butterfly lion insides

THE BUTTERFLY LION

“The Butterfly Lion tells of loneliness and lovein a way that is wholly appropriate for youngreaders.”

Julia Eccleshare, chair of adult judging panel,Smarties Prize 1996

“A magical, mysterious story with the powerto draw readers back again and again.”

Jenny Morris, adult judging panel,Smarties Prize 1996

“This beautiful story of love and war haseverything – even a great twist.”

Young Telegraph

“This sensitive, highly visual story deservesto be recognized as a masterpiece.”

Junior Education

“The most beautifully crafted story I’ve readfor a long time.”

Wendy Cooling, Treasure Islands, BBC Radio 4

“Morpurgo writes with a fine mixture ofclarity, depth and feeling.”

Sunday Times

butterfly lion insides 12/11/08 14:23

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 1996

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HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is:www.harpercollinschildrensbooks.co.uk

Copyright © Michael Morpurgo 1996Illustrations copyright © Christian Birmingham 1996

ISBN-13 978 0 00 675103 8ISBN-10 0 00 675103 2

The author and illustrator assert the moral right to beidentified as the author and illustrator of this work.

A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.

Set in Palatino 14/21pt

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Illustrated by

CHRISTIAN BIRMINGHAM


For Virginia McKenna


THE BUTTERFLY LION

The Butterfly Lion grew from several magical roots:

the memories of a small boy who tried to run away

from school a long time ago; a book about a pride

of white lions discovered by Chris McBride; a

chance meeting in a lift with Virginia McKenna,

actress and champion of lions and all creatures born

free; a true story of a soldier of the First World War

who rescued some circus animals in France from

certain death; and the sighting from a train of a

white horse carved out on a chalky hillside near

Westbury in Wiltshire.

To Chris McBride, to Virginia McKenna and to

Gina Pollinger – many, many thanks. And to you

the reader – enjoy it!

MICHAEL MORPURGO

February 1996


Chilblains and Semolina Pudding

Butterflies live only short lives. Theyflower and flutter for just a few

glorious weeks, and then they die. To seethem, you have to be in the right place atthe right time. And that’s how it waswhen I saw the butterfly lion – Ihappened to be in just the right place, atjust the right time. I didn’t dream him. Ididn’t dream any of it. I saw him, blueand shimmering in the sun, one afternoonin June when I was young. A long timeago. But I don’t forget. I mustn’t forget. Ipromised them I wouldn’t.

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I was ten, and away at boarding schoolin deepest Wiltshire. I was far from homeand I didn’t want to be. It was a diet ofLatin and stew and rugby and detentionsand cross-country runs and chilblainsand marks and squeaky beds andsemolina pudding. And then there wasBasher Beaumont who terrorised andtormented me, so that I lived everywaking moment of my life in dread ofhim. I had often thought of runningaway, but only once ever plucked up thecourage to do it.

I was homesick after a letter from mymother. Basher Beaumont had corneredme in the bootroom and smeared blackshoe-polish in my hair. I had done badlyin a spelling test, and Mr Carter hadstood me in the corner with a book on myhead all through the lesson – hisfavourite torture. I was more miserablethan I had ever been before. I picked at

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the plaster in the wall, and determinedthere and then that I would run away.

I took off the next Sunday afternoon.With any luck I wouldn’t be missed tillsupper, and by that time I’d be home,home and free. I climbed the fence at thebottom of the school park, behind the treeswhere I couldn’t be seen. Then I ran for it.I ran as if bloodhounds were after me, notstopping till I was through InnocentsBreach and out onto the road beyond. Ihad my escape all planned. I would walkto the station – it was only five miles or so– and catch the train to London. Then I’dtake the underground home. I’d just walkin and tell them that I was never, evergoing back.

