The Marble Crusher. Michael Morpurgo
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Название: The Marble Crusher
Автор: Michael Morpurgo
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Природа и животные
isbn: 9781780311777
isbn:
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.
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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 War of Jenkins’ Ear
The White Horse of Zennor
Why the Whales Came
The Wreck of Zanzibar
For Younger Readers
Conker
Mairi’s Mermaid
The Best Christmas Present in the World
CONTENTS
CONKER
THE MARBLE CRUSHER
CHAPTER ONE
ALBERT WAS TEN YEARS OLD. HE WAS A quiet, gentle sort of a boy with a thatch of stiff hair that he twiddled when he was nervous.
He had moved to town from the countryside. ‘We have to go where the work is,’ his mother had told him, and there was work in the town.
So Albert came from his little village school to a new school, a school which was noisy and full of strange faces. The other children called him Bert, or Herbert, neither of which was his name. They kept asking him questions and they wouldn’t leave him alone.
There was somewhere to get away from it all, behind the bike shed in the playground, but never for long. By the end of each day Albert felt like a sponge squeezed dry. He smiled so much that it hurt. He tried to laugh at everyone’s jokes, and he believed everything they told him. He was naturally a trusting child, and now, in the first weeks of his new school, he wanted to please everyone, to make friends.
They teased Albert of course, and he was easy enough to tease, but Albert just smiled through it all. They called him ‘Twiddler!’ and Albert smiled and went on twiddling his hair. He did not seem to mind.
It was Sid Creedy who discovered that Albert would believe almost anything he told him. They were playing football in the playground in break when Sid turned to his friends and said, ‘Watch this.’ He dribbled the ball over towards Albert, and his friends followed him.
‘My dad,’ said Sid, ‘he played centre-forward for Liverpool. Did for years. Then they asked him to play for England, but he didn’t want to – he didn’t like the colour of the shirt.’
CHAPTER TWO
THAT EVENING ALBERT TOLD HIS MOTHER all about Sid Creedy’s father, but his mother wasn’t listening, she was too busy washing up.
Encouraged by his success, Sid Creedy’s stories became more and more fantastic. ‘You know Mr Cooper, Bert?’
‘You mean the PE master?’
‘Yes, that’s him.’ Sid spoke in a confidential whisper, his arm around Albert’s shoulder. ‘Well, Bert, no one else knows this, but Mr Cooper isn’t really a teacher at all – he’s an escaped monk.’
‘How do you know that, Sid?’ said Albert.
‘You look at his head,’ said Sid. ‘It’s all bald in the middle isn’t it? You know, like Friar Tuck. Anyway I found his brown cloak in the boot of his car. He always wears sandals, and he never swears. And haven’t you noticed he sings louder than anyone else in Assembly?’
‘But why did he escape?’ said Albert.
Sid shrugged his shoulders. ‘Didn’t like the food,’ he said.
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