Times of War Collection by Michael Morpurgo Read Free Book Online Page A

how he’d shut himself up in his study all day sometimes, and of Cook’s tantrums whenever things were not done just so. It was a world I could not be part of, a world I did not belong in.
    I tried all I could to interest them in my life at school. I told them about how we’d all heard Miss McAllister and MrMunnings having a blazing argument because he refused to light the school stove, how she’d called him a wicked, wicked man. She was right too. Mr Munnings would never light the stove unless the puddles were iced over in the school yard, unless our fingers were so cold we couldn’t write. He shouted back at her that he would light the stove when he thought fit, and that anyway suffering was part of life and good for a child’s soul. Charlie and Molly made out they were interested, but I could tell they weren’t. Then one day down by the brook, I turned and saw them walking away from me through the water meadows holding hands. We’d all held hands before, often, but then it had been the three of us. I knew at once that this was different. As I watched them I felt a sudden ache in my heart. I don’t think it was anger or jealousy, more a pang of loss, of deep grief.
    We did have some moments when we became a threesome again, but they were becoming all too few and far between. I remember the day of the yellow aeroplane. It was the first aeroplane any of us had ever seen. We’d heard about them, seen pictures of them, but until that day I don’t think I ever really believed they were real, that they actually flew. You had to see one to believe it. Molly and Charlie and I were fishing down in the brook, just for tiddlers, or brown trout if we were lucky — we’d done no more salmon poaching, Mother had made us promise.
    It was late on a summer evening and we were just aboutto set off home when we heard the distant sound of an engine. At first we thought it was the Colonel’s car — his Rolls Royce was the only car for miles around — but then we all realised at the same moment that this was a different kind of engine altogether. It was a sound of intermittent droning, like a thousand stuttering bees. What’s more, it wasn’t corning from the road at all; it was coming from high above us. There was a flurry of squawking and splashing further upstream as a flight of ducks took off in a panic. We ran out from under the trees to get a better look. An aeroplane! We watched, spellbound, as it circled above us like some ungainly yellow bird, its great wide wings wobbling precariously. We could see the goggled pilot looking down at us out of the cockpit. We waved frantically up at him and he waved back. Then he was coming in lower, lower. The cows in the water meadow scattered. The aeroplane was coming in to land, bouncing, then bumping along and coming to a stop some fifty yards away from us.
    The pilot didn’t get out, but beckoned us over. We didn’t hesitate. “Better not switch off!” he shouted over the roar of the engine. He was laughing as he lifted up his goggles. “Might never get the damn thing started again. Listen, the truth is I reckon I’m a bit lost. That church up there on the hill, is that Lapford church?”
    â€œNo,” Charlie shouted back. “That’s Iddesleigh. St. James.”
    The pilot looked down at his map. “Iddesleigh? You sure?”
    â€œYes,” we shouted.
    â€œWhoops! Then I really was lost. Jolly good thing I stopped, wasn’t it? Thanks for your help. Better be off.” He lowered his goggles and smiled at us. “Here. You like humbugs?” And he reached out and handed Charlie a bag of sweets. “Cheerio then,” he said. “Stand well back. Here we go.”
    And with that, off he went bouncing along towards the hedge, his engine spluttering. I thought he couldn’t possibly lift off in time. He managed it, but only just, his wheels clipping the top of the