The War of Jenkins' Ear. Michael Morpurgo

they found a slow-worm basking on a stone behind the swimming-pool hut. ‘Runcy killed one last term,’ Toby told him, ‘bashed it over the head. Said he thought it was a baby adder, but he knew it wasn’t. He just wanted to kill it, that’s all.’ Christopher crouched down, picked it up gently and let it curl around his wrist.

      ‘We’ll hide it then,’ he said. They made sure no one was around and then released it into a bank of long grass and dusty nettles, and watched it disappear. A red admiral caught Toby’s eye as it sunned itself on a bramblebush nearby.

      ‘You like blackberries?’ he said.

      They picked from the long low bushes beyond Willow Copse. They weren’t the best blackberries in the park, but Toby knew the best had already been picked clean. They were shrivelled with autumn and pippy but that mattered to neither of them. They gorged themselves until there was none left worth eating. Suddenly Christopher was coughing and laughing, his eyes watery. ‘I swallowed a fly,’ he gasped.

      ‘I don’t know why you swallowed a fly,’ Toby quipped. ‘Perhaps you’ll die.’ And he banged Christopher on the back until the coughing and spluttering subsided. They had had enough of blackberries.

      They reached the rhododendron forest at the top of Woody Hill, and Toby decided to show him his camp, long since abandoned. Toby pulled aside the branches that had grown across the opening and crawled in.

      ‘We make camps sometimes, in the summer mostly. There’s lots of them like this. We have wars.’

      ‘What for?’ Christopher asked.

      ‘Well, fun I suppose,’ Toby said. Sometimes Christopher’s questions made him feel uncomfortable. He never said what you expected him to say. Toby was standing in the middle of the camp now looking up at the canopy of rhododendron branches and leaves. It was so thick you could scarcely see the sky beyond.

      ‘There’s a nest up there,’ Toby said pointing. ‘Blackbird I think. See it?’ Christopher didn’t reply, and when Toby turned round he saw Christopher stagger and fall.

      ‘God, dear God,’ he cried, and fell forward on to his face, his arms outstretched in front of him. Toby ran to him and turned him over. Christopher was unconscious, his hair matted with earth, leaves clinging to his face. There was blood trickling from his nose. Toby brushed away the earth and leaves and shook him.

      ‘Christopher? Wake up! Wake up!’ Christopher lay still. Toby put his ear to his chest and then to his mouth. Christopher was not breathing.