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An Elephant in the Garden
Michael Morpurgo
First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2010
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Text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2010
Illustrations copyright © Michael Foreman 2010
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Source ISBN: 9780007339570
Ebook Edition © MAY 2010 ISBN: 9780007352128 Version 2018-09-05
For Bella, Freddie and Max
Contents
TO TELL THE TRUTH, I DON’T THINK LIZZIE WOULD EVER HAVE told us her elephant story at all, if Karl had not been called Karl.
Maybe I’d better explain.
I’m a nurse. I was working part-time in an old people’s nursing home just down the road from where we live. It was part-time because I wanted to be home for Karl, my nine-year-old son. There were just the two of us, so I needed to be there to see him off to school, and be there for him when he got back. But sometimes, at weekends, they asked me to do overtime.
I couldn’t always say no – we all of us had to take our turn to do weekend duties – and if I’m honest, the money helped. So at weekends, if Karl hadn’t got anywhere else to go, or anyone else to look after him, they let me bring him into work with me.
I
