Knock Flock
Our friendship blossomed quickly. I suspected this was how Sal was with all of the other boys, as he seemed to have a special relationship with every one of them. The day following our late night talk was a sunny one, which meant we had to go back to work. My father was a little upset that I came home late, which meant that neither he nor I had dinner. Apparently he had not made it. I felt sorry for him. I loved my dad, and him being upset with me upset me too.
None of the tension in our relationship seemed to matter, however, when I saw a beaming Sal from across the field, waving his arms in the air like a fool. I made an overly exaggerated surprised face, cupping my hands to my mouth that hung wide open.
“Is that your new friend?” my dad asked, “The one who you were out with yesterday?”
“One of them, yeah,” I replied. To my surprise, he seemed happy to know that I had made a friend, several of them, actually.
“He seems like a nice boy,” my dad commented. He drifted off into the fields, beginning to hack the wheat with his flail.
I thought about dashing over to say hello to Sal, but I didn’t want to distract my father from doing his job. Afterall, I was supposed to be watching him, not Sal from across the field. To my defense, Sal looked like he wanted to say hi to me too, but his father kept grumbling at him, which I guess held him back.
It was a pretty mundane morning, if I were to be honest. I was getting better at swinging the flail, if not by much. I know I shouldn’t have expected to have gotten that much better in one day, but I felt I needed to master my skills. It was the stupid chain that threw me off. I never knew how much force to swing it with, and although it would’ve been godly of me to die a passionate hero, accidentally hitting myself with the spiky ball was not the way I wanted to go out. It would be embarrassing, to be honest. If the tool was just straight, with no chain, I knew I would have been a legendary wheat hacker.
Our bin was filled to the brim with wheat, as it was in the previous work days, by the time the sun began to set. My father needed to transport the wheat we had been holding in our house to the miller, which left me to cook dinner alone. There wasn’t much food left, but it was only me and my dad, so we never needed much anyways. I always gave my dad the bigger portion; he deserved it, after all. He worked much harder than me, and he was bigger than me, which meant he needed more food.
I heard a loud creak, and I found myself facing a grinning Sal, just standing in the doorway.
“Hey!” He spoke cheerfully, “whatcha doing?”
“Oh not much,” I said, turning back to the pot I was holding above the fire, “just cooking.” I poured the vegetable contents into two bowls, crafted from dried mud.
Sal’s eyes lit up, and he stalked across the room to look at what I had made. “Can I have some?” He spoke, and then he took it back, “Wait a minute, nevermind, you have barely anything as it is.”
“No no,” I reassured him by handing him the bowl, “it's fine. We can share.” I much rather fancied making Sal happy than filling my stomach to the brim.
“Seriously? Godric, you’re the best.” He immediately shoveled some into his mouth, and I assumed he hadn’t had dinner yet, because he seemed veryhungry. “And to think I was about to pour that boiling pot of water on your head for the sake of the splash war.”
I whipped my head around, gaping, “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, I would've waited until it cooled down a little.” His mouth was still full of food, his cheeks puffing out when he tried to smile.
“Hmm…” I picked up the water bucket slowly, raised it up, then put it back down. “You are very fortunate that I need this water to drink.”
“Yeah, yeah, you just want to follow the rules. Remember? Let Sal win ??” When I picked the pot back up again, he quickly changed the subject, asking, “Well, anyways, you wanna go for a walk?”.
I thought about it, not for very long though before I said, “Yeah, sure,” too excited to hangout with a new friend that I forgot we were enemies in the splash war. “I’ll have to be back before too long though, cause my dad might get mad if I’m not.”
He didn't seem to mind. “Alright, then. Away we go!” Sal handed me back the bowl, which still had a good portion of food in it, and promptly walked, well, more like skipped, out of the room.
Unlike the rainy day yesterday, there were many people outside of their houses today, enjoying the nice weather and some even cooking outside. I didn’t realize that Sal was so loved by everyone in the serf block. Like, really loved.
He said hi to, well I was going to say almost everyone, but really he said hi to everyone we passed. And they all greeted him back. One lady reached out to pinch his cheeks and commented that he was taking great care of their chickens.
“What was that about?” I asked, laughing as Salazar’s cheeks went pink from the force of her fingers.
“Oh you know,” Sal said nonchalantly, “I’m just an avid animal caretaker around these parts.”
