Michael Morpurgo - Mr Nobody's Eyes

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Also by Michael Morpurgo

Arthur: High King of Britain

Escape from Shangri-La

Friend or Foe

The Ghost of Grania O’Malley

Kensuke’s Kingdom

King of the Cloud Forests

Little Foxes

Long Way Home

My Friend Walter

The Nine Lives of Montezuma

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

The Best Christmas Present in the World

The Marble Crusher

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication For Anthony, Sue, Alexander, Christopher and Nicholas .

Acknowledgements Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

HARRY WAS ALONE WITH HIS THOUGHTS. THERE may have been over two hundred children with him in the playground, but he was quite alone. Maybe it would be today, maybe tomorrow – unless of course something went wrong, and something still could go wrong. Harry knew it was wicked even to think of that let alone to hope for it. But he could not stop himself. He was hoping for it hard.

‘We need a goalie!’ Peter Barker was bellowing at him from across the playground. Harry turned away. Peter Barker sat next to him in the choir at St Cuthbert’s and swapped Turf cigarette cards with him (the ones with the big-headed footballers). Father Murphy’s sermons ran on a bit on a Sunday morning and the surreptitious exchanges between the folds of the surplices added sinful spice to the dealing: one Tom Finney for one Billy Wright it was, last Sunday.

‘Come on, Harry.’ Peter was waving him over. ‘We’ve got no one else.’ They were all shouting at him now. He had no choice.

The goal he had to defend was twice the width it should have been, between the two uprights of the rusting chainlink fence with the wilderness of the bomb site behind him. It was fair enough, though, because the other goal was every bit as wide, stretching as it did between the two drainpipes on the lavatory block wall. They often chose Harry for goalkeeper – he wasn’t good for much else. He knew he wouldn’t have much to do, so he leaned back against the fence and slipped easily into his thoughts.

‘An evil thought is a sin in itself, Harry.’ That was what Father Murphy had told him in Confession. If that were so, and Harry believed most of what Father Murphy told him, then Harry’s heap of sins was piling up fast. He must not allow himself to think about it any more. Instead he would think of Bournemouth. He could always banish his miseries by thinking his way back to Bournemouth. He’d done it often enough over the last two years, ever since Bill came to live with them.

*

Bournemouth was the last time Harry had been happy.

He remembered every hour of it, every minute of it. The war had just finished and they did what his mother had always promised they would do as soon as it was over. They took the train from London down to Bournemouth to spend a week by the sea. All his life he’d wanted to see where the trains went to that steamed past the church and under the bridge beyond the allotments. And now, gazing out of the window, he’d seen the steeple and the graveyard flash past before they thundered under the bridge and were away. His mother sat beside him in her best brown suit, serene in the noise and the smoke of the carriage with the soldiers in their great boots and gaiters laughing their way home, the war done with.

‘Your old man in the Air Force, is he?’ one of them asked noticing the winged brooch Harry’s mother always wore on her brown suit.

‘He was,’ she said and left it at that. The soldiers quietened, looking at each other and wincing at their own awkwardness, and Harry felt that surge of pride as he always did whenever his father was spoken of. He smiled up at his mother and she held his hand and squeezed it. There was no grief left, not after four years, only a sense of shared loss that bound them together. Harry hardly remembered his father but his photo was on the mantelpiece in the sitting room, the medal lying beside it.

‘Fine boy you’ve got there,’ said the soldier, taking a bar of chocolate out of his breast pocket.

‘I think so,’ said Harry’s mother, smiling.

‘Do you eat chocolate, son?’

‘Ask a silly question,’ Harry’s mother said, and the carriage laughed again and rocked rhythmically as everyone ate chocolate all the way to Bournemouth.

To a great leaping cheer, Harry’s team scored a goal against the lavatory wall, but it was hotly disputed because the goalkeeper said it had hit the guttering above his head. He held up a piece of the gutter as evidence and a long wrangle ensued before the goal was finally allowed.