Little Foxes by Michael Morpurgo Read Free Book Online Page B

kitchen stool behind her. ‘Get that thing out of here,’ she whispered. ‘Get it out. Billy, either you put that thing out of that door this minute or . . . or . . . Billy, either it goes at once, or you both go. Do you understand me, Billy? Do you understand what I’m saying?’
    ‘Yes, Aunty May,’ said Billy. And with the fox cradled against him he walked to the front door and opened it. ‘Goodbye,’ he said, and he was gone before she could collect herself.
    Billy ran towards the canal, the only way he could go. The estate lay in a triangle of two main roads with the canal behind. The roads led only into the city and there was no refuge there for a boy and a fox on the run. Billy had often looked out across the canal and seen the hills rising into the clouds on the horizon, and common sense told him that this was where he had to go. There were scarcely any houses on those high hills, and that meant fewer people. It was the countryside, an empty place where people went for picnics in the summer time and where he had always longed to go. Billy had seen it fleetingly, flashing by out of coach windows, but he had never been there. It seemed to him the kind of place a boy and a fox could lose themselves and never be found. As Billy ran across the estate, the fox trotting out alongside him, he could hear Aunty May calling out after him to come back. It only made him run faster.
    Quite how he planned to cross the canal Billy did not know, and he had not had the time to think about it. Even as he stood now, looking out across the weed-choked water to the far bank, he still had no idea how he would get across, for Billy could not swim. He could splash and kick enough to keep himself afloat for a few brief seconds in the shallow end of the pool in swimming lessons, but then panic invariably overtook him and his legs would reach for the bottom. It had been different when he rescued the swan. Then he had had no time to think about it. The fox stood beside him panting hard, glad of the rest. ‘All right, so you can swim,’ said Billy. ‘Comes natural to a fox I suppose. Nearest bridge over the canal is the main road and they’d catch us before we got there. No choice, have we?’ He remembered then that he had not drowned the last time he jumped in. He remembered he had felt the mud under his feet and he had managed to keep his head above the water. That memory and the sight of Aunty May bearing down on him, dressing-gown flying out behind her, screaming out for him to stop, was all the spur Billy needed. He pushed the fox out into the canal and watched him paddle away before jumping in after him.
    He sank at once, his feet kicking out desperately for the bottom, which did not seem to be there as he had expected. He came up again gasping for air and flailing the water to keep himself afloat. Ahead of him he could see the fox’s white muzzle nosing through the weeds and he struck out after him, legs and arms working frantically in an untidy dog paddle. But the far bank came no closer and he was tiring fast. He pounded the water furiously, but no matter how hard he tried he seemed unable to prevent his body from sinking. By the time he reached the middle of the canal he had swallowed a lot of water and was choking. The weeds were wrapping around his legs and dragging him down. He could see that the fox had reached the bank safely and was shaking himself, and that gave him new heart, but his legs seemed incapable now of obeying him. He knew then that he was going to drown, that there was nothing he could do about it, no point in struggling any more.
    He had sunk twice already when he saw a branch floating slowly towards him and reached out for it. He caught at the twigs and hauled it towards him until he could cling to the branch itself. He hooked his arms over it and kicked his legs free of the weed, and as he did so he found he was moving slowly towards the fox on the bank. So he kept kicking and kicking until the branch