Meet my characters

Hi, I’m Hugo. I’m 7 years old and I’ll tell you about my urban adventures and what I like and dislike in the city. At the moment, I don’t travel by myself. Every day my mum takes me to school. Next year she’d like me to start going alone, but I’m not too happy about it. Luckily, it’s still a long way off. So far I’ve been to school without any adult only once. Mum was ill, so I went with Jana, my older sister. It was a bit scary. Right up until the last minute I was hoping that we’d meet my school friend and his mum at the tram stop. Then the trip wouldn’t have been so totally mummyless.

That’s my sister Jana. She’s 10 and can travel to school on her own, but she usually goes with me and mum. It’s because she gets bored. Jana knows almost everything there is to know about the way to school, because she’s big and mum taught her. Sometimes she’s surprised by new situations. If something different happens her and mum always discuss it when she gets home. They talk about what she should or shouldn’t have done. Usually mum supports her ideas; sometimes she suggests something easier for Jana to do next time.

This is Beata, our mum. We call her Mimi. Mimi is the first woman to win three Nobel prizes: one for loving us, one for saving Batty (a pancake), and one for helping us build a ferry for our teddy bears – Eddy and Ms Sheepish. On top of that mum probably knows everything about the city. She deals with it at work – how it’s arranged and why children don’t always feel good there. She talks a lot to me, Jana, our friends and other children. She can see that adults don’t listen enough to us, so she tells them about our experiences and opinions. She wants children to be happy in the city.

Every day on our way to school Mimi, Jana and me play urban games together. Other people, streetlights, trams, even little stones on the ground, all become part of that game. Some things help us and some prevent us from winning points. Unfortunately, the rules of the game are decided by adults and we don’t always like to follow them. When that happens, we come up with our own rules and ways to enjoy ourselves in the city.