Kenneth was shy, a genius but totally withdrawn. None had ever been able to understand him nor understand what he was thinking. He was the middle child of five siblings and the only boy. His sisters were all of average intelligence and outgoing personalities with lots of friends and busy social lives. Endlessly his parents and siblings bullied Kenneth in their efforts to make him into what they believed he should be, but he just smiled, agreed with them and then ignored them. Other than sport, which he hated, effortlessly, Kenneth excelled at all subjects at school, but his real love was wood working at which he was a master before the age of ten. He collected antique woodworking tools and owned three of the highly prized and valued Stanly number one planes and a unique bronze thirty-six inch plane fitted out with early eighteen nineties Stanley number eight frog, blade and cap iron. At secondary school Kenneth was despised by the boys and ignored by the girls, or he was till he hit puberty when the girls started to pursue the tall, clever and good looking boy with a wealthy future in front of him. His sisters tried to make him take up a relationship with one of the girls, but Kenneth smiled, agreed with them and then ignored them.

Anita, a new girl, arrived in year nine when Kenneth was fourteen. He liked her, actually he liked her a lot and they became good friends and chose to be partners in all activities which required working in pairs. Anita was tall, slender, pretty and intelligent, and Kenneth’s sisters considered her to be good enough for their brother. The sisters considering Kenneth to be not forward enough in striking up a relationship with Anita decided to press the issue, so they arranged a date for the couple. Kenneth smiled, agreed and ignored the matter, leaving Anita with his sisters wondering what had happened. That happened a number of times, and despite Anita begging his sisters to mind their own businesses and leave matters to herself and their brother, the sisters could not leave well alone, for in their opinion Kenneth needed their intervention. In two years Anita, despite her deep interest in Kenneth, had never managed to have private speech with him never mind a date because she’d never managed to talk to him outside a classroom, for whenever anything had been arranged his sisters’ interference had guaranteed Kenneth would smile, agree and ignore the matter and not be there. His sisters just couldn’t see that no matter how much pressure they put on him and no matter what promises they extracted from him in the end he would smile, agree and then ignore them and whatever they had arranged.

In year eleven, after which pupils could legally leave school aged sixteen, his teachers put endless pressure on Kenneth to take their subjects to a higher level. Kenneth smiled, agreed and ignored them. His parents signed Kenneth up for mathematics and sciences at advanced level, but to everyone’s surprise Kenneth just left school at sixteen and started to make furniture. His parents were outraged with him, so he smiled, agreed, ignored them and left home. He rented a lock up garage as a workshop and slept there using off cuts of wood as a source of heat for cooking and warmth. His woodwork sales fed and clothed him and paid the small rent and he was happy. Angry, his parents disowned him leaving just his sisters to make his life miserable. He approached Anita with a view to taking her to the cinema, but somehow one of his sisters heard about it and the four of them took over yet again. The sisters were surprised when Anita told them, “He won’t show up simply because you are involved. After all these years you have no idea of how much you upset him by trying to make him be what you want him to be have you? One day you’ll force him over the edge, and I’ll never forgive you.”

The sisters scoffed at Anita thinking perhaps she wasn’t actually good enough after all for their brother, and maybe they’d made a mistake and should be looking for another girl for him to marry.

A week later, it was shock to all except Anita when Kenneth was found dead in his workshop from a crossbow quarrel. She’d expected it would happen sooner or later despite her best attempts to prevent it. It was a crossbow he’d made according to his note with the express intention of ending his life.

Anita told his sisters, “You killed your brother. I begged you to leave him alone, but oh no you in your hubris like every one else in his life knew what was best for him. I loved him, and despite your interference I knew him far better than you, you self opinionated, murdering bastards. I hope you’re happy now he’s dead, because I am happy for him now he is out of your reach. In your arrogance you couldn’t see, never mind accept, that he could be different from yourselves, and even if you had been able to see that you’d never have accepted that he had a right to be himself. He could neither accept nor fight what you did to him, so he always walked away from it. He killed himself because he knew you would never let him go. He knew you would never let him be himself. He never said, but I know that his only choices were to kill himself or to kill the four of you, and he loved the four of you more than he loved himself. That was his only mistake. I’d have have killed the four of you years ago. You took his life over and made it a misery and finally you took his life. Now you have to live with the knowledge you killed your brother because he couldn’t bring himself to kill you, and I have to live without him.”

As she started to cry they moved to comfort her and she screamed, “Don’t you dare touch me,” and left to start her life of torment and loss. Anita had been devastated by the loss of Kenneth, for though it had never been discussed, Anita knew that Kenneth knew and didn’t care that she hadn’t always been a girl. Three days later Anita was dead by her own hand. Kenneth's family had forgotten the pair of them within days of the inquests and the funerals being over. After all they'd done their best for them and life moved on.