Empire of the Sun
Walmington on Sea, February 1930
Seven year old Frank was at school, carefully colouring in his map of India with a red pencil. It was raining outside, and he thought about what his teacher had told them about the country they were learning about. It was big, much bigger than England, Miss Desmond had said, and full of jungles and mountains and tigers. It didn't rain much there, but sometimes it rained even more than it did here, which was hard to believe on this wet Tuesday morning.
If he went there, one day, Frank decided, he'd ride elephants like Miss Desmond said they did, and shoot tigers, and find lost treasure in ancient temples. It seemed amazing – hard to believe it was really there. He slowly printed the name of the country, as neatly as he could, just below a place marked on the map as Simla. That was a tiger's name, surely! He imagined it being where a huge family of them lived, and Simla was the king. Actually, he wouldn't shoot them – he'd learn their language and live with them like Mowgli in The Jungle Book, which they had read to them at the end of the day.
A little later, the children were playing in the puddles left behind by the rain. Frank had been enjoying himself, pretending to be the king of the jungle like he'd imagined, but after a while the other boys he'd been playing with had got bored, and gone off to play football, which he wasn't keen on. It was so easy to fall, or be tripped, and land in the mud – and it was always cold, like today. At least it wasn't wet any more. Wandering around the playground, on his own now, turned his thoughts to the children around him, many playing with brothers and sisters. Most had at least one or the other, but not him.
He supposed if his Mum ever married again, he might have a baby brother or sister then – people usually did, when they got married, but it didn't look like she would. It wasn't so unusual not to have his Dad, because a lot of older children, especially the nearly grown up ones, had fathers who were killed in the war, but his had died after, Mum said. That was all she did say, and then told him to go and play. He thought she might marry his Uncle Arthur for a while, but they seemed happy as they were, and if she was happy, so was he.
It would be nice today though, to have a brother – or a sister – to play King of the Jungle with.
Simla, February 1930