My Name Is Leon

by Kit de Waal

The empty sound in the house is louder than Jake crying for his bottle. It’s louder than his laugh. Louder than his baby drums.

She squeezes his fingers and he can feel her love travelling all the way down from her heart into his. It’s like special electricity, a secret.

‘The sun,’ he says, closing his eyes and turning his face to the sky, ‘is a healer. When the sun comes out everybody smiles. World looks different. You can manage in the sun what you can’t manage in the rain.

Teachers are like social workers, with lots of different pretend voices and smiles.

We heard he was leading a pack of you lot right down the middle of the road, chanting and spear-chucking and war-dancing.

‘And it means you have to look after something and it’s always there in your mind even when you can’t see it because you’re thinking about it all the time and you have to make sure it’s safe and everything you do is about looking after that thing and making sure it’s all right even when you don’t want to do it. Because that’s your job.’