The Wreck of the Zanzibar by Michael Morpurgo Read Free Book Online

for seed next spring. And brandy enough, Father says, to keep us all happy forever.
    Granny May insisted we get her up. She keeps touching Billy to be sure he’s real. She took some soup – the first time she’d eaten for days – and then made us take her to Rushy Bay to see the wreck. She couldn’t walk, so Billy and his friends from the
Zanzibar
pulled her across the island in the back of a cart, as the donkeys were still busy. She was beside me this evening, at high tide, when we heard the
Zanzibar
groan. Everyone was there to watch her go. We watched her sink slowly into the sea, her shredded sails whipping in the wind, waving at us. I waved back in silence. The crew took off their hats, some crossed themselves and one of them fell on his knees in the sand and thanked God. And then we all knelt with him, except Granny May, I noticed.
    We’re staying. Everyone’s staying. Billy’s staying. He’s said so, he promised. He’s crossed his heart and hoped to die. He’s been all over the world – America, Ireland, France, Spain, Africa even. Imagine that, Africa. I asked about Joseph Hannibal. It seems he didn’t quite turn out as Billy had expected.He drank a lot. He borrowed Billy’s money and never gave it back. And when Billy asked for it, he threatened him. So Billy left the
General Lee
in New York and became a cabin-boy on the
Zanzibar.
It was the
Zanzibar
that had taken him all over the world.
    Billy says there are beautiful places in the world,wonders you wouldn’t believe unless you saw them with your own eyes, but that there’s nowhere else in the world quite like Scilly, nowhere like home. I told him I knew that already, and Father said there’s some things you’ve got to find out for yourself, and Billy and he smiled at each other.

DECEMBER 24TH
    I’M MILKING THE
ZANZIBAR
COWS, AND WITH Billy, too. Three of the six are in milk and we think the others may be in calf – let’s hope! Everyone had most of what they want off the wreck. There’s been some grumbles, of course, but it’s been fair shares. We’ve got the cows because we’re the only ones who know how to handle them – we got some corn, too – everyone did. We’ve rebuilt the cowshed just as it was. Granny May has enough wood for her roof. There’s timber stacked up in gardens all over the island. There’s boats being mended, roofs going on. Everyone, everywhere, is hammering and sawing. Bryher is alive again.
    Granny May will probably be with us until the spring, till her house is ready. She’s the same now as she ever was, scuttling about the place and muttering to herself. Sometimes I think she is the ‘mad old stick’ everyone says she is. She keeps telling me it wasn’t God that brought the wreck that brought Billy back to us, it was the turtle. She rambles on and on about how there’s no such thing as a miracle. If something happens, then something has made it happen. Law of nature, she says. We saved the turtle and so the turtle saved us. It’s that simple. You get what you deserve in this world, she says. I don’t know that she’s right.
    I’ve told Billy all about the turtle. He says if he’d found it, he’d have eaten it, but he wouldn’t have. He’s just saying that. We talk and we talk. We’ve hardly stopped talking since he came back. I’ve heard his stories over and over, but I want to hear them again and again. I know them so well, it’s as if I was with him all the time he was away, as if I’ve been to America and Africa, as if I’ve seen for myself the great cities, the deserts that go on forever and icebergs and mountains that reach up and touch the sky.
    The crew of the
Zanzibar
left from the quay thisevening. We were there to wave them off. Everyone hugged everyone. They were all so happy to be alive and so grateful to us for saving them.
    Since