CONKER
MICHAEL MORPURGO
Illustrated by
Petra Brown
EGMONT
We bring stories to life
This edition first published in Great Britain 2011
by Egmont UK Ltd
239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SA
Text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 1987
Illustrations copyright © Petra Brown 2011
The author and illustrator have asserted their moral rights.
ISBN 978 1 4052 5639 1
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Printed in Singapore.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
eISBN 978 1 7803 1171 5
Contents
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Chapter One
Most dogs have one name, but Pooch had
three – one after the other. Pooch was what
Grandma called him in the first place . But
when Nick was a toddler he couldn’t say
Pooch very well and so Pooch soon became
Pooh.
Then one day Pooh heard the rattle of the
milk bottles outside and came bounding out
of the house to say hello to the milkman – he
liked the milkman. But today it was a different
one. Pooh prowled around him sniffing at the
bottom of his trousers. The new milkman went
as white as his milk. Nick tried to drag Pooh
back into the house, but he wouldn’t come.
‘’S’like a wolf,’ said the milkman, putting his
hands on his head and backing down the path.
‘You ought to chain it up.’
‘Not a wolf,’ Nick said. ‘He’s an old station.’
‘A what?’ said the milkman.
‘An old station,’ Nick said. ‘Pooh is an old
station.’ At that moment Grandma came to
the door.
‘Nick gets his words muddled sometimes,’
she said. ‘He’s only little. I think he means an
Alsatian, don’t you, dear? Old Station! Old
Station! You are a funny boy, Nick.’ And she
laughed so much that she nearly
cried. So from that day
Pooh was called
Old Station.
There were
always just the
three of them in
the house. Nick
had lived with
Grandma for as
long as he could
remember.
She looked after Nick, and Old Station looked
after them both.
Everywhere they went Old Station went with
them. ‘Don’t know what we’d do without him,’
Grandma would say.
All his life Old Station had been like a big
brother to Nick. Nick was nine years old now.
He had watched Old Station grow old as he
grew up. The old dog moved slowly these
days, and when he got up in the morning to
go outside you could see it was a real effort.
He would spend most of the day asleep in his
basket, dreaming his dreams.
Nick watched him that morning as he ate his
cornflakes before he went off to school. It was
the last day before half-term. Old Station was
growling in his sleep as he often did and his
whiskers were twitching.
‘He’s chasing cats in his dreams,’ said Grandma.
‘Hurry up, Nick, else you’ll be late.’ She gave him
his satchel and packed lunch, and Nick called out
‘Goodbye’ to Old Station and ran off down
the road.
It was a windy
autumn morning
with the leaves
falling all around
him. Before he got
to school he caught
twenty-six