“Oh, that’s cool, actually. I didn’t even know that some of the serfs had chickens,” I commented, to which he replied, incredulous, “You don’t hear them squawking like beasts at the crack of dawn?!”
I snorted, “Nah, I sleep like a rock.”
He narrowed his eyes before cracking up, “What does that even mean?”
“Well you see,” I used some dramatic hand movements to act like the story I was going to tell would be grand, “rocks do not move. They do not hear, think, or care about the outside world. When I sleep, I am the rock. There’d have to be an ear splitting catastrophe in order to wake me from my beauty slumber.”
“Mmm,” he thought for a moment, “Well I wouldn’t say the beauty aspect is working out too well for you in your sleep. But then again that’s probably because rocks are ugly.”
“Hey!” I slapped his arm, “both rocks and me are inspiringly beautiful. You just must not have the right acquired taste to see it-”
“Sal,” a voice came shouting from across the blocks of houses, “Over here!” We soon discovered Leofric flagging us down, whistling for us to come over.
“Hi Leofric!” Sal said after we jogged over. He gave his friend a warm smile, to which Leofric returned.
Leofric moved his eyes on me, like he was realizing I was there for the first time. His smile became a little less bright. I wouldn’t have admitted it, but it stung a little. “Oh, hey Godric. What are you two doing this evening?”
“Ah, you know,” Sal responded, “just taking a nice stroll.” It was then that I heard the first “squawk” on the farm that I ever had, and I looked over to find a chicken, fenced into one of the neighbor’s yards. Gosh, I really needed to get out more. I was a farmer. How had I never known there were chickens?
I noticed Sal looking in the same direction at the same time as I did, giving a smile to the little creature, like he was so glad that the chicken made his appearance known.
“Still in love with those birds, eh?” Leofric asked. It wasn’t in a disapproving or teasing tone, as Leofric seemed to worship Sal, but I figured Leofric wasn’t as interested in animals as Sal was.
“Of course,” he responded, “Such cute little guys. Wish I could take them home with me. You know, I’d be a much better mother hen than their keepers. Even if Ms. Strauss is particularly nice.” He put a hand to his cheek, which made me think that the lady we passed earlier was in fact Ms. Strauss.
“Sure you would be, bud. Now, where are we going exactly?” Leofric questioned.
“Er… well, I thought I had a plan, but then I kinda forgot it. Where do you lads want to go?” Sal asked the question earnesty, but I didn’t have a response, seeing as I didn’t really know where to go. Where would one go with friends?
“Hmm,” Leofric said, a mischievous grin in his eyes, “Care to play a little knock flock?” He turned to Sal, and they both grinned. I felt like I was missing out on the joke, but whatever it was, I was in for it.
I figured out the rules of the game pretty quickly. It was honestly very funny. To knock on some random person's door, run frazzled, wait for their face to become disgruntled once they find there’s no one at the door, look around, then shut it with a huff. It was even more funny when Sal just kept banging and banging on the door until he heard footsteps shuffling towards the door. He seemed to guess with great accuracy whether people were home or not.
It was all hilarious, but one strange thing was when Leofric tried to convince me to keep knocking, even though we could obviously hear the person coming to the door. Him and Sal were already hidden on the sides of the house.
“Nah, nah,” he told me, “it’ll be way funner, and a little more frightening, because they’ll be utterly confused when they open the door. They will have literally just heard someone banging on the door, and then poof!, no one will be there. Might drive them mad, to be frank.”
“Sure mate,” I agreed. I didn’t know if I particularly cared about the person’s reaction; impressing my friends was the main goal of this exercise.
I kept banging and banging, until I heard the doorknob turn. Oh no. I think I was supposed to have run away by now. I looked to Leofric, who was trying not to giggle, and then to Sal, who looked at me as if to say, “What are you doing, you dolt?”
Before I even had the chance to run around the side of the house, a woman opened the door in front of his face. She was old; even older than the lady who complemented Sal’s chicken tending skills.
“Who are you?” The woman asked, seeming frustrated and confused.
I stuttered a bit. “Ah- well, you see here, um. You, uh, you have lovely flowers miss. Outside your house.” Sure enough, she did have very pretty purple flowers, arranged in three perfect rows. She looked at me as if she wasn’t sure what my point was. And to be fair, I didn’t know what my point was either.
