Featherlight

by Peter Bunzl

  First published in 2021 in Great Britain by

  Barrington Stoke Ltd

  18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP

  This ebook edition first published in 2021

  www.barringtonstoke.co.uk

  Text © 2021 Peter Bunzl

  Illustration © 2021 Anneli Bray

  Chapter heading illustration © 2021 Evan Hollingdale

  The moral right of Peter Bunzl and Anneli Bray to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library upon request

  ISBN: 978-1-80090-041-7

  For Paula

  CONTENTS

  1 After Midnight

  2 A Night-Time Goodbye

  3 My Shooting Star

  4 The Lighthouse

  5 Completing the Chores

  6 Around the Island

  7 Lighting the Lantern

  8 A Lost Bird

  9 An Unexpected Arrival

  10 Grandma Darling

  11 Bedtime Stories

  12 A Wild Storm

  13 A Bright Hope

  14 A Rescue

  15 A Dying Light

  16 A Little Brother

  1

  AFTER MIDNIGHT

  Mum shakes me awake in the middle of the night. She is sitting on the end of my bed and her face looks worried. Outside my window, the light from the lighthouse sweeps across the bay.

  “Mum,” I ask. “What’s the matter?”

  “The baby’s coming early, Deryn,” Mum replies. “I have to go to the mainland and get help.”

  Mum sounds scared. Panic makes my chest feel all spiky.

  “I need you to fetch your father,” Mum says to me.

  I scramble to my feet and put on my slippers. My hand shakes as I light the oil lamp at my bedside. A book of fairy tales I was reading before I went to sleep slips from the table. It falls to the floor with a loud crash.

  Mum picks the book up and shuts it. “Hurry!” she cries.

  I leave her and race out. The rooms in our cottage are dark and silent. The only sounds I can hear are the creak of the wind on the roof tiles and the wash of waves in the distance.

  I push open the door that leads to the lighthouse. The stone walls inside curve around in a circle. A thick pipe sprouts from the floor to the top of the tower, taking oil from the tanks in the cellar up to the light.

  I climb the spiral stairs, holding the lamp in front of me, and open the door at the top.

  This is the keeper’s office. My favourite room in the lighthouse. The pipe runs right up into here. Beside the pipe is a writing desk and a curved bookcase full of books on the sea, ships, tides, flags, stars and nature. Books about the birds and animals that live on our island. They contain everything you need to know to be a lighthouse keeper.

  My dad is sitting in his armchair, writing in his red logbook. His lantern, flask of tea and telescope are on the table beside him. A fire crackles in the grate of the stove by Dad’s feet. He’s been up here all night, keeping an eye on the ocean and checking on the lantern light upstairs. It’s the most important part of his job. The light from the lighthouse keeps people at sea safe.

  “What is it, Deryn?” Dad asks when he sees me.

  “It’s Mum,” I say. “She needs you.”

  And Dad knows exactly what I mean.

  “Come on,” he says, standing up and taking his coat from the back of the door.

  2

  A NIGHT-TIME GOODBYE

  In the cottage, Dad finds Mum’s leather bag, which she has already packed in preparation for this day. Then Mum, Dad and I set out across the island towards the jetty.

  It is a Sunday night in late October and there are no boats in the bay. Every few seconds, the lighthouse beam sweeps across us. Dad links his arm with Mum’s, while I walk ahead. I’m carrying Dad’s lantern so we can see our way along the path in the dark when the flashing light is facing the other way.

  We are the only people who live on this island, and the lighthouse and cottage are the only buildings here. The sea around us is filled with rocks that are as sharp as swords. As sharp as your worst worries.

  Those rocks are hidden beneath the waves. They can sinks ships and take your life. They have killed many people in the past, and they will cut you to shreds if you let them. That’s why the lighthouse is here, to warn of those dangers.

  But Mum and Dad will be all right in our small boat. Dad is a good sailor and knows how to navigate in the dark. And tonight the sea is calm.

  Soon the jetty and the boat are in view. Gentle waves lap against the stony beach and the boat’s hull. Dad steps down into the boat, and I pass him the lantern.

  Mum hugs me goodbye. I put my hand on her belly, which is as round as a ball. The baby kicks beneath my palm and Mum winces.

  “I will miss you,” I say.

  “I won’t be gone long, Deryn,” Mum says. She’s smiling, but her eyes are full of worry.

  “Why don’t you let me come along?” I blurt out. “I could look after you.”

  This will be my first time alone on the island. I haven’t ever been away from my parents before, and they have never been away from me.

  “I’ll be fine,” Mum tells me. She wipes a wisp of hair from my face and kisses my cheek. “We’re going to stay with Grandma, like I did when you were born. Your dad will fetch the midwife, and she and Grandma will both be there to help me during the birth.”

  “What about me?” I ask. “What should I do?”

  “You’ve got the most important job,” Mum says. “You must stay here and take care of the lighthouse until we get back.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Tomorrow,” Dad says. “As soon as Mum’s had the baby. You’ll be fine to make your way home in the dark, won’t you, Deryn?”

  I nod. “I have the light to guide me,” I tell Dad.

