Marie looks at her watch approaching the entrance of the playground. “I’m still on time to pick up Mylo. It’s just before two o’clock,” she says to herself. “It’s always the same with these meetings,” she sighs.

Marie opens the fence of the playground of her son’s school, Hutchinson Elementary. As she enters the school ground on the left there is already a few meters of building with just before the corner an emergency exit. Just around the corner is the entrance of the school. On the right there are bicycle stands. Further up the school ground there is a huge castle-like playground with some slides and obstacle courses. Next to it there are some attributes such as seesaws, swings and a table tennis table. All in the back just before the end of the school ground there is a small football pitch.

She continues further on and sees there are parents are already waiting. As she nears her usual waiting spot near the lamppost, she notices a woman she can’t recognize. A dalmatian woman. She’s a little smaller than Marie, about 1,60m. She’s wearing jeans and a light pink coat with tortilla brown sneakers. She looks not much older than Marie, somewhere in her mid-thirties. Marie positions herself near the lamppost she usually stands waiting for Mylo, but with a comfortable distance between her and the other woman.

After a little time Marie takes another look at her. Though nothing unusual, she seems a bit insecure. She’s standing a little bent over and her shoulders a little forward, looking down to the ground. She’s not looking too happy. Marie is thinking of approaching her, but not sure how to do just that. She takes a few steps in the direction of the woman.

“Hi. I haven’t seen you here before,” Marie remarks.

“Hi. Yes, that’s correct. It is the first week of my son at this school,” the dalmatian woman responds softly trying to make some eye contact with Marie.

Marie thinks again if this was the right way to approach her, only to conclude it is better to introduce herself.

“Oh, how rude of me,” Marie says with a little embarrassment. “My name is Marie. I’m the mother of Mylo.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” the woman responds. “My name is Christine. I’m the Spotty’s mother.”

“Oh, Spotty,” Marie repeats. “Lovely name. I do remember Mylo has mentioned him once or twice this week. Like they got a new classmate and that they played together during recess.”

Christine looks up to Marie. Making full eye contact this time, smiling.

“It’s good to hear he finds his way well here after the move.”

Marie nods in acknowledgement. Just as she wants to continue the conversation the bell rings. Not long after they hear some children yelling as a mixed group of children between 4 and 12 year olds come out of the building. Both Christine and Marie looking up to see if they can see their sons in the big group of children.

Marie spots a dalmatian boy in the group of children. A sweet looking boy with the same spots as the woman Marie has been talking to. And with the same characteristic futures, as he too looks somewhat insecure.

“I think I see Spotty over there,” says Marie, assuming it is him.

Christine waves her hand in the direction of the dalmatian boy. At first he doesn’t seem to notice. To busy talking with other children. But after a glimpse in her direction he reacts, tugging on Mylo’s shirt, as they both run in her direction.

“Hey, sweetie!”

Christine says as she catches him, smiling from ear to ear. She hugs him tightly.

“Hi, mum!” Spotty responds as he hugs his mother.

“How has school been today?” Christine asks while stroking over his head.

Spotty looks up as his mom holds him against her.

“Well, it’s a bit different than I’m used to. But it was great, except for the singing part.”

“Not much of a singer, are you?” Marie chuckles.

Barely visible Spotty shakes his head as he hides his face further in the arms of his mother.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. This is the mother of Mylo. Everything’s okay,” she says to Spotty.

She turns to Marie. “Sorry, he seems to totally shut down when an elderly stranger talks to him,” she apologizes with a somewhat worried face. “Probably from, well…, it seems to be part of his character, I guess,” she continues with some stuttering.

“No need to apologize. Hey, why don’t you come over to our place?” Marie suggests. She looks at Spotty and then at his mother.

“I know Mylo will find it lovely to have someone over,” she continues. “Don’t you, Mylo?”

He nods intensively. Marie looks to Spotty who seems to hesitates as he’s not really sure how to respond to this situation. He looks up to his mother looking for some kind of confirmation. She nods at him as saying it is okay.

