Michael Morpurgo - The Nine Lives of Montezuma

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

THE BEGINNING

THE SECOND LIFE

THE THIRD LIFE

THE FOURTH LIFE

THE FIFTH LIFE

THE SIXTH LIFE

THE SEVENTH LIFE

THE EIGHTH LIFE

THE END

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 and the grass to grow through. Each morning and evening the yearlings in the granary needed to be fed with hay and their bedding made up with straw. During the school holidays this was the boy’s task whilst his father finished the milking and washed down the dairy.

It was evening and he was in the big hay-barn throwing down the bales of straw for the bedding when he came across the three kittens. They were alone, piled up in a heap that wriggled suddenly to life as he moved away the bale that had been the roof of their nest.

He was about to shout out to his father that old Kitty, the she-cat, had done it again; but he decided against it. His father would drown them in the pond as he had done many times before. His father liked to keep a tidy farm, and too many cats implied there might be too many mice and rats. One or two of them served a useful purpose; more than that and they were always under your feet and hanging around the back yard. The boy thought for a moment, and then replaced the bale purposefully. If they could stay there undiscovered for a week or so, then he knew his father would stay his hand even if they were found after that. His father would drown them only in the first week or so of life, before their eyes were properly open.