Free Shakespeare's Globe by Valerie Wilding

CHAPTER ONE
    I went home with my dog, Hoppy, one pot of honey, three duck eggs, a cut lip and a bashed nose.
    Instead of sympathy, all I got from Aunt Meg was, ‘Where is the fish, Billy? You didn’t get the fish? Now what shall we do?’
    ‘Big Tom was lurking by the fish stall, and I didn’t want any more of this,’ I said, catching blood drips in my hand.
    Just then, Mother came through the back door and saw me. She dropped her laundry basket, grabbed a clean rag and dabbed at my face.
    ‘Those ruffians again?’ she asked.
    I nodded. ‘Big Tom. He tore my jerkin, too.’
    ‘Never mind,’ said Mother. ‘Jerkins mend, so do lips and noses.’
    I smiled. It made my mouth sting.
    ‘He didn’t get the fish!’ wailed Aunt Meg. ‘What will we have for dinner?’
    ‘We’ll have fish!’ said Mother, crossly. She hates it when my aunt falls to pieces, as she calls it. Mother is strong-minded. She has to be, with Father away so much.
    ‘Billy and I will go to the market together while Susan is having her nap,’ she said. ‘There will be plenty of fish left.’
    Susan is my little sister. She’s quite sweet, but everyone fusses around her because she’s always getting sore throats or fevers.
    ‘I’ll put Hoppy in his doghouse,’ I said. ‘Another walk would be too much for his gammy leg.’
    As Mother and I set off, I told her what happened.
    ‘Big Tom and his mates were throwing stones at a kitten,’ I said, ‘so I picked it up and put it behind a wall. Then they started on me, so I punched Big Tom.’
    ‘Good boy, Billy,’ said Mother. She likes kittens. ‘I’m glad you stand up to those ruffians.’
    I stopped talking then, because my lip hurt.
    I call Aunt Meg’s cottage ‘home’ but it’s not really our home. I hate it here. It’s all grass and trees and cows, and there’s nothing to do. I wish I was back
in London. It’s the finest and biggest city in the world. From our house in Little Thames Lane it’s a long walk to the countryside. Thank goodness.
    But we must stay here, because London is full of plague. The last outbreak was in 1593, when I was little. All I can remember are bells being rung during burials, and seeing carts taking bodies
away.
    When it broke out this time, Mother stopped me seeing my friends. No visitors came, and people wouldn’t speak to others without covering their mouths and noses. Everyone is terrified
they’ll find huge buboes swelling under their arms, or hideous black spots. If they do, they’re likely to die horribly. Hundreds of people have died already. There are red crosses on
doors all over the city warning, ‘Plague here – keep away’. That’s why Mother decided that we should come to stay with her sister at Kinglake Manor.
    Sounds grand, does it not? Me – William Watkins of Kinglake Manor.
    Of course, we’re not staying in the manor house! Aunt Meg and Uncle Jem live in Gate Cottage on the Kinglake estate. My uncle is the gamekeeper and my aunt does sewing for the ladies of
the big house. She’s pretty, and fun when she’s not fretting about fish.
    It’s not my fault I’m unhappy here. Big Tom and his mates make my life miserable. They call me ‘maggot head’ or ‘Willy goat brain’.
    I know why. I cannot catch frogs with my bare hands or trap rabbits, and I’ve no wish to climb trees to steal apples.
    Catch frogs? I’m sure I could, but who would want to? As for trapping rabbits, it’s not worth it. Uncle Jem keeps us supplied with meat. And I’m definitely not going to steal
fruit, or anything else. I’d never take the chance. Imagine being locked up and whipped or, worse – hanged! Zooks, even being put in the pillory for people to pitch rotten cabbages at
you would be bad enough.
    So they pick on me because I’m different. I don’t want to be a farmhand or butcher, like them, or go to sea like my father. I want to be a player. I want to be a player, acting on
the stage at the Globe playhouse in London!
    I