There wasn’t much traffic, but all thesame I turned up the collar of my raincoatso that no one could catch a glimpse of myuniform. It was beginning to rain now,those heavy hard drops that mean there’s

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more ofthe same on

the way. I crossedthe road, and ran

along the widegrass verge under

the shelter of thetrees. Beyond the grass

verge was a high brickwall, much of it covered

in ivy. It stretched away intothe distance, continuous as far

as the eye could see, except for a massivearched gateway at the bend of the road. Agreat stone lion bestrode the gateway. As I came closer I could see he was roaring inthe rain, his lip curled, his teeth bared.

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I stopped and stared up at him for amoment. That was when I heard a carslowing down behind me. I did not thinktwice. I pushed open the iron gate, dartedthrough, and flattened myself behind thestone pillar. I watched the car until itdisappeared round the bend.

To be caught would mean a caning,four strokes, maybe six, across the back ofthe knees. Worse, I would be back atschool, back to detentions, back to BasherBeaumont. To go along the road wasdangerous, too dangerous. I would try tocut across country to the station. It wouldbe longer that way, but far safer.


Strange Meeting

Iwas still deciding which direction totake when I heard a voice from behind

me.“Who are you? What do you want?”I turned.“Who are you?” she asked again. The

old lady who stood before me was nobigger than I was. She scrutinised mefrom under the shadow of her drippingstraw hat. She had piercing dark eyes thatI did not want to look into.

“I didn’t think it would rain,” she said,her voice gentler. “Lost, are you?”

I said nothing. She had a dog on a leashat her side, a big dog. There was an

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ominous growl in his throat, and hishackles were up all along his back.

She smiled. “The dog says you’re onprivate property,” she went on, pointingher stick at me accusingly. She edged asidemy raincoat with the end of her stick.“Run away from that school, did you?Well, if it’s anything like it used to be, Ican’t say I blame you. But we can’t juststand here in the rain, can we? You’dbetter come inside. We’ll give him sometea, shall we, Jack? Don’t you worry aboutJack. He’s all bark and no bite.” Looking at Jack, I found that hard to believe.

I don’t know why, but I never for onemoment thought of running off. I oftenwondered later why I went with her soreadily. I think it was because she expectedme to, willed me to somehow. I followedthe old lady and her dog up to the house,which was huge, as huge as my school. Itlooked as if it had grown out of the ground.

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There was hardly a brick or a stone or atile to be seen. The entire building wassmothered in red creeper, and there werea dozen ivy-clad chimneys sproutingskywards from the roof.

We sat down close to the stove in a vastvaulted kitchen. “The kitchen’s always thewarmest place,” she said, opening the ovendoor. “We’ll have you dry in no time.Scones?” she went on, bending down withsome difficulty and reaching inside. “Ialways have scones on a Sunday. And tea towash it down. All right for you?” She wenton chatting away as she busied herself with the kettle and the teapot. The dog eyedme all the while from his basket, unblinking.“I was just thinking,” she said. “You’ll be thefirst young man I’ve had inside this housesince Bertie.” She was silent for a while.

The smell of the scones wafted throughthe kitchen. I ate three before I even touchedmy tea. They were sweet and crumbly,

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and succulent with melting butter. Shetalked on merrily again, to me, to the dog – I wasn’t sure which. I wasn’t reallylistening. I was looking out of thewindow behind her. The sun was burstingthrough the clouds and lighting thehillside. A perfect rainbow archedthrough the sky. But miraculous though itwas, it wasn’t the rainbow that fascinatedme. Somehow, the clouds were casting astrange shadow over the hillside, a

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shadow the shape of a lion, roaring likethe one over the archway.

“Sun’s come out,” said the old lady,offering me another scone. I took iteagerly. “Always does, you know. It maybe difficult to remember sometimes, butthere’s always sun behind the clouds, andthe clouds do go in the end. Honestly.”

She watched me eat, a smile on her facethat warmed me to the bone.

“Don’t think I want you to go, becauseI don’t. Nice to see a boy eat so well, niceto have the company; but all the same, I’d better get you back to school afteryou’ve had your tea, hadn’t I? You’ll onlybe in trouble otherwise. Mustn’t run off,you know. You’ve got to stick it out, seethings through, do what’s got to be done,no matter what.” She was looking out ofthe window as she spoke. “My Bertietaught me that, bless him, or maybe Itaught him. I can’t remember now.” And

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she went on talking and talking, but mymind was elsewhere again.

