I just love writing about young children so much, so I did this one-shot using my characters from Alexander The Great. This has nothing to do with the story. I'm just using the characters for this story. You don't need to have read ATG or anything. Just enjoy. And comment. I will remind you again at the end, my friends.

Alexander Fowl is not a messy boy, but around him, scattered to me, are about ten soft toys, laying limp on their sides, or flat on their stomachs, legs sprawled, but to him, it's an adventure. His pale blue walls are the bright sky, his soft brown carpet the squelching mud on which they tread. It's all nonsense to me.

He crawls over to his bed and pulls out a shoebox from underneath, taking the lid and fitting it onto the front so that the lid and box are at a right angle. He picks up a toy dog, a rottweiler puppy, and places it into the box. 'I'll just be a moment,' he says to the dog, and goes up to his chest of drawers, standing on the tips of his toes to reach a packet of tissues that are placed there. He hurries back to his scene and takes a hanky out of the packet, tucking two edges into the dog's tartan collar. A cape. He takes another toy, a creamy coloured lamb, and removes his watch to fasten it around the animal's neck. He tucks another tissue into the strap, then sits it in the shoebox with the dog.

And the shoebox becomes a boat and the dog and the lamb are great explorers, discovering far off lands and the various other animals are dolphins, tigers, lions, imaginary monsters, whatever the fabric and stitching on them may tell me otherwise. He pulls another shoebox from under his bed. Samantha's old Barbie dolls, toughened up, tribal symbols scrawled onto their faces with marker pens, all evidence of frilly clothes removed. They are the enemy. The newly nationalised French dolls are striking battle with the noble lamb and dog. They found the island first, but their boat has sank on the other shore, leaving them stranded. There is war. His narration brings the scene alive. Sloppy accents, bangs and blasts, war cries and weeping for his casualties of war.

They make peace, and sail back to Ireland, where a funeral is held for the losses. Buried in the shoebox, underneath the bed.

Where my childhood went, and never came back.

Kinda angst-y really. If you didn't get it, that was Alexander Fowl, about four or five, playing with his toys while Artemis watches. I wrote this because a few days ago, I went under my bed and found a box full of all my stuffed dogs. I remembered my little toy, Scamp, that I had received at the age of three or four, and I took him to a party that my mum was invited to at the courts (she was a barrister at the time) and I had fastened my watch around his neck and tied a tissue onto it. It kept me amused for hours. I was so sad looking at all my toys. They look so dead now. My toy rottweiler, Sally is floppy and blue from being bleached by the sun from her old proud perch on my windowsill.

And yes, I got a shoebox out of my wardrobe and drew the masts on it and played for hours with my old toys. One's out of the box for good now, a beige golden retriever like dog and he now sits on my bed. I remember when I'd have them all on, lined up so that the others wouldn't get jealous.

I'd kill to be like that again.

You need to make me happy again by commenting! Tell me what you thought! Do you have any toys from your childhood that you discovered? I've proof read this, but tell me if I missed any mistakes. Please, review!