“Maybe we can do the things we were talking about in recess, Spotty.” Mylo say trying to convince Spotty.

He hesitantly nods. He looks up to his mother to see if she’s okay with it. She nods, confirming it is okay. Spotty slowly unwraps his arms as does his mother to enable him to freely move again. He proceeds to join Mylo, standing next to him.

“I’ll come pick him up at around half past five, okay?” Christine suggests.

“That’s fine,’’ Marie responds, “see you around, then.’’

---

A clicking noise is heard when Marie unlocks the front door. She gently pushes it open. The three of them enter the hallway of the house.

“Please, put your shoes here after taking them off,” Marie says pointing to the shoe rack a few meters on the right from the door.

Spotty and Mylo take off their shoes and put them on the shoe rack. Now standing on socks they both unzip their coats and hang them up on the colourful coat rack. The boys want to make a run for it to the stairs.

“Spotty.”

As Marie calls out to the dalmatian boy, she puts one hand on his left shoulder. He’s startled by Marie’s hand, but also letting out a small ‘ouch’.

“What’s wrong, Spotty?” she asks worriedly.

“Nothing. Just didn’t expect that,” Spotty says with a low voice.

“Are you sure?”

“… I’m sure.”

“Just wanted to say to make yourself at home,” Marie enjoins him before heading to the living room.

Spotty nods, looking down to the floor. He then turns around and quickly joins Mylo who’s already halfway on the stairs. With a quick pace they go to Mylo’s bedroom as he wants to give him a small tour through his bedroom.

Straight ahead is a white wardrobe for clothing, bedding and other things. Next to it is a medium desk. On the desk lay some paper, pencils and crayons. Just above the desk there are two bookshelves with a few children’s books and more toys. All the way to the left is Mylo’s bed, in parallel with the windows. In between is a small radiator. Next to the door on the left is a chair with some clothes put over it.

“Shall we go and build a fortress?” Mylo asked while Spotty is looking around the room with amazement.

Mylo gently tags Spotty’s shoulder thinking he didn’t hear him. Spotty shyly nods, agreeing to Mylo’s idea.

Mylo suddenly turns around and speeds up the spiral stairs, eventually leading up to the attic.

“Well, the last one in the attic is a snail,” he teasingly shouts.

Spotty hurriedly chases Mylo up the stairs. At the top of the stairs he catches up with Mylo, eventually arriving at the top of the stairs, a small hall leading up to the rest of the attic. Left and right there is some stuff laying around from Mylo’s parents. Chairs for the back garden in the summer here, and a small spare table over there.

Both boys continue to the attic. The attic is visibly dividend in two. Not with walls, but with how everything is positioned. Just before the half of the attic is the desk of Mylo’s dad. It represents the only visible part of the line which divides the workspace from the other space created for Mylo to play with his friends. Next to the desk there’s a box with old stuff. Mylo couldn’t really grasp what’s in it.

“Just leave the box. My dad is probably tidying up his workplace.”

Spotty nods, as they go to the big left part of the attic. It has a big table in the far left corner. On the two sides there are four smaller chairs. It is only in use for drawing and tinkering, as there is laying glue, scissors and multiple colours of paper all around the table.

“Spotty, can you get those chairs. Maybe if we build it here against the wall, it’ll save some time building an extra ‘wall’. I’ll get other stuff for the roof.”

He nods heading for the chairs at the table. As he gets the first chair, he notices a shimmer from the desk. Spotty puts down the chair and rubs his hurting eyes. He takes another look, walking up to the desk. He leans on the edge of the desk, just next to a monitor. On the desk lies a small device. It has a light blue colour.

“Mylo, do you know what this is?”

“What?” Mylo responds with a surprising tone in his voice, turning his head up from under a the cloths he’s been looking though.

“This thing on your dad’s desk. What is it?”

