Lucky Button

by Michael Morpurgo

  “As I watched him play, as I listened to the sweetness and tenderness of the melody, my heart was filled with joy, and with such love for him and his sister.”

  Any doubts Jonah might still have had about the old man’s story were now gone. He was recalling his memories, not telling a tale, Jonah was quite sure of it. He could hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes. This was no fantasy; this was truth-telling. And the lucky button clasped in his hand reminded him he was not imagining any of this.

  “It was a few days later,” the old man went on, “upon returning home after a walk in the rain along the river at Putney – I remember the day well, as if it were yesterday, and you shall soon understand why – that we were summoned at once into the parlour. Herr and Frau Mozart were sitting side by side rather stiffly. It was clear they had something very important to say to us. I thought they would admonish us for staying out so long, and maybe for letting little Wolferl get wet – they were always worried he might catch a chill again and not be able to play his concerts. Frau Mozart called Wolferl over to her and sat him down at her feet by the fire.

  “Herr Mozart spoke in German, Nannerl translating for me as he went along. ‘Papa says he has news,’ she told me, and her eyes lit up then with sudden excitement, her voice too. ‘Papa says we are summoned to play before the king and queen at their palace.’

  “At this little Wolferl leapt up from his seat by the fire with a whoop, and began cavorting about the room. ‘I shall sprechen English like this. I shall bow thus and thus and thus,’ he said, squeaking with laughter, and bowing so low with such a great and exaggerated flourish that his head almost touched the ground. ‘Do I call them Herr King and Frau Queen, Mr King and Mrs Queen?’

  “Then all his tomfoolery ceased quite suddenly. ‘And Nat, mein lieber Freund, my number one friend? He must turn the pages for us. Verstehst du doch? I will not play otherwise, not for a king, not for anyone.’ His mother and father looked at one another, unsure of what to say. ‘Nicht ohne meinen Freund. I shall not play without Nat beside me,’ said little Wolferl, his chin set with determination.

  “‘Nor will I,’ Nannerl said, grasping my hand in solidarity. Herr and Frau Mozart did not argue, because they could not and because they did not want to, I think.

  “And so it was, Jonah, that this foundling boy you see before you came to perform, in a way, before King George III and the queen at the palace, with the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his sister, Nannerl. I never in my life before or since wore such fine clothes; never saw such a crowd of bejewelled lords and ladies, such shining buckles, such a gathering of powdered wigs; never set foot in such a splendid place – by comparison, Bourne Park had been but a stable.

  “Little Wolferl was not in the slightest overawed, as I was, by all this grandeur. He held the stage as he always did with the greatest of ease, played his pieces with a dazzling skill, his eyes often closed in deep concentration. I turned the pages well enough, I hope, his little foot tapping my leg to remind me to focus. And then, at his insistence that they should hear it, I sang ‘Every valley shall be exalted’ from the Messiah, to his accompaniment. After it was over every person there, the king and queen also, rose up and applauded. ‘Bravo!’ they cried again and again. ‘Bravo!’

  “The king beckoned us over to where he and the queen were sitting. The queen, I could see, was near to tears. ‘Enchanting. You were enchanting. It is like a fairy story,’ she said. ‘To hear you playing gave me such joy. Come sit on my lap, child.’

  “Little Wolferl did not hesitate, but jumped up at once, kissing her on the cheek. Everyone laughed and clapped. Then all fell silent, and out of this silence spoke little Wolferl, in his best English, with some German words sprinkled in whenever his English failed him. ‘Mrs Queen,’ he began. ‘Bitte. Ich muss etwas fragen, a question to ask, please.’

  “‘Anything, my child, anything,’ said the queen.

  “‘My friend, Nat, er hat keine Mutter, keinen Vater. He is from the Foundling Krankenhaus. We love our mothers and fathers, über alles. But mein Freund, he does not know who his mother is; he does not know who his father is. It is not permitted for him to know who they are. The door to this question is closed. He wishes so much to find them. Frau Queen, you and Herr King rule in this land. You can open all doors that are closed. Nein? Can you open this door for my friend? This is my dearest wish, and his also.’

