but Nick could see he wasn't sold on the idea. "I don't really know how to play."

"That's fine. I can teach you."

"Aren't I a bit … small and weak to be a rugby player?"

Nick wasn't sure how to answer that, so he dodged the question. "We're just a school team, you know. It's not that serious."

"So you're saying I am small and weak?"

"Wait, no! No," Nick protested. The last thing he wanted to do was be insulting.

Charlie laughed and Nick realized he'd been having him on. He laughed, too—he'd walked right into that one. "So. Do you want to join?"

"Well … all right. It can't hurt to try, can it?"

"That's the spirit! I'll talk to Coach Singh, and you can come to practise this afternoon. Just bring your gear and you can change in the locker room with the rest of us."

"Okay."

Nick stuck his hands in his pockets and turned down the corridor, smiling to himself. Charlie always seemed to find a way to make him laugh. That was pretty rare: Most of Nick's friends didn't laugh much. Unless it was at someone else, he thought. Funny, he'd never really thought about that before. He hoped they didn't laugh at Charlie. But surely they wouldn't be mean to a teammate.

He found Coach Singh in her office. "What's up, Nick?"

"I've found us a reserve. Charlie Spring?"

"Oh, of course. I know Charlie." She frowned. "Are you sure he wants to play?"

"He said so when I asked him. At least, he said he'd give it a try. I told him I'd teach him anything he didn't know."

"Hm," she said thoughtfully. "Well, he can run very fast, and if he's on reserve we won't have to play him much. Let's try it."

Nick smiled. "That's what he said."

"Brave boy, that Charlie. Thanks, Nick. I appreciate your initiative."

She turned back to her papers, leaving Nick to wonder what she'd meant. How was Charlie so brave? For trying rugby when he wasn't really built for it? Nick supposed that took courage, after all. Anything new might. Well, he'd do his best to help Charlie fit in.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and walked down the hallway whistling.