The lion on the hillside was still there,but now he was blue and shimmering inthe sunlight. It was as if he werebreathing, as if he were alive. It wasn’t ashadow any more. No shadow is blue.“No, you’re not seeing things,” the oldlady whispered. “It’s not magic. He’s realenough. He’s our lion, Bertie’s and mine.He’s our butterfly lion.”

“What d’you mean?” I asked.


She looked at me long and hard. “I’lltell you if you like,” she said. “Would youlike to know? Would you really like toknow?”

I nodded.“Have another scone first and another

cup of tea. Then I’ll take you to Africawhere our lion came from, where myBertie came from too. Bit of a story, I cantell you. You ever been to Africa?”

“No,” I replied.“Well, you’re going,” she said. “We’re

both going.”Suddenly I wasn’t hungry any more.

All I wanted now was to hear her story.She sat back in her chair, gazing out of the window. She told it slowly, thinkingbefore each sentence; and all the while she never took her eyes off the butterflylion. And neither did I.


Timbavati

Bertie was born in South Africa, in aremote farmhouse near a place called

Timbavati. It was shortly after Bertie firststarted to walk that his mother and fatherdecided a fence must be put around thefarmhouse to make a compound whereBertie could play in safety. It wouldn’t keepthe snakes out – nothing could do that –but at least Bertie would be safe now fromthe leopards, and the lions and the spottedhyenas. Enclosed within the compoundwere the lawn and gardens at the front ofthe house, and the stables and barns at theback – all the room a child would need orwant, you might think. But not Bertie.

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The farm stretched as far as the eyecould see in all directions, twentythousand acres of veld. Bertie’s fatherfarmed cattle, but times were hard. Therains had failed too often, and many ofthe rivers and waterholes had all butdried up. With fewer wildebeest andimpala to prey on, the lions and leopardswould sneak up on the cattle wheneverthey could. So Bertie’s father was moreoften than not away from home with hismen, guarding the cattle. Every time heleft, he’d say the same thing: “Don’t youever open that gate, Bertie, you hear me?There’s lions out there, leopards,elephants, hyenas. You stay put, youhear?” Bertie would stand at the fenceand watch him ride out, and he would be left behind with his mother, who wasalso his teacher. There were no schoolsfor a hundred miles. And his mother toowas always warning him to stay inside

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the fence. “Look what happened in Peter

and the Wolf,” she would say.His mother was often sick with malaria,

and even when she wasn’t sick she wouldbe listless and sad. There were good days,days when she would play the piano for him and play hide-and-seek aroundthe compound. Or he’d sit on her lap onthe sofa out on the veranda and she’d justtalk and talk, all about her home inEngland, about how much she hated thewildness and the loneliness of Africa, andabout how Bertie was everything to her.


But they were rare days. Every morninghe’d climb into her bed and snuggle up toher, hoping against hope that today she’dbe well and happy; but so often shewasn’t, and Bertie would be left on hisown again, to his own devices.

There was a waterhole downhill fromthe farmhouse, and some distance away.That waterhole, when there was water init, became Bertie’s whole world. He wouldspend hours in the dusty compound, hishands gripping the fence, looking out atthe wonders of the veld, at the giraffes


drinking, spread-legged, at the waterhole;at the browsing impala, tails twitching,alert; at the warthogs snorting andsnuffling under the shade of the shingayitrees; at the baboons, the zebras, thewildebeests, and the elephants bathing inthe mud. But the moment Bertie alwayslonged for was when a pride of lions camepadding out of the veld. The impala werethe first to spring away, then the zebrawould panic and gallop off. Within secondsthe lions would have the waterhole tothemselves, and they would crouch todrink.