  “Good,” he says. He sounds a bit unsure. “Keep the watch, and promise me you’ll do your school work and chores in the morning. I don’t want you spending the day running around the island chasing sea birds!”

  “I promise,” I say.

  “By the time you’re done with that, we should be back,” Mum adds. She takes Dad’s hand, and he helps her down into the boat.

  I untie the moorings, while Dad mans the tiller and the bowline.

  “Goodbye and good luck, Deryn, darling!” Mum calls out, her voice cracking with worry. “You be good!”

  “You too!” I shout as the boat sails off. “See you soon!”

  I watch the boat get smaller. Fear flaps inside me like a ragged sail in a storm. The tiny lantern on the boat’s prow floats like a firefly in the darkness as Dad steers between the rocks. The next time I see Mum she will have a baby in her arms. That’s if things go well.

  From their worried looks, I’m not so sure they will.

  3

  MY SHOOTING STAR

  When I get home, I climb the stairs to the lantern room at the top of the lighthouse, above the keeper’s office.

  There always has to be someone watching the sea and the lantern in case of emergencies. For the rest of the hours of this strange night, that person has to be me. For the first time ever, I am by myself in the lighthouse, taking Dad’s place on the night watch. That scares me a little.

  Up here, the walls are made from glass panels. That way the light beam from the oil lantern can pass through them in the dark.

  The lantern itself is not that big, but it’s surrounded by lenses and a sil
ver reflector and a metal stand and machinery that take up almost the whole room.

  The machinery and stand help the lenses to rotate. The lenses have blackout sections that make the light flash every three seconds.

  The flashing is important – it helps the ships far out at sea work out which lighthouse they are seeing, where they are on their map and how close they are to the rocks.

  That way the sailors can keep themselves safe.

  I check the oil reservoir beneath the lamp. It is getting low, so I pump the pump handle. The pipe gurgles as it sucks oil from the tank in the basement and spits it into the lamp’s reservoir. Now there should be enough oil to keep the flame burning until morning.

  Next I turn the big wheel on the wall. This winds the clockwork that keeps the lenses of the lantern turning.

  Dad normally does both these jobs, but they’re my duty tonight. It’s hard work as the pump handle and the wheel are both very stiff. I have to summon all my strength to get them moving.

  Outside the tower, the light beam revolves and the stars twinkle in the dark. It feels like the loneliest spot in the whole world up here, and I feel like the loneliest girl in it. I wish I wasn’t on my own. At least Mum and Dad have each other.

  I imagine them on the silent sea, looking up at the lighthouse and the same stars as I can see. I think of them heading for the mainland to have the baby. Filled with fear but sailing the ocean together. I picture the full moon and our light beam shining bright above Mum and Dad to light their way.

  I try not to think of all the things that could go wrong for them. Instead, I list in my head the names of the star constellations that Dad has taught me: the scorpion, the wolf, the crow, the phoenix—

  Just then, I see something …

  A streak of orange glittering in the dark.

  A shooting star.

  Its tail burns bright behind it, like a fiery red comet.

  The shooting star lands somewhere on the far side of the island.

  I shut my eyes and the shooting star sparkles in my memory.

  It is my shooting star.

  Tomorrow, I will go and look for it, but right now, I need to go down to the keeper’s office and take Dad’s seat for the watch.

  *

  I know I’m not meant to, but at some point during the long night I fall asleep. The chair is so comfy and the fire so warming, and I am so tired that I just can’t keep my eyes open.

  I dream that I climb the stairs again to the top of the tower. This time I step out onto the gallery, a metal walkway that runs around the outside of the lantern room. I breathe in the fresh sea air.

  The full moon is tinted a fiery red and the sky is peppered with shooting stars. The light beam flashes past me. I look into Dad’s telescope, watching the stars falling, and my hair grows longer and longer. Soon it is cascading over the edge of the walkway and down the side of the tower, just like Rapunzel’s.

  In my dream, my hair carries on growing until it reaches the bottom of the ocean, where a tiny baby swims in the dark.

  The baby grabs hold of my hair and begins to climb up. My head hurts as it takes the baby’s weight. It is so heavy that every strand of hair feels as if it might be ripped away as the baby climbs.

  The baby carries a small stone. It climbs all the way up the side of the lighthouse to the walkway. There, the baby reaches out a fist and drops the stone into my hand.

  The stone is actually an egg. Cracks appear in the egg’s surface, and red light spills out, brighter than the light beam. So bright it almost blinds me. The egg breaks open and inside is a golden feather that burns me like the sun.

  4

  THE LIGHTHOUSE

  I wake and look around me, feeling cold and tired. It is morning and I am in the keeper’s office. For a moment I wonder what I am doing here, sitting in Dad’s armchair. Then I notice that the fire in the stove has gone out.

  A jolt of guilt zips through me. I must have fallen asleep on watch. Dad told me never to do that!

  I jump to my feet and rush upstairs to the lantern room to check everything is all right. Daylight floods the glass windows, but the lenses still turn and the lamplight still flickers. The light has been working for the whole night. Relieved, I put out the flame and stop the clockwork.

