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Also by Michael Morpurgo
Arthur: High King of Britain
Escape from Shangri-La
Friend or Foe
From Hereabout Hill
The Ghost of Grania O’Malley
Kensuke’s Kingdom
King of the Cloud Forests
Little Foxes
Long Way Home
Mr Nobody’s Eyes
My Friend Walter
The Sandman and the Turtles
The Sleeping Sword
Twist of Gold
Waiting for Anya
War Horse
The War of Jenkins’ Ear
The White Horse of Zennor
The Wreck of Zanzibar
Why the Whales Came
For Younger Readers
Conker
Mairi’s Mermaid
On Angel Wings
The Best Christmas Present in the World
The Marble Crusher
CONTENTS
THE BEGINNING
THE BARN OWL HAD BEEN WAITING FOR some time high up in the rafters of the dutch barn. He was a young barn owl and had not yet the patience of an experienced adult. He had been hunting for some months now, making slow, silent sorties along the hedgerows, his eyes scanning the undergrowth for the sudden inexplicable movement that might betray the prey beneath. For hours he had waited perched among the elms surveying the darkness below before gliding out through the branches and swooping down, talons poised and primed for the kill. But too often his balance and timing still failed him. He would find himself taking off too early, allowing his quarry too much time to elude him. He had not yet perfected the technique of waiting for the right moment that all efficient hunters need if they are to make a good kill. Hunger gnawed at his stomach, concentrating his mind. He sat still on his perch like a white sentinel, and waited.
Far below him in a hollow between two bales of hay lay the old she-cat, stretched out to allow her young to suckle. One kitten was already dead and lay cold, damp and alone. The three survivors fought for their mother’s milk, clambering over each other in blind hunger, probing for the wet warmth of a teat amongst the soft fur of her belly. She was aware that the owl was watching. She had seen him swoop in from the night and sit high above her, fold his wings back and settle down. She would have moved her kittens, had she had the time, but they had only just been born and she was too exhausted to move. Anyway, she knew that they were safe so long as she stayed with them. She lifted her head and glanced almost casually up at the owl above her. It was a waiting game, a stand-off; and she could wait as long as he would. She curled round and licked over her litter so that they tumbled from her mewing and pawing the air in a frantic effort to retrieve their feeding places. The she-cat cleaned them individually all over and then nudged them back so that they could feed again. She looked for a moment at the dead kitten and then stretched out and gave down her milk.
Dawn was filtering the darkness and the owl shifted perceptibly on his branch, uneasy now at the long wait. His patience had been tried for too long. His eyes blinked black, once, twice: and he lifted himself easily off the rafter, spreading his wings to begin the slow glide down towards the cat. Half in sleep she heard the rush of wind against his wings and was at once alert to the danger. She sprang up, shielding her young, and spitting defiance as the owl swooped down. She backed away, lifting her front paws to fend him off; but the owl had seen his chance, the undefended kitten lying apart and still in the corner of the hollow. He turned, wheeled powerfully and came in again his talons out-stretched. He had but to choose the right angle of attack to avoid those unsheathed claws and the kill would be his. There was scarcely a hesitation in his flight as he plucked the dead kitten from the hay and swung away up over the bales and out into the grey of dawn, leaving behind the old she-cat still spitting her anger after him.
Her dead kitten had been her family’s safe passage. Now there was time to move out of reach of intruders, deeper into the sanctuary of the haystack. One by one she picked up her kittens and carried them in her mouth down the hay stack and up into the old straw where the bales were less tightly packed and where some bales had fallen apart. Finding a safe place took some time; but finally, with the first kitten in her mouth, she found a suitable burrow and squeezed her way in, depositing the kitten at the bottom. Then she went back for the others. This was the danger period when each of the kittens in turn had to be left, and the old she-cat ran and leapt again like a young cat. Perhaps the owl returning, a rat, or even another cat might come upon the kitten while she was gone. Only when the task was done and they were all three suckling her in their prickly new nest, did she feel safe.
Over the next few days, in the musty darkness of their new home the kittens’ eyes began to unstick, and they had their first blurred impression of light. They were still too weak to explore and yearned only for the warmth and food that their mother provided. Secure now from the owl, the she-cat had begun leaving her litter for short periods. She had to feed herself if her litter was to survive. To start with it would be a matter of minutes only until she returned, but as the kittens grew and as time went on she took to wandering further afield to hunt, and she returned only when her hunger had been satisfied.
From the dead beech tree by the duck pond, the young barn owl had been watching her comings and goings much as a conspiring bank robber watches a security guard. Each evening after he had taken the dead kitten he had flown in and searched for the rest of the litter. That they were there he knew for certain, but he had not yet been able to locate them. This evening he waited for the she-cat to climb the hedge into the meadow and watched her as she padded into the trees beyond and vanished. Then he leapt down onto the wind and floated across into the barn.
The three kittens were still groping after the warmth of their mother, two of them silently; but the third was calling after his mother, his mewing turned to high-pitched wails of anxiety as he discovered she was gone. From his observation post near the roof the owl heard, registered, and blinked his round black eyes. He could not see them, but he had them pinpointed now. He would be back.
The spring had been late in coming and the animals on the farm were still indoors, still waiting for the land to dry