Brett cried out.
"Nooooooooooo, I don't wanna go to daycare!!"
"Brett sweetie, mama has to go to work today, please be a good boy and get ready."
"Why can't I go to work with you mama? I'll be really quiet, I promise."
"C'mon sweetie, I really can't be late for work."
Brett was 5 and bored out of his skull at daycare. His daycare claimed it ran a Preschooler program and did some literacy and numeracy work which didn't interest Brett at all. He already knew how to do all the stuff they did at daycare by the time he was 4 as his parents had already taught him some basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills. The daycare centre also boasted a music program that involved the children dinging on triangles or clicking castanets, which Brett found somewhat interesting, except most of the children seemed to have absolutely no rhythm and they preferred to make random noises which irritated Brett. He really wanted to learn how to play an instrument that could produce a melody or sounds that sounded nice together – Brett seemed to already have a concept of harmonics, or chords, even though these words were not in his vocabulary yet.
At daycare, Brett was in the Giraffe Class, consisting of the 5-year-old children who were due to start school next year. Brett felt an emotion that could be described as despair, again, still not present in his vocabulary, when he thought that he had to endure "this" (daycare) till the end of the year.
When Brett arrived at daycare with his mum, he noticed another mother standing at the reception area with a little boy clinging onto her leg.
"Bye-bye Brett, see you later okay? Have a lovely day!"
His mum quickly left.
Brett wanted to cry but he thought he never saw this particular little boy before and his curiosity got the better of him. He was a bit smaller than Brett and his chubby cheeks made Brett think he was younger than him.
"Hi, I'm Brett, what's your name?"
Brett was naturally drawn to people and was a very social child.
On the other hand, the boy who was clinging to his mum's leg was shy and clung to his mum's leg tighter as he buried his face into her dress. His mother answered instead.
"Hello Brett, you're such a nice boy to come and say hello. This is Eddy. Eddy, why don't you say hello?"
When his mum says "why don't you", it actually means "you must", so Eddy looked towards Brett and whispered.
"Hello..."
"Hi Eddy. Are you in the Giraffe Class?"
Eddy looked confused and a carer from behind the reception counter replied instead.
"Brett, it's Eddy's first day here. Eddy is 4 years old so he's in Elephants."
"Oh. That's okay. We have playtime together. Do you want me to show Eddy where the toys are ?"
The carer smiled.
"Brett, I think that's a lovely idea. Eddy, would you like to go with Brett into the playroom ?"
Eddy's mother said,
"Eddy, why don't you go with Brett? I'll come and pick you up at 5 o'clock, okay?"
Tears started to well up in Eddy's eyes as he tightened his grip on his mother's clothes.
Eddy stood in the middle of a large room with children screaming all around him.
Noisy and chaotic places upset and scared him.
He used his sleeve to wipe his tears over and over as he could not seem to stop them from flowing.
That boy called Brett stood next to him, holding his other hand. He seemed like a nice boy. Eddy was still a bit cautious about him though because sometimes kids were nice to him at the beginning and then they would turn mean.
Brett looked at Eddy and noticed him flinching every time someone screamed or made a large noise with the play equipment. So Brett decided to suddenly mutter.
"It's noisy here, I don't like it."
And he pulled Eddy to a corner of the play area which was meant to be the "quiet reading area".
The whole play area was an open space so it didn't really make much difference sound-wise but at least the noise wasn't coming from all directions.
Brett sat down on the rug so Eddy did the same and sat down next to him. They still held hands.
"Eddy, do you want me to show you my favourite book?"
"Okay."
"I need to let go of your hand to get the book then, okay?"
"Okay."
Eddy let go of Brett's hand and Brett got up and got a book out of the bookshelf. It was a picture book of animals playing in an orchestra.
"I like the pictures."
Brett sat back down cross-legged next to Eddy and opened up the picture book. The illustrations of forest animals and various orchestral musical instruments were drawn realistically and painted with beautiful watercolours.
Eddy's face lit up.
"I have this book at home. This is my favourite book, too"
"Which page do you like the best ?"
Brett gently pushed the book onto Eddy's lap and Eddy enthusiastically flipped the pages.
"This one is my favourite."
The picture showed an orange-brown fox playing the violin.
"Eddy, that's my favourite picture, too!"
Eddy flinched and pulled back a bit. He was worried that Brett may have become cross because he also liked the same picture. Sometimes when you like the same thing, your friends could get cross at you and say "this one is my favourite so it can't be yours".
Eddy worriedly looked at Brett who was smiling.
"Why do you like this picture Eddy?"
"Because the fox is playing the violin. I want to learn how to play the violin."
Brett smiled again.
"Me too Eddy!!"
Eddy gave a shy smile. He liked Brett, they both liked the same things and Brett seemed happy about that. Eddy thought they could be good friends.