The War of Jenkins' Ear. Michael Morpurgo
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EGMONT PRESS: ETHICAL PUBLISHING
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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
Mr Nobody’s Eyes
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 White Horse of Zennor
Why the Whales Came
The Wreck of Zanzibar
For Younger Readers
The Best Christmas Present in the World
Conker
Mairi’s Mermaid
The Marble Crusher
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
‘BENEDICAT NOBIS OMNIPOTENS DEUS . . .’ THE FIRST grace of a new term. Henry Stagg, Headmaster and lord of all he surveyed, intoned with fresh vigour, his fingers flexing ominously as he gripped the back of his chair at High Table. Standing behind his bench at the window Toby Jenkins dared to lift his eyes. Mr Stagg looked thinner than he remembered, his neck longer somehow, more scraggy. But the voice was the same, sonorous and terrifying – ‘Rudolph’ they called him, when they were quite sure he couldn’t hear them. Beside Rudolph, stiff in her grey-green suit with a butterfly brooch, stood Mrs Stagg, a head taller with straight dark hair and blood-red lips. Prunella he called her – ‘Cruella’ to the boys. Toby caught her eye and looked away quickly. The dying daddy-longlegs were still sidling clumsily along the window-ledge, clambering over each other in a vain effort to find a way out. There’s no escape, thought Toby, not for you, not for me. Thirteen weeks and five days – ninety-six days until the Christmas holidays. There was half term, four days beginning November the sixth, but that was seven long weeks away.
Toby closed his eyes and swallowed back the dread that rose in the back of his throat, the dread he’d been living with since first he woke that morning. It had been with him during the silent ride with his mother on the Underground, and as they walked up the steps and into Victoria Station. He recalled how his stomach had heaved at the first sight of a green, red and white cap. His last hope of reprieve was shattered. There could be no doubt about it now. This was the day term began. They hadn’t come too early. There had been no mistake. He was not Toby any more. He was Jenkins now, or ‘Jinks’. Someone said what they always said. ‘Hello, Jinks. Had a good hols?’ Toby nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak. His mother went with him as far as the door of the carriage. She knew he hated her to wait. ‘I’ll be off then, Toby. God bless.’ And she hugged him quickly and went away without looking back, leaving him with just the smell of her.
He knew by now there was no point in trying to stop the tears. They would come anyway in spite of himself. If he tried very hard though he could hold them in his eyes, just so long as he didn’t blink.
He sat in the corner seat, his face against the windowpane as the carriage filled with the jovial banter of Redlands boys all bursting