Michael Morpurgo - Running Wild

Copyright Copyright Dedication A sudden change of heart “Look at me, I need a smile” “No leaves, Oona, I can’t eat leaves” Tiger, Tiger… A feast of figs “He is like God here” Other One Burning bright Sanctuary Elephant’s child Postscript Author’s Note Post postscript Deforestation Orang-utans Tsunami Tyger Tyger Acknowledgements Keep Reading About the Author Also by Michael Morpurgo About the Publisher

HarperCollins Children’s Books a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2009. Illustrations copyright © Sarah Young 2009

Running Wild: 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.

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Michael Morpurgo and Christian Birmingham reserve the right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.

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Source ISBN: 9780007267019

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780007380664

Version: 2018-11-09

For Ella, Lottie and Charlie, and in memory of their grandfather, Eddie.

Copyright

Dedication For Ella, Lottie and Charlie, and in memory of their grandfather, Eddie.

A sudden change of heart

“Look at me, I need a smile”

“No leaves, Oona, I can’t eat leaves”

Tiger, Tiger…

A feast of figs

“He is like God here”

Other One

Burning bright

Sanctuary

Elephant’s child

Postscript

Author’s Note

Post postscript

Deforestation

Orang-utans

Tsunami

Tyger Tyger

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by Michael Morpurgo

About the Publisher

he sea murmured onto the beach. Beneath me, the elephant walked on over soft and silent sand. The further we went along the beach away from the hotel, away from the distant cries of the swimmers in the sea, the quieter everything became. I was loving the gentle rock and roll of the ride. I closed my eyes and breathed in the peace around me. This was a million miles from everything that had happened, from everything that had brought me here.

It was as I was riding up there on the elephant, swaying in the sun, that Dad’s elephant joke came into my mind. Usually I can’t remember jokes, but I always remembered this one, maybe because Dad told it so often. I knew it word for word, just as he’d tell it.

“You know the one about the elephant and the bananas, Will?” he’d begin, and without waiting for an answer, off he’d go. “A man and a boy were sitting opposite one another in this railway carriage – they were travelling between Salisbury and London. On his lap, the man had a huge paper bag full of bananas. But soon enough, the boy noticed that something very strange was going on here. The man wasn’t eating the bananas. Instead, every few minutes, he’d just stand up, open the window, and throw one of them out. Of course, the boy couldn’t understand what he was doing this for. He kept trying to puzzle it out. So in the end, he just had to ask.

“’Scuse me,” he says, “but could you tell me why you’re throwing all those bananas out of the window?”

“To keep the elephants away,” replies the man. “Cos elephants is very dangerous, y’know.”

“But there aren’t any elephants around here anyway,” says the boy.

“Course there aren’t,” the man tells him, throwing yet another banana out of the window. “But that’s only cos of my bananas. If I didn’t keep doing this, there’d be millions of them out there, squillions. And elephants is very dangerous, y’know.”

I loved that joke, mostly because when Dad was telling it, he’d always be heaving with laughter before he could ever finish it, and I loved to hear Dad’s laugh. Whenever he was home it was his laugh that filled the house, brought it alive again.

I didn’t want to think about that, because I knew where it would lead, and I didn’t want to go there. So I tried to make myself think of a train journey instead, a train journey when Dad hadn’t been there. I wanted to keep Dad out of the picture. I didn’t want to have to remember, not now, not again. But memories of the train journey with Mum came tumbling out, out of my control and out of sequence, as memories often are, because memories will always become other memories, I suppose – they cannot help themselves.

I always wanted train journeys to go on for ever, and especially this one. I liked trains, the rattle and the rhythm of them. I loved to press my forehead against the cold of the glass, and trace a single raindrop with my finger as it found its way down across the window. I’d be gazing out at the countryside rushing by, at cows and horses scattering away over the fields, at clouds of starlings whirling in the wind, at a formation of geese flying high into the evening sun.

And I’d be on the lookout for wild animals, for foxes or rabbits, or even a deer. A glimpse of just one of these was a marvel to me, the highlight of any train journey, because they hardly ever ran away. They’d just gaze back at me from out there in their wild world, interested perhaps, but quite unconcerned. It was as if they were trying to tell me: we don’t mind you being here, just so long as you’re passing through, just so long as you leave us alone. I had always longed to be part of their world. For me that momentary glimpse was never enough, always too quickly over.

On this train journey though I had seen no foxes, no deer, not even a rabbit, and that was because I hadn’t been looking for them. My mind was elsewhere. I didn’t want it to be, but it was. Everything out there was nothing but a blur of grey skies and green fields, interrupted with monotonous regularity by endless passing telegraph poles. None of it was of any interest to me. I wanted this train journey to go on forever, not because I was enjoying it one bit, but simply because I did not want to go where I was going. I did not want to arrive.

I glanced up at Mum sitting beside me, but she did not look back at me. I could see she was lost deep in her thoughts, and I knew well enough what they had to be, that they were much the same as mine, and that it was better not to interrupt them. I regretted again that I’d yelled at her at breakfast that morning. I shouldn’t have done it, but it had been the shock of it, the suddenness. She’d just said it, right out of the blue, without any warning at all. “We’re going back home, Will, as soon as I’ve packed the cases. Grandma says she’ll drive us to the station.”