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EGMONT PRESS: ETHICAL PUBLISHING
Egmont Press is about turning writers into successful authors and children into passionate readers – producing books that enrich and entertain. As a responsible children’s publisher, we go even further, considering the world in which our consumers are growing up.
Safety First
Naturally, all of our books meet legal safety requirements. But we go further than this; every book with play value is tested to the highest standards – if it fails, it’s back to the drawing-board.
Made Fairly
We are working to ensure that the workers involved in our supply chain – the people that make our books – are treated with fairness and respect.
Responsible Forestry
We are committed to ensuring all our papers come from environmentally and socially responsible forest sources.
For more information, please visit our website at www.egmont.co.uk/ethical
Egmont is passionate about helping to preserve the world’s remaining ancient forests. We only use paper from legal and sustainable forest sources, so we know where every single tree comes from that goes into every paper that makes up every book.
This book is made from paper certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), an organisation dedicated to promoting responsible management of forest resources. For more information on the FSC, please visit www.fsc.org. To learn more about Egmont’s sustainable paper policy, please visit www.egmont.co.uk/ethical.
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
