Best Mates

Best Mates
Michael Morpurgo

A collection of six magical and heart-warming animal stories, specially for World Book Day, by the nation’s favourite storyteller.From the author who brought you Joey the War Horse, Shadow the dog and Kaspar the cat comes a pocket-sized collection of perfect animal stories – proving that it’s not just dogs that are man’s best friends…Taken from the length of Michael Morpurgo’s career, the tales in this charming book will delight any child who loves animals … or stories! Readers will return to the best mates in this little book again and again.From dogs to cats, and from horses to dolphins and whales, it’s all here in this timeless treasury.Contains the stories:• The Silver Swan• It’s a Dog’s Life• Snug• Didn’t We Have a Lovely Time?• Dolphin Boy• This Morning I Met a Whale

Copyright (#u34d922ff-059b-5d5d-a1cb-8bdc53c1a911)

This collection first published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2015

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

1 London Bridge Street

London, SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

Snug, text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 1974, first published in the collection

It Never Rained in 1974 by Macmillan

The Silver Swan, text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2000, first published in 2000

by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House

It’s A Dog’s Life, text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2001, first published in 2001

by Egmont UK limited

Didn’t We Have A Lovely Time? text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2010,

first published in 2010 in Country Life

Dolphin Boy, text copyright © Michael Morpurgo, first published in 2004

by Anderson Press Ltd

This Morning I Met A Whale, text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2008,

first published in 2008 by Walker Books Ltd

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Michael Morpurgo asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

Source ISBN: 9780008118570

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008135010

Version: 2015-02-04

Contents

Cover (#u78cbfc52-5197-5deb-8102-b232a97a7e01)

Title Page (#u686a41fd-5925-5403-aa93-3f3014e99b1c)

Copyright

Snug

The Silver Swan

It’s a Dog’s Life

Didn’t We Have a Lovely Time?

Dolphin Boy

This Morning I Met a Whale

Also by Michael Morpurgo

About the Publisher

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Snug was Linda’s cat. No one ever actually gave Linda the cat, they just grew up together. I don’t really remember Linda being born, but apparently Snug turned up a few weeks earlier than she did. Dad found him wandering about, crying and mewing after a cat shoot in the barns – they shot them once in a while because they breed so fast. He found Snug crying round the calf pens. His mother must have been killed, or maybe she had run off.

Anyway, Dad picked him up and brought him home. He was so young that his eyes weren’t open yet and Mum had to feed him warm milk with an eye dropper.

By the time Linda was born, Snug was a healthy kitten. Linda used to cry a lot – it’s the first thing I remember about her – come to think of it, she still howls more than she should. Snug took to curling up underneath her cot when she was indoors, and by her pram if she was sleeping outside.

I first remember noticing that Linda and Snug went together when Linda was learning to walk. She was staggering about the kitchen doing a record-breaking run from the sink to the kitchen table, all five feet of it, when Snug sidled up to her and gently nudged her off balance into the dog bowl, which was full of water. We all fell about laughing while Linda sat there howling.

He adored Linda and followed her everywhere. He’d even go for walks with her, provided she left the dog at home. Linda used to bury her face in his fur and kiss him as if he was a doll, but he loved it and stretched himself out on his back waiting for his tummy to be tickled. Then he’d purr like a lion and shoot his claws in and out in blissful happiness.

Snug grew into a huge cat. I suppose you would call him a tabby cat, grey and dusty-white merging stripes with a tinge of ginger on his soft belly. He had great pointed ears, which he flicked and twitched even when he was asleep.

He came in every evening for his food, but he never really needed it, or if he did he certainly never showed it. He didn’t often get into fights, and when he did, they hardly ever left a mark – he was either a coward or a champion.

He’d come in in the morning, after a night’s hunting, full of mice and moles and voles, and lie down on Linda’s bed, and purr himself to sleep, waking just in time for his evening meal, which Linda served him at five o’clock.

No one ever got angry with Snug and everyone who came to the house would admire him stalking through the long grass, or sunbathing by the vegetable patch, and Linda would preen herself whenever he was mentioned.

Linda could never understand why Snug killed birds. In the early summer he used to tease to death two or three baby thrushes or blackbirds a day. Linda very nearly went off him at this time every year. Only last summer he found a robin’s nest at the bottom of a hedge – he’d been attracted by the cheeps. By the time we got there, he’d scooped out three baby robins and there were several speckled eggs lying broken and scattered. Linda didn’t speak to him for a week, and I had to feed him. But they made it up, they always did.