Q: When did you start painting, poetry and photography?
"Somewhere along the way. According to my mother, I never was anywhere without a pencil, drawing. She recently gave me a notebook filled with my old drawings, and there's one from when I was 7 that was wild. All the others were pretty regular, like swords, guns, planes crashing, pee-pees..."
From Jane Magazine, 1998.

Genre: This be crack.
Rating: You can sort of find an R in this, if you tilt your head to the right and squint.
Disclaimer: It's all plain viciousness, Viggo and Orlando were never children! No, wait...

Even though Mandy had presented her new student to her class, even though they politely greeted him when she had asked them to and even though she knew they loved and respected her, it still didn't mean the foreign child had any chance of being accepted by her pupils.

That was exactly why she chose his seat for him and why she made no constructive suggestions, the sort that teachers are prone to make, like asking Orlando to tell the other kids more about England.

There's nothing wrong with taking the easy way out, she reasoned to herself, while pointing out the seat she'd chosen for Orlando, especially since nature was wise and made sure that not only grown ups, but even eight year olds made like a herd and followed Viggo's opinion.

Once seated in his new place, however, Orlando didn't seem keen on interacting with anyone and, what was worse, on the other side of the class, Sean Astin again held Elijah's crayons hostage whilst explaining to the other boy why red was the color to draw your family with. She rushed over, ready for another round of negotiations.

Orlando had been quite willing to keep to himself, when the boy Mandy said was named Viggo shoved a small notebook in his direction. "Here," he was told. "I just drew this for you."

He examined the drawing closely. "What is that?" He asked.

"You looked like you needed to join me on my quest." Viggo smiled confidently. "And you can't go empty handed. So you have my pee-pee."

Orlando shook his head disapprovingly. "I don't think so. This looks like a ween."

Viggo grimaced. "My pee-pee is no wiener. Eeew, do people in England try to eat pee-pees? That's so gross. We would never even let ours anywhere near a hotdog bun."

Orlando seemed puzzled, but finally accepted this new point of view. "I don't know if we're talking about the same thing, but alright. And what do you do with these weens which are kept away from buns?"

"Pee-pees," Viggo corrected him. "You're a strange little boy, aren't you?"

Orlando was visibly hurt.

"I'm not a boy!" He exclaimed. "I'm British!"

And as soon as Orlando said that, Viggo not only got a craving for tea and biscuits, but he also wanted to do a lot of other manly things that the British are notorious for doing a lot, like hug and kiss other boys.

"Okay," Viggo agreed. "You can come be British at my house this afternoon. We'll start the quest and then I can also show you my pee-pee, so you'll know what we're talking about."

"Ooh," Orlando got excited at the prospect of a playmate. "You will? And if I like this pee-pee, can I touch it?"

"Sure." Viggo was very proud to be sharing his toy with his boy Brit. "Then, if you want to, we can also play around with my new sword."

"Ooh," Orlando was now a roll. "Can I touch that too?"

"No," Viggo's expression froze. "You can't touch the sword. You can touch the pee-pee, but you can't touch the sword."

At this, Orlando pouted.

Viggo patted his boy's brown curls. "I didn't mean to upset you. Do you want me to kiss it all better?"

British or not, Orlando was certainly easy. "Alright," he grinned.

Just then, a little blonde girl started crying. Mandy rushed over to her, still holding onto the green, blue and yellow crayons she'd managed to get out of Sean and temporarily abandoning the pink, brown and orange ones.

"What's the matter, Kate?"

Kate buried her head in Mandy's lap. "I want to be kissed too!" She sobbed.

"There, there," Mandy tried to calm her pupil down and pushed out of her head the thought that Kate was attempting to be annoying on purpose. It was not an attempt, it was the kid's misfortune of a personality.

"I'll..." Kate sobbed on, "I'll stop breathing until I turn blue." She did just that and Mandy didn't stop her, thinking Kate would soon realize this was easier said than done.

Indeed, the kid gave up on this shortly, then she started gasping for air. "Then I'll stop eating until I turn blue!" Kate didn't want to give up just yet and Mandy shrugged with the certainty that this would soon fail as well. After all, how long can a girl go without food?

Mandy looked over at Orlando and Viggo and could tell the two boys were getting along just fine by now.

Bless eight years old, she thought, some of them are a pleasure.