I'd Rather Play with the Wall (Danny)

[Miles Daugherty]

Miles didn't really enjoy gym class. When the gym was full of other kids running and shouting and playing, it got way too loud. There was just too much hustle and bustle and chaos, all things that Miles couldn't stand. Still gym was one of the classes were he joined the other students, even though he protested against it from time to time. During class, he worried constantly that someone would pushing him into something metal, or touch him with something metal. Or just plain touch him. So he spent a lot of time clutching the wall, out of the way, and starting at hole in the ground til the class was over. 

But that didn't mean he hated sports. Just that like with most things Miles enjoyed, he preferred to do them alone. 

So he had developed a habit of dropping by the gym from time to time when he knew there were no classes scheduled so that he could actually enjoy himself. 

He was currently kicking a soccer ball against one of the walls. He liked trying to kick it at the same speed and with the same space between his kicks so that the sound of the ball hitting the wall sounded like a metronome. 

[Danny Cohen]

...Danny loved gym. It was his favorite thing, now that he went to a school that didn't have recess. Unfortunately, he tended to be one of the kids running around screaming, but since Miles was a friend who didn't like all that, he stayed away during class. It was the nice thing to do.

He'd also been ecstatic to find a new friend who liked collections as much as he did. The exonumia had to stay home, since Miles didn't like metal, and Danny didn't want to break up his Every Retired Crayola Color by picking out the yellow shades (and exactly how yellowy did a color have to be to count? He had several that were greeny-yellow or orangy-yellow... where to draw the line? Oh god, pun. So sorry.) And he hadn't thought about the problem with bringing the collection he'd brought today. Lugging a big wooden box full of agates around all day was tiring. Of course, it was too precious to keep in his locker. But when he set down his backpack with a THUD in his last class, and one of the kids had gone 'whatcha got in there, rocks' and he'd gone 'yeah', he'd gotten some really weird looks.

Still, once school was over, he called into Daddy's classroom that he was going to find Miles and play and ran off, energy restored! And hey, Miles was in the gym! Excellent. Dropping his bag halfway to his friend, he remembered just in time not to shout HELLO. Instead he ran up and waited for the other boy to notice him, smiling hugely.

"Hi Miles, I brought my rock collection. You wanna see? They're agates. Striped ones." As with most of his collections, Danny's agates had to meet certain personal standards. Agates had to have clear stripes and have more than one color, but not be artificially dyed, had to be rocks and not slices, and polished. Most of his collection was rusty brown to milky white, but he had a few that were grey or a rainwater color with white.

"Or do you wanna play soccer? We can kick to each other." If there was anything Danny loved as much as his collections, it was playing.

[Miles Daugherty]

When Miles had first met Danny, he had considered curling into a ball and hiding until the loud, energy-filled young boy went away. But Danny had been quick enough to pick up on Miles' need for relative calmness and as Danny had reigned himself in, Miles had started to kind of like him. It helped that Danny loved to talk about his collections so much that it had come up within the first 10 minutes of their initial meeting. Though he didn't collect buttons, he certainly cared about his collections in the way that Miles did. And Miles liked that.

So when Danny cam running into the gym, Miles wasn't all that upset. He turned slowly to stare at the other boys feet.

Miles had already given a small nod before the other boy even finished asking the question. He had some of his buttons in his bag with him. But those were just what he liked to call his "traveling collection". He liked to have at least some with him, not only because he was easily entertained by them, but also because they were a bit like a security blanket in this strange school.

"Yes. Please. Thank you," he said once the boy had finished talking, giving Danny a quick look in the eyes and a short, forced smile. He was trying.

But then Danny switched gears. Miles paused looking down at the ball. "I want to see your rocks first," he said. Unlike Danny, he always preferred collections to playing.

[Danny Cohen]

The idea of collecting buttons had never occurred to Danny; he tended to collect things he had at least some access to, and the only buttons he'd ever owned had been attached to clothing, and removing them would've made Grandma really angry. But after seeing Miles's collection, he'd really wanted to try it. Danny had never known buttons could come in so many shapes and colors and... just... ways. And they made such a satisfying sound when they were all in a bag together! He'd been meaning to ask Miles how to get started, but he'd kept forgetting too.

When Miles said collections, Danny grinned at him and dropped to sit where he'd stood, unzipping his backpack and pushing all the books and folders off his box. The box was one of those unfinished wooden craft boxes one could buy at Michaels or hobby shops, with a hasp latch. The box was a bit beat up on the outside, but Danny had glued felt to the insides so his rocks would stay nice. Pushing his backpack aside, he set the box down between him and Miles, and then flicked the latch up. Turning the box around so Miles had a good view, he proudly displayed the contents.

There were agates as small as baby teeth, and three big ones that were around two inches across at their widest points. Some of the smaller ones were in old orange prescription bottles with the labels peeled off, and one of Danny's prizes was a pencil, the top half hollow and filled with tiny agates and plugged with the eraser. A few were wrapped in pieces of leftover felt or wrapping paper Danny had liked, and there was a small plastic box that contained, as it said on the label, Lake Superior Agates.

"You can look at them. Pick 'em up and stuff. I don't mind. Oh! Here, this one? This one is the special one." Danny picked up an eyeball-sized bit wrapped in pink tissue paper. Inside was a pale rock that leaned toward the pink range rather than the orange, with stripes of white and brown. On one side there were a few specks of white, and the whole reminded Danny of his mother's prom dress. Of course, it was nowhere near as awesome, and not as wonderfully pink, but having a rock version of her dress was better than nothing.

[Miles Daugherty]

Miles had never considered collecting anything besides buttons before. He had started his own collection with a button he'd pulled off of his mother's clothing. He'd like the smoothness of it some much he hadn't wanted to give it back. Besides having it made him feel safe. So she had let him keep it. Then he had started keeping other buttons that reminded him of someone or something special. And soon enough he was just collecting to collect. Though he still had special ones that were attached to a memory of some sort, he also liked certain ones just because of their size, shape, or color.

He also sat down on the floor watching as Danny pulled out the box. Though Miles had trouble making eye contact with people, he didn't have the same feelings about looking at other things. So he kept his eyes on the box.

The collection was beautiful. After Danny gave him permission, Miles reached out to finger the felt on the inside of the box, careful to say away from the metal latch.

"This is very nice," he said. He picked up one of the prescription bottles, turning is slowly one way and then the other to listen to the rocks tumble back and forth. He looked at the one Danny was holding before reaching out to grab a similar sized one. Holding it in his palm, he ran his fingers across it, loving the smooth coldness of it.

"Very nice," he repeated, following the lines of dusty purple in the stone he was holding.

Sometimes it was nice to be around someone who talked as much as Danny did. The other boy had no trouble filling the silence. And Miles actually enjoyed listening to the boy's voice the way it would build up like a roller coaster and then do it again when he got excited over something else.