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I am the Great Leonino. But, of course, you know that. I am the lion tamer with the World Famous Magnifico Circus, but of course, you know that too. Because the World Famous Magnifico Circus is the most famous circus in the world, and I, the Great Leonino am the most famous lion tamer in the world. In the world’s most famous circus, of course.

The World Famous Magnifico Circus is mostly famous because of me, the courageous lion tamer, of course, but also for its incredible trapeze artists, its astonishing jugglers, its beautiful dancers, its amazing fire-eaters, its astounding strongmen, and, of course, for its impressive Ringmaster, the Great Eduardo Magnifico.

The World Famous Magnifico Circus is not famous, unfortunately, for its clowns. Some people say that the clowns at the World Famous Magnifico Circus are the best thing about the circus. It is true, the clowns make a lot of people laugh. But being a clown is very easy. Some people say that the clowns are very famous. But it is not difficult to be a famous clown.

I do not think the clowns are funny. Being a lion tamer is much more difficult than being a clown. Being a lion tamer is also much more important than being a clown. People do not come to the circus to watch the clowns. They can see clowns on television. People come to the circus to see the lion tamer. People come to the circus to see me – the Great Leonino.

The clown at the World Famous Magnifico Circus is called Ringo. What a stupid name for a clown! I admit, a lot of people laugh at him, but they are mostly small children and only very stupid adults.

Ringo is also a very proud and arrogant man. He thinks he is more popular than me! Can you imagine it!? He thinks that people come to the World Famous Magnifico Circus to see him, and not me! How ridiculous! Everyone knows that the Great Leonino is the most important thing in this circus.

Ringo told me that he was so good at being a clown that he was better than me.

“Alright”, I said to him, “Let’s see if you can do my job, and I’ll do yours!”.

“Very well”, he replied. “Let’s swap jobs! I’ll be a lion tamer for one night, and you’ll be a clown for one night! Then we’ll see who’s better!”

“Agreed!” I said to him. “I’ll show you that your job is much easier than mine! Anyone can be a clown!”

“Agreed!” he said to me. “I’ll show you that anyone can be a lion tamer, and you’ll see that being a clown is very difficult indeed!”

We decided to swap our jobs in one week’s time. I had one week in which to become a clown. I was sure that it was going to be easy. All I needed to do was to put on some funny clothes, fall over and tell some stupid jokes. On the other hand, how could Ringo the Clown possibly learn to be lion tamer in one week?

One week later, the day of the challenge came. I was to go first. It was going to be easy. I dressed up in a clown’s costume – I drew a big smile on my mouth and put on a green wig, an orange-coloured suit and a pair of shoes that were too big for me. This was easy. I heard the ring master Eduardo Magnifico says, “Ladies and Gentlemen – tonight for one night only! Leonino the Clown!”. The people clapped. I walked out into the circus ring. There were hundreds of people there. They were all silent, waiting for me to make them laugh. I walked into the circus ring and fell over in my face. Some of the children laughed. This was easy. I stood up again and told my best joke:

“My dog has no nose!”

“How does it smell?”

“Terrible!” Nobody laughed. Nobody. The whole circus was completely silent. I decided to tell another joke:

“My wife’s going to the Caribbean for her holidays!”

“Oh! Jamaica?”

“No! It was her idea!”

I laughed and laughed and laughed. I thought this was very funny joke. When I stopped laughing, I realised that nobody else was laughing. The whole circus was completely silent. Then someone began to say “boo!”. This is what people say when they don’t like something. I decided to fall over again. People like that. That is what clowns do. Nobody laughed this time, but a few more people began to boo. Then some more people started, and after a few minutes the whole audience were shouting “Booo!”, “Rubbish!”, “This clown’s terrible! Where’s Ringo?” “Yes, we came to see Ringo!” “We want Ringo the Clown!” Then somebody threw an old tomato at me. It hit me on the head. I decided to leave quickly.

“Well” I thought to myself, “That wasn’t too bad. Some of the children laughed. I’m sure that Ringo will be a terrible lion tamer.”

I heard the ring master shout “Ladies and Gentlemen – tonight for one night only – Ringo the Lion Tamer!” Everybody in the circus cheered and clapped. Ringo walked out into the circus ring where all my lions were. He was dressed like a cross between a clown and lion tamer. He was pretending to be a lion tamer – but a clown lion tamer! He was making fun of me! Everybody laughed. Even the lions were laughing. Everybody clapped and cheered and laughed. “Ringo!” they shouted, “Ringo! You’re the greatest!”

I was so angry. A stupid clown made fun of me – me, the Great Leonino! “Very well, then” I said to Ringo, “Because you’re so good at this, why don’t you do it next week as well?” “I’d love to!” said Ringo. For all the next week I didn’t give any food to my lions. I wanted my lions to be so hungry that they would be angry when Ringo came to them. One week later, Ringo walked out into the circus ring dressed up as a clown lion tamer again. I was waiting at the side of the circus ring to see what was going to happen, feeling very pleased with myself. The lions looked at Ringo the Clown as he pointed at me and said one word:

“Dinner!”

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A long, long time ago the Jade Emperor wanted to find a means of measuring time, and so he organised a race, and invited all the animals to take part. When they had all lined up on the bank of the river the Emperor explained that to win the big prize - a permanent place in the Zodiac – they would have to be one of the first twelve to cross the swiftly flowing river and reach a designated spot on the opposite shore. Their order in the cycle would be decided by the order in which they finished the race. And so the race began.

The cat wondered how she would get across if she was afraid of water. At the same time, the ox wondered how he would cross with his poor eyesight. The rat suggested that he and the cat jump onto the ox's back and guide him across. But as they were crossing the river, the rat snuck up behind the unsuspecting cat and pushed her into the water. Just as the ox came lumbering ashore, the rat jumped off and raced over the line first, closely followed by the ox. By the time the cat had managed to save herself from drowning and reached the finishing line it was too late for her to win any place in the calendar, and so she vowed to be the enemy of the rat forever after.

After the ox came the tiger, out of breath as she explained to the emperor how difficult it had been to cross the river with the strong currents dragging her downstream all the time. But because she was so strong she had eventually made it to shore and so was named the third animal in the cycle.

Just then there was a flash of fur and whiskers, and out of nowhere appeared the rabbit. He explained that he had crossed the river by jumping onto a floating log that had at first moved rapidly downstream, but had then suddenly been washed to shore. Thus he became the fourth animal in the zodiac cycle.

Coming in fifth place was the dragon, flapping his great wings and breathing fire into the air. The Emperor was very interested to know to why such a great creature like the dragon, who could fly, hadn’t managed to arrive first. The dragon explained that he had been close to finishing when he saw a poor helpless rabbit clinging to a log that was being washed downstream. He therefore stopped and gave a mighty puff of breath to blow the log to the shore. By the time this good deed had been done, four of the other animals had already arrived.

No sooner had the dragon reached the finish line than the sound of galloping hooves was heard and the horse appeared. Hidden in the horse's mane was the snake, who hissed and moved just before the horse crossed the line. The horse got such a shock that she reared up and before she could recover the snake had slithered off her back and crossed the line in sixth place, beating the horse into seventh.

Not long after that, the sheep, monkey and rooster reached the bank of the river together. These three animals had helped each other all through the race. The rooster had found some logs tied together, and invited the other two creatures to go with it. The sheep and the monkey had worked together to clear the weeds, pulled and pushed and eventually managed to get to the other side. This cooperation greatly pleased the Emperor and he promptly declared that the sheep was eighth, the monkey ninth, and the rooster tenth

Some time later the dog arrived in eleventh place. The Emperor expressed surprise that it had taken her so long despite the fact she was a better swimmer than most of the other animals. The dog explained that it was precisely her love of the water that had delayed her – it had been so refreshing that she simply couldn’t resist playing around for a while. Just as the emperor was wondering if no other animal would reach the finish, an oink, oink, oink was heard and of the pig came waddling into view. To nobody’s surprise he related how he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation of stopping and filling his belly with acorns. After that he had felt the need for a nap, and had only woken up a short time before. And so the pig became the twelfth and last animal of the zodiac cycle.

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Two people sit down opposite each other to play a game. Between them is a large wooden board. The board is rectangular in shape and it has black lines drawn on it in. There are 19 horizontal lines and 19 vertical lines, making 361 small black squares on the brown wooden board. Each player has some stones. The man has 180 white stones, and the woman has 181 black stones. All the stones are round and smooth. The white ones are made from the shells of clams; the black ones are made of slate. They have the stones in wooden bowls next to the board. When it is time to start playing, they slowly take the lids off the bowls.

One of the players is an old man. He is now 89 years old. He has spent all of his life playing this game, which is called Go. There are many other names for this game in the many parts of the world where it is played, but Go is the most common. The man has been playing Go since he was a small child. His father showed him how to place the big heavy stones on the board when he was three years old. He has never stopped playing since then. He is now the most famous player of Go in the world. People from all over the world call him “the Master”. People come from all over the world to play against him. Some people want to try and beat him; most people only want to watch and learn from him. The Master thinks that the game of Go is an art, and he thinks that he is an artist. He does not know how many games of Go he has played in his life, but thinks that even if he has played many thousands of games, then he has still not made anything near the number of possible combinations there are for this game. This game is very very simple, and very very complicated.

The two players place the stones they take from their opponent in the upturned lid of the wooden bowls. It will continue like this until one player can take no more stones. Then they will start to play again. They will play many games, until they eventually know who is the winner.

The other person is a young woman. The young woman has only been playing Go for three years. This is not a very long time. It takes years to become an expert in this simple but complicated game. Before this, the woman was an expert at playing computer games. She was a computer games champion, and she won competitions in all types of computer games. She played in tournaments in Los Angeles, Tokyo and Munich, as well as many online tournaments, with people from all over the world. When she thought she could not win any more computer games, she looked for other games to play. She enjoyed playing poker, she became an expert at chess, but nothing captured her imagination like the simplicity of placing black or white stones on a simple wooden board. She studied hard and practiced a lot, the way she always did. She played to win. She thought of the game as a science. She calculated all the possible variations, using a computer to analyse techniques and strategies. She became a human computer when she played. She played Go the same way she had played computer games – by becoming a machine herself.

Both players are dedicated. Both players are obsessed. Both players think about nothing else but the game of Go from the moment they wake up until the moment they sleep, and even then they do not stop thinking about Go, as they have dreams about great games, in which they always win. Neither is married, neither has ever been in love with anything except the game of Go.

“When I was your age, it would have been impossible for us to play together” he says to her.
They speak very litttle during the game.
“Why?” she asks.
“Young lady, you have not studied the history of this game. In the past, women did not play Go.” There is silence again. She might be irritated by the old man’s comment, but now she is playing Go, and so she feels no emotions. Her mind is not listening to the man, but calculating all the possible ways of placing her next stone. The old man, on the other hand, tries to listen to the woman very carefully. He watches her and studies her, looks at the movements of her hands and of her face. This is not only because he thinks that she is very beautiful, it is also because by understanding a person he know how they will play. When he understands how a person moves, he understands their character. And when he understands their character, he understands their game. This has always helped him to win.

By placing the stones on the board, they both try to invade each other’s space, each other’s territory. White stones invade a black-bordered area, black stones try to fill a white-bordered area. At the end of each game, the board is a map of two countries, one black and one white. The board is map of their minds. Black and white mix together. Each player is learning something from the other.

He wins the first game, and the second, and the third. The woman’s face shows no emotion, and the man is confused. He agrees to continue playing. She wins the next game, and the man is shocked. This has never happened to him before. He rarely loses, and he has never lost to a woman.

The two players place their stones on the board using only their fingers, not their thumbs. It is necessary to think very carefully about where to put the stones, and to hold them properly. A long time passes between each move. They do not place the stones in the squares, this is not a game like chess or draughts, but on the corners where the lines meet.

The old man worries about the way the young woman is playing the game. He does not recognise her style, her strategy. He can’t read her face; he does not understand her. Sometimes, he thinks that he does not understand the world around him any longer.
“The way I think about the game” says the woman, “is that it is a series of steps for getting what I want.” Again, the old man is surprised. For him, the game is a way of life, life itself, and not a model of life. He worries about the dignity of the game, the elegance of the board. She worries about getting points.
“There is no more beauty any longer. Everything is science and rules. Everything is about winning. Nothing is about playing” he says.
“What sense does a game have if you don’t win?”
“The playing is the sense” replies the man.

People have been playing this game for 3000 years. Sometimes, the two players think, this game will last 3000 years. The man feels like he has been playing Go for 3000 years.

“This game was invented by generals. They used it to work out strategies for war. They used the stones to map out positions” he tells her. “And then they decided that is was better to have a game than have a war.”
“Are we at war now?” she asks. He wants to say no, but does not know how to reply.

“There is another story” says the young woman. “Go began when witches threw stones to tell fortunes.”
“Will this game tell our fortune?”
“It is better to play a game than try to tell the future” she says, and he is surprised again. This time he is surprised by how wise her words are.
“The future is a game that has already started. The future is waiting to see who the winner is” he says. “Every move you make determines what will happen in the future.”

They play Go for six months. At the end of six months, they know that their final game is close. The final game will decide who is the winner, and who the loser.
“A game is a metaphor for life.”
“No, life is a metaphor for a game.” They cannot agree; but it is not necessary. They both look at the Go board in silence. It looks like a work of art, and also a scientific document. It is a map, a map of the game they played, and a map of their thoughts.
“Change is a necessary part of life” thinks the man.
“Playing is as important as winning” thinks the woman.
They start to play their final game.
THE END

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“Deep in the middle of the woods”, said my mother, “is the place where the King of the Pumpkins lives.”

“But pumpkins live in fields, not in forests”, I said to my mother.

She wouldn’t listen to me. “I’m telling you”, she said, “the King of the Pumpkins lives in the middle of the woods, and the woods that he lives in are the woods right next to our house, the woods you can see out of the window over there”. She pointed with her hand to the woods that were, in fact, just outside the window behind our house. “He doesn’t live in a field like the other pumpkins” continued Mother, “because he’s not an ordinary pumpkin. He’s the King Pumpkin”.

I shut up and decided to believe her, like you do when you’re a kid. Firstly I knew that it wasn’t worth arguing with my mother. She always won. Secondly, when you’re a kid, you always believe what grown-ups tell you, no matter how stupid it is. Like Santa Claus and stuff like that. Kids always believe it, even though they know it’s stupid.

Still, I decided to go and find the King of the Pumpkins, partly because I was bored, partly because I was curious, and also – of course - because I wanted to know if my mother really was talking nonsense or not.

Mother often talked nonsense, I have to say that. There was the time she told me that the moon was made of cheese. I knew that was nonsense. Then there were all the stories she told me. Stories about frogs, princesses, princes and shoes. Stories about donkeys and unicorns, gnomes and elves, magic mirrors and magic cooking pots. Stories about why the stars are exactly the way they are, why the river that runs through our town has the name that it has, stories about where the sun comes from, why the sky is so far away and why the elephant has a long trunk.

Some of these stories, I think, might have been true. I was never sure, and it was difficult to find out. This time though, with this story about the King of the Pumpkins, it was going to be easy to find out if she was telling the truth or not.

Some people used to call my mother a witch, but I knew that she wasn’t a witch. Just a bit strange perhaps. And she used to talk nonsense. Perhaps it was also because of the black cat we had. People say that witches always have black cats, and we had a black cat. But Mog wasn’t a witch’s cat. He was just a regular black cat. Mog could talk, though, I have to say that. Perhaps that isn’t so regular in a cat, now I think about it.

Anyway, I was telling you about the time I went to find the King of the Pumpkins. I set off with Mog the cat into the woods to look for the King of the Pumpkins. Even though we’d lived in that house near the woods all my life, I had never gone into the middle of the woods. This was the first time. I was glad I had Mog with me. I was a bit scared, even though I didn’t really think that the King of the Pumpkins lived there. “Watch out for the wolves!” said Mog.

“Yes…and the grandmothers too!” I joked. “Let’s not leave the path!” said Mog. When people said my mother was a witch, I told them that witches don’t have children. “Yeah” they replied, “That’s true. But you look more like an elf than a regular kid.” I looked in the mirror to see if I looked like an elf or not. I think I looked like a regular kid, but you never can tell really.

“Do you think he’s real?” I asked Mog. “Who, the wolf? He certainly is” replied Mog. “No, not the wolf. I know the wolf is real” I said to Mog. Sometimes I could hear the wolf howling at night. I knew he was real. “No, not the wolf. The King of the Pumpkins. Do you think he’s real?” “Don’t know” said the cat. “Guess we’ll just have to find out.”

We walked on into the forest. The trees got taller and taller and taller. The path got narrower and narrower and narrower. “What does he do, then, this King of the Pumpkins?” asked Mog. “I don’t know really” I said. “I guess he just kind of is head pumpkin, boss pumpkin, he decides on pumpkin rules and pumpkin laws, and punishes people who break them.” “Oh, I see” said Mog. He was quiet for a bit, then said, “What kind of things are pumpkin rules then?” “Erm, how big you can grow. What colour you have to be. Stuff like that.” “You’re making this up, aren’t you?” asked Mog. “Yeah,” I said.

Eventually, we got to the middle of the forest. At least I think it was the middle of the forest, but it’s difficult to say exactly. There was a clearing, a big space where there were no trees. In the middle of the clearing was the King of the Pumpkins. At least, I think it was the King of the Pumpkins.

It looked like a man at first. He was quite tall and had legs and arms made from sticks. He was wearing an old black coat. His head was a pumpkin. His head was the biggest pumpkin I had ever seen.

Me and Mog went up close to him. He didn’t say anything.

“Is that it?” asked Mog.

“I guess so.” I said.

“Disappointing” said Mog.

“Do you think he’s the real King of the Pumpkins?” I asked Mog.

“Who knows?” replied the cat.

As we walked back along the path out of the forest, I started to think about what was real and what was not. Could things that were made up also be true? What was the difference between “story” and “history”? One is real and the other isn’t – is that it? “What about all those other things that Mother talks about, do you think they’re real?” I asked Mog. “Hmmm…I’m not sure” said Mog. “Those stories she tells sometimes…about why the night is black and the day is blue, about golden eggs and girls with golden hair, about why people have ten fingers, ten toes, two feet, two hands and two eyes…Sometimes I think she’s crazy, and sometimes I think she might be right…” I knew what Mog meant. I felt the same way.

“Perhaps the stories aren’t true” I said, “but what they mean is.” The end

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My husband is a very important man. He is a scholar. That means he studies things. All kinds of things. He studies science, mathematics, astronomy, medicine and philosophy, as well as other things. At least, he tells me that he studies them.

To me, it seems that he spends more time sitting in a café talking to other scholars. I don’t know if they are studying or not. To me, it looks like they are chatting. But I don’t know, I’m only a woman. I look after our family, and I am not a scholar. I do not go into the café in town and spend hours talking with other men. I stay at home and look after our children and prepare food. When I am not preparing food or looking after children, I like to read books. I like to read books of adventure stories, of traveller’s tales, of poetry. I like books that make me wonder and be amazed at the world we live in. I like books that take me far away from our town and the desert on one side and the sea on the other.

We live in a town that lies between the sea on one side, the desert on the other, and a river to each side of us. They call our country Mesopotamia, the land between rivers. Because our town is a port, and because it has two rivers, there are often many people from other lands here. My husband says he meets men from India, from China, from Europe and from Africa. People from all over the world come to our town. Often they come to buy or sell things, but they also come to talk, to meet other people, to share ideas and opinions, to think about different ways of seeing the world. When a lot of people from different countries and different cultures meet, new ideas are born.

At night I lie awake on our bed thinking. “What are you thinking about?” my husband asks me. “Nothing” I reply. My husband shakes his head in despair. “Women!” he says. “They think about nothing!”

My husband often brings back books when he goes to his meetings with other scholars. He stays awake at night pretending to read them. I say “pretending” because I know he doesn’t read them really. Sometimes I go in to his study late at night and I find him asleep, snoring with a book open in front of him. When I wake him up he says how interesting the book he’s reading is. I ask him to explain it to me, to tell me about it, but he says that women don’t understand such things. I let him go back to sleep and take the books for myself.

Some of them are very interesting. There are collections of stories from all around the world. They make me think. They make me think about lots of things. And the books about arithmetic from Greece and India, and the books about astronomy and navigation from Europe and Africa, they make me think about nothing.

“How many numbers are there?” I ask my husband. He likes it when I ask him questions. It makes him feel wise and intelligent.

“Nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine” he answers.

“And if I add one more?”

“Then the world will end” he says. I don’t believe him.

“How many stars are there?” I ask him. He doesn’t know.

“Where does the land end and the sky begin?”,

“What happens if a ship sails until the end of the sea?”

My husband can’t answer any of my questions. He thinks I’m stupid because I ask them.

“Is ‘nothing’ a number?”

“Of course it isn’t!!” he replies.

“How can ‘nothing’ be a number? If a merchant has five horses, then he sells five horses, how many horses does he have?”

“No horses, but lots of money.”

“If I buy ten aubergines from the market, then I eat ten aubergines, what do I have?”

“A fat stomach”.

We laugh. He thinks I’m stupid. His answers are right if we only think of merchants, traders, salesmen and market people. His answers are right as long as we think of money and buying things and eating things. I understand this. But when I read the books about philosophy that he brings back from his meetings, I think that there is more than this. I think that the world cannot be explained in terms of buying and selling things. We cannot describe the world as if it were only a huge market. “Nothing” is not a number that is good for people who buy and sell things. But if you want to be a navigator, if you want to travel and discover other countries, if you need to know where the sea ends and the sky begins, you need different numbers.

I am helping my children to learn. We practice counting. We count all our fingers, then our toes too. Five fingers on each hand. Ten fingers altogether. Five toes on each foot. Ten toes altogether. “What comes next?” asks my son. “What comes after ten fingers and ten toes?” “Then you have to start again!” I tell them. My son hides all his fingers and makes a fist. “How many fingers?” he asks me. “None!” I reply.

But how can “none” or “nothing” be “something”? At night, when it’s cool I walk out into the desert because I like to be alone. I draw numbers in the sand. I draw a line for “one”, two lines for “two”, three for “three”…and for “nothing”? What should I draw for “nothing”? I put a coin down in the sand, then I remove it. It leaves a small, empty circle in the sand. This is it – sifr, empty. Zero.

My sign looks like a plate after someone has eaten all the food. It looks like a cage when all the animals have gone. It looks like a sack with all the grain taken from it. It is nothing, and it is also something.

I write down my symbol on paper. I write down an explanation of what it means. I write down why it will be useful to geographers, mapmakers, travellers, astronomists, navigators, scientists, philosophers and poets. I put the piece of paper in one of the books my husband takes back to his meetings in the café.

The next day, my husband comes back from his meeting at the café looking very happy. He tells me that he has just made an important discovery. Some of the other men in the café were very interested in the piece of paper in the book. He will probably become famous, he tells me, rich and famous. “History will remember me as a great mathematician.”

I go out into the desert at night again. I try to count all the stars in the sky. I can’t decide how many there are, and what number could ever possibly describe them.

I will be ignored by the important men in the café meetings. I will be forgotten by history. Perhaps that was because I invented something. I invented nothing.

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In the small piece of dry land behind the house where Samir lived with his family, there was a bird. It was an old bird which sat on its perch all day, every day. Samir had never seen the bird fly. Samir’s grandfather told him that once, a long time ago, the bird had been a famous hunting bird. It was famous not only in their village, but in many of the other nearby towns and villages too, he said. People came from all over just to see this bird fly. Now there were very few hunting birds left, said his grandfather. Nobody knew how to hunt with them anymore.

Samir looked at the old bird on its perch, and tried to imagine how it had been when it was younger, and famous, and when people came from all over just to see it fly. It was difficult to imagine. Now the bird did nothing but sit on the wooden perch on the dry land behind their house. It looked tired. The bird’s long beak was yellow with age. Its long brown feathers were starting to fall off. There were now only a few dark feathers in the bird’s tail.

When he gave the bird something to eat it jumped down off its perch and ate slowly. Other than that, it never moved. But sometimes the bird looked at Samir, and Samir could see that the bird’s eyes were still bright and clear and awake and alive.

Samir was fascinated by the look in the bird’s eyes, and he liked the way the bird had nothing to do with anyone else. He liked the bird’s independence and its mystery.

“It can’t fly anymore” said Samir’s uncle to him one day. “There’s no point in keeping it anymore. It costs us money to feed it. We’re not rich people. We can’t keep pets. What’s the point of a hunting bird that can’t hunt? We’ll have to get rid of it.”

Samir went to bed that night and thought about how he could persuade his uncle to let him keep the bird. The next morning he spoke to his uncle.

“We’ve had the bird for a long time” said Samir.

“Exactly! It’s old and useless” replied his uncle.

“It’s part of the family!” tried Samir.

“Hmmm ...that’s not a good reason. I would like to get rid of your grandfather too! He’s just as useless!” laughed his uncle.

“It only eats mice. It doesn’t cost us money to feed it” continued Samir.

“Yes ... and now there are dead mice all over the place! It’s not healthy to have dead mice all over the garden!”

“It’s a hunting bird.”

“Hunting!? That bird can’t hunt anything!”

“If I can show you that the bird can still hunt, can I keep it?”

His uncle stopped and thought for a moment. “Very well then, yes. Show me that the bird can still hunt, and you can keep it.”

Samir was pleased but also worried. He didn’t know if the bird could still hunt or not. He went to his grandfather and asked him what to do. That evening, Samir and his grandfather went to the piece of dry land behind their house. His grandfather put on a big leather glove and took the bird off its perch. The bird stood on his grandfather’s hand. Together, Samir, his grandfather and the bird walked away from their house, out to the edge of the village where they lived. The bird didn’t move while they walked. Eventually, they came to the open land at the end of the village. Samir’s grandfather stretched out his arm straight. The bird sat on his hand at the end of his arm. Then, very quickly, he took his arm away. Samir thought that the bird would fall to the ground, but it didn’t. Instead, in less than a second, it opened its huge wings and flew upward, up into the sky so quickly that Samir could hardly see it. It flew so high that it was difficult to see. It went so high it almost vanished in the bright late afternoon sky. Samir could just see it - a tiny black dot against the sky. He watched the dot move until he was sure it was the bird, his bird. The bird seemed to stop in the middle of the sky. Samir wondered how it was possible. The bird held its huge wings open and floated in the sky like a duck on water, moving slowly from one side to another. Sometimes, it moved its wings gently up and down, then was still again, as if he was on his perch in the middle of the sky. Then, in a second, the bird turned, moved its head down and fell like a stone out of the sky. Samir had never seen an animal move so fast.

His grandfather pointed to the place not far from them where the bird landed. They walked over to it and found the bird next to the dead body of a small rabbit. The bird had cut the rabbit open with its old but sharp beak. It was already eating.

The next morning, Samir persuaded his uncle to come with him. Samir took the bird on his arm as he had seen his grandfather do. Together, they walked to the open space at the edge of the village. Samir held the bird out on his hand, then quickly moved his arm away. The bird fell to the ground. It opened it wings, then stood still. It didn’t move again. Samir’s uncle laughed and laughed.

“See! I told you it was useless! Come on, Samir, I know you like animals, but you need to grow up a bit. You have to learn that we can’t keep things just because you like them.”

Samir went back to his grandfather and told him what had happened. His grandfather told him that a bird wouldn’t hunt in the morning. The sun was too bright. He told him to persuade his uncle to go out again with him, in the late afternoon, when the light was less strong, when it was cooler. At that time of day, said Samir’s grandfather, the bird could see a mouse from 50 metres up.

Samir had to work hard to persuade his uncle to come out with him a second time.

“No way, Samir” said his uncle. “I’m a busy man. I haven’t got time to waste on a stupid old bird.”

“Uncle, I promise you. If the bird won’t hunt this time, then you can get rid of it, and I won’t say anything ever again.”

His uncle thought for a moment, then sighed. “Very well, then, last chance.”

Again Samir took the bird from its perch. Again they went to the open space at the end of the village. The sun was beginning to set over the hills in the distance. The air was already a little cooler. Samir stood with the bird at the end of his arm. He took his arm away. The bird flew up into the sky like a rocket. It went so high that it almost vanished. Samir could see that his uncle was quiet with surprise.

“Where’s it gone?” said his uncle.

Samir pointed to a tiny dot in the sky. They both watched the dot, as it rested in the middle of the sky for a few minutes, then turned, circled a couple of times, and begin to fall like a stone. They watched as the bird came closer to them. It came closer and closer and closer, very quickly. For a moment, Samir thought it was going to hit them. His uncle ran out of the way. They heard a swoooossssh and then a quick thummmpp and looked to where the bird had touched the ground. His uncle was impressed. The bird sat there on the ground before them. It had caught a mouse. When they saw that it was a mouse, the expression on Samir’s uncle’s face changed. He started to laugh again.

“A mouse! A mouse! A tiny little mouse! That’s all? Very good, I’m sure, but a bird that can only hunt mice isn’t much use, is it? We can’t eat mice!” He laughed. “Why can’t your wonderful hunting bird catch a goat, at least? Or even better, why can’t it go and catch twenty frozen pizzas!!?? Hmmm???”

He laughed again. “Come on Samir, I’m not a bad man, you know. But there’s no point in having that old bird anymore. Hunting is a thing of the past.”

Samir walked home alone, taking the bird with him. The next morning he woke up and when he went out, he saw that the bird had gone. His uncle came home at lunch time. Samir asked his uncle what he had done with the bird.

“Look” sighed his uncle. “It doesn’t matter what happend to the old bird. We didn’t need it anymore. We couldn’t keep it. Now I don’t want to hear any more about this story! Is that clear?”

Samir said nothing. That evening two men came to their house in a big car. They banged on the the door and started shouting to see Samir’s uncle.

“We know you’re in there!” they shouted. Samir didn’t know who they were.

“Let us in!” shouted the men.

Samir saw his uncle behind the door. His uncle looked worried. Eventually, his uncle opened the door and the men came in.

“You said to us that the bird was a hunting bird!” “You told us it could catch anything!” “You sold us that bird and it won’t even fly!” “It’s not a hunting bird! It just lazy, or stupid, or perhaps both!”

“Like you!”

“We want our money back!”

Samir’s uncle looked very worried. “Look” he started to say, “I can’t give you your money back .... I’ve already spent it ... but don’t worry!” He pointed at Samir.

“Samir here knows how to make the bird fly! He’ll show you how to do it! If Samir shows you, the bird will do anything! It’s a great bird, that’s right, isn’t it Samir???”

The men stopped shouting at Samir’s uncle, and turned to look at Samir. “Well then, “ said one of the men, “Is that true? Can you make the bird hunt? Show us!!!”

Samir looked at the men. Then he looked at his uncle. Then he turned and walked out of the house. The bird was in the back of the car. Samir opened the door of the car and took the bird on his arm. He held his arm out, then quickly moved it away. The bird flew high, high up into the sky, until they could hardly see it anymore.

Read

Every August. Every August for twelve years. Every August for twelve years we went to the same small town on holiday. Every August for twelve years we went to the same beach. Every August for twelve years my parents rented the same small house in the same small town near the same beach, so every morning of every August for twelve years I woke up and walked down to the same beach and sat under the same umbrella or on the same towel in front of the same sea.

There was a small café on the beach where we sat every day, and every day Mr. Morelli in the café said “Good morning!” to my parents, and then always patted me on the head like a dog. Every day we walked down to our red and white umbrella, every day my father sat on his deckchair and read the newspaper then went to sleep, every day my mother went for a swim in the sea and then went to sleep. Every lunch time we ate the same cheese sandwiches which my mother made, and then every afternoon we went up to the café and ate an ice cream while my parents talked to Mr Morelli about the weather. Every summer for twelve years I sat there and read books and sometimes played volleyball with some of the other boys and girls who were there, but I never made any friends.

It was so boring.

Every August for twelve years the same family sat next to us. They were called the Hamiltons. We had a red and white umbrella, they had a green one. Every morning my parents said “Good morning!” to Mr and Mrs Hamilton, and Mr and Mrs Hamilton said “Good morning!” to my parents. Sometimes they talked about the weather.

Mr and Mrs Hamilton had two sons. Richard was the same age as me, and his brother Philip was two years older than me. Richard and Philip were both taller than me. Richard and Philip were very friendly, and both very handsome. They were much friendlier and more handsome than me. They made friends with everyone, and organised the games of volleyball on the beach or swimming races in the sea with the other children. They always won the games of volleyball and the swimming races. My parents liked Richard and Philip a lot. “Why can’t you be more like Richard and Philip?” they said to me. “Look at them! They make friends with everyone! They are polite, good boys! You just sit here reading books and doing nothing!”

I, of course, hated them.

Richard and Philip, Richard and Philip, Richard and Philip – it was all I ever heard from my parents every August for twelve years. Richard and Philip were perfect. Everything about them was better than anything about me. Even their green beach umbrella was better than our red and white one.

I was sixteen years old the last summer we went there. Perfect Richard and perfect Philip came to the beach one day and said that they were going to have a barbecue at lunch time. They were going to cook for everyone! “Forget your cheese sandwiches”, they laughed, “Come and have some hamburgers or barbecue chicken with us! We’re going to cook!”

My parents, of course, thought this was wonderful. “Look at how good Richard and Philip are! They’re going to do a barbecue and they’ve invited everybody! You couldn’t organise a barbecue!”

Every summer for twelve years, on the other side of my family, sat Mrs Moffat. Mrs Moffat was a very large woman who came to the same beach every summer for twelve years on her own. Nobody knew if she had a husband or a family, but my parents said that she was very rich. Mrs Moffat always came to the beach wearing a large hat, a pair of sunglasses and a gold necklace. She always carried a big bag with her. She never went swimming, but sat under her umbrella reading magazines until lunchtime when she went home.

Richard and Philip, of course, also invited Mrs Moffat to their barbecue.

Richard and Philip’s barbecue was, of course, a great success. About twenty people came and Richard and Philip cooked lots of hamburgers and chicken and made a big salad and brought big pieces of watermelon and everyone laughed and joked and told Mr and Mrs Hamilton how wonderful their sons were. I ate one hamburger and didn’t talk to anybody. After a while, I left, and made sure that nobody saw me leave.

Mrs Moffat ate three plates of chicken and two hamburgers. After that she said she was very tired and was going to go and have a sleep. She walked over to her umbrella and sat down on her deckchair and went to sleep. When she woke up later, everybody on the beach was surprised to hear her screaming and shouting.

My bag!!!! My bag!!!” she shouted. “It’s gone!!! It’s GONE!!!” Everybody on the beach ran over to Mrs Moffat to see what the problem was. “Someone has taken my bag!!!” she screamed, “Someone has stolen my bag!!!”

“Impossible!” said everybody else. “This is a very safe, friendly beach! There are no thieves here!” But it was true. Mrs Moffat’s big bag wasn’t there anymore.