  “For moments that seemed like hours the king and queen said nothing. You could have heard a pin drop, Jonah. The queen leant over then to whisper to the king. My heart beat loud in my ear; I could scarcely breathe, as we all looked to the king and the queen for a response.

  “‘I know the Foundling Hospital,’ said the king at long last. ‘A most excellent institution indeed, and one we have long sought to support.’ He looked straight at me now. ‘And you sang wonderfully well, young man. From the Messiah, was it not? I would my friend Mr Handel were still alive to have heard it and to have heard these two young people play. As to your request, Master Mozart, I think the queen would not forgive me if I denied you your dearest wish. So it is granted. I will do what I can.’

  “At this the hall filled with clapping again. Wolferl kissed the queen once more, sprang down and ran to me. Then, bowing low, all three of us together – we had practised this before in our lodgings – backed away out of the room, the applause ringing in our ears.

  “The next day, by special messenger, there arrived at our house in Chelsea a small package on which was written: By command of His Majesty King George III. Wolferl gave it to me at once to open. Inside was a cardboard box, and in the box a folded letter, and, enfolded in the letter, the brass button you hold now in your hand, Jonah.”

  “This is it?” Jonah asked, gazing down at the button in his palm. “This is the actual one?”

  “It is,” replied the old man.

  “But was it really a lucky button?” Jonah asked him. “Did you see Mrs Ma and Mr Pa again? Did you find your mother and your father?”

  “Life, Jonah,” said the old man, “as you know as well as I, is not a fairy tale. We can never have all we wish for. Sadness we cannot avoid, but we can also know great joy. I could tell you a fairy tale, or I could tell you the truth. Truth or fairy tale; tell me Jonah, which would you like?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Truth or Fairy Tale?

  JONAH FOUND HIMSELF turning the button over and over in his hand. He closed his eyes and hoped.

  “Truth,” Jonah replied.

  “Very well, then, you shall hear the truth,” the old man said. “The button, as you have guessed, was my mother’s token. Upon reading the letter that came with it, I found the date of my birth, and my real name, Daniel Morley, son of Bethany, of 75 Lupin Street in Southwark. We went at once, that very same morning, all of us together, to find the room where she lived in Southwark. It was above the baker’s shop, we discovered, where she had once worked. But she was no longer there, the baker’s wife told us, and no longer alive either.

  “I had such strange thoughts when I first heard this dreadful news. Yet, I reasoned, to know such news was better than not to know. And I found I was sad that the lady selling chestnuts in Chiswick was not my mother, but I was glad my mother had such a beautiful name. Bethany, Bethany. My mother, Bethany. We learnt from the baker’s wife that she had been barely sixteen years old, and had loved her baby, she said, as much as any mother that ever lived. She went off with him one day in tears, saying her family would never have her home again with the child; that she could not feed and care for him on her own. He would have a better chance to survive if she took him to the Foundling Hospital. It would not be for ever, she said, and she would go back and reclaim him when she was older. That was the last time the baker’s wife saw her. She heard she had died a year or so later, but where she was buried she did not know.

  “When I asked about my father, the baker’s wife said she saw him only once, just after I had been born. He was a soldier. She remembered his red
coat and his bright buttons, just like my token. She thought he went to fight abroad and, so far as was known, had never returned.

  “All this news left me numb, not saddened by grief, for I had never known her or him, but empty of all feeling, suddenly orphaned and alone in the world.

  “But Herr and Frau Mozart were even more anxious now, as were dear Wolferl and dear Nannerl, to help me further, and would not leave it there. I told them I had one more hope left: to find Mrs Ma and Mr Pa. Frau Mozart it was who decided what should be done, and how it should be done too. The more I came to know her, the more I realized that, quiet and retiring as she might often seem, she was the guiding light of the family. At her suggestion, we went again to the Foundling Hospital, where once they realized who we were, they received us with the greatest courtesy.

