Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Miya’s New-Fangled Machine
The Last Wishes of Robbie Mcleod
Resting in Peace
Author’s Note
About the Author
Also by Michael Morpurgo
Copyright
About the Book
When Robbie McLeod finds an orphaned wolf cub and vows to take care of him, it is the beginning of an adventure that sweeps boy and beast from the Highlands to the high seas and beyond.
Award-winning author Michael Morpurgo creates a spellbinding story of bravery and loyalty, brought vividly to life by Michael Foreman’s stunning illustrations.
About the Author
Michael Morpurgo is one of Britain’s best-loved writers for children and has won many prizes, including the Whitbread Prize, the Red House Children’s Book Award and the Blue Peter Book Award. From 2003 to 2005 he was the Children’s Laureate, a role which took him all over the UK to promote literacy and reading, and in 2005 he was named the Booksellers Association Author of the Year. In 2007 he was Writer in Residence at the Savoy Hotel in London.
Also by Michael Morpurgo:
Tom’s Sausage Lion
Illustrated by Michael Foreman
Black Queen
Illustrated by Tony Ross
The Silver Swan
Illustrated by Christian Birmingham
THE LAST WOLF
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 409 01229 0
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2012
Copyright © Michael Morpurgo, 2003
Illustrations copyright © Michael Foreman, 2003
First Published in Great Britain
Yearling 9780440865070 2003
The right of Michael Morpurgo to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
For Neil and Gill – MM
Miya’s New-fangled Machine
‘YOU’RE AN OSTRICH, Grandpa,’ Miya told me, sitting herself down on my bed and peeling an orange for me.
‘And why’s that then?’ I asked her.
‘Because whenever you see something you don’t like, you just bury your head in the sand and pretend it’s not there.’
It was an old argument between us, not that you’d call it an argument as such, more of a tease. But whatever it was, I knew that sooner rather than later she was going to wear me down. Miya was determined to drag me into the twenty-first century whether I liked it or not. And now she’d found the perfect opportunity.
‘You’ve got nothing else to do, Grandpa,’ she went on. ‘You’re bored out of your mind. Why not try it, at least? I’ll come in and teach you, if you like, every evening. Won’t take long. It’s easy-peasy – nothing to be frightened of.’
‘I’m not frightened,’ I replied. ‘I just don’t see the point of all these new-fangled machines, that’s all.’
‘Like I said, you’re an ostrich. Here.’ She gave me my orange. ‘Eat. It’s good for you,’ she said. ‘Listen, Grandpa, it’s brilliant, honest it is. There’s millions of different things you can do on it – e-mail, word processing, games, shopping . . .’
‘I hate shopping,’ I told her.
‘You’re a grumpy old ostrich too,’ she said, bending over to kiss me on the cheek. ‘We’ll get started tomorrow. I’ll bring over my laptop, all right? Byeee!’
And she was out of the door and gone, ignoring all my protests. She had won.
All this came about because I’d been ill – just flu at first, but then it became pneumonia. The doctor, who’s a good friend of mine as well as my doctor, wagged his finger at me, and said, ‘Now you listen to me, Michael McLeod, this is serious. You’re no spring chicken any more. You’ve got to stay in bed, and in the warm. No more gardening, no more golf, no more fishing. You’ve got to look after yourself.’ So, cooped up in my flat for weeks on end, I had become, as Miya had so rightly diagnosed, bored out of my mind.
Miya was fourteen, my eldest granddaughter and the apple of my eye. She was always popping in to cheer me up, bless her – she lives just round the corner. And she did cheer me up too, even if she did go on and on about the joys of her wretched computer. The truth was that so long as she came to see me, I didn’t mind what we did, or what she talked about. It would pass the time, and talking about computers made a welcome change from losing to her at chess – again.
The computer lessons did not start well. I just could not get my head around it all. Then, bit by bit, day by day, with Miya’s help, I began to make some sense of it; and once I’d made sense of it, I began to enjoy it – much to my surprise. A couple of weeks later Miya went off on her summer holidays, leaving me strict instructions as to how to plug in and keep in touch with her by e-mail. She told me I must promise to practise every day on the computer. I promised, and I like to keep my promises.
So, except for occasional check-up visits from my doctor friend, and from my neighbour who very kindly did all my shopping for me, I was left alone in the house with Miya’s computer. One morning, as I sat there in front of it, about to switch on, I began asking myself why I was doing this. I mean, what was this machine really for? What could it do for me? How, now I’d begun to master it, could I use it to help me through the long days of convalescence that still lay ahead of me? I needed a project, I thought. Something to occupy my mind, something I could really get my teeth into, and something this computer could help me to achieve.
I had a sudden idea. It was an old idea, one I’d had