Inspirational quote: Have you ever met a hater doing better than you? Me neither...

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Clyde felt undoubtedly horrible after he just watched his best friend leave without him, and more or less shout at him as well.

He was about to walk over outside the school to him until his phone beeped, indicating that he got a text message from someone.

Clyde checked his phone instantaneously. It was his sister.

Clyde only had one sister, but he wasn't going to reveal her name or anything else because he felt like her name wasn't important yet.

He read the text message that his sister had just sent him in disbelief.

Clyde. Clyde? Where are you? Mum and dad are worried sick about you!

Clyde didn't respond, although the next message he received was, from Clyde's perspective, a bit creepy.

I know you've just read my message, Clyde. You have read receipts on. I'm not naive or gullible. You can't fool me. Now reply! Where are you?

Clyde started typing out a reply. He hit backspace about a million times and about five minutes later he knew what he was going to finally type back to his sister.

Sorry. Just had an argument with Kieran. Will be back soon, don't worry.

Clyde's sister:
An argument with that kid? Again? What happened this time?

Clyde:
Uhm... Yeah.
I was being a bad friend, and now Kieran is ticked at me. I've tried getting him to forgive me. But it's not easy. He practically hates me now.

Clyde's sister:
You're stupid. Anyway. When are you coming home? Mum and dad got back together again, in case you're confused on why I'm texting you.

Clyde:
An hour? I'm terrible at keeping promises. Just... Before five o'clock.

Clyde checked the time, half past three.
Ninety minutes and counting.

Eventually, he headed outside, mainly to find Kieran, and he did, near the park outside the school gates.

"Kieran!" Clyde yelled across the other side of the road. "Kieran, wait!"

Kieran stopped walking and stared at Clyde spitefully in return. For some reason, he seemed to have waited for Clyde, but that didn't mean that they were friends, because they weren't.

"Do you want a lift home? I can text my mother to drop you off. My dad is at work."

Kieran rolled his eyes in return.

"What? Get in a car with a person with massive ears, so that their mother with the most massive hands in the world drive me, so I can be a laughing stock? Thanks but no thanks. I'm going to pass on this one."

Kieran kept on walking, leaving a kind of melancholic looking Clyde in the background. Clyde followed him nevertheless into the park, where there seemed to have been some sort of competition going on.

Both of them silently stopped in front of a poster staring at what the poster read in disbelief.

Art competition!
Aged 12-17.
Think you're good at art? Know you're good at art? Then why don't you apply for the competition?

Kieran read it, and decided to leave immediately, that was until Clyde surprisingly held him back.

"Kieran, it's double sided. Read it."

Reluctantly, he listened to him, after looking at him dead in the eye for a few seconds, emotionlessly. As Clyde had watched him, he came to realise that Kieran's face was seriously focused throughout.

But he tried hard not to let it show.

"Yeah. So what? I don't care, Clyde."

Clyde took a deep breath in frustration.

"In that case, you should. I'm going to make you apply for this competition, whether you like it or not. You're amazing at art, Kieran."

Kieran's eyes followed Clyde's for about a minute before Kieran shook his head and carried on walking, until Clyde pulled him back again and Chinese burned Kieran's left arm.

"Leave again and I'm going to make that Chinese burn hurt you for life. Listen to me Kieran. You're applying for this. You're talented at this sort of thing."

"But I feel like because I failed at ice hockey, I'm suddenly going to fail at everything else." Kieran whispered, looking like he was about to cry.

"Doesn't matter. Just means that ice hockey is not your thing. Please apply, Kieran. You'll regret it if you don't."

Kieran was about to reply but he didn't.

There was no point of replying anyway because just then, two teenagers extemporaneously started circling around them in skateboards much to Kieran's irritation and surprise.

One was completely ginger, and the other looked French. They kind of looked like they were twins, having the same eyes and all , although Kieran wasn't going to ask them if they were.

By the looks of things, they inevitably had a very strong infatuation for skateboarding.

