Storm Singing and other Tangled Tasks (4 page)

“What’s the second task?” asked Helen.

“It’s … em … just a challenge to show our control over … em … our surroundings …”

“What do you have to do?”

“Just some singing. A bit like today, sort of  … Oh! That’s Catesby’s signal; it’s safe to go to the tents. Come on.” And Rona strode off, at a speed which would win races on land as well as at sea.

Lavender was lifting tiny dresses off a drying line strung between the two tents, and placing them in a large rucksack on the ground, while Helen and Rona brushed hoofprints off the earth between the wall and the tents.

Catesby was fluttering about, pointing to marks they’d missed. Rona muttered, “Why can’t Yann clear up his
own
hoofprints?”

Helen laughed. “Because he’d leave new prints to clear. We need a plan to keep the Scouts away from this corner permanently, so Yann doesn’t have to stay on the other side of the hill, and so we don’t have to keep clearing up.”

Catesby squawked, and Rona dropped her broom. “They’re coming back. They must have forgotten something!”

Helen ordered, “Catesby, Lavender, go behind the hill and stay with Yann. Rona, hide the brushes.”

“We haven’t got rid of all the hoofprints yet!”

“I’ll sort the prints.” Helen ran to the concrete toilet block, grabbed a hose, turned on the tap and dashed back to the tents.

She soaked the ground, turning centaur hoofprints, bare selkie footprints and phoenix clawmarks into mud.

Helen heard the bus engine growl. “They’re nearly here!” She ran back with the squirting hose, wrestling it under her arm as she turned the tap off, then dashed back to the tent. Four Scouts leapt out of a minibus and walked towards them.

“Hi!” said the driver, who was in his twenties, so he was probably a Scout leader. He looked at the muddy ground and Helen’s soggy jeans. “Have you had a flood?”

Helen shrugged. “There was a burst drain under our tent, so we’re cleaning up.” She wafted her hand in front of her nose. “It was the drain from the toilets, so it’s quite smelly. You don’t want to come too near.”

The Scout leader backed away, saying to the three younger Scouts, “You can give them a hand. I’ll find those bicycle repair kits.”

“I’m Emily,” said one of the Scouts, “this is Ben,” she pointed to a ginger-haired boy, “that’s Liam,” she pointed to a boy standing further away, holding his nose.

“You’ve got
two
tents,” Emily said. “One of them is huge. How many of you are there?”

“Five,” said Rona.

“Two,” said Helen at the same time.

They frowned at each other.

“Two of us,” said Helen firmly. “But we’ve been here for five days. I’m Helen, this is Rona.” She held out her muddy hand. The Scouts all shook it, then wiped their hands on their trousers.

“So,” said Emily, “do you want help moving to a drier bit of the site?” Helen and Rona shook their heads, and she laughed. “You want to be as far from us as possible? Fair enough!”

Ben said, “I’ll put that rucksack back in the tent, before it gets any muddier.”

“No! I’ll do it!” Helen tried to grab the rucksack before he picked it up. As they politely fought over it, the top layer of packing flew out.

Little dresses, tiny shoes and a spare magic wand.

One pink lacy dress landed on Emily’s trainer. She stared at it. “Do you still play with dolls?”

“Yes!” said Rona.

“No!” said Helen.

Helen sighed. How embarrassing was this? “My little sister was coming with us, but she caught a cold and stayed at home, and I forgot to unpack her toys.”

Emily shook her head, and the three Scouts walked back to the minibus, discussing whether little kids should be allowed out on their own.

Helen muttered, “I’m not a little kid! I’m nearly twelve.” Then she turned to Rona, and raised her eyebrows. “Five of us! Were you going to introduce them to the centaur, the fairy and the phoenix as well?”

“Sorry! I’m not used to talking to real humans.”

Helen laughed. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t any better.

Anyway, if they think we’re strange
and
camped over a burst sewage pipe, they’ll stay away.” She shook her head as they watched the minibus drive off again. “Your Aunt Sheila is a bit naïve if she thinks fabled beasts can live this close to humans.”

“Auntie Sheila knows what she’s doing. She’s run this campsite for thirty years, and no human has guessed what she is. She’s the only selkie we know who stayed on land after her husband gave her back her skin, even after he died and her children left home. She’s pretty
good at making your world her own, even though she’s a selkie elder.”

Helen looked at her watch. “You’d better get ready for your victory feast. We’ll join you once it’s dark enough to row over without being seen.”

