How DO You Make Friends?

Lucia looked up at the night sky, searching for the first star of the night. She finally found it over by the large oak tree standing tall in front of her chalet. Focusing on it, she recited in her head; star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight. 

     “I wish to not be so lonely,” she told the wind. “I wish for a friend.”

     “Lucia Marie Leanette! Are you standing out there at night again? Come in, you’ll catch cold!”

     Lucia ran towards the light of the open chalet door, where a disapproving girl was waiting. “Sorry, Mariette. I can’t help it. The stars are so beautiful!”

     “Well, you can admire the stars from inside, Mausebär. We can’t afford another doctor’s bill so soon after your polio.”

     Lucia smiled despite the scolding. ‘Mausebär’, meaning mouse bear in German, was Mariette’s pet name for her, which meant she wasn’t really mad. Mariette Daenzer was Lucia’s oldest cousin, and last remaining relative. She was always busy, either working at one of her three jobs to make ends meet, or taking free classes at the community college, which was as close to her dream of college as she would get. 

     Mariette was extremely smart for her age, 20, and Lucia had inherited her genes, learning at a rate faster than any other kid in the village’s elementary school. She was struggling to catch up, however, after being out of school for three months with polio. It left her unable to run or even walk very fast or steadily, so she couldn’t play with the kids at school. 

     Lucia had never been able to make friends easily, and it seemed like no one wanted to be her friend. She had wished every night on the first star since she was five, hoping something would happen, but after three years of wishing, Lucia had begun to lose hope. Maybe tomorrow, she thought, pulling the quilts in her small bed up to her chin. Tomorrow is a fresh day, after all. She was excited, but a little nervous, as tomorrow would be her first day back at school.

     The next day, Mariette was gone before Lucia woke up, leaving a note that read, “New day, new possibilities, Mausebär! Listen to your teachers, okay? I love you.” Lucia smiled, and grabbed her backpack, along with a breakfast bar to eat on the walk to school. It was a long one, as she and Mariette lived in the hills above the small village of Idelenburgh.  

     Halfway down the hill, she was surprised to see a boy stepping out of the woods. He was not very surprised to see her, though, and merely said, “Are you the other person who lives on this hill?”

     “Yes,” she replied. “I thought it was just me and Mariette living here.”

     “It was, until yesterday. I’m Madelhari. Most people call me Hari.”

     “I’m Lucia Marie Leanette Daenzer, but Mariette calls me Lucia, and sometimes Mausebär.”

     Hari extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Lucia. Let’s walk to school together.” It wasn’t a question, but somehow Lucia didn’t mind. There was something about Hari. Did the wind finally hear her? Lucia took Hari’s hand and they continued down the hill together. As they were walking, Hari commented suddenly, “I don’t have any friends yet.”

     “I don’t either”, Lucia admitted. “But I haven’t just moved in like you.”

     “Have you tried to make any friends?”

     “I wish on the first star every night, and tell the wind my wishes.”

     Hari smiled, but not in a mean way. “Well, you mustn’t let the wind do all the work, Mausebär.”

     Lucia looked at him. “Will you help me make friends, Hari?”

     “Of course. Will you help me make friends, too, Lucia?”

     “Of course. We can-” the rest of Lucia’s sentence was cut off as she stumbled over a small rock. Hari caught her. “Are you alright, Lucia?”

     She brushed herself off, embarrassed. “Yes. I had polio for three months, and can’t walk very well.”

     He looked at her. “Don’t be embarrassed, Lucia. I will help you so you will not fall.” Hari took her hand again, and they continued down the road to the village school.  

     When they reached the schoolyard, the bell signaling the first class had not yet rung, so they sat on a large stone to wait.

     “Hari?”

     “Yes, Lucia.”

     “How are you going to help me make friends?”

     “I will show you how. You know I do not know any one here yet, yes? So watch me.”

     Hari walked up to one of the children milling about the schoolyard.  

     “Hello. I am Madelhari.” He extended his hand.

     The child shook it. “I’m Sarin. Hello, Madelhari.”

     “Would you like to be friends, Sarin?”

     “No. I have too many friends.” Lucia heard this and walked toward Sarin.

     “Sarin, I am Lucia.”