Mylo stands up. The cloths falling off of him. He walks up to Spotty, stopping next to him and leaning on de edge of the desk.

“You mean that blue thing?”

Spotty nods.

“I really don’t know.”

“Shall we take a look?” Spotty asks with a curious tone in his voice.

“It’s not a good idea. Dad told me not to touch anything. He’ll get furious if we do.”

“What does your dad do when he gets mad?” Spotty asks with a low voice.

A moment of silence, as Mylo does not really know how to handle this question at first. One to which has only one easy answer. Or so Mylo thought, not really knowing what Spotty’s intend is with this question.

“Well, he gets really angry and tells me to go to my room.”

“Oh …”

Spotty puts his eyes back on the handheld console.

“Alright,” Mylo sighs, “but just a quick look.”

The boys walk around to the other side of the desk. Before picking up the blue device, both boys gaze for a short moment at it, not knowing what to expect. Mylo picks it up. He inspects every side of it. Down on the right side of the device there seems to be a button. On the top left there seems to be another button. The bottom there is a rectangular grey part which sticks out as the rest of the device is light blue. Mylo inspects the seam.

“Can you open it?”

Mylo proceeds to inspect the seam on the light blue device. He puts it back on the desk, with the back of the device down on the desk again. He carefully opens it, pulling on the top half of the device. He pulls until the top half is in a vertical position. Mylo notices there’s a screen and reads something on the bottom edge of it.

“It says Gameboy Advance SP.”

“Can you turn it on?”

Mylo picks the handheld console up and turns it to check the right side of it. He slides the button downwards, holding it down for a few seconds. The black screens first turns to grey, then turns sky blue with colourful letters appearing, spelling ‘Gameboy Nintendo’.

“It’s still working,” Spotty says with a low but surprising voice.

Mylo leaves the cartridge in. It proceeds to load a game, as the screen turns black again for a moment. Suddenly the name of a game appears on screen in a colourful way together with sound that can be described as a start-up theme. It’s a game the boys are not familiar with.

“Shall we go and play the game, taking turns?”

“Yeah, okay. I’m quite curious, too.”

A menu appears on the screen with a few options to choose from. Meanwhile a menu theme starts playing in the background.

“Are there any saves on it?”

Mylo proceeds to the ‘load’ option on the screen by pushing the down button. The handheld console bleeps a few times as Mylo runs down the options in the start menu. He reaches load and presses the A-button. The screen turns turning dark again for a short moment, then three slots appear. One of them is already in use. Mylo looks at the save slot. The save date appears to be from a long time ago. Mylo looks surprised and selects a new slot. The boys take the handheld console to the table and both take a chair to sit down. After a while both the boys get carried away with the handheld console.

---

“Spotty. Mylo. Come down, please. I’ve made some lemonade!” Marie calls from downstairs.

The boys come stomping down the stairs. As cracks can be heard from the wooden steps, covered with a fabric vesture. Mylo has the handheld console in his left hand. They continue to stomp down the second stairs to the ground floor. Downstairs Spotty opens the door and enters the living room, Mylo immediately behind him.

“Look what we found, mom!”

Marie looks up to see what Mylo is holding in his hand. It seems to be a device, but she’s doesn’t seem to recognize it at first from this distance. She lies the magazine down on the table.

“What’ve you got there?”

The boys continue to walk up to the back of the house to where the dinner table is situated. Mylo comes standing next to Marie on the right. He puts the console on the table.

“We found it on dad’s desk. Is it really his?”

Marie carefully picks up the console and inspects it, then puts it back on the table again.

“He didn’t tell me anything about this thing. He probably forgot about it, too.”

“Well, we’ve been playing on the game. Now there’s one really hard level.”

Marie is looking at Mylo with a little surprised face. First she’s surprised by the fact that there’s a handheld console in the household and second that it is still working.

“You need some help with that?” Marie says with a little teasing tone in her voice.

