The Boy with the Quiet Smile

Written by Sofia Richie

he dusty corner of Room 5B, right by the window that overlooked the old mango tree, sat a boy named Aarav. He was twelve, quiet, and almost invisible in the sea of loud laughter and shuffling feet that filled Greenwood Public School every day. He wore glasses too big for his face, always carried a book too old to read, and smiled more with his eyes than his lips.

No one really noticed Aarav—not the boys who played cricket during recess, not the girls who shared secrets in the corridor. He wasn’t the top of the class, nor the bottom. He didn’t win races or debates. He simply was—like the soft ticking of the wall clock, there but never loud enough to be heard.

But Aarav had a secret.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Every afternoon, when the final bell rang and the classroom emptied like a river finding freedom, Aarav stayed behind. He pulled out his worn sketchbook and drew. Not simple doodles, but entire worlds—castles floating in the sky, fish with lanterns for eyes, trees that whispered dreams into the night. His pencil moved like magic, giving life to the invisible.

One day, Mrs. D’Souza, the art teacher, forgot her umbrella in class. As she stepped back in, she caught a glimpse of Aarav’s drawing—a tiny village drawn in pencil, with birds mid-flight and smoke rising gently from the chimneys. She paused, awestruck.

“Aarav,” she whispered, “Did you draw this?”

He blinked, unsure if he was in trouble. “Yes, ma’am.”

From that day, everything changed.

Mrs. D’Souza showed his drawings to the principal. The principal showed them to an art institute. Soon, a team of artists visited the school, wanting to meet “the boy who draws dreams.”

Suddenly, the boy who was invisible had people looking for him.

At first, Aarav was overwhelmed. The attention felt loud. But slowly, he began to speak—just a little—about why he drew trees with music in their branches or houses that walked like turtles. “Because that’s how I see the world,” he said one day. “Quiet things… they speak, if you listen.”

His classmates, once unaware, now crowded around him during breaks, asking questions, offering their notebooks for doodles, inviting him into their games. Not because he was famous, but because they’d discovered a kind, gentle boy who saw beauty in silence.

At the school’s annual art fair, Aarav was given a wall all to himself. He didn’t draw superheroes or cartoons. He drew a classroom filled with light, a boy in the corner with a book, and children looking toward him—not with pity or praise, but with understanding.

The wall was titled:
“Everyone Blooms Differently.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Years later, when Aarav became an illustrator for children’s books, he often returned to Greenwood Public School. Not to speak on stages or judge contests, but to sit quietly under the old mango tree and watch. Sometimes, he would find a boy or girl sitting alone by a window, sketching or scribbling or just thinking.

To them, he would offer a small smile—the same quiet smile he once wore—and a blank sketchbook.

Because he knew:
The world was always waiting to be seen through their eyes.


---

Sometimes, the quietest kids have the loudest imaginations. All they need is someone to notice.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .