Kim was quite alone.
Days locked inside playing, munching and reading.
For two hours the rain had hammered the window panes.
It was too cold for sploshing through puddles.
He had done that for a couple of days.
He yawned.
Kim had climbed up onto the kitchen window ledge.
He gazed out for a long time.
He tried pressing his nose against the pane.
Then his ear.
He listened.
The raindrops dropped louder.
It made the boy feel that he was a part of something bigger.
Something beyond the old stone farmhouse
and his father’s fields.
Suffolk rain was usually gentler, but today it was storming.
Kim put his ear back to the pane.
The boy smiled to himself.
None of the others listened to the rain, nor to its drumming.
They just complained about it.
The rain, however, sounded deeper today.
Darker than Kim recalled.
He instinctively pulled back from the pane, surprised.
The fields and the barn were now behind a screen of rain.
In summer those same fields brimmed with nodding wheat.
The autumn harvest had turned the soil and stubble
into acres of sodden brown.
There were no sisters and brothers at home as he had none.
And his parents were away for the day.
They had taken the Land Rover, that Kim would climb into.
It even served as his own plane.
Today even his toys seemed sleepy and uninteresting.
Kim yawned again at the farmyard.
To the left of the barn was a paddock.
It was fenced in by wooden fencing with a sturdy gate.
There stood Leon.
The old farm donkey lived in the paddock.
He was retired now.
Leon, Kim had thought, always looked philosophical.
Accepting of reality and in this way, coping with it.
He had his own world, somewhere deep within his donkey self.
Kim felt the old donkey knew a lot more than he ever let on.
Being undemonstrative did not mean Leon was stupid.
Just grimly serious.
The reserved type.
Well, the farm, you see, had all sorts.
Kim could make out the donkey’s form through the rain.
He stood there, unflinching, even peaceful.
Leon actually disliked company.
Alone, he was sufficient.
Things had not always been this way.
As a young donkey, Leon had been the pet somewhere in India.
The children had formed a strong affection for the animal.
Leon had enjoyed their attention and play.
The children couldn’t bear to be away from Leon for long.
And when the family had to leave their home in India,
Leon had duly joined them on their return to England.
Still, that was decades ago.
The children had since grown up.
They had found new friends and then work.
Leon had been left, a bit forgotten as years passed.
Eventually, it was felt that Leon would be happier on a farm.
That is how Kim’s father had driven home one day
with Leon bumping behind in the horsebox.
“Look Son!” Kim’s father had called.
“You have a new friend. Go round and see! He’ll be yours to look after!”
Kim had acquired a new companion and was excited.
Leon never made a sound.
Leon’s world was bigger than the boy, this village or the farm.
His aunt had taught him wisdom:
‘The less you speak, the more you learn’.
This was one of several things he brought with him.
But he never cared to share them.
He had seen life in a larger world and knew much;
that was his business.
They had settled on calling him Leon.
He resembled a school friend called Leon Shufflebottom.
A tall, bony boy with large ears he could move at will.
Ah yes; there were also the teeth.
Bucked, looking not unlike those of an ass when he smiled.
What was strangest about Leon, was that he was stooped,
and walked around hunched as if in deep thought.
He could appear at times remote and absent-minded.
Awkward.
Soon Leon, the donkey, was christened.
Much to the amusement of the whole family.
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