Michael Morpurgo - Mr Skip

Dedication Dedication Chapter One - In which I find Mister Skip Chapter Two - In which I put Mister Skip together again Chapter Three - In which Barnaby comes to stay Chapter Four - In which Barnaby goes to the Saturday races Chapter Five - In which Mr Skip has a cunning plan Chapter Six - In which Magnus Finnegan lends us a helping hand Chapter Seven - In which Mum has a cunning idea, and everything turns out just fine Also by Michael Morpurgo Copyright About the Publisher

For

Léa, Eloise, Alice, Lucie

and Clare, because you all love Barnaby so much

Contents

Title Page

Dedication Dedication Dedication Chapter One - In which I find Mister Skip Chapter Two - In which I put Mister Skip together again Chapter Three - In which Barnaby comes to stay Chapter Four - In which Barnaby goes to the Saturday races Chapter Five - In which Mr Skip has a cunning plan Chapter Six - In which Magnus Finnegan lends us a helping hand Chapter Seven - In which Mum has a cunning idea, and everything turns out just fine Also by Michael Morpurgo Copyright About the Publisher For Léa, Eloise, Alice, Lucie and Clare, because you all love Barnaby so much

Chapter One - In which I find Mister Skip

Chapter Two - In which I put Mister Skip together again

Chapter Three - In which Barnaby comes to stay

Chapter Four - In which Barnaby goes to the Saturday races

Chapter Five - In which Mr Skip has a cunning plan

Chapter Six - In which Magnus Finnegan lends us a helping hand

Chapter Seven - In which Mum has a cunning idea, and everything turns out just fine

Also by Michael Morpurgo Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

Copyright Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

About the Publisher

Chapter One - In which I find Mister Skip Chapter Two - In which I put Mister Skip together again Chapter Three - In which Barnaby comes to stay Chapter Four - In which Barnaby goes to the Saturday races Chapter Five - In which Mr Skip has a cunning plan Chapter Six - In which Magnus Finnegan lends us a helping hand Chapter Seven - In which Mum has a cunning idea, and everything turns out just fine Also by Michael Morpurgo Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. Copyright Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. About the Publisher

I was forever finding things in that rusty old yellow skip. It was on the corner of the estate by the phone box. Whenever they wanted to get rid of stuff, people from all around used to come and dump things in our skip. I’d go have a look and a good mooch around in there whenever I felt like it.

At first Mum told me I shouldn’t do it because there might be something in the skip that could cut me or prick me or whatever. So I promised her I’d be careful, and after that she was always fine about it. What made her really happy though was when I brought things home. We didn’t have much in our flat – we couldn’t afford to buy much at all – so quite a lot of what we did have came out of that rusty old skip.

I found the blue china horse for the mantelpiece, and Mum was thrilled to bits with it, even though it had a chipped nose and only three and a half legs. Her favourite armchair came off the skip too, as well as the electric radiator. All we had to get was a plug for that and it worked perfectly. But best of all was the twenty-six inch Sony Trinitron television set that I brought home in a wheelbarrow – my cousin Barry gave me a hand. It worked fine except that one of the knobs was missing and the colour was a bit fuzzy. Mum didn’t mind. She was over the moon about it.

Mum often told me I was “a terrible little jackdaw”. And each time she said it she thought it was really funny, because my name is Jackie Dawson, which sounds a bit like jackdaw – if you see what I’m saying. It’s not exactly hilarious, is it? But Mum thinks it is. Mum loves a laugh, but there’s one thing she takes very seriously indeed. Mum likes to keep up appearances. She doesn’t like other people looking down on us or laughing at us – nor do I come to that – which is why she never liked the idea of the neighbours seeing a child of hers crawling about on the skip after other people’s cast-offs. That was why I only ever went rummaging around the skip at dusk or after dark.

I don’t like to upset Mum, because there’s just the two of us, and as she says, we make a great team – her and me against the world. And our world is the estate. There’s things I like about it – I mean, all my friends live here – but there’s lots I don’t like about it. It’s a grey place, and you can’t see the sky because there’s tower blocks everywhere, and some people are sad all the time and don’t smile. We haven’t got much to do on our estate, except watch TV. So most evenings in summer we have races, horse races, and then there’s the big race on Saturday afternoons. I reckon we’ve got more horses around our place than on any other estate in the whole wide world. They’re tough little horses too. They’ve got to be. They live out all the year round, in all weathers, and they soon eat down all the grass, so they’ve never got much to eat. Some people don’t look after their horses as well as they should either and I don’t like that. I always thought that if I ever got rich, I would build a stable for every horse on the estate.