James lifted his heavy backpack to sling it over his shoulder. It was navy blue, but covered in dirt and small stains, marks of a long time of use, and was ripped at the top from an unfortunate excursion into the uptight Mrs. Robin’s rose garden. “You’re wearing shorts again! Go change!” his mother called the doorway to their small kitchen. “It’s only 50 degrees.” James looked down at his thin legs and knobbly knees, at his skin which might have been as pale and fine as snow, but was instead engrained with endless amounts of mud and dirt. He shrugged. “I’m fine.” His mother took in her son’s naturally thin face and sighed. With that, the boy pulled open the front door, causing his thin muscles to tauten momentarily, and headed off to school. His walk every morning was about 15 minutes long to get to the city, with an extra 5 he spent dodging cars and buses as he crossed the city streets to get to school. Actually, on further reflection, it usually took about thirty minutes, because there were always puddles to jump in on the dirt, country road, and trees to climb. The boy’s legs were spotted with bruises and flaked with cuts from his many adventures of climbing as high as he could. In fact, one particular tree, one he had just passed a moment ago, held a very unique memory. It had been a few years ago, when he was seven, back when his best friend, Robert, still lived nearby. The boys had been climbing the tree, weaving their way up, up, up into the endless maze of branches, when James had fallen. It was the first time he’d ever broken a bone, and his mother had been shocked. James supposed she might have suspected that this was an inevitable occurrence, but nevertheless, she had been very distraught at both the cast on his arm, and the one on his leg. She wasn’t terribly surprised at James’ accidents anymore -and he had had quite a few of them- but he thought she had begun to dread the calls she received at least once a year from the hospital. James smiled fondly as he thought of that first time in the tree. He didn’t mind falling, and while breaking an arm was a nuisance, it wasn’t life-ending. And it provided an excuse in school if he ever needed one. James scratched his arm absentmindedly, running his grubby fingers over the spot where his scar from that fall was. His first scar. And one of his only ones. He was proud of it. James grew nearer to the city where his school lay. He didn’t care much for the city, for the endless hum of cars, and the sooty air. No, he preferred the endless skies over his house, where, when he climbed up a tree, he could see for miles, all while eating a fresh fruit he nabbed from a neighbor’s yard. The buildings around James began to grow taller and taller, engulfing him in their shadow. He had always been on the small side, simply slighter and shorter than the rest of his friends. It wasn’t as though he was one of those invisible kids, though. He was called on the most by teachers, and not always for good things. They would stare at him and shake their head as they held the paper airplane he had thrown or the gum wrapper he had unwisely left in the open. They would say, “James, James. One day you’re going to get into more trouble than you can handle.” He never believed them. Teachers also seemed to think that his mischievous tendencies were due to his appearance. His green eyes, they said, were like a jungle, filled to the brim with tangles of ivy and troublemaking creatures, and his chocolatey, curly hair could have been polished and sweet, was instead like dark chocolate, knotted, with a bit of bittersweetness. James himself didn’t notice any of these characteristics. He was happy just to be himself, and, as he was generally a steady B student in school -and in life, he thought- trouble didn’t bother him much. He didn’t pay much attention when his mother told him that he should wear a new shirt, not that battered green one, or when the khaki shorts she’d bought came home torn and ripped -which James liked better. No, James thought, as he bolted across a crosswalk in the city just before a bus hurtled through, even if he had forgotten to do his math homework last night, he was pretty content with his life.