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Also by Michael Morpurgo
Arthur High King of Britain
Escape From Shangri-La
Friend or Foe
From Hereabout Hill
The Ghost of Grania O’Malley
Kensuke’s Kingdom
King of the Cloud Forests
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 War of Jenkins’ Ear
The White Horse of Zennor
Why the Whales Came
For younger readers
Animal Tales
Conker
Mairi’s Mermaid
The Marble Crusher
On Angel Wings
The Best Christmas Present in the World
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
BILLY BUNCH CAME IN A BOX ONE WINTRY night ten years ago. It was a large box with these words stencilled across it: ‘Handle with care. This side up. Perishable.’
For Police Constable William Fazackerly this was a night never to be forgotten. He had pounded the streets all night checking shop doors and windows, but it was too cold a night even for burglars. As he came round the corner and saw the welcome blue light above the door of the Police Station, he was thinking only of the mug of sweet hot tea waiting for him in the canteen. He bounded up the steps two at a time and nearly tripped over the box at the top.
At first it looked like a box of flowers, for a great bunch of carnations – blue from the light above – filled it from end to end. He crouched down and parted the flowers. Billy lay there swathed in blankets up to his chin. A fluffy woollen bonnet covered his head and ears so that all Police Constable Fazackerly could see of him were two wide open eyes and a toothless mouth that smiled cherubically up at him. There was a note attached to the flowers: ‘Please look after him’, it read.
Police Constable Fazackerly sat down beside the box and tickled the child’s voluminous cheeks and the smile broke at once into a giggle so infectious that the young policeman dissolved into a high-pitched chuckle that soon brought the Desk Sergeant and half the night shift out to investigate. The flowers – and they turned white once they were inside – were dropped unceremoniously into Police Constable Fazackerly’s helmet, and the child was borne into the Station by the Desk Sergeant, a most proprietary grin creasing his face. ‘Don’t stand there gawping,’ he said. ‘I want hot water bottles, lots of ’em and quickly. Got to get him warm; and Fazackerly, you phone for the doctor and tell him it’s urgent. Go on, lad, go on.’ And it was the same Desk Sergeant who to his eternal credit named the child, not after himself, but after the young Police Constable who had found him. ‘I’ve named a few waifs and strays in my time,’ he said, ‘and I’ll not condemn any child to carry a name like Fazackerly all his life. But Billy he’ll be – not Billy Carnation, he’d never forgive us – no. Now let me see, how about Billy Bunch for short? How’s that for a name, young feller-me-lad?’ And Billy giggled his approval.
Billy did not know it, but that moment in his box on the table in the Interrogation Room with half a dozen adoring policemen bending over him was to be his last taste of true contentment for a long time. He was not to know it either, but he sent a young policeman home that night to his bed with his heart singing inside him. Billy Bunch was a name he was never to forget.
Billy Bunch was taken away to
