The years after Matthew’s first world meeting seemed to fly by and soon Matthew was in the eighth grade. It was the end of the school year and he was meeting Christine outside in the school’s courtyard where the students would be let out during lunch.
“Mattie!” Matthew felt himself pushed over slightly when arms wrapped around him from behind and he couldn’t help but let out a smile.
“Hey Christine, how’s it going?”
“Good, don’t suppose you understood what Mr. Johnson was going over in math today?”
“Yeah, I was able to get it all, want to borrow my notes?”
“Yes please!”
Matthew smiles and gets into his bag to pull out his notes from math class and hands them to Christine. Just as he does the school bully, Roger Jorden, comes into the courtyard with his friends.
“Well lookie what we got here boys. The two weirdos.”
“Back off Roger, we aren’t the weird ones here.”
“Oh really, cause I always thought a butch chick like you that was into wimpy girly boys like him was the very definition of weird.”
Christine stands up angrily and clenches a fist. Matthew grabs her arm and holds her back. It seemed it had always been like this at school. Matthew was bullied for looking girly and not speaking English very well when he first started school and Christine for staying by his side and being his friend. Roger laughs at their actions.
“Ha, what you have to hold your girlfriend back, scared she might get hurt. What a role reversal huh guys?”
“Buzz off, eh. Why don’t you go bother someone else?”
“‘Eh’? What the hell was that? What you think you’re Canadian now or something?”
Matthew stands up and begins to walk away pulling Christine with him.
“Come on, let’s just get out of here Christine.”
Even though Matthew is pulling her away Christine continues to glare at the bullies as they leave. She watches them laughing at the two of them. Once they manage to leave them behind and are leaving the school Matthew lets go of Christine’s arm, slinging his back pack up onto his shoulder.
“They aren’t worth it Christine.”
“I know that but still. So what are we going to do now?”
Matthew shrugs a bit, “We could go to my place I guess, I was going to let you borrow my notes for math, may as well help you go over them too.”
Christine stops and Matthew turns to look back at her shocked expression.
“Your place? Are you serious you never have me over at your place. I was beginning to think you lived in some run down hobo hole or something.”
Matthew blinks, thinking about it for a moment. He hadn’t ever had Christine over had he, they had always gone over to her place or met somewhere when they hung out outside of school.
“Sorry, never really thought about it before. So want to come over?”
“Hell yes I do!”
The two quickly and easily made it to Matthew’s house and once they did Christine found herself gawking at the house she saw. It was an older house made of red brick, generally unremarkable aside from the fact it dwarfed the neighboring houses. The garage was detached and looked able to hold three cars, Matthew had asked once why it was so large and Alfred had laughed and told him it used to be a stable and carriage house back before cars were common.
