“As I lay in the dark, listening to the distant rush of the waterfall, I hoped that part of me would always be nine and a half, and that even when I was an adult and had to face the world with all its grown-up responsibilities, part of me would always know the excitement of the fascinating things I’d seen at the beck. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than a life without such wonders. How dull and sad life would be if it was all work and chores and war.”
