It began to rain heavily. Katie Morag and Jamie soon dried out at High Farm. They fed Hammie and let him have a romp around in Agnes’s bedroom before putting him back into his cage. They went down to the sitting room and tried to finish off Mrs McMaster’s jigsaw, waiting for the rain to stop.
Over at the island the others climbed up the cliffs in the downpour and danced on the top, seagull feathers and seaweed stuck in their dripping hair. They called themselves the Castaway Kings. On the way back down they found the cave near the water’s edge. It was dark but dry. Deep inside, at the back, it was cluttered with sea junk and bone-dry driftwood.
When they had explored enough they found that the water around the island was, strangely, so shallow they could paddle all the way back to the beach. They played rounders, splashing each other with spray from the bat and the ball. It was great to be so wet and no grown-ups saying, ‘Come inside, at once!’ Nobody had thought, however, to cover the wood pile and when it came time to get the fire going for supper the wood was too wet. Cold beans were all right, but raw tatties and sausages were not. A cold wind was beginning to blow, as well.
‘There’s dry wood in the cave,’ remembered Dougal. ‘We could go and cook in there.’
It was fun wading back through the now choppy waves, each cousin carrying a plate, a fork and a bag of food. Archie took extra plates and forks for Katie Morag and Jamie. Hector had the matches and the frying pan.
It wasn’t long before there was a good blaze going at the back of the cave and the sausages were sizzling. The cave was warm and full of golden shadows.
On the way back from High Farm Katie Morag and Jamie urged Eriska on fast, looking forward to their supper.
When the Castaway Kings saw the Struay Chiefs returning, they yelled, ‘Come on over! Your supper is here!’
Katie Morag tied Eriska to one of the tent pegs.
The water was up to their knees as Katie Morag and Jamie waded over, but Katie Morag hardly noticed in the excitement of going across to the island.
How cosy it was in the cave; the food was delicious. ‘We’ll wait till the rain stops before we go back,’ said Hector, being sensible. Katie Morag agreed.
She should have known better. It wasn’t until water came seeping in at the mouth of the cave that she remembered about the tide.
‘Quick! We must get back to the beach!’ she cried. But it was too late. The water was too deep to wade. And too wild to swim across, for the tide had brought with it a strong current which the cousins could see swirling around the island.
‘Eriska! He’s higher and stronger than the waves,’ cried Katie Morag. ‘Eriska! Eriska!’ she called. He heard her and obediently plodded towards the beach – taking the tent with him. It collapsed as Eriska strained to get free. Sleeping bags, clothes and rucksacks tumbled out into the rain. With a ‘thwang’ the tent peg and guy rope parted company and Eriska plunged into the sea.
Six times Eriska ploughed through the waves, three times with two terrified cousins clinging to his mane, their legs dangling into the sea; three times without. Katie Morag and Jamie stayed till last to give Eriska encouragement.
It was a bedraggled bunch of Struay Chiefs and Castaway Kings and their trusty steed that arrived at Grannie Island’s just as it was getting dark. They were soaked to the skin, their feathers bent, their faces smudged with streaks of charcoal.
‘WHAT ON EARTH!?’ she exclaimed, when she opened the door.
Katie Morag and the Big Boy Cousins told Grannie all about the disaster of the wet wood and the tent falling down as they jostled round her warm kitchen stove.
They said nothing about the island and the tide. It didn’t seem so terrible now that they were safe. The Big Boy Cousins had learned an important lesson about the sea that they would never ever forget.
Grannie stoked up the fire. ‘Hot baths for everyone,’ she ordered, ‘but before you take off your wet things, out you all go and give Eriska a good rub down. And get that seaweed out of his tail! How on earth did it get there?’
The cousins, damp though they were, did not complain. They headed for the stable, keen to give Eriska his best ever rubbing down.
‘And I’ll give him the biggest apple I can find,’ declared Katie Morag, ‘and a WHOLE packet of Polo mints!’ Eriska had saved the day, after all.
Later that night as Katie Morag, warm and glowing after her bath, lay in her grandmother’s bed she could hear the Big Boy Cousins sleepily whispering in the room next door.
‘We’ll have to salvage the camping gear tomorrow,’ muttered Hector.
‘Let’s pitch the tent right beside High Farm,’ suggested Jamie.
‘Good idea,’ thought Katie Morag as she drifted off to sleep. ‘Agnes will be home soon. She will like that.’
About the Author
MAIRI HEDDERWICK was born in Gourock, Scotland. At seventeen she took a job as a mother’s help on the Isle of Coll in the Hebrides, beginning a life-long love affair with islands and their small communities.
Her children were brought up there and now some of her grandchildren. From being Grannie Island she has now moved on to being Granma Mainland, but her heart is always on the island.
Mairi’s island world is delightfully reflected in the imaginary island of Struay where Katie Morag and her family live. As well as creating children’s books Mairi writes and illustrates travel books for adults. She spends a lot of time visiting schools and is always accompanied by Katie Morag’s teddy that travels with her in a black bag.
KATIE MORAG OF COURSE!
AN RHCB DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 446 49553 7
Published in Great Britain by RHCB Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2011
Copyright © Mairi Hedderwick, 2003, 2011
First Published in Great Britain
Red Fox 9780099432050 2011
The right of Mairi Hedderwick to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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Katie Morag of Course! Page 2
