Sparrow: The Story of Joan of Arc. Michael Morpurgo

      

      Copyright

      HarperCollins Children’s Books

      A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

       1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published as Joan of Arc in Great Britain in paperback by Pavilion Books,

       London House, Great Eastern Wharf, London SW11 4NQ in 1998

       Published in 2001 by Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hodder Headline

       Limited, 338 Euston Road, London, NW1 3BH

       This edition published as Sparrow – the story of Joan of Arc by HarperCollins

       Children’s Books in 2012

      SPARROW. Copyright © Michael Morpurgo 1998.

      Michael Morpurgo asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      SOURCE ISBN: 9780007465958

      Ebook Edition © MARCH 2012 ISBN: 9780007465965

      Version: 2017-11-02

      Dedication

      For Christine Baker

      Contents

       Cover

      Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Chapter 1: One Joan a Year

      Chapter 2: Voices in the Garden

      Chapter 3: For France

      Chapter 4: What is it About that Girl?

      Chapter 5: We Need a Miracle

      Chapter 6: Go Godoms, in God’s Name, Go!

      Chapter 7: Joan the Miraculous, Joan the Invincible

      Chapter 8: Alone in the Wilderness

      Chapter 9: Trial and Tribulation

      Chapter 10: Where Shall I be Tonight?

      Chapter 11: The Sparrow and the Saint

      Author’s Note

       Keep Reading

      Author’s Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Other Books by Michael Morpurgo

      About the Publisher

      

      To begin with it was the picture. It was the picture that made it all happen – I am quite sure of it.

      In the house where I grew up, in our old house in Montpellier, the picture always hung at the top of the stairs. Every time I went up to bed at night, there she’d be – Joan of Arc in her shining armour, holding her standard, with a shaft of light falling across her uplifted face. I would often gaze up at her and yearn to be serene and strong, just as she was. I wanted to have the same visionary, faraway look in my eyes, and the same hairstyle too.

      But I learned very early on that my father did not share my enthusiasm. He disliked the picture intensely, about as intensely as my mother loved it. Apparently it had hung in her house when she was a child. But I didn’t like it just because my mother did. I had my own reasons, reasons I always kept to myself – until now.

      My name is Eloise Hardy. I was seventeen last May. Something extraordinary has just happened to me, something so extraordinary that I feel I have to write it down. I want to remember all of it as it really happened, every moment of it, every word of it. Maybe, in the remembering of it, in the writing of it, I will begin to understand it better. I hope so.

      One of my very earliest memories is of me standing in front of the full-length mirror in my mother’s bedroom, a red tablecloth over my shoulders for a cloak, a broom with a towel tied to it for my standard. I would contrive to strike my saintliest pose. I once wrote out every adjective I could think of that described her perfectly: noble, honest, kind, brave, and a few others besides. I made a resolution to be all those things for the rest of my life. It lasted for about a day, I think. I read all the books I could find about her; and the more I read, the more I wanted to be her. I made a serious start in this direction when I was about ten years old. Without ever disclosing my reasons I managed to persuade my mother to let me have my hair cut en boule, just like Joan in the picture. Seven years later and it’s still cut the same way. It suited me then. It suits me now.

      Thinking back, I suppose I have always been a strange sort of girl, never quite happy being who I was, dumpier, more ordinary than everyone else around me. My face was too round, my hair too thick. At my primary school I was ‘a dreamer’, or so my teachers often said. ‘Bright as a button. Such a pity about her spelling’ ran one school report. Dyslexia was diagnosed. I didn’t mind that much. It made me different, distinctive, for a while at least. Besides, I reasoned, Joan of Arc couldn’t read and she couldn’t write either. And she managed well enough, didn’t she? I found out about all sorts of other worthy people who had done good and great and exciting things in their lives, who had changed the world – Louis Pasteur, Mother Teresa, Mongolfier, Francis of Assisi. But to me these were mere fleeting interests, no more. Joan of Arc, La Pucelle, Johanne of Domrémy, the Maid of Orléans, always remained my real mentor. And as I grew up she became my abiding soulmate.

      Just last year, when I was sixteen, I was told we would be moving house. I didn’t want to leave at all. I loved my life in Montpellier, and everything about it. I was happy where I was, with my school, with my friends. But my father, who is a plastic surgeon, had been offered a job elsewhere, a better one, which was far too good an opportunity to turn down, so he said. I protested, of course, but it was no use. The decision had been made. “And anyway,” said my mother, “at least Joan on the staircase will find a good home. It’ll be the perfect place for her.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Orléans,” my father said. “We’re moving to Orléans.”

      On my way upstairs that night I spoke to Joan, face to face, and silently. “You’ll be going back where you belong, back to Orléans, Joan, where you lifted the siege and drove the English out, where you rode triumphant through the streets, your standard fluttering over your head. We’re going to live there. I’m going to