“Two”

“Two” by Katherine Otoshi is a book about friendship. One and Two are best friends until Three comes along. One starts playing with Three and leaving out Two, making her feel jealous. Eventually the odd and even numbers get into a conflict, but Two speaks up about how their differences shouldn’t be a reason to dislike one another. In the end, Three apologizes for excluding Two, and One starts hanging out with Two again. I think that the message of the story is to not cling onto people and to be independent. In the story, Two clings onto One instead of letting One make new friends, or making new friends herself. I’ve been clingy with friends in the past, and usually it doesn’t end well if you rely on one person to rant to, make you laugh, and keep you company. People come and people go, so the best option would be to put yourself out there and make a couple friends that you can trust instead of just one person. The message could also be to not exclude people. Three won’t let Two join their games, which makes Two upset and lonely. Unless you have to, you shouldn’t exclude people for petty reasons for example, not being an even number. This story hit quite close to home since I’ve been though similar scenarios and have felt the way Two did in the story.