When Kai was a baby.
Things were pretty straightforward.
If he was hungry,
He called out cries of crimson.
If he was sleepy,
He erupted with turquoise tears of tiredness.
If he was lonely,
He plopped out purple puddles of piteousness.
And if he was happy,
He shone a smile of sunshine.
Good to know he did something other than crying.
At times.
When he was upset,
His mum or dad or granny or really anyone who loved him.
Would give him a cuddle.
And help him out with what he needed.
A warm,
Comforting bottle.
A soothing nap.
A blanket of kisses.
Sometimes,
There was the looming grey of boredom or the electrifying orange of frustration and his family would surround him.
In a cocoon of care.
Until life returned to warm and pink and fluffy.
But then.
.
.
One day.
When Kai was three,
He fell over and bit his tongue and it was a big hurt.
Like a big one.
No,
Bigger.
And before he knew it.
Kai had tears flowing down his cheeks and he let out a big scream to match the big hurt.
It wasn't an ah kind of scream.
It was more like a whale of a whale.
Only this time.
His mom turned to him and said,
Come on,
Kai.
Don't cry.
Big boys don't cry.
Kai wanted to be a big boy.
He had started going to nursery and there were big boys there.
They didn't seem to cry that much,
Yet it was so hard for Kai to keep in the tears.
When he tripped and hurt himself at the playground,
He couldn't help but let out a yellow-bellied yelp,
A splutter-painted splutter.
A sage green growl.
It was met in the playground with stares and whispers and a brush me down.
A shove out from his place in the queue for snack,
And before he knew it,
A magenta moan,
A sapphire sob,
An ochre objection was met with,
Come on now,
And don't cry.
Maybe.
Maybe it was best not to cry.
His mum had said that when he was a big boy,
They'd be able to get a puppy.
Maybe this was his way to show her that he could keep control of his tears,
To show her he could be a big boy.
Soon.
He got the chance to try it out.
When Bobby O'Neil snatched his ice cream at lunch and gobbled it up in one big explosion of cream and sprinkles and brain freeze,
Kai just bit his lip.
As soon as Bobby looked away,
Kai slipped the rest of the ice cream onto Bobby's lap.
Bobby opened up his mouth of big,
Gloopy ice cream sorrow and cried like a war siren.
As the sticky mess oozed down onto his neat shorts and the cold hit his knees.
It had felt good not to be the one to cry.
It had felt good to make someone else feel the black and red feeling that he had in his tummy when Bobby had taken his ice cream.
Out of nowhere,
A small silver backpack popped onto Kai's back.
It was silver and reflective and so light,
So tiny that he didn't even know that it was there.
Soon Kai started school.
He started off okay.
He made friends with Johnny McCormack,
Or Mack,
To his friends.
Mac liked to play Power Rangers and Marvel superheroes just like Kai.
They'd whip around the playground.
Sometimes he'd get so carried away in his games that he bumped into other kids and knocked them over.
He didn't mean to,
It just kind of happened.
Most of the time the other kids would shout at him,
Pick themselves up and carry on playing because,
You know,
That's what happens in playgrounds.
One day,
Though,
Mrs.
Beaker saw him bash into Ginny Bates,
Who then fell and scraped her knee.
"'Kai MacDougall,
Come here right now!
' Mrs Beaker seemed to bawl and glare at the same time,
A blare.
She blared at him.
You have no consideration for other people,
You inconsiderate boy.
Kai just stood there.
Red cheeks.
Not saying anything.
He didn't know what consideration meant or what it meant to be inconsiderate,
But he didn't dare ask while he was being blared at by Mrs Beaker.
Instead,
He slipped away his murky feelings of regret,
Embarrassment and frustration and stood on the path like Mrs Beaker told him to.
Until the end of playtime.
Whilst he stood there.
His silver backpack grew bigger.
He started to feel the weight of it between his shoulders.
Sometimes,
When he lay down at night,
It wouldn't feel so heavy.
Just as he settled into that place between day and night.
As his eyes closed and he drifted off into the haze of slumber,
When the shouting downstairs had finally stopped,
Staccatoed by a slammed door.
As Kai moved up through the years,
There were many times that his feelings got stored in his backpack.
It was great.
