Growing apart Lesson 464 of the everyday course of Mova's primary school: 38 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: the lesson at school .
0 In Year 3 Sam and Jake did everything together: dens, conkers, the same rubbish joke about the dinner lady's gravy. 2 Now when Sam walks over, Jake looks at his shoes. 3 Sam stops walking over. 5 Once, when nobody's looking, Jake does their old secret handshake in the corridor. 7 Then he got into rugby and I got into computers. 8 No fight, son. 9 Haven't spoken in twenty years.» 10 Lily and Chloe used to spend every Saturday making slime. 12 Lily is still dinosaur-mad. 13 Their last sleepover ends with both of them on their phones in total silence. 14 Nobody did anything wrong, and it still leaves a strange empty bit inside. 15 Lily later finds a girl at museum club who can name every sauropod (the long-necked dinosaurs). 16 Mia's best friend Ava starts going round with a crowd who say Mia's pony stickers are «cringe» and «giving baby» — Gen Alpha talk for «looks babyish». 17 A week later Ava says it too, loudly, in front of them. 18 Mia keeps her stickers. 19 At riding lessons she meets Kenzie, who has a pony-shaped pencil case and zero shame, and by spring they're inseparable. 20 Chloe sees a photo online of her old best friend Aisha at a party with girls Chloe doesn't know, all in matching sunglasses; she wasn't even told. 21 «It's alright to feel left out, love,» says her mum. 24 Drifting can be fixed, too, when there's a real problem to talk about. 26 A week later, on the swings, they talk properly and make a deal: one of Maddie's mad ideas, then one of Lily's quiet ones, every weekend. 28 Connor is nine and feels about forty. 30 Kieran's fourteen-year-old brother says, «You'll have different mates every year till secondary, bro.» Kieran says no chance — him and Tom are for life. 31 By Year 5, Tom is one of two mates he's swapped, though they still say hi in the corridor. 32 Clearing his drawer, Kieran finds a photo of him and Tom in Year 2, gap-toothed, holding a frog. 33 «Dead weird,» he says. 34 His mum says, «You'll remember the good bits. 35 That's what they're for.» 36 Friends sometimes grow apart because they start liking different things, and often nobody is to blame. 37 Drifting apart can hurt even when there has been no fight. 38 Friendships at primary school change a lot as children grow, and that is normal, not a failure. 39 Begging a drifting friend or sulking rarely helps; finding people who share what you love now usually does. 40 You don't have to give up what you love to keep a friend; the right friends like you as you are. 41 When a friendship feels wrong because of a real problem, talking about it calmly can fix it, while silence lets it drift. 42 You can grow apart kindly, by suggesting new things together instead of dropping the person. 43 Seeing photos of an old friend having fun without you can sting; reaching out or letting go both work better than staring at the photos. 44 Drifted friends can still have good moments together and be friendly. 45 Old friendships still count and are worth remembering, even when they are over. 46 Grown-ups often lose touch with school friends too, without any fight. ← previous The best friend who moves awaynext → The new kid and the first day↑ back to Everyday This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/464-growing-apart/