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First published in Great Britain 1979 by William Heinemann Ltd
This edition published 2006 by Egmont UK Limited
239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SA
Text Copyright © 1979 Colin Dann
Illustrations copyright © 1979 Jacqueline Tettmar
Cover illustration copyright © 2006 David Frankland
The moral rights of the author, illustrator and cover illustrator have been asserted
ISBN 978 14052 2552 6
ISBN 1 4052 2552 1
eISBN 978 17803 1298 9
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
For Janet
Contents
Part Two Journey to White Deer Park
PART ONE
Escape from Danger
1
Drought
For most of the animals of Farthing Wood a new day was beginning. The sun had set, and the hot, moistureless air was at last cooling a little. It was dusk, and for Badger, time for activity.
Leaving his comfortable underground sleeping chamber, lined with dry leaves and grass, he ambled along the connecting tunnel to the exit and paused, snuffling the air warily. Moving his head in all directions, his powerful sense of smell soon told him no danger was present, and he emerged from the hole. Badger’s set was on a sloping piece of ground in a clearing of the wood, and the earth here was now as hard as biscuit. No rain had fallen on Farthing Wood for nearly four weeks.
Badger noticed Tawny Owl perched on a low branch of a beech tree a few yards away, so he trotted over for a few words while he sharpened his claws on the trunk. ‘Still no rain,’ he remarked unnecessarily, as he stretched upward and raked the bark. ‘I