Paul Gallico - Thomasina

First published in the USA in 1957

First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph in 1957

This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2017

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Text copyright © Mathemata Anstalt 1957

Why You’ll Love This Book copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2011

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2017

Cover illustration © Jarom Vogel 2017

Paul Gallico asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

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 e-book 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.

Source ISBN: 9780007395187

Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780007542321

Version: 2016-12-21

To Virginia

There is no such town as Inveranoch in Argyll, nor are there any such people alive or dead as written about herein. This is a work of fiction.

P. G.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Why You’ll Love This Book by Michael Morpurgo

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Footnote

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Collins Modern Classics by Paul Gallico

About the Publisher

Paul Gallico always brings to his stories the ring of truth. It is what writers of fiction have to do if their stories are to be believed. It must be the first rule of every writer of fiction to make our readers believe. If they don’t, then they simply won’t care. They must have a burning desire to turn the page and find out what happens next. One way to achieve this is for a writer to set the story in a known historical context or against a very specific and recognisable geographical background. In The Snow Goose or indeed in The Small Miracle , two of his most popular stories, this great storyteller does just this, leaning heavily on actual events and places for inspiration as well as credibility.

With Thomasina , as with his other great cat story, Jennie , Paul Gallico leaves the comfort zone of reality, and launches off into an unlikely adventure told by a remarkable cat, Thomasina, Mary Ruadh’s ginger cat. Murdered (put down) by Mary’s father, Andrew MacDhui, a country vet; reincarnated by Lori, Red Witch of the glen, Thomasina becomes Talitha who can trace her ancestry back to an Egyptian goddess. She has only revenge in her heart for her murderer. Unlikely it all may be, but because Gallico is such a compelling and inviting teller of tales, we go with him, we believe it absolutely. Whether or not you like cats, this is a tale you cannot put down. You go where Thomasina takes you – she and Gallico between them practically turn the pages for you.

Like Gallico I’ve written several cat stories, but none as fantastical as this, and none as feline either. This is a story that cats would love as much as I do!

Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo OBE is one of Britain’s best-loved writers for children. He has written over 100 books and won many prizes, including the Smarties Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Whitbread Award. His recent bestselling novels include The Fox and the Ghost King , An Eagle in the Snow and Listen to the Moon . His novel War Horse has been successfully adapted as a West End and Broadway theatre play and a major film by Steven Spielberg. A former Children’s Laureate, Michael is also the co-founder, with his wife Clare, of the charity Farms for City Children.

Mr Andrew MacDhui, veterinary surgeon, thrust his brick-red, bristling beard through the door of the waiting-room next to the surgery and looked with cold, hostile eyes upon the people seated there on the plain pine chairs with their pets on their laps or at their feet awaiting his attendance.

Willie Bannock, his brisk, wiry man-of-all-work in surgery, dispensary, office and animal hospital, had already gossiped a partial list of those present that morning to Mr MacDhui and which included his friend and next-door neighbour, the Minister, Angus Peddie. Mr Peddie, of course, would be there with, or because of, his insufferable pug dog whose gastric disturbances were brought on by pampering and the feeding of forbidden sweets. Mr MacDhui’s glance dropped to the narrow lap of the short-legged, round little clergyman and for a moment his eye was caught up in the unhappy, milky one of the pug rolled in his direction, filled with the misery of belly-ache, and yet expressing a certain hope and longing as well. The animal had come to associate his visits to this place, the smells and the huge man with the fur on his face with relief.

The veterinary disentangled himself from the hypnotic eye and wished angrily that Peddie would follow his advice on feeding the animal and not be there wasting his time. He noted the rich builder’s wife from Glasgow on holiday with her rheumy little Yorkshire terrier, an animal he particularly detested, with its ridiculous velvet bow laced into its silken top-knot. There was Mrs Kinloch over the ears of her Siamese cat which lay upon her knee, occasionally shaking its head and complaining in a raucous voice, and, too, there was Mr Dobbie, the grocer, whose long and doleful countenance reflected that of his Scots terrier who was suffering from the mange and looked as though a visit to the upholsterer would be more practical.

There were half a dozen or so others, including a small boy, who he seemed to have seen somewhere before, and at the head of the line he recognised old, obese Mrs Laggan, proprietress of the newspaper and tobacco shop who, with her nondescript mongrel, Rabbie, his muzzle greyed, his eyes rheumy with age, was a landmark of Inveranoch and had been so for years.