Nobody had seen any strangers on the beach during the barbecue, so they thought that Mrs Moffat had perhaps taken her bag somewhere and forgotten it. Mr Morelli from the café organised a search of the beach. Everybody looked everywhere for Mrs Moffat’s big bag.

Eventually, they found it. My father saw it hidden in the sand under a deckchair. A green deckchair. Richard and Philip’s deckchair. My father took it and gave it back to Mrs Moffat. Everybody looked at Richard and Philip. Richard and Philip, the golden boys, stood there looking surprised. Of course, they didn’t know what to say.

Mrs Moffat looked in her bag. She started screaming again. Her purse with her money in it wasn’t in the big bag. “My purse!” she shouted, “My purse has gone! Those boys have stolen it! They organised a barbecue so they could steal my purse!”

Everybody tried to explain to Mrs Moffat that this couldn’t possibly be true, but Mrs Moffat called the police. The police arrived and asked golden Richard and golden Philip lots of questions. Richard and Philip couldn’t answer the questions. Eventually, they all got into a police car and drove away to the police station.

I sat there, pretending to read my book and trying to hide a big, fat purse under the sand on the beach.

That was the last summer we went to the beach. My parents never talked about Richard and Philip again.
THE END

Read

Fausto Ruiz got off the boat at the port of the city where he had been born fifty years ago, and to which he had not returned for twenty years. He walked along the seafront, surprised by how much his hometown had changed, and also by how much of it he could still recognise. There were lots of new buildings up on the hills around the city now, buildings which he didn’t recognise. Yet many of the old buildings along the sea were exactly the same as he recognised them, although many of the old shops he remembered were there no more.

He walked away from the port and into the centre of the city. He walked up the main road and saw how all the shops had changed, but that there was still one small cafè there which was the same as it had been when he was young, and famous. He walked into the cafè and sat down at one of the tables. He recognised the owner of the cafè behind the bar as well as the waiter who was working there. They both looked much, much older. Fausto felt certain that he didn’t look as old as they did, even though they were all twenty years older now.

Fausto sat at his table and waited for the waiter to come to him. He sat there for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. Half an hour passed and the waiter continued to ignore him. Fausto raised his arm and shouted to the waiter, then to the owner of the cafè behind the bar, but it was useless. They didn’t come and ask him what he wanted. They were ignoring him.

Angry, Fausto got up and walked out of the cafè, slamming the door behind him. Such ignorant people, he thought. Now I remember why I left this town twenty years ago, and why I never came back.

He walked along the main street as far as the main square in the town, and when he arrived at the main square he remembered the other reason why he had never come back. In the main square of the town there was the theatre. As he looked at the theatre, Fausto Ruiz had a terrible memory of what had happened there twenty years ago.

Twenty years ago, Fausto Ruiz had been the most famous singer in the world. He had sung in all of the most famous opera houses in the world. He had sung in London, New York, Moscow, Buenos Aires, Tokyo and Sydney. Everywhere he went, people paid large sums of money for tickets, then when they saw him sing they clapped and applauded and cheered for hours. When he was at the height of his fame, Fausto Ruiz decided to come back to his home town, and to sing in a triumphant concert in the theatre on the main square of the town.

The concert was announced, and all the tickets sold out within a few hours. The evening of the concert, thousands of people crowded into the theatre to see the legendary Fausto Ruiz sing in the theatre of his hometown.

There was silence as Fausto walked onto the stage. Then he began to sing, one of his best known songs. And at the end of the song, there was just silence. Nobody clapped, nobody applauded, nobody cheered. Fausto waited, very surprised for a moment, then started to sing another song. At the end of this song, there was silence for a moment, then they people begain to boo, and to hiss. Fausto tried to cover the noise of the booing and hissing by singing another song, very loudly this time. But it got worse. The louder he sang, the louder the boos and hisses became. Then someone threw a tomato at him. Then someone else threw a rotten orange at him. Then someone else threw an old shoe at him. Soon, there was a rain of rotten fruit and vegetables and smelly old shoes falling down on the great Fausto Ruiz. Fausto was angry, Fausto was furious. He stormed off the stage and out of the theatre. He left his hometown that night, and he said that he would never, ever go back there ever again.

But twenty years later, Fausto Ruiz changed his mind. He was getting old now, he thought, and he wanted to go back home again, to see the town where he had grown up. But in the cafè, he realised that perhaps not much had really changed. He decided to walk into the theatre. As he walked in he saw the man selling tickets in the box office. It was the same man from twenty years ago. Fausto said hello to him but the man said nothing and ignored him. “Still the same” thought Fausto. He walked into the theatre, and got up onto the empty stage. He thought he could hear the terrible booing and hissing of that night, twenty years ago.

He felt sad, and left the theatre and decided to go and visit the house where he had been born fifty years ago. He walked all the way across the town, expecring to be recognised by people. When he got close to his old house he walked through the park where he had played as a small child. He saw some men there, the same age as he was, and thought that he remembered them. They were people who had been his friends when he was at school. He walked over to them to say hello, but they, too, ignored him.

He walked past the old shops near his house. They hadn’t changed. There were still the same people there, all of whom ignored him. He was so angry and so disappointed now that he began to shout as he walked along the streets. “I am the great Fausto Ruiz!!! The greatest singer the world has ever heard!!!” Nobody took any notice of him.

He continued. “Don’t you know me??? Don’t you recognise me????” Nobody took any notice. When he finally reached his old house he at least had a pleasant surprise. Outside the house, there was a statue, and it was a statue of himself. “Finally!” thought Fausto “Somebody has recognised my genius! They put up a statue of me...and they never even told me!”

Fausto went to have a closer look at the statue. There was some writing at the bottom of the statue. “Fausto Ruiz” it said, “Singer”. Fausto was disappointed that it said only “singer” and not “the greatest singer in the world”, but at least it was a statue. There was some more writing. He looked carefully at it. There was his date of birth, fifty years ago. And then there was something else. It was the date of his death. And the date was yesterday.

