Fly Away Peter

I liked to sit near the window and look out over the playing fields to the rows of terraced houses that cut across the hillside like the fillings of a layered cake.    

Miss Morgan’s history lessons would barely begin before I’d seize upon an image and fly with it up and over the hill to seek my own adventures.

I climbed on to the wooden scaffold and snatched the lovely Anne Boleyn from the sweep of the Frenchman’s sword, then fought my way through the London streets with her at my back.

In 1855 I was at Balaclava, a young surgeon working tirelessly in rolled-up sleeves and a blood-soaked apron to help the pioneering Miss Nightingale.

I cut through the bonds of Joan of Arc to save her from the flames and we galloped away on a white charger…

“Peter?”  

Miss Morgan touched my arm and I looked up into her brown eyes, savouring the faint fragrance of oranges. She gave a rueful pout and brushed the hair from my eyes.

“Silly boy,” she crooned. “You’re day dreaming again, aren’t you?”

I opened my mouth but no words came out.

She was Anne, she was Florence, she was Joan. She was Woman.

I was nine years old and in love for the first time.