He wished suddenly that he could leave the house and go stay at a friend’s house, but he had no friends. He had made friends in the village the last time they had visited, but they were there so rarely that it was impossible to cultivate a friendship. He would read about that sort of thing in his books sometimes, and it left him with an envy and a longing so deep that he sometimes wished he had been born into a different family. A normal one, whatever normal meant. 