xx48.11.10 / 20:58 / Still Thursday

I had so much fun! C2's parents are LOVELY! (I'm calling her C2 now, it's my special 'friend' name for her, because now we're friends!) (I was going to write 'she still calls me Charlotte' but actually she doesn't, she doesn't call me anything. That's just her funny little way, though!)

Okay, let me start at the beginning. We got off the bus in C2's neighbourhood which was kind of nice but at the same time kind of ... I don't know, 'raggedy'? Not bad, not poor, not like the slums I've seen on TV shows but definitely not the best part of town. Not the worst either, of course. Her house was near the bus stop, the garden is quite overgrown with lots of these wide-leafed flax plants everywhere. Her house is pretty small and the hallways are narrow, but EVERYTHING is narrow out here in the 'real world', it's one of the things I miss most about home (aside from my family of course), our house is REALLY spacious, I never appreciated it before but now I realise just how great it really was. Everything out here is like 'square', there were hardly ANY 'squares' at home, aside from the training room which was a big cube. All of the rooms were circular and there weren't many hallways at all, just rooms leading down or up into other rooms, everything was nice and open and bright and there were windows everywhere looking out on to the blue sky and the green jungle ... okay, now I'm getting really homesick and feel a bit like I'm going to cry, so I'll get back to C2's house. Like I said, it's pretty small and narrow but kind of cute too, it needs new paint (it's a dark brown colour but you can see the old wood underneath where it's flaking off) and the floorboards squeak but inside it feels kind of 'friendly'. That's probably because of C2's parents, who are NOTHING like her. I mean that in the nicest way, of course, she's her and they're them, which is good. Having more than one person like C2 around could get a bit tiring, I think.

Anyway, they were so happy she brought me home with her even though she didn't call first (I asked her about this later and she told me that her mother had once told her that bringing someone home was fine and made no mention of calling, so since then she's always carried the assumption that no call is necessary; classic C2!), and they wanted to know all about me and where I came from—it got a little hairy but I managed to not-quite-lie my way through (I said I was from out of town, which is true). C2's dad is kind of small except not, I mean he looks as if he SHOULD be small but he's almost as tall as she is and if she unstooped she'd be almost six feet, I think. Her mum is really bubbly and bright and friendly and almost never stops talking, she's kind of 'big' and has curly hair and when she smiles it makes you want to smile too.

For dinner, we had meatloaf and mashed potatoes and gravy, it was super-yummy! I've never had meatloaf before, which is weird because it's so simple and easy. Mashed potatoes were also new to me, back home potatoes were really rare and usually Dad grabbed them to make chips out of, we'd never 'waste' them by mashing them, but mashed potatoes are actually delicious! Almost as good as chips, especially with gravy.

There was one weird thing, though. Not about the food, about C2's parents. Um, well, not weird, I guess, but worth mentioning in more detail. After she excused herself to go to the toilet, her mum and dad both smiled at me in a strange kind of way, then her dad said:

"It's so good of you to be so understanding about Charlotte's disorder."

Disorder? C2 has a disorder?

"She can be difficult to deal with, we know," C2's mum put in, "and it must be difficult to be her friend sometimes, but we're so happy you're getting along with her."

After that C2 came back from the toilet and things went back to normal. After dinner I helped clean up then C2 and I went to her room to do homework together. Her room is really interesting, she has lots of books and also a proper drawing board, although I didn't see any drawings or anything around. Not even any posters. After we'd done the homework (which was easy-peasy for both of us, she's pretty smart) she kind of got a bit fidgety, so I asked what was wrong.

"Are you bored?" she asked.

"No, I'm having fun!" I said. "I've never been to someone's house before."

"But we're not doing anything interesting," she said. "I don't have any communal activities such as games, and we don't have a television."

"Just talking is fun," I said. "I like getting to know you! Like, have you lived here your whole life?"

"Yes," she said. "I've never been anywhere else."

"Wow. Kind of like me!" I said. "This is the first place I've been outside of my home."

"Where is your home?" she asked.

"Um, somewhere far away." Actually, even if I wanted to tell her, I kind of couldn't. I don't know which country Seclusion is in. If I had the full-strength honesty curse like Mum I'd probably be forced to say 'in a secret base in a volcano in a big huge jungle' but fortunately I don't.

"Why did you choose here?" she asked.

"Um. I kind of didn't," I said. "In a way it was chosen for me, and in another way it was kind of an accident that I came here at all."

"Oh," she said. She thought about this for a while, then nodded like she was satisfied.

"By the way," I said, "I was thinking about our names, how they're the same and everything—"

"I was thinking about that as well," she said, really seriously. "It could cause confusion. You could call me by my last name, Crescent, if you want to."

"Um, that seems a bit formal," I said. "How about a nickname?"

"Nickname," she repeated. "Do you have a suggestion?"

I almost said that I've been mostly calling her Other Charlotte in this journal, but then I thought that she might feel strange that I've been writing about her. So I kind of just blurted out:

"C2? Like Charlotte Two, um, sorry, that kind of makes you seem secondary—"

"That seems fine, if it's okay for you to call me that," she said. "What I mean is, if you'd like to call me that, I wouldn't have any problem with you doing so."

Of course, I don't have any problem with calling her C2. It even kind of sounds like a robot-y kind of name, which suits her, even if she isn't actually one (although I still kind of have some suspicions, Mum and Dad both have more than a few stories about artificial humans). Anyway, it doesn't really matter if she's a robot or not, what matters is that she's my friend, my first REAL friend, and I'm so happy to have someone to talk to about things. About ANYTHING really, I didn't realise just how lonely I was getting until I went to her house for dinner, or how much I missed eating with other people around. I don't know why, but eating by yourself is just so lonely and somehow sad.

Anyway, after we'd chatted a bit more I felt like I should get back here (to my apartment at the school I mean), it gets dark early around here and I thought I should catch the bus, but her father insisted on dropping me off in his adorable little car, it's really old and makes this amazing shaky noise when he's driving it, it kind of feels like it could fall apart at any moment, I love it and had SO much fun riding in it, it was even more fun than riding on the bus. He was a bit surprised that I live at the school by myself, apparently the student apartments are mostly for visiting sports teams (which explains all the spare futons in the cupboard) and they're not usually used for boarders 'these days', I guess in the past there were more students living at the school. He also got a bit weird about my friendship with C2 again.

"It's really very nice of you to make such an effort for Charlotte," he said. "I know it must be difficult."

I didn't say anything except 'it's okay, I really like her', but I was actually thinking something more like 'why would it be difficult? She's a bit weird and maybe comes off as a little creepy but once you get to know her she's really nice and sweet and caring—but you KNOW that, you're her FATHER'. Why is he so weird about her? It's like me being her friend is somehow a drain on me, like she's bad or something. I'm grateful to have her as a friend, REALLY grateful! She's about the only person my age I've met here who's even TALKED to me! (Aside from rotten old Veronica Flux and she REALLY doesn't count.)

Anyway. It's weird but he's still nice, and C2's mum is too, she gave me some leftover meatloaf in a little plastic bag so I could make sandwiches for tomorrow. So thoughtful, I almost cried. Families are GREAT, even other people's families.

So, now it's dark outside and I'm full and feeling happy from going to my friend's house for dinner, so I think I'm going to take a shower and go to bed.