  Outside the day is calm. The sea is quiet with only a few ships passing. There’s no sign of trouble. No water-babies, or eggs, or burning feathers … Did I really dream all that? Then I remember what really happened – the shooting star and how I vowed to find it. Mum and Dad setting off for the mainland because their real baby was about to be born.

  That’s why I’m up here alone. I promised Mum and Dad I’d look after the lighthouse. That means I’m no longer the lighthouse keeper’s daughter. I’m the lighthouse keeper!

  At least until they get back. I wonder when that will be. Has Mum had the baby yet? Do I have a little brother or sister? If so, I hope he or she is all right.

  When Dad and Mum get back, they’ll expect to find the chores done. That’s a lot of work for one person to do on their own. Especially someone as young as me. I should probably get started on the chores before I look for my shooting star. Dad and Mum will be cross if they come back this afternoon and find that nothing has been done.

  I wipe the lantern lenses with a cloth. This is the first job Dad does every day. It cleans the soot off the lenses and stops the lamp from clouding up and weakening the light. When I have finished that, I head downstairs to the empty keeper’s cottage to make a start on the rest of the chores.

  5

  COMPLETING THE CHORES

  It’s strange to be here in the lighthouse keeper’s cottage on my own. But I am used to doing chores for Mum and Dad, especially in last few weeks. Mum’s been so ill during the final stage of her pregnancy that she’s barely left her bed. I’ve had to help Dad around the lighthouse much more than I used to, so I know what has to be done.

  I step into the yard and wash my sooty hands with water from the hand pump. Then I go to the shed on the far side of the house. I milk the goat, whose name is Gertrude. I collect the eggs from our three chickens, Bertha, Brenda and Bella, who live in the hutch next door. When I am finished, I have half a pail of milk and three eggs.

  In the kitchen, a bowl full of dough rests on the table, beneath a tea cloth. Mum made it last night for the morning and left it out to rise. The dough has grown immensely and bulges from the bowl. Beneath the cloth it seems as big and round as Mum’s belly. The fire in the stove has turned to ash. I build it up with logs from the basket, wait for the flames to get good and hot, then put the dough on a tray in the oven.

  While the dough is baking into bread, I heat some water in the kettle for tea and some more in a pan to make myself a boiled egg.

  I sit down to breakfast and flick through my school books. Dad and I have been reading A History of Astronomy. I decide I will look up shooting stars and see what the book has to say about them:

  Shooting stars are meteors: the trails of rocks falling from outer space. The light that you see from a shooting star is the meteor burning up in the sky as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere. When a meteor lands on the Earth, it is called a meteorite. A meteorite may look like a big shard of black rock.

  By the time I’ve eaten my egg, the kitchen is filled with the warm and sweet smell of the baking bread.

  I take the loaf from the oven. You are supposed to wait for it to cool. Mum always does. But I’m still hungry.

  I cut off a steaming hunk of bread and stuff that in my mouth for my second breakfast. Then I cut another steaming hunk and stuff that into my cardigan pocket for my lunch. Finally I close A History of Astronomy and set off across the island to look for my meteorite.

  6

  AROUND THE ISLAND

  Our island is called Featherstone Island because the ragged rocky coastline makes it look like a feather. There are no trees. It’s too windy and wild for them to grow. The only tall thing is the lighthouse. It is the sort of
tower you might imagine a princess from a fairy tale living in, except it’s painted with red and white stripes so it can be seen far out at sea.

  Featherstone Island is very flat and tufted with grass. The earth is rich with seabird droppings, and the grass is straight and strong. On the side of the island closest to the mainland we grow vegetables in the sheltered patches in our walled allotment. There are pumpkins and squashes that are nearly ready for cutting, and carrots ready to lift. Sometimes we fish off the rocks with lines and nets, and other times we collect cockles and mussels to eat.

  The sea and sky change all the time here. In spring the sea can be so flat and blue that you can’t tell where the water ends and the sky begins. In summer the clouds sit on the horizon like floating herds of sheep. In autumn the thunderhead clouds are as big as mountains and as black as the ink in Dad’s inkwell. In winter it rains most days and the waves get so rough they look like sheets billowing from a clothes line on a windy day.

  You might imagine it would be lonely being an only child on a small island, but there are all sorts of creatures to study and play with.

  As well as our goat and hens, there are wild rabbits and sea birds – cormorants, divers, gulls, terns and skimmers. Sometimes there are seals and sea lions, even dolphins. Occasionally I have seen whales surfacing to blow water far out at sea.

  And there are all sorts of fish: fish for catching and fish for eating, and fish just for watching in rock pools. Plus crabs and barnacles. If you love wildlife like I do, then Featherstone Island is the perfect place to live.

  Truth be told, I have never lived anywhere else. Twelve years ago, Mum went to the mainland to have me with Grandma’s help. While she was away, Grandpa came to work with Dad on the island. He had been the lighthouse keeper before, when Dad was a boy. Grandpa taught Dad everything he knows, just like Dad is teaching me.

  Gulls screech and circle above my head. The sea crashes on the shore in its non-stop rhythm as I walk around the rocky edges of the island searching for my meteorite.