  “At Wolferl’s side, in the glow of his fame, I found I was treated now with rather more respect than I had received before as a small child. Frau Mozart told them that Wolferl would play on the organ in the chapel for the children, if they would like it, which of course they did. The foundling children sat in rapt attention throughout, the schoolmasters too. The witch of a matron was there, but I stared her down, and that gave me much pleasure.

  “As we left the chapel, Frau Mozart asked the master of the Foundling Hospital in her best English: ‘I have a favour to ask for our dear friend Nat, who was a child here as you know. We wish to discover, sir, where we might find his foster mother and father, and their names also. They are his only family, sir.”

  “The master hesitated for a moment, his eyes darting nervously.

  “‘Where they live, that is all we wish to know. Or…’ Frau Mozart went on, not troubling now to disguise the threat in her voice, ‘or we could ask our friend, the king.’

  “With the address in my hand we all travelled the very next day by coach to the coast of Essex, through the flatlands and marshes, along the familiar dykes where moorhens swam among the bulrushes, all the way to the little village of Bradwell. As soon as I saw the church tower rising through the trees, I knew where I was. From there I knew my way down the lane to Paradise Cottage. I was home at last. Smoke rose from the chimney. There were voices inside, and the smell of cooking, of pastry, of tattie pie. I knocked on the door.

  “Thus was I reunited with my dear Mrs Ma and Mr Pa. There never was a gladder reunion; and Friend was there in the orchard, older, but so were we all. My lucky button was doing its work. I had found my beloved family again.

  “But my joy was to be short-lived, for within a few months the Mozart family left for France, and I returned to my apprenticeship at Bourne Park. We three children swore we would meet again and soon; that we would be friends for ever. Though I was saddened beyond words at our parting, the gift of their friendship stayed with me in my heart for ever. Through my lucky button, which I could never have discovered without them, they had given me the greatest gift imaginable: the knowledge of who I was, from where and from whom I came, and my dear home and family.

  “Both Wolferl and Nannerl wrote letters to which I always replied. In time, though, as I grew older, now living and working on the farm with Mrs Ma and Mr Pa, having finished my apprenticeship at Bourne Park, the letters became less frequent. But a day never went by that I did not think of them, nor did I doubt for a moment that they still loved me as much as I loved them. I followed Wolferl’s rise and rise, heard his music played often, whenever I could. I hummed and sang it too, to myself and to the moorhens, to the sheep, to Friend, as I walked the fields around Bradwell, to Mrs Ma and Mr Pa to whom I remained devoted all their long lives.

  “I remained devoted to music all my life too – this great and lucky gift that between them Mrs Ma and Mr Montefiore, and Mr Handel and chiefly Wolferl and Nannerl had given me – becoming choirmaster in the end at the Foundling Hospital, where I might not always have been happy as a child, but to which I owed so much. Without that old witch of a matron, it was a much happier place anyway.

  “When I heard of Wolferl’s early death, I was overwhelmed with sadness. I travelled to Austria to see Nannerl, and stood with her in silence, hand in hand, in the place where we thought he had been buried, in an unknown common grave. To see her and be with her was the greatest joy, but without Wolferl there with us, the blithe spirit of both our lives, we were often too sad to speak.

  “We wrote to one another for many years, but never met again. When the letters stopped coming, I knew she was gone. It was my turn then. I was buried in the chapel of the Foundling Hospital, and they brought me here and laid me in the crypt when they moved the school, nearly a hundred years ago now. I like it here. I can hear the children sing and laugh. They laugh these days more than we ever did, and that is good.” He stood up to leave. “It has done me good to tell my story. I knew you would understand. You know about sadness; you know about joy, and music.”

  “Your lucky button,” Jonah said, offering it back to him.

  “Keep it,” the old man told him. “You have more need of it than I. I hope it will be as lucky for you as it was for me. Consider it as thanks for giving me a chance to tell my story. And think of me sometimes, and Wolferl and Nannerl, and Mrs Ma and Mr Pa. We only live on in our stories.”

  He walked away from him and vanished into the darkness at the back of the chapel.

  Jonah was woken by someone shaking his shoulder. Mrs Rainer was bending over him. He found himself stretched out on the pew. He sat up, bewildered.

