Magnus Fin and the Moonlight Mission Read Free Page B

in the park.
    Fin stayed where he was, down on his hands and knees in a patch of sand between stones, watching. He should have known. He’d noticed an old car parked up by the bridge. Winkle pickers worked at low tide and liked cold mornings. The colder the better, his father had told him. Maybe it was the winkle picker who had scratched his initials on the rocks?
    Magnus Fin had stared at winkle pickers before, sometimes for a whole hour, and they rarely noticed him. They were so focused on finding periwinkles on the rocks, pulling them off and filling their buckets that they rarely looked around. Would the seals come up to sing if the winkle picker was on the skerries?
    Just then a familiar voice called out in the distance, “Never fear – Tarkin’s here!”
    Fin glanced over his shoulder to see his friend galloping over the beach, whooping and yelling. Magnus Fin stood up, suddenly feeling much braver.
    “Over here, Tark!” he shouted, waving him over.
    The oystercatchers took off with shrill piercing cries and flew over the shallow water. Tarkin looked about him and whistled. “Hey! Brought your dad with you, Fin?”
    “No. It’s a winkle picker. He’s pulling periwinkles off the rocks. You get eighty pounds for a bag of them.”
    “Wow! You ever tasted one?”
    “Yeah, they’re really salty.”
    Tarkin wrinkled his nose, pulled a face then seemed to forget the winkle picker. He jumped onto a grey rock and scanned the horizon. “There’s the tip of the sun. Look! It’s like a muckle basketball looming out of the sea. Cool!” Tarkin had been in Scotland five monthsnow and learnt some Scottish words. Muckle was one of them, and he used it whenever he could.
    The boys laughed then scrambled over the skerries. “Race you to the black rock!” Fin shouted. “Last one’s a hairy kipper.” They both slithered and slipped over the seaweed, shouting and laughing. Still the winkle picker ignored them.
    Magnus Fin turned and shouted out, “Hello!”
    The winkle picker lifted his head for a second, looked with pale blue piercing eyes at Fin then went back to his winkles. He had a straggly beard and a thin, weather-beaten face, but maybe no tongue in his head for he didn’t return Fin’s hello. While Magnus Fin stared at the winkle picker, Tarkin took his opportunity and scrambled on past him up to the high rock.
    “Winner!” Tarkin shouted, lifting his long gangly arms high above his head. “So I guess you’re the hairy kipper.”
    “That’s not fair.” Magnus Fin hauled himself up to stand beside his friend. “I would have won …”
    “But you didn’t. You lost focus. So, where are the seals?” Tarkin scanned the sea. The water was smooth. Nothing moved. Only far in the distance a fishing boat passed.
    “They usually come right up close. And usually there are loads of them. Usually …” Fin’s voice trailed off. “I don’t know where they are.”
    They waited. Fin played his tune on his penny whistle and still they waited. Like kings of the castle they watched the surface of the sea. The fiery sun came fully up. The slow-winged heron left his place on the rock and flew silently overhead. But no seals came to sing for them.
    “Sorry, Tarkin,” Fin said after several silent minutes, “they usually come. Honestly.”
    “No worries, man. Maybe they’re off singing for someone else.”
    “Aye, I suppose they could be.”
    “Or fishing for their breakfast?”
    Fin shrugged his shoulders. It seemed strange. The seals always sang to him in the morning.
    “Or maybe they don’t like old weirdo winkle picker over there?” Tarkin nodded in the direction of the man with the bright yellow coat, who had shifted to work on the rocks near the cave. “Or maybe,” he continued, his voice dropping, “they don’t like me?”
    “No, Tarkin. Course they like you.” But the thought did flit through Magnus Fin’s mind as he looked at his loud friend.
    “They’ve probably slept in,” Fin said,