Both the boys nod. Marie picks up the handheld console. She opens it up and pulls the switch on the side. Mylo and Spotty both looking in surprise as she figures out so fast. Marie smiling in slight delight when she sees the surprised faces of the boys. The screen turns on and a stage selection can be seen. Marie scans the screen as to determine what the latest progress of the boys is.

“We are here,” Spotty says in a low voice pointing on a certain point on the map.

“Alright. Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

Marie selects the stage Spotty just pointed out. The screen fades to black and a loading sequence starts.

“You ready?”

The boys take a last sip from their lemonade and nod.

“Alright, let’s go.”

The loading screen changes to the game screen. In the middle of the screen is a pixelated figure, standing on a row of stone squares. There are other stone-like squares. In the background a landscape can be seen. On the top half a sky blue colour interrupted by white woolly forms which one can only assume to be resembling clouds. The bottom has multiple colours of green, and some slight brown resembling green grassy hills.

“Just need to get used to the handling,” Marie says while pressing on one of the arrow keys.

With each press on a key of the handheld console the pixelated figure moves from left to right, jumping up or crouching down.

“I think I got the hang of it again.”

Marie continues to steer the pixelated figure to the left. Jumping over enemies, gaps and other obstacles.

“This is where the hardest part starts, mom.”

Marie holds still for a moment, taking in of what’s to come for as far as she can see on the screen. Then she continues to navigate the pixelated figure through. Big turning ropes of fire and enemies await. Marie commands the pixelated figure to duck, as a rope of fire just misses the figure.

“Wow, how did you do that?” Spotty asks.

“Pressing the down button, here,” as she demonstrates the same move to Spotty.

She continues to guide the pixelated figure, eliminating some enemies by jumping on top of them.

Mylo is cheering, almost yelling. Marie has no means to calm him down, as she is busy navigating the pixelated figure through the level. On the other side Spotty is more reserved, concentrated on the movements.

A hill prevents the figure to end the stage. Marie commands the pixelated figure to jump. The figure jumps and jumps, as it eventually reaches the top. She then proceeds to steer the figure to jump, the figure following her commands. A ‘woohoo’ sound is heard from the handheld console, as to congratulate the player in finishing this stage. The figure continues to walk into a small castle. The screen turns black and back to the stage selection menu again.

“Phew, that was quite intense,” Marie says, mimicking as if the sweeps drops of sweat from her forehead.

She passes the handheld console to Mylo.

“Here you go, boys.”

The boys smile at first, but become curious shortly after.

“How did you do that?” Spotty asks.

“I used to have one, too. Just like your dad. Practice makes perfect, I guess,” Marie says shyly, scratching the back of her neck.

“But, where’s yours?” Mylo asks.

“Well…,”

Marie pauses for a moment.

“I lost it.”

“… Oh…” say the boys in unison with a sad tone.

Marie feels a little off as she sees the faces of the boys. She too is a little sad about the fact that she lost her handheld console somewhere. A device she has fond memories of from her childhood. Marie shakes the thought off.

“So, you tried the new level of the game already?” she asks the boys, changing the subject.

“No, because you were distracting us.”

Marie smiles. “Well, maybe because you two are a curious bunch.”

The boys continue to explore the next level in the game. Marie sees the drinking cups of the boys are empty. She asks them if they want more lemonade. Both the boys nod, their attention on the handheld console. Marie picks up the cups and heads to the kitchen.

“Oof. Now it’s my turn,” Marie hears from the dinner table as she puts the cups on the plateau.

She hears some more giggles as she opens the fridge. Marie pulls out the syrup bottle and closes the door again. After opening the bottle Marie gently pours about one seventh of the cup’s size syrup in both of the cups. She put the cap back on the bottle and with a fluent twisting motion she closes the bottle and puts it back in the fridge.

“You need to jump two times,” Marie hears one of the boys say as she pours water in the first cup. A few centimetres from the top she stops. Then she fills up the second cup. With both the cups at the ready Marie returns to the dinner table.

