Free Out of the Ashes by Michael Morpurgo Page B

and he knows them all by name – so do I. He names them all after flowers: Marigold, Tulip, Rose, Celandine. The boss cow is called Primrose. Primrose is always the first into
the milking parlour, the first through every gate. She’s got dreamy eyes and great curved horns. Dad loves her a lot – he’s always slipping her sneaky peppermints.
    In his dairy Dad makes the best cheese in the entire world – that’s what he says and he’s right. Double Gloucester, and it’s the only Double Gloucester cheese made from
Gloucester cows in the whole country. He’s very proud of his cheese, very proud of his cows, and so am I. He’s always in his dairy checking on his cheeses in the cheese store.
Don’t know why. Sometimes I think he just likes being with them.
    But it’s Hector Dad loves best, our old Gloucester bull. He was born on the farm twelve years ago, and he’s so gentle you can lead him around with your little finger. Dad used to put
me on his back when I was little – I’ve got a photo of it in my album.
    Then we’ve got pigs – all ‘J’s, Jessica, Jemima and Jezebel. Black and white Gloucester Old Spots. There’s three families at the moment, all different sizes of
piglets and all very cute – except when they get into the garden and start digging up the lawn with their snouts. Just a couple of days ago Mum saw them out of the window at breakfast and
went chasing after them with a broom. She was in her dressing gown and wellies. Dad nearly killed himself laughing and so did I.

    Today I heard Mr Bailey’s first lambs bleating from across the river. We haven’t started lambing just yet. That’ll be in a couple of weeks’ time. Dad wins prizes for his
sheep – some Cotswolds, some Suffolks. We’ve got about a hundred and fifty in all. Like he does every year, he’s picked me out three sheep of my own, my own flock – all
Suffolks because he says they lamb easier. From now on I’ve got to look after them, and this year for the first time I’ve got to lamb them by myself when the time comes. I wrote out
twenty names beginning with ‘M’ and chose the best three – Molly, Mary and May. Molly’s the pushy one, and my favourite already.
    I went back to school last week, last Monday. The heating broke down so we all froze. It was good seeing Jay and the others again, but I always find school strange at first. I’ll get used
to it. I always do. At the end of last term there were Christmas decorations up everywhere. Without them the school looks bare and empty, like the trees outside my window. They look like
skele­tons in winter. I’m fed up with this winter. It rains every day, which means the river’s flooded and I can’t cross over and go riding up in Mr Bailey’s woods, and
there’s mud everywhere too. Ruby hates mud, and so do I. We agree on every­thing, Ruby and me.
    Mrs Kennedy’s away having her baby, so we’ve got a new English teacher, Mrs Merton. She told us all about herself. She’s thirty-five, married with two children and grew up on a
farm like me, and she smiles a lot. I like teachers who smile.

 
Saturday, January 20th
    Ruby’s gone lame, and I’m sure it’s because of all the mud. I’ve been leaving her out too long, because she hates being stuck in her stable all the
time. Anyway, now she’ll have to stay in, whether she likes it or not. The vet said so. ‘Young MacDonald,’ Dad calls him. (He’s really good-looking, like Brad Pitt, and he
wears an Australian hat.) So I call him Brad – when I’m thinking about him, which I do, often. He gave Ruby an injection and told me it wasn’t my fault, but he was only saying
that. It was my fault, I know it was. He took a look at my sheep in the shippen and told me they could be lambing any day now. He thought Molly might possibly be having twins. She is so big,
so wide. ‘Fine looking animals,’ he said. ‘I like to see well-kept stock, and there’s no farmer round here that looks after his