The Wreck of the Zanzibar Read Free Page A

strangers to each other. Billy has been gone for over four months now. There’s been no letter, no word. We scarcely ever speak of him. It’s as if he never lived.
    I went to his room this morning and found Mother sitting on his bed staring at the wall, rocking back and forth. She had his blue jersey on her lap. I went and sat beside her. She tried to smile but couldn’t. She hasn’t smiled since Billy left.
    I do the morning milking on my own now. That’s when I most miss Billy. I talk to the cows and theylisten. Maybe they understand too – I hope so. They’re not milking at all well – I think perhaps they’re missing Billy, like everyone else. They aren’t eating properly either. Their coats are staring, and they’re not licking themselves. They’re just not how they should be.

JULY 30TH
    IN CHURCH TODAY I WAS LISTENING TO THE vicar. It was as if he was speaking just to me. He said we mustn’t hope for anything at all in this life, only in the next life. I think I understand what he means. You only get disappointed if you hope.
    Every night – like tonight, when I’ve finished this – I lie in the darkness and hope and pray that Billy will come back. I pray out loud, just in case God can’t hear me hoping. And every morning, as soon as I wake up, I go to the window and hope to see him running up the path. But each day he isn’t there makes even hoping more hopeless.

JULY 31ST
    EVEN MY OTHER HOPE HAS COME TO NOTHING. I hoped that, with Billy gone, I might at last be allowed to take his place in the gig. I finally plucked up courage enough to ask the chief. He said I had to ask Father. I waited until he was doing the evening milking – he’s always gentler when he’s up with the cows. He was with Rosie in the barn.
    â€˜There’s something wrong with these cows,’ he said, without looking up.
    â€˜Hardly a bucketful between the lot of them. They go on like this, we’re in real trouble, real trouble. They’ve not been right, none of them, not since Billyleft, none of us have.’
    His eyes were filled with tears when he looked up at me. ‘Mother’s right,’ he said. ‘It was my fault Billy went away.’
    â€˜No it wasn’t,’ I said. ‘It was Joseph Hannibal.’ It was only half the truth, and Father knew it. He went back to his milking.
    I asked him then what I had come to ask him. I knew I shouldn’t but I had to. He was on his feet at once shouting at me. Rosie kicked out in alarm and the bucket went over.
    â€˜Is that all you ever think about?’ he roared. ‘Your brother’s run off to sea. Every cow I’ve got is sick. It’s these cows put food in your belly, girl, you know that?’ I knew that. Of course I knew that. ‘They die. We die. They’re all we’ve got. And you come fussing to me about the gig. How many times have I told you? There’s never been a girl rowed out in the gig, not on this island, not on any island. And you’ll not be the first, do you hear me?’
    I ran off with him still shouting after me. I never thought I could think it. I never thought I could write it, but I hate my father.

AUGUST 23RD
    ROSIE IS VERY SICK. THERE’S NO DOUBT ABOUT it now. She’s thinner every day. She’s stopped milking entirely. We sell what we can – a little to everyone. Until now the cows always made enough milk for the whole island. We’re the only people with milking cows. They rely on us for their milk – they always have done. Now with Molly gone and Rosie poorly we just haven’t got enough to go around. We’ve still got Celandine and Petal, but Petal’s not in milk and Celandine’s giving precious little. Father says if anything happens to either of them we’re done for. All we can do, he says, is to hope and pray for a wreck. So that’s what I’m doing, hoping andpraying for a