(as i was stroking Oliver's hair, to calm him down a tiny bit, i only noticed that they were very short, as if they had been just cut. It was a bit odd. I looked at him, saw his long hair, and yet my hand was stroking a short haired head. Not only were they short, they seemed somehow sticky. It was definitely not my place to check the length of his hair, now in front of the entire class. The feeling was very odd.
It was a week later that I happened to see the back of his head by accident. I also happened to remember how strange it felt to stroke his hair.
His back was mainly marked by a very large S. It was a scar from one of his many brain operations. It looked as if somebody had used skin colored clay and placed it into the shape of an S into a shaved area on the back of the boy's head. His hair did not want to grow fast enough to cover the area, it seemed.
He needed a drainage operation avery 6 months, as far as I remember...