Sparrow: The Story of Joan of Arc

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Michael Morpurgo. Sparrow: The Story of Joan of Arc

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Author’s Note

If you enjoyed Sparrow, check out these other great Michael Morpurgo titles

Author’s Acknowledgments

About the Author

Other Books by Michael Morpurgo include:

About the Publisher

Отрывок из книги

For Christine Baker

Title Page

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For two weeks I never once went near the river. Jaquot was abandoned. I confess I scarcely ever thought of him. I delved in the library and read as I’d never read before. Then I settled down and started to type, enlisting the spellcheck on the word processor almost constantly. There would be no mistakes. My mother kept saying I mustn’t get my hopes up too much, that after all I’d only just arrived at the school, that there were a hundred other girls all beavering away at their essays just as I was. But at the same time she was encouraging me to do my best. She’s a writer herself, a journalist, so she knew what she was talking about – in this instance.

“Write it for its own sake, for her sake, Eloise. Try to get under her skin. Try to find the girl behind the legend.” That was good advice. I knew it and I took it, but I didn’t tell her I had. I didn’t tell her either that I knew I was going to win anyway, that it was all fate, all a meant thing. She’d be sure to scoff at that. My father was scoffing quite enough already for both of them. “Lot of old flagwaving drumbeating claptrap, if you ask me. All this dressing-up and parading up and down about something that happened hundreds of years ago. Bit of fun, maybe; but you shouldn’t go taking it so seriously.”

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