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
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
Copyright
Also by Michael Morpurgo
About the Publisher
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.
Occasionally Snug wandered off into the barns and fields looking for a friendly she-cat. This must have taken a long time, because he disappeared sometimes for twenty-four hours or so – but never longer, except once.
Mum and Dad were home and Snug was late coming in. We’d had our bath and were sitting watching telly – Tom and Jerry, I think it was, because we always went to bed after that. There was a yowl outside the kitchen door, more like a dog in pain than a cat. Linda disappeared into the kitchen and I followed – I’d seen the Tom and Jerry before anyway. Linda opened the door and Snug came in, worming his way against the doorway. His head was hanging and his tail, which he usually held up straight, was drooping. One ear was covered in blood and there was a great scratch across his face. He’d been in a fight and he was badly hurt.
Linda picked him up gently and put him in his basket. ‘Get the TCP and some water … quick!’ she said.