Magnus Fin and the Ocean Quest Read Free Page A

he’d asked for in the glass bottle he’d thrown out to sea. Apart from those things he would like a bike, but he didn’t know if his grandmother could afford a bike. Maybe it was too big a present to ask for. Usually she got him books and pencils and swimming trunks andjigsaws and sweeties. She lived in a little council house on her own in John O’Groat’s. He didn’t think she could afford a bike.
    “A book about sharks would be good,” he said. His grandmother looked relieved. “Well, if you’re sure that’s all you want I’ll do my best,” she said brightly, dunking her chocolate biscuit into her tea. “Now then, I’d better be getting back. Doing my line dancing tonight. Don’t want to go missing that bus now, do I?”
    Then Granny was off and the small cottage by the sea fell back into its quietness. Barbara lay sleeping. Ragnor was down by the shore. Magnus Fin went through to his room, carefully put away his Titanic treasures and counted the days to his birthday.

Chapter Three
    The bonnie couple that Magnus’s grandmother spoke of were now bent and grey and wrinkled. They were little more than thirty years old but looked at least a hundred! The days of dressing up and dancing seemed to have gone for ever. There was not a mirror in the house that his mother had not broken, and lately Barbara had taken to wrapping her face in a shawl so only her eyes could be seen. When she ate her soup at suppertime she brought a hand to her face, and when the postman or the catalogue lady came calling she took to her bed, so that no one should clap eyes on her. Often Barbara, so ashamed of her haggard appearance, cried herself to sleep. On those nights Magnus Fin held spiral shells up to his ears so that the drone of the sea would drown out his mother’s crying. And the sea that came from his shells made a fine song, booming some nights and sighing others. Magnus Fin fell asleep to the slow hush of small waves lapping on the shore and woke to the same.
    Come daybreak he was up and out. There was the sea otter to watch fishing for her breakfast of sea urchins at the shore. There were the seals to say good morning to – the kind-eyed creatureswith their noses rising out of the water seemed to know just when Magnus Fin would be up and about. And there was the tidemark to study, to see what had been washed ashore overnight. Sometimes, if his tummy was rumbling, he’d pull limpets and winkles from the rock and suck their juicy contents down in one suck. He loved them.
    He knew every stone, every rock. He knew where the heron slept. He knew where the oystercatchers raised their young. He knew the difference between a shag and a cormorant. He knew where the polecat prowled and saw every morning whether a rabbit had been killed or not. He knew so much but the pity was, he thought, he had no friend to share it with.
    On this morning he took up a flat stone and skimmed it. The surface of the water was smooth. The waves were baby waves, hardly worth jumping over. His stone skimmed seven times. His record was nine but seven was still good. His father, he remembered, had taught him a verse: one for a minnow, two for a cod, three for a reel and four for a rod, five for a dolphin, six for a seal, seven for a shark, so squeal baby squeal!
    He laughed remembering the verse and the tickling that always came at the end. His father had been young then and full of life. It had been a long while since he’d been tickled. Magnus Fin scuffed at some stones. His job was to bring home driftwood for the fire. On the stones he found a thick plank. It could have come from a broken hull. He dragged it along the beach andback to his house. He might be thin but Magnus was strong.
    His father was resting against the dry-stone wall by the cottage and calling to his son, “Good work, son – that’s a fine bit of firewood. It’s time for school. Don’t be late! Find any treasure today?”
    “Two dead rabbits and a cormorant’s skull. But I