Magnus Fin and the Moonlight Mission Read Free Page A

what’s two plus two then, tubby?” he asked, flopping down onto his belly and pulling a face at her.
    She pulled a face back, wedged as she now was between a lobster creel and a book about whales. “Twenty two?”
    “Wrong.”
    She frowned then grabbed the pillow and threw it back at him – hard. “Take that you half-selkie!”
    “And take that back, you selkie who can’t even read. Or add up!”
    “Ouch!” Aquella rubbed her shoulder where the pillow had hit her. But she was strong. She flung the pillow back, right at his head.
    “Ow! That hurt!”
    “And where’s that kittiwake’s skull anyway?” Aquella laughed. “And the feather? Bet you haven’t even got one!” By this time she had grabbed Fin’s other pillow. He held tight on to his own pillow, lifting it up like a shield.
    “Have!”
    Aquella stood up and whacked his pillow hard. “No you haven’t!”
    Then the two of them forgot about creatures under the sea and writing on rocks while the pillows exploded and white feathers flew up into the fishing net. Suddenly, in Neptune’s Cave, in that cottage down by the sea, on a dark November’s evening, it was snowing.

Chapter 4
    Magnus Fin was down at the beach at half past seven the next morning. It was that grey time between night and day when the beach and the sea and the rocks look like an old photograph. The uneasy feeling of yesterday had gone and he felt excited. He couldn’t imagine now why anyone would get upset about silly letters scratched on a rock. A pillow fight and a good night’s sleep had done wonders. He ran across the beach, kicking up sand and scattering shells, feeling bravery surge through his muscles. He disturbed a lonely heron perched on a rock in the hillside. The wide-winged creature flew off with a dry cawing cry.
    “Morning, Mr Heron,” Fin called out, flinging his arms out to copy its slow-motion flight. The heron landed on a rock and hunched himself up, then stared down at the water.
    Come on, Tark, Fin thought, looking around for his friend and hoping he’d come early. When the two of them were down at the beach together, skimming stones or messing about in rock pools, anything felt possible.
    Magnus Fin ran across the beach towards the skerries. Maybe he’d do a spot of beachcombing and find some treasures while he waited. It had been a while since the tide had brought in anything really exciting. Theold welly boot he’d found last week didn’t count. The lobster creel didn’t count either. Neither did the car tyre. They were everyday kinds of treasures. Rubbish, that’s what his mum called them but Fin wasn’t so sure. Sometimes amongst that rubbish you could find something really special – like a fork from the Titanic , or a silver heart necklace, a shark’s tooth, or bits of blue pottery or glass.
    He got down on his hands and knees and sifted through the sand for cowrie shells. They were supposed to bring good luck and he wanted to give Tarkin a present for sticking up for him yesterday. But cowrie shells, or “groatie buckies” as they were called in his village, were hard to come by. Fin found a piece of clear glass, with its sharp edges softened. This was sand glass, not blue but special all the same. Fin lifted it, brushed away the sand then peered through it.
    The familiar scene around him was suddenly magnified. He saw glassy pink streaks in the sky and a fat glassy gull wheel in the air. Then he fixed his spyglass on the rocks in the distance and gulped. Something moved amongst the rocks, something bright yellow. He pulled the glass down and stared with wide eyes over the top of it. Someone in a bright yellow jacket was bending over the rock pools in the skerries. A winkle picker.
    Winkle pickers always gave Magnus Fin a fright. Mostly he had the beach to himself. Even in the summer few tourists made it to this tucked-away stone and sand beach in the far north of Scotland. And most of the dog walkers in the village preferred to throw balls