Theo was used to receiving care packages from home. They mostly contained offcuts from projects his mum was making, or fabric samples she'd collected for him, or just bits and bobs of things she thought he would enjoy. Today's parcel was unusually big though.
Theo carefully loosened the string with his wand, the paper falling away.
"Oh my." His eyes went round, and anyone who didn't know him well might have mistaken the look for horror, at the fact that there was a very distinctly orange and brown sweater on the table, with a vivid geometric pattern. Anyone who knew Theo would notice that the sweater was knitted from some kind of tassley-looking wool.
His omg-treasure look of wonder burst into huge grin as he ripped off his robes pulling the sweater on instead. It reached down below his butt. This was great. He might never ever grow out of it!
"I'M SO SOFT!" he screamed, running his hands over his face. It was not a new level of softness but all softness warranted enthusiasm, and this was very soft. "FEEL ME!" he invited, sticking an arm into the nearest person's personal space. "ONLY IF YOU AREN'T STICKY" he added, withdrawing his arm a little, just in case.
Had Sapphire not been exposed to Theo during the last few years, she might have been weirded out but she sort of knew he was different. "I'm not sticky." She replied, tentatively reaching towards his sleeve.
She considered Theo's question. "Pillows and stuffed animals." Normally Sapphire might be embarrassed to mention the latter to a boy, but she had a feeling in this case, it might be acceptable.
"I have lots of stuffed animals!" Theo grinned. "And pillows. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between a shapey pillow and a stuffed animal, isn't it? What kind of soft are your animals? Like... this kind?" he held out his arm. "Or the smooth-soft kind?" Some stuffed animals were very fuzzy, some were soft in an almost-velvety-but-not-velvet-so-it-was-the-wrong-word kind of way.
Ahh, she knew it would okay to mention stuffed animals to Theo. "Both kinds." Sapphire replied."And yeah, I know exactly what you mean about some that are sort of both."
Sapphire seemed pretty good at soft things. That was good to know.
"But your name is a hard thing," Theo mused out loud. Most people's names weren't things at all, though they could still have textures, based on sounds or personalities. His was soft cos of the 'th.' Anya's was bouncy cos of the 'y'. And because they both those things. "Does that make you sad?"
"I suppose it is." She'd never thought of that before. "And I suppose it doesn't."Sapphire had a lot of other things that made her sad so it didn't occur to her to worry about her name doing so.
11Sapphire BrockertThat's an interesting thought145905