“Alright kids, I have some things to do, but if you need anything just call me, I’ll be out in the garden.” Lycela got up and walked out of the room, towards the garden.

“Umm, thank you guys for helping me. I am Quin, from Class 1-D,” he said introducing himself and slightly nodded.

“Hey, I’m Leyn from 4-F, don’t worry about that,” she replied, smiling at him.

“Hey, I’m Mang and I am in first grade as well, but from Class A. It’s no problem, that would’ve been my last lap anyway,” he answered. “I’ll be right back.” He quickly left the room as well.

“You know, you probably shouldn’t strain yourself so hard every day,” the girl advised Quin breaking the silence.

“What?” Quin was a little puzzled about what she said.

“Well, I’ve seen you regularly on the tracks and that the gap between us isn’t usually that much. Hmm, how should I put it?” she scratched her head thinking, before she continued. “I don’t mean it to be hurtful but you look below average physically and you’re still a first grader.”

“I know that very well, that’s why I go to train each day after school. What’s wrong with this? If I’m not giving my all, how could I really change this?” Quin became slightly agitated and interrupted her.

“As I said, I wasn’t trying to say this in a negative way at all. I only wanted to help you,” the girl said shyly, a bit taken aback.

“Sorry.” Quin quickly realized that she was the girl who has just helped without any second-thoughts and even asked her mother to help him, so she would not just say this to berate him.

“Alright, so what I was trying to say is that constantly overexerting yourself makes only more harm than good. Pushing yourself to your limits sometimes is useful, but you also have to let your body recover,” she explained it to him and let out a small laugh.

“Really? But.. All the books I’ve read said that only by pushing yourself to the extremes can you truly enhance your body,” Quin replied quite confused this time.

”Well, my mother told me so, and that this happened on several occasions during her work at the hospital. Many of the children were really determined on their training just like you, but their body couldn’t keep and so in the end they injured themselves,” she answered and after some thinking, she asked him, “What kind of books have you read?”

“Um, just normal training books, which I got from our local library. They shouldn’t be wrong, should they?” Naturally he was still somewhat lost regarding the whole situation. On one hand he truly loved books and considered their contents to be absolute facts but on the other hand he did not think that she would lie to him and her mother -- being a nurse -- definitely sounded credible about this topic.

“Maybe the answer is quite simple?” She smiled. “Were those books for kids or adults?”

“For kids or adults? Hmm, I don’t remember any of them saying if it was for kids or adults. Let me think for a second,” Quin was trying to recall it, however in his memory these books did not stated its targeted audience.

Nope, I can’t remember any but... To whom are books usually written? If it’s not a tale book or something like that they should be for teenagers and adults, and kids my age usually doesn’t read much or at all, concluding this, he started to laugh somewhat bitterly.

“Then they should be for adults. Man, not only am I weak but it seems like I dumb as well.” He sighed at his own mistake and he wished the ground would swallow him up.

“Hey, you shouldn’t say things like that about yourself! You shouldn’t lose your confidence just because you made a mistake, and saying bad things about yourself will only hinder you and not help you in any way,” she said. Somehow she got quite upset about this, changing her previous demeanor in an instant. “Anyways, just in contrast, you should be proud of yourself. Many kids of your age can’t even read properly... Well, honestly at least I had a hard time with it.” She gave a small, embarrassed laugh and continued, “Reading a couple books about training and stuff, to me that shows that you don’t have any problem at that. Besides, I think you should be proud that even though you’re not at the top physically, but you still go out training nearly everyday,” she said trying to cheer up him a bit.

“Ah... T-Thanks!” Obviously, he felt quite good about the praise, but awkward as well, which could be seen clearly from his ever-reddening face. This was when Mang walked into room, interrupting them.

“Hey, I gotta go now but I hope you will recover soon, Quin,” he said. “If you need any help sometime, feel free to ask me. See ya.” Then waving his hand he left.

“Okay, thanks, bye!” Quin nodded again, trying to express how grateful he was.

“Bye,” Leyn also said goodbye and now two of them were alone again.

At first Quin felt a bit awkward, but fortunately the feeling quickly disappeared as they started to chat about various topics and realized that she was rather easy to talk with.

Soon the few hours passed and Quin was finally allowed to step on his feet again. He thanked Leyn and her mother again and after saying his goodbyes left for home. Though it took longer because of his injury, he still arrived before nightfall.

“Hi mom!” he greeted his mom.

“Hi honey!” she replied. “Wait, Are you okay? Did you hurt your leg?” Although Quin has not mentioned it, and only took a couple of steps inside the house, it seemed like his mother was quite observant and spotted his injured leg instantly.

“Um, yeah.” He nodded. “But you don’t have to worry about it! You know, actually I was quite lucky, two my school mates helped me right away. They helped me to get to Leyn’s house, where her mother examined my leg and said that it was only a sprain. Oh, and she also gave me some salve to apply it on it,” he explained it all, while smiling and then took out the bottle from his backpack to show it to his mother.

“Leyn?” she asked whilst taking the bottle to inspect.

“Oh, she’s one of my schoolmates who helped me, and she’s a fourth grader. She was really nice, I had to rest for a few hours there and we talked a lot, it was fun!” Quin replied in quite a good mood, “And her mother worked in a hospital, so that’s why she knew what to do. She told me to not strain my leg for a few days, but then it should be okay.”

“Oh, that’s good to hear.” She smiled, and took out the cork from the bottle, to smell its fragrance. “It indeed has a good aroma, honestly this is not bad at all. I hope you behaved well and thanked them!” She did not forget to remind him about the correct behavior.

“Of course mom!” Quin nodded his head.

“Okay, food will be ready in just a minute, pack your things off, wash your hands and then come to have dinner. Oh, and it seems that only the two of us will be having dinner this as well,” she said and went back to check on the food.

After having dinner, Quin went to his room and started making his homework for the next day. Fortunately at this front, he barely had any problem and could solve them under half an hour, thus being able to focus the majority of his time on else.

Currently, it was spent by replanning his flawed training schedule. At first he wanted to go to the library to check upon on it, but it was too late for that and so he could only check their own collections of books. Sadly, he did not found what he was searching for, thus the only option was to wait until tomorrow afternoon, when the local library would be open. He also had to take a couple of resting days, so he was not worried about the time spent on this.

At end of the day, he was exhausted, both physically and mentally, and decided to go to sleep, even if it was a bit early. Of course he did not forget to put the salve on his foot before it.