‘You’re to promise to stay and be good,’ he had said to his son, and the child had understood, but it was best not to remember the look in his eyes.
After they had travelled for a day and a night, Herbert came to the front of the kraken’s head and said goodbye. It was hard for him to leave the kraken and return to the Island but his mother was getting very weak and he felt it was his duty.
It was even lonelier after Herbert left. Other seals swam with the kraken but they were ordinary seals, not selkies; they did not know his thoughts as Herbert had done.
On a great rock, after another day of swimming, the kraken saw something he had been looking out for. A huge black bird with a yellow beak and yellow feet, huddled up and muddled-looking. He paused and looked directly at the unfortunate bird and, as the kraken’s eyes pierced his sadness, the boobrie came to himself again. He remembered that he had a wife who had been expecting eggs and that he had gone to look for food and got lost, and forgotten who he was and where he was going.
Now, as clear as daylight, the boobrie saw the Island and the nest by the loch and his partner waiting and waiting. Why, he might be a father by now … and he flapped his wings once and twice and a third time and then managed to lift himself off and to fly away.
And the kraken swam on.
By the third day Fabio and Minette were beginning to lose hope. They had tried everything they could think of to cheer up the little kraken. They used up all Art’s washing-up liquid to blow bubbles for him, they invented underwater games, they sang to him and told him stories, but nothing helped. The only thing you could say was that when they left him even for a moment he was worse; moaning more pitifully and watering the sea with his tears.
What worried them most was that he wouldn’t eat.
It wasn’t just ‘No soss,’ it was ‘No spag,’ though he had loved spaghetti, and ‘No burgs,’ even when Art soused the hamburgers with rich tomato sauce. They watched carefully to see if he was feeding himself from the seaweed and plants by the shore, but he wasn’t.
‘I can just see him getting thinner every minute,’ said Minette, who wasn’t looking exactly fat herself.
At teatime Aunt Etta came down to the shore and said enough was enough.
‘You’re to go up to the house and have hot baths and have your tea in the dining room. You look like something the cat’s brought in, both of you.’
‘No, please. We can’t leave him,’ said Minette. ‘We want to bring a tent down and spend the night on the beach.’
‘Better not keep Art waiting,’ was all Aunt Etta said.
So the children had their hot baths and went into the dining room. Art had laid out all their favourite things: sardines and cheese straws and chunks of pineapple on sticks.
And the cake tin was on the sideboard. Poor Art always put the cake tin on the sideboard. He put it out for breakfast and for lunch and for tea, hoping and hoping that someone would manage to eat another bun.
For if one can make seventy-two omelettes from one boobrie egg, it is quite amazing how many buns one can make. Art had made the buns look very beautifuclass="underline" there were buns with pink icing and a cherry on top and buns with white icing and smarties on top and buns with brown icing and chocolate drops on top — but one by one the aunts and the children had stopped eating them. Boobrie buns are very filling and they just couldn’t get them down any more.
Now, as Fabio picked up the tin, Minette said ‘No! Absolutely not. I couldn’t!’
‘I know,’ said Fabio. ‘I couldn’t either. But I wonder …’
When they got back to the shore the children took no notice at all of the kraken. They sat down very close to the water’s edge and opened the cake tin. Fabio held up a white bun and Minette held up a pink bun. They pretended to eat them, making loud chewing noises.
‘Buns,’ said Fabio, rubbing his stomach.
And: ‘Buns,’ said Minette, sighing with pleasure.
The kraken came closer and watched them.
The children went on pretending to eat buns.
The kraken edged closer still.
‘No buns for you,’ said Fabio. ‘You don’t like buns.’
An offended look spread over the kraken’s face. He was not used to being left out. He was half out of the water now, his head on the sand.
‘Buns?’ said the kraken, trying out the word.
Fabio shrugged. ‘Well, you can try one, I suppose, but you won’t like it.’ He picked out a white bun with a big cherry on top and held it up. The kraken studied it … opened his mouth … shut it. For a moment, nothing happened. Then a glow came into his golden eyes.
‘Buns,’ said the baby kraken. ‘Ah, buns!’ and opened his mouth once more …
When he had eaten seven buns Fabio turned to see Minette crouching on the sand. Her hands covered her face but he could see the tears squeezing out between her fingers.
‘Well, really,’ he said crossly. ‘You’d better not have children of your own if you’re going to be as wet as that.’
Chapter Sixteen
‘If you could go back now — if your parents came to fetch you away, what would you do?’ asked Fabio the next day.
Minette felt the familiar crunching in her stomach. Only what was the crunching about? Was it about whether her parents loved her and loved each other, or was it about something else …? Was it about going away from the Island?
‘How could we leave him?’ she said. ‘We’d have to stay till his father came back. It’s only a year and a day — less now. We’d have to stay that long, wouldn’t we?’
Fabio nodded. ‘That’s what I think. But if they find us …’
They had been playing ball with the little kraken in a rockpool, keeping a close watch because Walter was nearby and sometimes the kraken became muddled and thought the merbaby with his round bald head was a beach ball too.
‘I’m not ever going back to my grandparents,’ Fabio went on. ‘The ones in London, I mean. Not ever. If I have to leave the Island I’m going back to South America. I don’t know how, but I’m going.’
Minette nodded. He looked very small, sitting on a boulder with his hands round his knees, but she believed him. Both the children had changed since they came to the Island; they were stronger, and sunburnt, their hair thick and glossy with health.
‘Isn’t everything beautiful?’ said Minette, looking out across the bay. ‘Of course it was even before he came, but now …’
This was true. It was early summer now; the grass was studded with clover and ox-eye daisies; the rowan which sheltered the house was covered in new green leaves — but it was more than that. It was as though the great kraken’s blessing stayed with them, and would stay, even though he himself was gone.
Everyone felt it — and even fewer people went away! The naak did not go back to Estonia; the mermaids, though they had lost all traces of oil, stayed where they were — and the Sybil went on washing her feet.
After the kraken left the Captain had sent for his daughters.
‘I can die happy now,’ he said, ‘because I’ve seen him. So you can measure me up for my coffin.’
But when the aunts had gone away to cry and came back with a tape measure, they found him and the stoorworm taking tea together.
‘If my head is upstairs and my tail is downstairs, where is me?’ the stoorworm was asking, and it was clear that the old man had changed his mind about dying.
But down on the point, Herbert’s mother really was coming to the end of her life. She had chosen the Island as her Last Resting Place, which was a compliment because selkies are fussy about where they die.