Free Little Foxes by Michael Morpurgo Page A

managed to tip it and fill the lid for the fox who lapped it eagerly, licking it clean before looking up at Billy for more. Billy obliged once again, but in his hurry he tipped the churn just too much this time. Suddenly the churn was leaning too far over and his numb fingers could no longer hold it. The crash and the clatter as it hit the ground echoed down the valley and the churn was thundering down the farm track leaving a great white trail of milk behind it. Billy did not have to tell the fox to run, he was gone already under the gate and it was all Billy could do to catch him and retrieve his lead. The fields round about were too open. They would be spotted, so he pulled the fox down into a field ditch and waited.
    Billy peered out through the long grass and could just see the farmer and his wife running up the track. She was stamping her foot with fury. ‘I’ve told you times, Albert, times I’ve told you. That stand is too small, I said. Only built for ten churns and you’ve tried to squeeze fourteen on there. Well, what do you expect?’
    ‘I can’t understand it,’ said the farmer, who had retrieved the rolling churn. ‘Can’t understand it at all.’
    ‘I’ve told you, and I’ve told you,’ said the farmer’s wife. ‘How many times do I have to tell you before you’ll listen?’
    ‘I know dear, I know. But . . . no, I won’t say it . . . You’ll only be cross if I do.’
    ‘No I won’t,’ she said. ‘Look at this milk. It’s good money wasted, Albert. Makes me cry to look at it.’
    ‘Well if you’re sure you won’t be cross, then dear, I was going to say that there’s no point in crying over spilt milk.’ And she laughed despite herself, chasing the farmer back through the lane, splashing through the elongating puddle of milk as she ran. In his ditch Billy laughed too, laughed till he was weak. The fox looked up at him amazed, but that only made Billy laugh longer and louder.
    From the ditch Billy could see a four-bay Dutch barn stacked high with hay, some distance from the farmhouse. The barn, he thought, would be as good a place to sleep that day if they could climb up into it. The barn was only three bays full, and there was a hay elevator standing in the fourth bay. Billy did not like heights but it was getting lighter all the time and there was nowhere else to hide up, so he tucked the fox under his arm and began to climb up. The elevator wobbled dangerously, but he clung on and kept climbing until he reached the top, where he crawled away into the middle of the stack and lay down, exhausted. The corrugated roof was so close above his head he could reach up and touch it. The fox stole about the haystack peering nervously over the edge and then backing away. He seemed interested in exploring, but Billy called him back, and he came willingly enough and lay down beside him and joined him in a deep and untroubled sleep. Neither the prickly hay nor the heavy heat of the haystack disturbed them. Billy was almost roused once by what sounded like a sudden gust of strong wind passing overhead, but it came only as an intermission between dreams and did not wake him.
    Voices woke them that evening, voices that Billy recognised at once as the farmer and his wife. ‘Got to get it in tonight,’ she said. ‘They speak of rain before morning.’
    ‘They always speak of rain, dear,’ he said. ‘It’s their job to be gloomy. I’d be happier to leave it till tomorrow and risk it. ’S a bit green that hay, you know. Could do with the sun on it for another day at least I’d say. Don’t like to stack hay too green – seen too many of these barn fires in my time. That’s what happens if you bring it in too green.’ But when she mentioned something about wasted milk and rickety milk stands it was clearly sufficient to change his mind, for the trailer came rocking back and forth all evening, high with its load of hay.
    Billy watched anxiously as the hay in the fourth bay began to pile ever