“Already finished the game, boys?” Marie asks teasingly as she arrives at the dinner table.

The boys shake their heads. Marie puts the cups on the table. The boys thank Marie for the lemonade and take a few sips before continuing with their game. Marie sits down on the opposite of the boys at the dinner table. She smiles, grateful for the fact that the boys get along really well. She reaches for her magazine on the table and continues reading, with the noise of the boys on the background.

---

A few hours have passed and Christine is making her way to Marie and Mylo’s house.

“I hope he’s had a wonderful day,” Christine says to herself.

She spots a street sign with the name of the street Marie has given her. Turning on the right indicator she checks her mirrors and blind side before turning right. After a couple of meters there is a parking spot just on the side of the street. Christine parks it, leaving just enough room to open up the passenger door. After turning off the car she sighs before stepping out of the small three-door blue car.

Christine walks up the street checking the numbers on the houses. In the middle of the street she spots the number next to the front door. With little hesitation she walks up to the door. Just before the door Christine stands still, regaining some confidence. She presses the doorbell. Christine hears a door opening and closing again. Not short after the front door opens.

“Hi Christine, good to see you! I shall get Spotty for you.”

Marie opens the door further. They both hear giggling and laughter from the back of the house.

“They have a good time together,” Marie says, “I think Spotty might not feel like going home,” she teasingly adds.

She turns around and waves Christine to come in. She follows and closes the door behind her.
Marie turns around to call the kids.

“Boys, can you come here, please? Spotty’s mother has arrived to come and pick him up!” Marie says with a loud voice.

For a short moment there is silence. Suddenly there’s some stumbling and stamping as Mylo pokes his head around the corner, looking at both Marie and Christine in the hallway.

“Does he really have to?” Mylo asks with a disappointed tone in his voice.

“Yes. Come on, lads.”

“Come, Spotty,” Mylo says as Spotty follows him to the hallway.

Both boys come down the stairs without further ado. Spotty is visibly disappointed. When the boys arrive in the hall, Spotty directly reaches for his Velcro shoes. One by one he puts them on, while telling with much joy what he and Mylo have been doing this afternoon, especially about the handheld console they found. His mother is waiting with his coat. Spotty stands up, walking up towards his mother. She holds the coat open for him to make the process of putting it on easier.

“So, what do we say before we leave, Spotty?” Christine asks him.

“Thanks for having me over,” Spotty says with a timid voice.

“Not at all, Spotty!” Marie says with a smile. “You’re always welcome here.”

Spotty hesitantly cracks a smile. Marie senses he’s more comfortable now than when he arrived here earlier this afternoon. She opens the front door to let Christine and Spotty out. As they both walk to the car, Marie and Mylo watch as they go.

“Bye Spotty and Spotty’s mom!” Mylo yells, waving at the two of them.

They smile and wave back as they walk up to the small blue car. Christine guides her son into the back seat of the car, pulling the passenger seat away to make room. After Spotty has stepped in, she pulls the seat in its original position and closes the door. She proceeds to step in the car herself. Starting up the car it gives a little roar and Christine drives off slowly past the house of Marie and Mylo. Just as they drive off the street Christine sees Spotty via her rear view mirror looking through the back window of the car.

“So, Spotty”, she starts, “you wanted to tell me more about today. Go on!”

Spotty doesn’t respond. Utter silence as only noises from the car can be heard.

“Spotty?” she calls again.

A low snoring sound is heard from the back seat. Christine looks in the rear view mirror and spots a Spotty vast asleep on the back seat. “He’s completely exhausted,” Christine says to herself with a smile of joy. “He must’ve been exhausted from all the impressions. Better leave him be after what he has been going through lately before this new start.”

---

My first attempt at a story, which in general I wanted to do for a very long time.
Hope you('ve) enjoy(ed) this story. Although on hindsight it might be a bit on the long side.