Special Effects: Unseen Flowers

he became more and more unhappy. School just wasn't for him. He didn't belong to it, and it didn't belong to him.

But I've got to say it wasn't all gloom for my friend Joshua. He had some times in his life which were happy; like for example when he used to go for long walks. Whenever he had a day to himself like a weekend day, away he would go, following the sheep tracks around the hills, walking and walking, and taking in the smell of the tussock and the sound of the skylark, and breathing deeply so he could smell everything. He would climb the rocky bluffs and explore the nooks and crannies. He didn't care how scratched or tired he got. For him, being alone was happiness, regardless of the cost. Sometimes he would push his way through banks of broom and gorse, or hike to a place called Pillar Rock, which stuck out of the hill like a volcano frozen solid just as it started to erupt. He liked to climb to the top of this outcrop and sit in a gap between two rocks. Squeezed in between two rocks, shoulder to shoulder with the solidness and security of the stone walls. For hours. Listening.

When he was nine, his parents took him out of school and re-enrolled him in another one. I didn't see him much after that. He was working harder, or so his mother told me, but I just couldn't imagine it. I knew Joshua well enough to know that he would be doing only what was required and no more. He knew how to play the school's game. He was clever enough to fool them into thinking he was conforming, but in his heart he was just as wild as ever, and as free as the tussock on the hills. He had learned how to 'play the game' without the real Joshua, the inside Joshua from breaking.

When I did see him again, he was in a strange mood. He looked happy enough, but I could see that it was only his face that was happy. He knew how to make his face look like that. It kept the people around him further away because in Joshua's world, and my world too, you aren't allowed to look unhappy. Most people don't like it. They ask questions. They try to get you to be happy again, so they can accept you back into their world where happiness means assurance and normality. Joshua told me one day he reckoned there are millions of unhappy people around but you can't tell because they're too scared to stop smiling and let their real insides show.

Joshua talked about school for a while. He still hated it. He told me he was reading all the works of H. G. Wells. I'd only heard of 'The War of the Worlds'. Joshua went through a long list of other books by the same author.

"He's written more than Shakespeare and Dickens put together!" Joshua said.