Read

In the tiny village of Jaizhar there was no cinema, no zoo, not even an old museum. There was nothing. It was not an interesting village. There were only two interesting things about it. Firstly, Jaizhar was perched on the top of a very big hill, the biggest hill in the entire region. The hill that Jaigarh perched on was so big that it was nearly a mountain. Because the little village of Jaizhar was so high up, it was possible to see the whole country from the top of it. At least that’s what people said, but Mehfooz didn’t believe them, because every time he tried to see the whole country, there were clouds all around. The only time when there weren’t clouds it was because the wind had blown them away, but even when the wind had blown away the clouds, it was still impossible to see the whole country, because it was only a few seconds before the wind brought more clouds to replace the ones it had blown away. That was the second interesting thing about Jaizhar. They said it was the windiest place in the country, and possibly the windiest place in the world.

One day the mayor of the town had an idea.

“We need to make Jaizhar more interesting!” he said.

“What ideas do you have to make Jaizhar more interesting?”

Everybody in the town thought of ideas to make it a more interesting place. Some people wanted to open a cinema, other people to open a zoo, some others thought they should have a museum.

“No good!” said the mayor.

“Nobody will walk all the way up the hill just to go to the cinema, or see some animals in the zoo, or visit a museum. Nobody wants to come here. It’s always too windy!”

“I’ve got an idea!” said one man.

“Because we have so much wind, let’s make the most of it! Let’s have a kite flying competition!”

Everybody loved the idea, especially the mayor, who liked the idea so much that he decided that it was his own idea. Over the next few weeks everyone in the town became very excited about the competition. People came from all over the region to take part in the competition. Some of the best and most important kite flyers in the country were said to be coming as well. “What a great place Jaizhar is!” said the visitors. “Lots of wind!”

The local kitemaker was, of course, very, very busy. Everyone wanted him to make a new kite for them. A kite that would win the competition. Mehfooz asked the kitemaker to make a kite for him as well.

“No chance” said the kitemaker to Mehfooz.

“I’ve got hundreds of kites to make already, and no time. Anyway, you can’t afford to buy one of my kites.”

Mehfooz was disappointed, but he didn’t give up.

“Ok” he said, “I can’t afford to pay you, but if you make a kite which you can promise will win the competition, I’ll give you half of the prize.”

The kitemaker thought for a moment, and because the prize was a large number of gold coins, he didn’t think much more than a moment.

“Done!” said the kitemaker. And the kitemaker that afternoon started to work on the best kite he had ever made. He found the lightest but strongest pieces of bamboo to make the frame, he found the most delicate yet strong piece of red silk to make the kite. He found the longest piece of thin string for the cord. He stitched the kite together with a thread made from spiders’ webs. He put tiny pieces of mirrorwork on the kite, so that it would reflect the light as it flew.

The morning of the competition the kite was ready. Mehfooz ran to the kitemaker’s shop. The kitemaker had hidden the special kite in the back room of his shop so that no one could see it until the competition began.

“Don’t forget” said the kitemaker to Mehfooz as he handed him the beautiful red kite, “half of the prize is mine!”

Mehfooz nodded, took the kite and ran to the main square of the town where the competition was already beginning. He had never seen so many kites. The sky was filled with them. The birds had all flown away, scared by the competition. There were so many kites they looked like the clouds which the wind had temporarily blown away. When he produced his kite, people marvelled at it.

“That is the most beautiful kite ever!” they cried.

“It will easily be the winner!”

Mehfooz felt very pleased with himself, already sure that the gold coins would be in his pocket quite soon. As everybody watched, Mehfooz held the kite up and got ready to launch it. He thought he could throw it very gently, and that it would start to fly on its own. He threw it, and it went thump as it hit the floor. There was silence for a moment, and then everyone started to laugh.

“It might look like a good kite, but it can’t fly!” they shouted.

Mehfooz tried again. This time he held it up and threw it a bit harder. But again, the kite merely went thump and hit the ground. Again the people laughed, then started to go away, more interested by the kites that were flying. Mehfooz wasn’t going to give up. Again he lifted and threw the kite, and this time it fell, but didn’t quite hit the ground. A tiny bit of wind got under the kite and held it just above the ground. The kite began to flap its wings slowly and heavily, like an enormous sleepy crow, one of those crows that is so lazy they prefer to walk than fly. And slowly, very slowly, the kite began to fly. Its big lazy wings became lighter, and the kite started to go higher in the sky. It started to move faster until it became a pigeon, darting around the rooftops, unsteadily, stopping for a moment then starting again, getting higher and higher until it turned into a swallow, high above the town, higher than any of the other kites now, swooping and diving and circling above the heads of all the people in the town who looked up at it, amazed now, silent with wonder.

The kite continued to soar higher and higher, and Mehfooz reeled out the cord which seemed to be endless, letting the kite go further and further, higher and higher until it turned into an eagle, circling the town at the top of the hill, pulling stronger and stronger for hours until it was nearly dark. When Mehfooz thought he could fly the kite no more, it pulled once again, and became a dragon, breathing fire against the dark night sky. The dragon swooped down into the town square then soared back up again.

“Let me go!!!!” shouted the dragon.

“Mehfooz! Let me go!!!!!!! Cut the cord and let me go. Let me fly free!!!”

“No!” shouted Mehfooz. “I need to win! What can I give the kitemaker if I don’t win!”

But the dragon didn’t listen to him, it just pulled harder and harder until Mehfooz could hardly control it any longer.

“Mehfooz!” shouted the dragon, “Let me go or I’ll pull you up here with me!!!”

That was the first and the last time they had a kite flying competition in the tiny village of Jaizhar. If you go there today, you will still find it an uninteresting place, without even a cinema or a zoo or a museum. But there is one interesting thing about the place, though. The people who live there say that if the wind ever blows the clouds which continually circle the town on top of the hill away for long enough, it is sometimes possible to see a boy being pulled around the sky by a beautiful red kite that almost looks as if it were a dragon.