“Yeah, right, um-” I continued, hearing the snickering of my friends in the background, “I think having some pale yellow flowers would really make your garden pop. I actually have so-”
“Oh dear, you are so right!” The woman’s face turned into a sweet expression, like she was very happy to be disturbed and critiqued about her flowers. “You see, my husband always says the purple is plenty fine, but I don’t agree. No, not in the least.”
“Well,” I said with confidence, now happily charming her, “I actually have some on the side of my house, and they’re not commonly seen, so if you would like to borrow a few, I suppose you could border your purple ones with yellow?”
“Aren’t you such a bright, young gentleman? I would love some yellow flowers, if you find the time to give them to me!” She beamed down at me, and I smiled back. “Thomas,” she called out to her husband, “did you hear that? A lovely boy agrees with my thoughts on the flowers!” Her husband gave no response, but in the time that she was turned around, I gave both of my friends a quick stare where I raised my eyebrows quickly in satisfaction. Leofric had a furrow in his own brow, but Sal looked stunned, like he was amazed that I actually pulled that off.
It turns out her name was Ms. Morrows, and that yes, wanted me to visit again. She shut the door with a kind smile on her face, after which Sal and Leofric started causing a ruckus.
“You really swindled her into believing you!” Sal shouted.
“Pah! That was pretty cool of you.” Leofric added, before saying, “Alright, well, suppose I must head back. My parents are expecting me.” He seemed unhappy. Though I wasn’t sure if it was because he had to return home or because of something else, his shoulders were drooped, his eyes looked annoyed, and his brow was creased. Something seemed off.
“Hey mate,” Sal called after him, apparently agreeing with my assessment, “You alright?”
“Yeah,” Leofric called back, not turning around. “I’m fine.” Sal started to go after him, but then Leofric turned back around, a cheery expression on his face, and said, “seriously guys, I’m ok. Just a little bummed I have to return home. Would much rather stay out here with you lads.”
That answer seemed to satisfy Sal, as he wished him a good night, then waved goodbye as he began to walk back to me.
“That was so cool of y-”
“Sal, are you sure he’s alr-”
We spoke at the same time, then muttered sorrys for interrupting each other. “You go first,” I said finally.
“That was so cool of you, Godric!” He chanted my name a few times, and then stopped when he realized there was no one to back him up and start a worldwide trend that involved singing my name. “I mean like really,” he continued with his comments, “I don’t know how you got away with that one. Normally Ms. Morrows is quite antisocial, but I guess you found her weak spot. How’d you guess?”
“Hmm… well when I saw the perfectly arranged flowers in front of me and absolutely nothing else, no other options came inside my brain. Well, except for that thing I was telling you about earlier, where I sleep like a rock. But, I knew I couldn’t just go, ‘Hello, random woman I don’t know. I sleep like a rock, do you?’” Sal laughed as I continued, “So flowers it was. Lucky guess.”
“Extremely lucky.” He punched my shoulder, then said, “Now, what was it you were asking about?”
“Oh, just that Leofric seemed a little off? Maybe that was just me, I don’t really know him as well as you do.”
“No, you’re right. He has seemed particularly grumpy lately. I’m not sure why. Maybe his dad’s being extra hard on him or something for his first harvesting season. He has his mood swings sometimes.” Sal shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, ok.” I mumbled. I looked down at the ground for a moment, contemplating. Did Leofric not like me? I mean, I wasn’t exactly sure what I did wrong, but I just could sense he didn’t latch onto me like he did Sal. Maybe we hadn’t been friends for that long, but it was so sad to think that he already didn’t like me. Oh, he had to like me. I was just starting to make friends; I couldn’t have one of my new friends not like me. Were we even considered friends if he didn’t like me? I mean, of course he was my friend, but was I his? That thought bothered me. Deeply.
“Hey, Godric? Godric?” Sal’s voice broke me out of my trance. “I think the question is are you alright?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. Just feel bad for Leofric, if his father is making him work extra hard this year.” If that was true, then I did feel bad for him. I felt bad for him anyways, because it seemed like I was inserting myself into a friendship with him that he didn’t want.
“Yeah, I do too. He doesn’t deserve it.” I watched Sal as he turned his eyes up to the sky, then back down at me. It was night out by now.
“Rooftop?” Sal asked, after we had walked a few steps in silence, and I responded with a happy “yes” faster than I should’ve. I hoped he wasn’t annoyed by me too.