YSJ Anthology 2015

put his hands over his ears and refused to look at her, and eventually
she left him alone. He still saw her most days wandering alone on
the edge of the moors but she never came near him again.
He knew when his mam died. He saw her through the mist. He went
to her but she was just a faded image. There was no communication.
He knew she’d seen him though because the pain had gone from her
eyes. She never came again but maybe they could still be together
once their Alan had found him.
He spent a good few years on his own out there but he was never
lonely. There were others in the shadows, from another time, but he
didn’t bother them and they didn’t bother him. He kept better
company. Foxes were drawn to him. He always had a little ginger
companion or two on his nature trails. They explored together and
found so much to look at. They watched the Mountain Hares, Shorteared
Owls, Peregrines and Ravens but he found just as much
pleasure in the simple things like the twigs and leaves and stones.
He loved the changing seasons and always saw beauty in his
surroundings, always something to interest him; Reed Buntings,
Kestrels and Tawny Owls, shrews, stoats, voles, weasels, newts and
frogs; an almost endless list.
Over the first long months, and then eventually the long years on his
own, he used his time to explore his surroundings. Despite the horror
of his ordeal he really didn’t mind it on the moor. He loved the open
space, the wildness, being at one with nature. He definitely preferred
it to school except he missed his mates of course. He had his I-Spy
Birds in his inside jacket pocket when they took him, so he always
had that to look at. He never got sick of looking at it. And he could
sit for hours just watching, patiently waiting to catch a glimpse of a
Ring Ouzel but usually having to settle for a Meadow Pipit or a
Skylark.
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