Forests of Virtue

         Down in the brook, beside the bubbling stream he sat, a twig in his hands carving his name into the mud. The birds above echoed in the beauty of the summer's day, white puffy clouds dreamily passed by, the baby blue sky harkening back to the older days, when man wasn't so angry and hurt.
         Cu was only eight years old, and the forest was his kingdom. He stood up and brushed the dirt off his bum as best he could, before splashing away his name with his wellies. The mud rose up, the murky darkness ruining the clear stream's water and scaring away any of the small fish.
         He stopped splashing and looked above him as he heard the crows crying out, their dark wings swooping from branch to branch, challenging the other crows to battle.
         "Shoo!" Cu cried. "Get out!" He threw the biggest pebbles towards the crows but they only tapped off the bark of the trees, to little or no notice of the birds. Cu didn't allow fighting in his kingdom, it was his one rule. And also no girls.
         Usually he was the only one in his kingdom, but once when Cu was six and three quarters, he came down to the stream to find another young boy trying to catch the fish in the stream. He wore royal blue shorts and his knees carried dirt on them from kneeling. His t-shirt was red with some white. Cu sang his kingdom song, the one like the Red Indians on the telly. He always liked making the song, popping his hand on and off his mouth. But this day, Cu had stopped the song when he saw the other boy.
         He wasn't one of the kids about his part of the town, because Cu knew them all. Maybe the boy lived in the forest.
         "Who're you and what're you doing in my Kingdom?" Cu asked him, startling the boy causing him to splash water on his top, staining the red darker, like a shade of scarlet.
         "I'm William." He said, his accent different than Cu's. "I didn't know this was your Kingdom."
         Cu stuck out his hand, like he watched the big folk do when they made friends. "I'm Cu, and you can be in my Kingdom. We can share it."
         William rubbed his wet hand on his shorts and then shook Cu's hand. Suddenly Cu had a best friend, one he met in secret every day after tea in the forest behind his house. Cu and William played every day, each taking turns to try and catch fish, write their names in the mud and shoo away the fighting crows.
         But one day William didn't come back, and hadn't every day since. When Cu's mummy had found out who Cu had been playing with, she was angry. It was then, that Cu agreed when he was a big folk, he would let his son play with whoever he wanted.