     “Yes, I know. I see you in class.”

     She took a deep breath, and said, “I heard you say you have too many friends, but I think it is impossible.”

     Sarin was puzzled. “How so?”

     “Friends help you. You can never have too much help.”

     Sarin thought. “But what if I do not need help? If I do not need help, then I do not need friends. And I do not need help. Good day, Lucia and Madelhari.” He walked towards the school as the bell rang on the first day.

     Lucia and Hari looked at each other; Lucia was dejected, but Hari was determined. 

     “We will try again tomorrow,” he said.

     The next day, Lucia found Hari waiting for her again at the same place. He took her hand and led her down the hill. While they were walking, he said, “Friends sometimes like the same things, I think.”

     Lucia thought this over. “I like birds, and rivers, and books.”

     Hari nodded. “I like birds, too. But I also like the wild foxes that live in the woods.”

     Lucia disagreed, “The foxes scare me. We can’t be friends.” She seemed a bit troubled at the idea.

     Hari only said, “Maybe, or maybe not. I do not think friends have to like all the same things. Maybe they do not like the same things at all.”

     “But liking same things is a start.”

     “Yes, a start,” he agreed. “Perhaps we will make a friend today.”

     When they reached the schoolyard, Lucia was the first to move off the large rock they sat on and toward Sarin.

     “I like birds,” she told him. “Do you?”

     He shook his head. “I like the things that eat birds. Like the big, big bears.”

    “I do not think bears eat birds,” countered Lucia.

     “You are wrong. I cannot be friends with a wrong person.” 

     As Lucia walked back to where Hari sat on the rock, he said, “I think Sarin does not want a friend. I will try a different person.”

     She watched him ask another child, “Do you like foxes? I like especially the ones living in the hills.”

     “I was bit by a fox,” said the child. “They are mean and they scare me.”

    Hari said thoughtfully, “I am sorry you were bit by a fox. But I do not think foxes are mean. I think you must’ve made the fox mad for it to bite you.”

     “I do not make the foxes mad. They are mean and like to bite people. I cannot talk to someone who likes foxes.” And the child walked into school as the bell rang on the second day.  

     When Lucia came home, she was sad. Hari had walked home with her, but she did not feel like talking to him. When would she make a friend? Lucia was so sad, she could not make herself get up to go wish on the stars and talk to the wind. She was sure the wind missed her, but she was too sad to go outside.  

     Lucia thought about this. If someone misses you when you are gone, are they your friend? But she did not know the wind’s name, or what it liked. So they could not be friends. 

     Sarin could not be friends with me because I disagreed with him. Hari could not make a friend because he was disagreed with. Maybe friends have to agree, Lucia thought as she fell asleep. 

     “Have you made a friend?”, Hari asked her as she walked towards him the next day.

     “No. Have you made a friend?”

     “No. But I asked my mother what friends are, and she said friends are people you like.”

     “I think friends also have to agree”, and Lucia told him what she figured out last night.

     Hari agreed with her, and as they came to the schoolyard and sat down on their large rock, Lucia spied four children walking together through the gate to the schoolyard. She nudged Hari and pointed to them. “Maybe they will be our friends.”

     Together they walked up to the children, who were talking and laughing together. They did not notice Hari and Lucia.  

     Lucia heard one of them say, “That joke was funny, Sarin!” 

     She broke into their conversation. “I think that joke was funny, too.” They looked at her.

     “Well, I disagree”, another said. “That joke wasn’t funny at all.”

      “Yes, the joke was not funny. I agree,” Lucia said. Sarin gave her a weird look. “You say two different things. Which do you mean?”

     Lucia was confused. She felt as a deer caught in the face by light. When she did not respond, Hari said, remembering his mother’s words, “Do you like us?”

     They laughed again, and walked away as the bell rang on the third day. Hari led Lucia into school, and said, “Tomorrow.”

     When Lucia arrived home after the long walk, she was surprised to find Mariette cooking.  

     “Hello, Mausebär!”, she said cheerfully. “Are you hungry? The flower shop closed early and the bakery didn’t need me, so here I am!”

     “Mariette?”

     The overworked, ever-smiling Mariette noticed Lucia was frowning. “What is it, Mausebär? What’s wrong?”

