Escape From Shangri-La: Part 1

By MICHAEL MORPURGO, Illustrator IAN ANDREW

I was kneeling up against the back of the sofa looking out of the window. Summer holidays and raining, raining steams.

'He's been there all day,' I said.

'Who has?' My mother was still doing the ironing. 'I don't know why,' she went on, 'but I love ironing. Therapeutic, restorative, satisfying. Not like teaching at all. Teaching's definitely not therapeutic.' She talked a lot about teaching, even in the holidays.

'That man. He just stands there. he just sands there staring at us.'

'It's a free world, isn't it?'

The old man was standing on the opposite side of the road outside Mrs Martin's house underneath the lamppost. Sometimes he'd be leaning up against it, and sometimes he'd be just standing there, shoulders hunched, his hands deep in his pockets. But always he'd be looking, looking right at me. He was wearing a blue donkey jacket - or perhaps it was a sailor's jacket, I couldn't tell - the collar turned up against the rain. His hair was long, long and white, and it seemed to be tied up in a ponytail behind him. he looked like some ancient Viking warlord.

Publisher: Mammoth

Price: $14.95

Age group: 10 plus years