Little Dandelion ➳ Larry

- PART THREE -

PART THREE

Louis never quite understood Harry's obsession with sorting his food. Frankly, he never understood ninety-nine percent of what Harry did. Sorting his food was just one habit that puzzled him on a regular basis. Whenever Miss Carter passed out snacks prior to reading time, Harry would immediately divide his food into piles, depending on color or shape or flavor. Louis was utterly perplexed, watching his fastidious best friend scramble to organize his animal crackers.

He formed five piles: elephants, giraffes, bears, tigers, and horses (or maybe they were zebras). Some of them were missing limbs or tails and it drove Harry mad, so he put the deformed ones in a separate pile, too. His fingers danced across the surface of the table, shifting the crackers around before Louis could even blink.

"Why do you always do that?" Louis thought out loud.

Harry simply looked at his friend and shrugged. "I like systematizing," he said, grinning.

Louis was confounded. "Huh?" he breathed, struggling to catch on to Harry's abnormally broad vocabulary.

He hated the curly haired lad's word choice because it made him feel stupid, but he continually assured him that it wasn't his fault. Harry simply enjoyed using big words. He loved reading the dictionary and memorizing new words and their definitions.

"It means, I like being neat and, y'know, organized," he explained softly.

Louis nodded understandingly. "Oh. You're so weird," he giggled, nibbling on the leg of an elephant cracker.

Harry laughed and popped a tiger-shaped cracker into his mouth. "I know."

"Louis, Harry," Miss Carter spoke up, giving them a stern glare from across the room. Their heads snapped up, and she motioned to the children's book in her hands. "Be quiet and focus."

"Sorry, Miss," Harry said as politely as he could, slumping back in his seat. He flashed her an innocent smile with dimples and all.

"Sorry," Louis apologized also, biting his lip.

A few other kids in the class giggled at them, and the teacher shushed them, too, before reading the first page of the book. Nobody really payed attention to it, though. Most of the children were more interested in their snacks.

Harry seemed to be the only one paying attention. So whilst his absorbed green eyes were focused on Miss Carter's storytelling, Louis leaned over and snatched up a few of his animal crackers, hoping Harry wouldn't notice the lack of even numbers.

He did.

❀❀❀

Louis and Harry skipped off the dull, yellow school bus, calling out various goodbyes to the driver. It was raining, a dreary drizzle, so both Louis and Harry pulled up their hoods when the bus drove away. It had been down pouring all day, leaving puddles of mud in the roads. The brown mush squished underneath their trainers as they walked towards Harry's driveway. Both Louis and Harry laughed when Louis's shoe almost got stuck in the thick mixture of dirt and rain.

"We should play in the rain," Louis suggested, twirling around in Harry's paved driveway.

Harry raised an eyebrow questionably. "We might get sick," he pointed out.

Louis shrugged, shifting his muddy shoes against the pavement. "Is that a bad thing? Means less time at school!" he rebutted.

"I actually like school, though."

He giggled and rolled his eyes. "You're so weird, Harry."

Harry sighed. "Okay, fine. We'll play outside for half an hour, deal?"