He was doing exactly what people asked him to do.
Not cry.
Get on with it.
Say congratulations to his mate when he got picked for the soccer team instead of him.
The only problem was,
Though,
The backpack also happily stored away his positive feelings like joy,
Excitement,
Courage and bravery.
Mac stopped wanting to hang out with him.
They no longer seemed to get on in the same light way that they had before.
Kai was so preoccupied with carrying around his silver backpack and he became too exhausted to join in with the things that he had previously loved.
Walking in the forest and picking blackberries.
Playing football in the garden with his dad.
He'd just come home,
Have dinner,
Do his homework.
And then play on Fortnite.
The lights and the shooting and the energy of the game helped him to feel a little spark.
Of a life.
One day,
His mum and dad sat him down.
They had some big news,
They said.
They had been promising to get that puppy and Kai's birthday was around the corner.
Maybe they were getting him a puppy for his birthday.
His grades have been good.
And they seemed pleased with him.
Kai sat on his bed next to his mum and dad.
Yes,
It had to be that he was finally getting a puppy.
The thing is,
Kai.
.
.
His dad began.
Your mum and I have decided that,
Well,
We've decided it's best for everyone if we separate.
How I looked at his mum.
He didn't understand.
He thought back to hearing them arguing at night.
He had worried that they were arguing about him,
So he'd tried extra hard at home.
He'd unloaded the dishwasher,
Brushed his teeth as soon as his mum asked him.
He'd really tried to be no trouble.
He thought that it had worked.
The arguments seem to have stopped.
There hadn't really been much chat about anything at home in the last few weeks,
Other than being told what to do.
The blue lump of sadness grew in his throat until it nearly took his breath away.
His eyes welled up and tears teetered on the rim of his eyelids.
He sniffed,
Took a deep breath in,
And the lump flew out of his throat,
Did a twirl around the room and landed with a thud.
In his backpack.
Oh,
Please don't be sad,
Kai.
Not now.
I'm not sure I could handle it.
" His mum said and ran out of the room.
It's okay.
Kai whispered.
I can handle it.
And he did.
Or at least.
His backpack did.
Until he started secondary school a couple of weeks later.
The first week of school was when he had to move out of the family home.
And moved to a flat with his mum.
Turned out his dad already had a new girlfriend and wanted a swift separation.
Kai wasn't sure how he'd managed to meet anyone so quickly.
He always worked so much.
Kai's world was mainly beige now.
Breakfast was beige.
Lessons were beige.
Hanging out at home was beige.
It was beige.
But at least he wasn't crying or being too loud or too boisterous or getting into trouble.
He was just.
.
.
Being beige.
It was hard for him to see properly in his page world.
Which is probably why he missed a step towards the bottom of the stairs in school.
He tripped,
Tumbled over himself and landed in a heap in front of a group of year nines.
They pointed and sniggered and whispered about how embarrassing he was.
All of his feelings that had been stored up for so long in his backpack began tumbling out.
Anger flew out,
Its red rage rampaging around the room.
Sadness flowed around him as he sat on the floor in a puddle of azure tears.
Lonely Ran for a place to hide in the dark shadows.
And Kai Sachs.
At the bottom of the stairwell.
His head on his knees.
Kai didn't notice Hope,
Skitter and Sparkle out along the corridor,
Through the double doors and to the dinner queue where Mac was standing,
Waiting for lunch.
Kai didn't notice Hope as she dragged Matt along into the stairwell,
Her iridescent glow showing them the way back to Kai.
He didn't notice Mac looking around him in awe,
At the kaleidoscope of colours swirling around,
Scaring the year nines away.
Mac grabbed hold of anger and scooped up the sadness,
Brought Lonely out of hiding and sat with them in his lap.
Next to Kai.
He recognized the Ferrari red rage,
The cerulean shadow of sadness,
And the lead of loneliness in his hands.
Straining his eyes to find Kai and the dazzling array of feelings all around him,
He knelt by his side.
What's going on?
Will you tell me?
Kai looked up.
And shuddered a nod.
They stood up,
Hauled their silver backpacks onto their shoulders.
And colours of every hue,
Every tint,
Every tone swilled around them.
As they began to chat.
Walking down the corridor.
To join the queue.
For lunch.
