For Toad, he sits up straight and puffs his chest out. And I giggle because he’s not Sarge any more, he’s that silly Toad strutting about Toad Hall or zooming through the country lanes in his fast little car. ‘Beep, Beep,’ shouts Sarge as he sits in his chair holding a pretend steering wheel. ‘Out of my way!’ And then, like magic, I’m out there on the open road with him, feeling the wind in my hair, even though I’ve never been in a car in my life.

Like I said, Sarge makes everything seem real.

It’s not just stories and soldiering though. Sarge also makes sure I get what he calls a ‘proper education’. By that he means learning about the things that matter, the things that will help me when I’m grown. Sarge says that other children go to school to learn what the government wants them to know. It’s how they control them, he says, how they keep people in line, so they don’t ask questions or start revolutions. I’m not sure what a revolution is, though Sarge says it’s about time this country had one. Anyway, Sarge has taught me well. I know my times tables and I practise my maths when I sell the eggs that our chickens lay. We set up a little stall out front and put a sign by the gate that says FRESH EGGS FOR SALE. We sell them for £2 a dozen which Sarge says is a bargain. I’m in charge of serving the customers because Sarge doesn’t like talking to people so I get to work out how much change they need and things like that. Sarge says I wouldn’t learn how to think on my feet like that in a classroom.

Sarge taught me to read when I was three. I love reading. Besides soldiering, it’s my favourite thing to do. When I read it feels like travelling all over the world when I haven’t even left my room. Just by opening up a book I can be taken away to America or China, India or Africa, and when I’ve finished the story it feels like I’ve actually been to those places, like I can feel the hot African sun on my skin or the smell of the spices in an Indian market. I told Sarge how I felt and he said that the world is a dangerous place and it’s best that we stay put. I know he’s right but I secretly wish I could feel the real African sun or take a dip in the River Ganges. One day maybe.

For now, Sarge says that we’re safe here in this house. That as long as we stick together no one can get to us. The people in the village are dangerous and to be avoided. I have seen them with my own eyes, seen how they look at us. Once we went into the shop because Sarge had got some money from selling a sheepskin and he wanted to put up a notice on the board telling people that there were more for sale, but as soon as we got in there the woman who runs it tried to get us out. She told us that it was too expensive to put a notice on the board, then she stood with her hands on this machine that Sarge told me was called a till, something that holds money in it. ‘She thought we were going to rob her, the stupid woman,’ Sarge said to me when we were on our way home. ‘Doesn’t she know that we have everything we need?’ That was the last time we ever went to the shop. And after that we set up our egg stall with our own little box to hold the money. Sarge said our eggs were fresher than the rubbish you got in the shop and he hoped that woman never had a day’s luck in her life. I agree with him because the way she looked at us that day wasn’t nice. It made me feel like we were bad people, me and Sarge, and we’re not. We’re good people. We’re just not like them.