Michael Morpurgo - The Classic Morpurgo Collection

Copyright Copyright The Butterfly Lion Kaspar - Prince of Cats Born to Run Running Wild Alone on a Wide Wide Sea Farm Boy About the Author Also by Michael Morpurgo About the Publisher

The Butterfly Lion

Text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 1996 Illustrations copyright© Christian Birmingham 1996

Jacket photographs; © Martin Harvey; Gallo Images/CORBIS (lion cub); Royalty-Free/CORBIS (savanna) Jacket design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

The Butterfly Lion - 978-0-00-731735-6

EPub Edition © April 2010 ISBN: 9780007380626

Kaspar - Prince of Cats

Text © Michael Morpurgo 2008

Jacket photographs © Masterfile (cat); Shutterstock (sea and sky).

Jacket design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Kaspar - The Prince of Cats - 978-0-00-726700-2

Ebook Edition © MAY 2010 ISBN: 9780007385935

Born to Run

Text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2007

Illustrations © Michael Foreman 2007

Jacket photographs: Dog by kind courtesy of the Retired Greyhound Trust; Background © Jonathan Gale/Getty Images

Jacket design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

Born to Run - 978-0-00-723059-4

Ebook Edition © 2007 ISBN: 9780007369997

Running Wild

Text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2009

Illustrations © Sarah Young 2009

Jacket photographs © PhotoAlto/Alamy (boy); Michael Llewellyn/Getty Images (Indian elephant); Gary Vestal/Getty Images (tiger); Michael Nichols/Getty Images (monkeys); JH Pete Carmichael/Getty Images (snake).

All other images © Shutterstock

Jacket design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

Running Wild - 978-0-00-726701-9

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780007380664

Alone on a Wide Wide Sea

Copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2006

Jacket photographs © by kind permission of the author (boy); Ralph A. Clevenger/Corbis (porthole); Patrick Robert/Sygma/Corbis (rivet texture); Kevin Scafer/Getty Images (albatross); Altrendo Images/Getty Images (splash); The Mariners' Museum/Corbis (ship); William Vandivert/Getty Images (waves).

Jacket design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

Alone on a Wide Wide Sea - 978-0-00-723058-7

Ebook Edition © 2006 ISBN: 9780007369980

Farm Boy

Text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 1997.

Illustrations copyright © Michael Foreman 1997

Jacket photographs © Shutterstock.com (horse); istockphoto.com (sky); Museum of Rural Life, Unversity of Reading (plough horses); Hulton Archive/Getty Images (soldiers).

Jacket design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

Farm Boy - 978-0-00-745065-7

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780007479627

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN: 9780007536696

Version: 2017-02-02

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

The Butterfly Lion

Kaspar - Prince of Cats

Born to Run

Running Wild

Alone on a Wide Wide Sea

Farm Boy

About the Author

Also by Michael Morpurgo

About the Publisher

For Virginia McKenna

Dedication

Preface

Chilblains and Semolina Pudding

Strange Meeting

Timbavati

Bertie and the Lion

Running Free

The Frenchman

Strawbridge

And All’s Well

A Lot of Old Codswallop

The White Prince

A Miracle, A Miracle!

The Butterfly Lion

And the Lion Shall Lie Down with the Lamb

Adonis Blues

The Butterfly Lion grew from several magical roots: the memories of a small boy who tried to run away from school a long time ago; a book about a pride of white lions discovered by Chris McBride; a chance meeting in a lift with Virginia McKenna, actress and champion of lions and all creatures born free; a true story of a soldier of the First World War who rescued some circus animals in France from certain death; and the sighting from a train of a white horse carved out on a chalky hillside near Westbury in Wiltshire.

To Chris McBride, to Virginia McKenna and to Gina Pollinger – many, many thanks. And to you the reader – enjoy it!

MICHAEL MORPURGO

February 1996

Butterflies live only short lives. They flower and flutter for just a few glorious weeks, and then they die. To see them, you have to be in the right place at the right time. And that’s how it was when I saw the butterfly lion – I happened to be in just the right place, at just the right time. I didn’t dream him. I didn’t dream any of it. I saw him, blue and shimmering in the sun, one afternoon in June when I was young. A long time ago. But I don’t forget. I mustn’t forget. I promised them I wouldn’t.

I was ten, and away at boarding school in deepest Wiltshire. I was far from home and I didn’t want to be. It was a diet of Latin and stew and rugby and detentions and cross-country runs and chilblains and marks and squeaky beds and semolina pudding. And then there was Basher Beaumont who terrorised and tormented me, so that I lived every waking moment of my life in dread of him. I had often thought of running away, but only once ever plucked up the courage to do it.

I was homesick after a letter from my mother. Basher Beaumont had cornered me in the bootroom and smeared black shoe-polish in my hair. I had done badly in a spelling test, and Mr Carter had stood me in the corner with a book on my head all through the lesson – his favourite torture. I was more miserable than I had ever been before. I picked at the plaster in the wall, and determined there and then that I would run away.

I took off the next Sunday afternoon. With any luck I wouldn’t be missed till supper, and by that time I’d be home, home and free. I climbed the fence at the bottom of the school park, behind the trees where I couldn’t be seen. Then I ran for it. I ran as if bloodhounds were after me, not stopping till I was through Innocents Breach and out onto the road beyond. I had my escape all planned. I would walk to the station – it was only five miles or so – and catch the train to London. Then I’d take the underground home. I’d just walk in and tell them that I was never, ever going back.

There wasn’t much traffic, but all the same I turned up the collar of my raincoat so that no one could catch a glimpse of my uniform. It was beginning to rain now, those heavy hard drops that mean there’s more of the same on the way. I crossed the road, and ran along the wide grass verge under the shelter of the trees.