Ollie had lived his whole life in London so he knew it back to front, but
he always carried a mirror so he could see things from other peoples’
perspective. He had been accepted to study on the condition that he
tone down his brilliance so the other students didn’t feel inadequate,
which he was incredibly good at. He never said, but I assume they’d
made the same demand about his appearance. I was overawed by
Ollie from the moment I met him, and it was obvious that most other
students felt the same, because when I was with him people generally
kept their distance. Ollie had this amazing way of making you feel like
he was the most interesting person in the room, without ever feeling
the need to actually say anything clever or interesting.
Ollie and I became closer as the term progressed. We hung out
pretty much all the time, which I was aware of because there were so
many sundials in London. He was always over at my room, and I was
always over at his. It was really annoying because we wanted to hang
out in the same room. One day we decided to start arranging where to
meet, which meant we could spend a lot more time together. He
became my best friend, almost like a first wife, and our friendship
became stronger as the weeks turned to months, and the months
turned to clichés.
Like everyone I’ve met, Muncho loved Ollie, and it always excited
him when Ollie visited us. Muncho was sad again because Ollie
couldn’t see him. I wished Ollie could see him, because I knew he
would love Muncho as much as I did, if only he could see him, which
he couldn’t. Legumasaurus Rex, too, was fond of Ollie although he
tried hard to hide it. Ollie made him laugh so much and, when Ollie was
around, Rex had less time to be nasty. He was almost pleasant
sometimes.
Ollie and Dustin became friends too, and the three of us would
hang out in my room in our free time. Dustin always talked about how
demanding his underwater crochet classes were, and at one point he
had thought about switching to something less stressful like medicine,
but in the end he decided to stick it out.