RED RIBBON WINNER WISHING SHELF BOOK AWARDS 2016 (Judged by school children and teachers in six UK primary schools!)
When Walter Brown is woken on his 10th birthday by his cat Sixpence he has no idea that his life is about to change forever. A lar...
As dawn broke on the morning of Walter Brown's tenth birthday he hadn't the faintest idea that his life was about to change forever. Like most other boys his age he was still fast asleep in bed.
The wall beside him was covered with posters showing distant galaxies and planets, the sun, the moon and, of course, Earth. On the opposite wall hung a poster of his favourite football team, Southbridge Wanderers, and a team photo from his local soccer club. Walter, meanwhile, lay flat on his back underneath his duvet, only his gentle breathing stirring the still morning air.
Despite appearances, astronomy and football were the furthest thing from Walter's mind at this precise moment. So for that matter was his tenth birthday. Walter was far too busy dreaming his favourite dream – the one where he was in the circus ring with Great Grandpa Horace, helping him perform magic.
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As ever, the benches all around brimmed with row upon row of smiling faces disappearing high into the shadows of the Big Top. As always, the smiling faces were all screaming and shouting, 'More, Grandpa Horace! More!' And now, as in every dream, Great Grandpa Horace turned slowly to Walter in his black top hat and gave him a friendly wink. 'Let's do the last trick again shall we, Walter?' The audience cheered as Walter gave a broad grin, picked up a silver-tipped wand from the table in front of him and passed it into his Great Grandpa's tiny white-gloved hands.
In fact, Walter had never met Great Grandpa Horace. He had died when Walter was a baby. But his mum had an old box full of newspaper cuttings, and black and white photographs taken during the 50 years he had spent travelling around Europe with the circus. His tricks were so unusual they made headline news in every city he visited – like the time he turned a horse into a snake, or when he managed to magic sweets into the hands of all the children in the audience, and another time when he made someone's dad vanish and reappear on the other side of the Big Top. The newspapers said they'd heard that even the Magic Circle couldn't explain how he did it but, being very secretive (and probably a bit jealous), they would never comment.
At the age of five Walter announced he wanted to be a magician. And though astronomy and football had since taken over, his fascination with magic had never quite left him.
Had Walter been awake just now, he might have wondered why his dream had returned so vividly this particular morning. But, of course, he wasn't and so he dreamed on – for a short while at least.
A clock downstairs chimed once. Moments later Walter's door creaked open, shedding a beam of light from the hallway across the floor and onto his bed. A tall, fluffy, black tail passed silently through the doorway. The owner of the proud tail, which now glided serenely across the room towards Walter's bed, was Walter's cat, Sixpence.
The creak of the door and the shaft of light had already begun to stir Walter. When Sixpence jumped onto his bed Walter turned over and groaned as small lumpy paws padded over his legs, across his ribs and up towards his head. The loud purring in his ear was the final straw!