     “Mariette, what is a friend? And how do you make one? I’ve been trying for ever so long, but I can’t figure it out! Friends have to like the same things and agree with each other and help each other and so many things, and oh! It’s so hard to make a friend, Mariette.” Lucia started crying. 

    Mariette, surprised, took Lucia into her arms and sat down. “Oh, Mausebär. Oh Mausebär,” she repeated, hugging Lucia and rocking her gently. 

     After a while Lucia raised her tear-stained face from Mariette’s arms, and asked plaintively, “How do you make friends?”

     Mariette considered this. “Mausebär, that’s too big of a question for tonight. How about you stay home from school tomorrow, and we can figure it out? I don’t have any classes or shifts tomorrow.”

     Lucia agreed, and the next day, after a good breakfast, Mariette asked her, “What is a friend to you?”

    Lucia wrinkled her brow and tried to think of her last friend. She couldn’t do it. “I don’t think I’ve had a friend, Mariette. I don’t know what one is.”

     “Well, then we’ll start there. Can you go get my big dictionary on the shelf in the reading room?”

     Lucia ran to get it, and came back considerably slower, holding the heavy book. She placed it on the table and looked at Mariette quizzically. “What is this for?”

     “This is going to help us find what a friend is. Can you find ‘friend’ in the dictionary?”

     Lucia, with Mariette’s help, leafed through the pages until she came to ‘friend’. 

     “‘a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection,’” she read. “Mariette, I still don’t understand.” 

     “Mausebär, what the dictionary says a friend is someone you know. That someone has affection for you, and you have affection for them. That’s a friend.”

     “Are friends the same for everybody, Mariette?”

     “No, Mausebär, because not everybody is the same. People may look for different qualities in a friend. I may want different people for friends than you. Do you understand, now?”

     “Yes, I think so.”

     “Good, Mausebär. Now, what is a friend to you?”

     “I still don’t know. What is a friend to you, Mariette?”

     “To me, friends are people that keep you company, Mausebär. But they can be other things, too. You can share things with your friends that you don’t want to share with anyone else.”

     “I think I want someone to talk to in a friend.”

     “That’s a great start, Mausebär. Now, what other qualities would you want a friend to have?”

     They talked and talked all day, and soon Lucia knew what she hadn’t known before. She knew what a friend was. Friend is a finicky word, she realized, because it means different things for everybody. You can’t explain it to someone who doesn’t know what a friend is. It would be like explaining sight to a person who’s been blind their whole life. You have to experience it.  

     “Thank you, Mariette,” she told her cousin, and hugged her.

     “Anytime, Mausebär.” Mariette smiled and hugged her back.  

     That night, when Lucia was eating a snack, someone knocked at the door. No one ever visited Lucia before, so she was cautious as she opened it. Hari was there. Hari! She had forgotten about him. He must have been worried when she didn’t show up to their rock in the schoolyard. Do friends worry about each other?

     “Lucia.”

     “Hello, Hari.”

     “Why weren’t you in school today?”

     “Mariette was teaching me about friends.”

     “Do you have one, yet?”

     “No. Do you have one?”

     “No. I did not try to make friends today. I was lonely without you.”

     Lucia thought of something. If Mariette was there, she would’ve said it was a eureka moment.

     “Hari,” she said, “Would you like to see something?”

     “Yes,” he answered.  

     Mariette watched from the window and smiled as Lucia led Hari to the spot in the hills where there were no trees, and the stars were in full view. They lay down on the grass, and Lucia said, 

     “Hari, Mariette said friends keep you company.”

     He raised his head and looked at her. She did the same. “I had not thought of that,” Hari said.

     “Hari?”

     “Yes?”

     “I keep you company, and you keep me company.”

     “Yes, we do.”

    Lucia kept talking, her voice gradually gaining speed. “And we like the same thing, and we agree some of the time, and we help each other, and-”

     “And what?”

     “Hari, do you like me?”

     “Yes. Lucia?”

     “Yes?”

     “Have you found a friend?”

     “I think I have. Hari, have you found a friend?”

     “I think I have, too.”

     The two friends lay back again, and looked up at the stars. Together they said, “Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.” And, without knowing it, Hari and Lucia wished for the same thing.