The Kind of Little Boy

That was it. She could hear it in Teatime's voice. There was a touch of vibrato that hadn't been there before.

"The kind of little boy," she said, watching his face, "who looks up dolls' dresses..."

"I didn't!"

--Hogfather, pg 382

*

The other children didn't often play with Jonathan.

It generally didn't bother him; there were so many thoughts and places and things to think about and learn about and put together and pull apart that sometimes he thought that adding other children into the mix would make his head explode. He was excitable and energetic, and the more he danced about and giggled to himself, the less inclined the others seemed to play with him, and the more time he spent doing those things alone. It was enough to make him rather downcast, sometimes.

(He settled on the word 'downcast' fairly early, because when he felt like that he noticed his mouth and eyebrows tended to move lower down. It was a word that made sense; no silly associations.)

When some of the older boys asked him to join them on the roof one night he did, feeling a little excited.

They wanted to know about the thing with the cat. Apparently it had belonged to a boy they didn't like, and they thought it was a good joke.

"Oh, no," Jonathan explained eagerly, "it wasn't for a joke. I just wanted to see what noise it would make, to compare."

They looked a little disconcerted at that.

Nobody asked what he was going to compare it with.

They started talking about other things, and Jonathan began to feel a little bored. They weren't doing anything, just speaking, and he could be somewhere, doing something... his mind started wandering off (speeding off, really; he found it difficult to do things slowly) their discussion, onto other things... Suddenly one of them spoke to him.

"I bet little Teatime doesn't know the difference. Do you, Teatime?"

"Teh-ah-tim-eh," corrected Jonathan. "The difference between what?"

Some giggling. "Between boys and girls."

"Oh, I do!" he said, listing the main ones rapidly. He wondered if this was something they were supposed to be studying. Would he be tested on it in a few years? Was it important to inhumations?

One of the taller ones (Jonathan could never remember their names - it was all the same, surely?) snickered. "You've been here forever, though, haven't you? Have you ever even spoken to a girl?"

"I expect so," Jonathan said, a little confused.

"Who cares? Girls are boring," said another.

"Nuh-uh. One of my sister's serving-girls back home..."

And then they started talking about girls, Jonathan listening with some surprise. A person's gender had always seemed like their name to him; a rather irrelevant detail that was forgotten almost as soon as it was noted. Apparently, however, there were some rather odd reasons to pay attention to that particular detail. One of the boys made a few crude drawings with chalk in order to illustrate this. Another added to it, pointing out some interesting details in regards to boys. Someone contested this and, after some intense debate, it was decided that demonstrations were necessary to decide who was right. Jonathan - eternally curious - contributed, of course, though he didn't particularly see what the fuss was about.

Still. It was fun to learn new things.

The next day, when they asked him to come play with them again, Jonathan felt quite pleased. Very few people had wanted to play with him a second time.

*

They were discovered on the third night.

When it came to punishment, it was clear where the brunt of it was going to land. Jonathan wasn't a lesser prince or a noble or the son of an esteemed merchant; he may not have been a foundling, but he was still a Guild orphan. He might have had his own surname, but it was one of no significance.

The other boys picked up on this quickly; the tacit agreement was made that it was Jonathan's fault. He was the outsider, the creep, the crazy one. They justified it by pointing out that he was the child on the recieving end of their little game.

Besides. This was hardly young Mr Teatime's first transgression.

Lectures had never made any sort of impression on him before, so this time they were accompanied with more stringent measures.

Suspension of priviledges.

Supervised free time.

Formal apologies to each of the smirking, sniggering boys.

And, at night, they bound his hands to the bedposts.

When Jonathan protested, he was shown a number of interesting devices that he found quite fascinating until he was fitted into one.

The next time one of the boys spoke to him,  Jonathan bit a chunk out of his earlobe - something that went unpunished.

The inconsistency was easily quantifiable.

Violence wasn't bad.

Other things, however, were.