From the safe haven of the compoundBertie looked and learned as he grew up.By now, he could climb the tree by thefarmhouse, and sit high in its branches. Hecould see better from up there. He wouldwait for his lions for hours on end. He gotto know the life of the waterhole so wellthat he could feel the lions were out there,

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even before he saw them.Bertie had no friends to play with, but

he always said he was never lonely as achild. At night he loved reading his booksand losing himself in the stories, and byday his heart was out in the veld with theanimals. That was where he yearned tobe. Whenever his mother was wellenough, he would beg her to take himoutside the compound, but her answerwas always the same.

“I can’t, Bertie. Your father has forbiddenit,” she’d say. And that was that.

The men would come home with theirstories of the veld, of the family of cheetahssitting like sentinels on their kopje, of theleopard they had spotted high in his treelarder watching over his kill, of the hyenasthey had driven off, of the herd of elephantswhich had stampeded the cattle. And Bertiewould listen wide-eyed, agog. Again andagain he asked his father if he could go

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with him to help guard the cattle. His fatherjust laughed, patted his head, and said itwas man’s work. He did teach Bertie howto ride, and how to shoot too, but alwayswithin the confines of the compound.

Week in, week out, Bertie had to staybehind his fence. He made up his mindthough, that if no one would take him outinto the veld, then one day he would go byhimself. But something always held himback. Perhaps it was one of those tales he’dbeen told of black mamba snakes whosebite would kill you within ten minutes, ofhyenas whose jaws would crunch you tobits, of vultures who would finish offanything that was left so that no onewould ever find even the bits. For the timebeing he stayed behind the fence. But themore he grew up, the more his compoundbecame a prison to him.

One evening – Bertie must have beenabout six years old by now – he was sitting

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high up in the branches of his tree, hopingagainst hope the lions might come downfor their sunset drink as they often did. Hewas thinking of giving up, for it wouldsoon be too dark to see much now, whenhe saw a solitary lioness come down to thewaterhole. Then he saw that she was notalone. Behind her, and on unsteady legs,came what looked like a lion cub – but itwas white, glowing white in the gatheringgloom of dusk.


While the lioness drank, the cubplayed at catching her tail; and then,when she had had her fill, the two ofthem slipped away into the long grass

and were gone.Bertie ran inside, screaming with

excitement. He had to tell someone,anyone. He found his father working athis desk.

“Impossible,” said his father. “You’reseeing things that aren’t there, or you’re

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telling fibs – one of the two.”“I saw him. I promise,” Bertie insisted.

But his father would have none of it, andsent him to his room for arguing.

His mother came to see him later.“Anyone can make a mistake, Bertie dear,”she said. “It must have been the sunset. Itplays tricks with your eyes sometimes.There’s no such thing as a white lion.”

The next evening Bertie watched againat the fence, but the white lion cub andthe lioness did not come, nor did they thenext evening, nor the next. Bertie began tothink he must have been dreaming it.

A week or more passed, and there hadbeen only a few zebras and wildebeestdown at the waterhole. Bertie was alreadyupstairs in his bed when he heard hisfather riding into the compound, and thenthe stamp of his heavy boots on theveranda.

“We got her! We got her!” he was

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saying. “Huge lioness, massive she was.She’s taken half a dozen of my best cattlein the last two weeks. Well, she won’t betaking any more.”

Bertie’s heart stopped. In that oneterrible moment he knew which lionesshis father was talking about. There couldbe no doubt about it. His white lion cubhad been orphaned.

“But what if,” Bertie’s mother wassaying, “what if she had young ones tofeed? Perhaps they were starving.”

“So would we be if we let it go on. Wehad to shoot her,” his father retorted.

Bertie lay there all night listening to the plaintive roaring echoing through theveld, as if every lion in Africa wassounding a lament. He turned his faceinto his pillow and could think of nothingbut the orphaned white cub, and hepromised himself there and then that ifever the cub came down to the waterhole

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looking for his dead mother, then hewould do what he had never dared to do,he would open the gate and go out andbring him home. He would not let himdie out there all alone. But no lion cubcame to his waterhole. All day, every day,he waited for him to come, but he nevercame.


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