  “You didn’t come back to rehearsals, Jonah. I was worried. Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Jonah told her. “I’m fine.”

  She insisted on taking him back to the school nurse, who took his temperature and his pulse just to make sure he was as fine as he said he was. She made him lie down for an hour, so she could keep an eye on him. He was happy to be left alone.

  He spent the rest of the day in a state of bewilderment, drifting from lesson to lesson, unable to concentrate on maths or French or history. He kept feeling for the button in his pocket to reassure himself that all he had seen and heard had not been a dream.

  At the end of the school day, he was walking home, still in a daze, when he found he was not alone. Valeria was there beside him. They walked on together in silence for a while, Valeria pushing her bike. He longed to talk to her, to tell her everything that had happened. He sensed that she would believe him. But no words would come out.

  “I will see you tomorrow then, Jonah?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Bye.”

  “Bye. And I have wanted to say that you sing very well,” she said. Then off she went on her bike.

  One day, Jonah thought, I will tell you about everything that happened in the chapel. And you will be the only one in the world I will tell.

  The swallows were still flying as he walked home, gripping his lucky button tight all the way. Only then did it occur to him that the luck was working already. Valeria had spoken to him! He knew now for sure that she was a true friend.

  There were rabbits grazing at the edge of the woods. Coocoo was up on the chimney waiting for him. Jonah was opening the front door, stepping into his other world, when he heard music playing from the sitting room. The piano. His mum must be playing the piano again! He knew the music. He had heard it before somewhere; he was sure of it.

  His mum did not hear him as he came in. She was too intent on her playing. He stood there listening, marvelling, the lucky button warm in his hand. It was some while before she felt him there, and looked up.

  “Hello, Jonah,” she said cheerily. “Look at me, playing again. Don’t know what came over me. I was looking at the piano, and it was as if it spoke to me. ‘Play me,’ it said. ‘I’m no use if you don’t play me.’ And I said right back, ‘And I’m no use if I don’t play you.’ So here we are. And here you are!” She was beaming up at him, holding out her hand and grasping his arm. “I feel so much better for playing some music, Jonah. You can’t imagine. Did you like it? Mozart. I’m a bit out of practice, a
bit rusty, but Mozart won’t mind. It’s his Symphony No. 1. He wrote it when he was only eight, you know. How was school? Good day? How did rehearsals go? I’m coming to your play, I’ve decided. I’ve got to get out and about more, like you said. So I’ll be there at your Lord of the Flies show. Three weeks’ time, isn’t it? It had better be good!”

  She was there too, her first proper trip out of the house for over two years. Jonah wheeled her all the way there and back. “That girl who played the clarinet,” she said to him as they paused by the gate to watch the swallows, “she was wonderful. But your song was the best, Jonah. Just the best. I’m so proud.”

  Jonah squeezed the lucky button deep inside his pocket. “Thanks,” he whispered, louder than he meant to.

  “Thanks, Jonah? Why are you thanking me? I reckon it’s me who should thank you. We have music and we have each other. That’s a lot to be thankful for.”

  MICHAEL MORPURGO is one of the greatest storytellers for children writing today. He has won numerous major literary awards, including the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize, the Whitbread Children’s Book Award and the Writers’ Guild Award. Author of more than a hundred books, including retellings of classics such as Hansel and Gretel and The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Michael was also Children’s Laureate from 2003 to 2005. His books have been translated around the world, and his hugely popular novel War Horse was adapted into a critically acclaimed stage play and film. He also founded the charity “Farms for City Children” with his wife Clare, for which he was awarded an MBE.

  MICHAEL FOREMAN is one of the world’s leading illustrators. He has won several major awards, including the Kate Greenaway Medal twice. Born in Sussex, Michael was inspired by the illustrated magazines in the village shop that his mother ran, and at fifteen he began to study art. He has illustrated more than 300 books by authors such as Shakespeare, the Brothers Grimm and Charles Dickens, and has also written many of his own, including the award-winning classic War Boy. Michael has previously collaborated with Michael Morpurgo on books including The Mozart Question and Beowulf.