The fattest boy in the whole world

One day last year Son came home in a state of frenzied excitement because a boy called M had spoken to him.

M was in Year 1 and they were confined to separate playgrounds but their love had flourished against the odds, across the barricades.

'Who's M?' I said. 'Well,' said Son, before a not so much pregnant but 3 months overdue pause for dramatic effect. 'He has black skin, he's in Year 1 and he's the fattest boy in the whole world'. All of these were terms of endearment you understand. In Son's world being the fattest boy in, like, the whole entire world is something very cool, rather than something very likely to kill you.

Fast forward to this year and Son himself has been catapulted into the heady world of Year 1. He has cast boyish things aside and become a man, and there by his side, by dint of his school's dual year teaching style, is none other than M.

I worked out a while ago who M was. He is not - of course - the fattest boy in the whole world, but he was readily identifiable not by his black skin but by the fact that he had his whole mouth and nose inside a packet of sweets that seemed to be being sucked inexorably into him, like dust up a hoover. In a similar way to an over full hoover bag, there was just something about him that made you not want to stand too close.

Son was of course ecstatic to be thrust into the bosom of his idol. I write metaphorically of course, no-one would survive being thrust into M's actual bosom. I was pretty much ambivalent... until it became clear that a playdate was required and that I would be forced to 'make friends' with M's mother.

For a couple of weeks I feigned ignorance when faced with the question of M's parentage but then I could fob off no longer and the deed was done. 'I, um, don't know if, um M likes Son or not' I mumbled, 'but Son would really like him to come to tea'. And with that, the deed was done.

TBC