It is some time ago now, but Francis Webberley Stapleton, too short for his name and for his eleven years, was then a bookish, serious lad who liked recess for the chance it gave him to read in the cool open corridor between his classroom and the playground hot with rivalry and boyish braggadoccio, fist fights and unfairness. This corridor in their private school was a place the quiet children liked, the girls to gossip, plait one another’s hair or play with dolls, and the few, mostly younger boys, to play with model cars or aircraft, running them along a convenient concrete drainage ditch, built shallow and wide, dry except when it had to accommodate tropical run-off during sudden rainstorms. Francis read widely, but reveled in fantasy and imaginative historical romances, stories of chivalry, courage and self-sacrifice, in which moral choices were clear and no evil deed ever went unpunished. Today, however, he could not settle to his book. With a resolve he did not know he had, he decided to tolerate humiliation no longer. Placing his book conspicuously on the chalk line of the perimeter of the dusty playing field, he advanced on Eduardo, principal among his tormentors, who was horse-playing with three of his goons, or “lickspittles,” as his reading of Thomas at Flodden Field had taught him to call a villain’s minions. Oblivious to his own danger, but convinced of the pressing need to challenge him before discretion bade him desist, he tapped a sweating Eduardo on the shoulder.
‘Why do you keep calling me Frankie? You know I don’t like it.’
‘Because that’s your name, Frankie-baby!’ Eduardo smiled and winked.
‘Cheep-cheep-cheep!’ said one of the goons irrelevantly, grinning foolishly.
‘Waka-waka-waka!’ crowed another.
‘Booga-booga!’ chimed in the third.
Francis ignored them. ‘My name is Francis. Or, if you prefer, Francisco.’
‘But I don’t prefer, Frankie-baby.’ Eduardo chucked Francis under the chin. He was head and shoulders above Francis, with a stocky build. He suddenly lifted his T-shirt.
‘Muscles, Frankie, muscles!’ He stuck out his abdomen. Was this a boast or a warning? Francis chose to see it as a provocation, and punched him hard in the stomach. Winded, Eduardo doubled over involuntarily, presenting his square jaw to Francis, who, surprised into seizing an unexpected opportunity, hit him hard just below the nose. Taken by surprise, and bleeding from a cut lip, Eduardo fell to the ground, rubbing his mouth in disbelief. At the sound of a teacher’s whistle, Eduardo’s minions disappeared, and soon both boys were in the aggrieved presence of Miss Saunders, who marched them to the Headmistress’s office, where the school nurse fussed over Eduardo and cast reproving glances at Francis who sat, ashamed and penitent, in a corner.
Thus began a short and unlikely friendship. Eduardo’s lip healed, his name-calling stopped, and he invited Francis to play Crack the Whip and British Bulldogs, both officially banned on the playground, with himself and some of the older boys. At first Francis declined, but when his father told him bullies respect those who stand up to them, he laid his book aside and joined them. A natural pacifist, he disliked most contact sports, but discovered he was fast and agile on his feet, adept at quick turns and feints, and easily outran his lumbering pursuers. But soon these games palled, and he returned to the company of W.E. Johns, Franklin W. Dixon, Victor Appleton, Rosemary Sutcliff, Hugh Lofting, Daniel Defoe and Arthur Ransome, losing himself in the romance, adventure and mystery that schoolyard activity could never duplicate.
