Growing up is something that everybody does in his or her lives. The process of growing up is not only about getting bigger, taller, and stronger. It is also about learning life lessons and gaining experiences that will prepare you for the real world. As kids we are oblivious to the world happening around us because we are caught up in our innocent fantasies and dreams. But as we grow older our child like innocence is lost because wisdom is gained. Trying to keep our innocence and our imagination is a hard thing to do. As we grow older and go through school, knowledge is acquired and imagination is forgotten. In the story "The Secret Lion," written by Alberto Alvaro Rios, two boys experience a change where their imagination is lost because of the new things they learn and do.
             In the beginning of the story, the two boys start Junior High. They are typical innocent adolescent boys who don't know much outside of their own childhood world, until they start school. They felt abandoned at school, lost in their new surroundings. "We felt personally abandoned some how. When a person had all these teachers now, he didn't get taken care of the same way, even though six was more than one" (43). Still in the beginning of the story you get the feeling the boys are innocent because of how they react to the girls at the school. "And we saw girls now, but they weren't the same girls we used to know because we couldn't talk to them anymore, not the same way we used to, certainly not to Sandy, even though she was my neighbor, too" (43). This is a typical
             thing to go through at a young age. This is great proof in showing that the boys are young and innocent because they are shy around girls and they don't know how to deal with these new things they are feeling. I remember going through something similar to that when I was young. I used to be friends with
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