"Hey," the ginger freckled one said nicely. "Don't mind us. Us guys thought you looked cool so we just wanted to check you guys out a bit."

Clyde turned red whilst Kieran just looked at him blankly in return, raising an eyebrow.

"Sorry but who are you?" Kieran asked quite rudely.

"I'm Leo," the other one replied back, shaking Kieran's hand so vigorously it kind of made Kieran's whole body vibrate. "And this is Theo."

Kieran looked at both of them for a long time again, then at Clyde, who looked half baffled.

About two seconds later, Kieran caught Clyde walking away.

"I'm going to go sit on that bench over there," Clyde mouthed to Kieran, pointing to the bench and walking backwards.

"Why?" Kieran mouthed back.

But Clyde didn't reply. All he did was to wink at Kieran, leaving Kieran confused as to why Clyde did that.

He looked at Leo and Theo again, then at Clyde, and did that twice.

Once Kieran found out why Clyde winked at him, he grinned in return.

"Oh. Oh I see." Kieran mouthed back, walking back towards Leo and Theo. He wanted him to make new friends.

"It's very nice to meet you, Leo and Theo," Kieran added nicely.

"This is the bit where you tell us your name?" Theo answered, looking at Kieran in absolute perplexity.

"Oh right. Kieran," Kieran muttered shyly back, and while he was at it he was deeply wondering whether it would be easier for Leo and Theo if Kieran's name had rhymed with theirs.

Like the name Cleo.

That's stupid, Kieran thought to himself. I could've said something apart from my own actual name?

Though it was too late now.

Leo and Theo took Kieran to one side then they both crowded around him.

"Okay. So, we're friends now. What brings you here?"

Kieran sighed heavily.
"Nothing really. I got forced to come here actually."

Leo laughed whilst Theo did exactly the same thing, play smacking Kieran in the process as well.

"That's funny." Then they put on a serious face concurrently, which scared the life out of Kieran. "But are you any good at art?"

Kieran didn't reply.
He looked down at his school bag, he was tempted to show them his art, but he didn't.

He was worried about what they were going to say, plus he didn't know Leo and Theo well enough to actually trust them properly.

They could've have been serial killers for all Kieran knew.

Kieran knew what people said: Looks were deceiving.

"Uhm I mean, I guess I'm good at art," Kieran replied eventually. "You guys want me to draw something? What do you guys want me to draw? A flower? A building? Nothing too hard though."

Leo and Theo remained quiet, thinking. They thought for a long time, making Kieran check his invisible watch and stare at them.

"Actually, yeah, we do want you to draw something," Theo answered after a while.

Kieran raised an eyebrow at them.
"Okay. What?"

"Not really draw though, to be honest. Write. Could you do all of our names in really cool bubble writing?"

Kieran grinned. Bubble writing was his speciality.
"And your name is... Sorry. I forgot."

"Leonardo."
"Da Vinci?" Kieran joked, smiling to himself, then winked at Leo.

Theo scoffed immediately, making Leo roll his eyes at Kieran.

"I swear. If I got five pounds every time someone said that, I would be a billionaire right now. And no. My surname is not Da Vinci. It's Capri."

Theodore and Kieran were still laughing in the background until Leo gave them a really good death glare making them stop what they were doing immediately.

"And mine is Theodore Smith. But we hate our full names. That's why we shorten it to Leo and Theo."

"Right..."
Although Kieran wasn't fully listening, because he was already drawing out their names in really cool bubble writing.

It took him about ten minutes, and he kept on claiming that the hand he was writing with hurt even though Kieran was ambidextrous.

The ending result looked rather surreal. In a good way, kind of.

Hopefully they'll think it's bad, Kieran thought. Because I so, do not, want to join this art competition.

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Moral of chapter: If you don't have anything nice to say to or about someone then don't say it at all. Just stay quiet, not everything you think must be said out loud.

Before you say something, THINK.
Is it thoughtful, helpful, inspiring, necessary and kind? If not, then it might be better off in your head. Even then, I don't encourage you to think bad things as God can read your mind anyway.