Whispers in the Dark Read online

  Read more in Puffin by Ruskin Bond

  Panther’s Moon and Other Stories

  ‘He heard something scratching at the door, and the hair on his head felt tight and prickly. It was like a cat scratching, only louder. The door creaked a little whenever it felt the impact of the paw . . . “It’s the panther,” Bisnu muttered under his breath, sitting up on the hard floor.’

  Ten unforgettable tales of fascinating human encounters with animals and birds—of a man-eater that terrorizes an entire village; a strange and wonderful trust that develops between a fierce leopard and a boy; revengeful monkeys who never forgive a woman who grows dahlias; a crow who genuinely thinks human beings are stupid, and many others, creating a world in which men and wild creatures struggle to survive despite each other—a world where, in the end, one is not quite sure which side one is on.

  Ruskin Bond, the author of the popular Angry River and Flames in the Forest, once again gives a marvellous collection of stories that enchant, amuse and delight.

  Read more in Puffin by Ruskin Bond

  Escape from Java and Other Tales of Danger

  Join intrepid heroes and dauntless heroines in their quest for survival against earthquakes, fire, floods and bombs!

  Live life on the edge with five stories of danger and adventure. Flee with Romi as he rides his cycle straight into the river to escape a fearsome forest fire; listen in to Ruth’s hair-raising story of escape from rioting sepoys during the uprising of 1857; read about the author’s miraculous flight from Java as Japanese planes bombard the city; witness the havoc wreaked by the deadliest earthquake ever in Rakesh’s town, Shillong; and watch Sita combat a fatal flood that threatens to engulf her.

  Thrilling plots, daring protagonists, explosive exploits—this book has it all! Written in Ruskin Bond’s inimitable style, with doses of humour and excitement, these extraordinary stories are simply unputdownable.

  THE BEGINNING

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  PUFFIN BOOKS

  UK | Canada | Ireland | Australia

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  Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  This collection published 2016

  Copyright © Ruskin Bond, 2016

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Jacket images © Devangana Dash

  ISBN: 978-0-143-33359-3

  This digital edition published in 2016.

  e-ISBN: 978-9-386-05796-9

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.