Once Rona slipped down to the shore and swam off to join her family on Eilan nan MacCodrum, the island in Taltomie Bay, Helen unpacked Lavender’s washing. As she laid the tiny dresses on the groundsheet to dry, she noticed the faint lines on the back of her hand. Helen ran her fingers over the marks. They were tender and itchy.

In the chaos of the Scouts’ arrival, she’d forgotten the fight on the clifftop. Now she wondered why the
sea-through
had attacked the Storm Singer competition, and why it had waited until Roxburgh was singing.

As she considered these puzzles, Helen got her fiddle out. There wasn’t room to swing a bow arm in her own tent, so she moved to Yann’s taller tent, to play the most intriguing tunes the selkies had sung that afternoon.

When the light outside faded, and she’d played the new melodies into her memory, she returned to her own tent to tidy up Lavender’s wardrobe. As she was matching pairs of shoes, she heard a scratching noise outside. She unzipped the door, and Catesby divebombed in, then told Helen something vitally important.

Which she didn’t understand.

Helen never understood anything important Catesby said.

She’d known the phoenix for months: first in his elegant, metallic, almost adult plumage; then after he burnt up and re-hatched, growing into these fluffy
juvenile feathers. But his squeaky baby bird voice wasn’t why she couldn’t understand him. She just couldn’t understand phoenix language.

All her fabled beast friends understood him, though they had to answer in their own languages. “All you have to do is
listen
,” Lavender would say in exasperation. Helen tried, but she couldn’t hear any words in Catesby’s squeaks and squawks.

Catesby clicked and whistled, then shrieked with frustration.

Helen groaned. “I know you’re annoyed I can’t understand you! I’m getting
that
message. But I’m still not getting the original message. Sorry. Please do the wing thing again.”

Catesby used his left wing to gesture to the door, then towards the other tent.

“You want me to go to your tent?”

He nodded.

“Are the others there?”

He nodded again.

Helen tutted. “Why didn’t you say so?”

He squawked in irritation. She grinned, stroking his fluffy feathers, then carried him on her wrist into the bigger tent.

“I have to get changed first, obviously.” Lavender was perched on Yann’s shoulder, tugging a tiny comb through his dark red hair. “Once we’re all respectable, we can head off.”

Helen looked at her jeans and t-shirt. “I was going like this. We’re going in a boat, to a cave. Anything fancier would be overdressing, wouldn’t it?”

“Please make an effort,” Lavender said. “It’s Rona’s celebration.”

“I’ll brush my hair, and I might put on jewellery, but I can’t do anything about these marks on my hand.”

Lavender bounced over to look at the fading scars. “Those still look nasty. What was that sea creature trying to do? Will it disrupt the next contest too?”

Helen shrugged. “If it’s some enemy of Sinclair’s, only interested in stopping Roxburgh winning, then it won’t care about the Sea Herald contest.”

There was a gentle tap on the outside layer of the tent and Sheila’s voice whispered, “I can get the boat ready in ten minutes, if that’s ok?”

“Ten minutes!” shrieked Lavender. “But I’m not changed!”

While everyone else got ready, Helen brushed her hair and put on an old coral necklace she’d found in a charity shop. Then they jumped, clambered or fluttered over the wall, and went around the outside of the campsite to join Sheila at the lantern-lit jetty.

Helen looked at the campsite’s rowing boat, then at the centaur beside her. “Are you sure about this, Yann?”

“I’ve flown on a dragon. I can stand in a boat.”

“But can the boat take your weight?”

Sheila laughed. “I’m sure it can. It’s carried fat fishermen and all their kit, so it will cope with a few kids.”

“Kids with hooves?” Helen muttered.

Sheila crouched down, and picked up the rope tying the boat to the jetty. “If you row from the bow, Helen, and Yann stands carefully over the middle and stern benches, then the boat will be quite low in the water, but well enough balanced. It’s a new boat, light, fast and easy to row, so I’m sure you can cope. And I’m not
coming with you, so that’s one less person to fit in the boat.”

“Why aren’t you coming?” asked Lavender. “Don’t you want to cheer for Rona? Or don’t you have the right clothes for a feast?” She glanced at Sheila’s jeans.

“I’ll cheer from this side. I don’t cross the water any more.”

“Why not?” Helen asked.

“Most selkies are never satisfied with where and who they are,” Sheila said quietly. “We long for the sea when we’re on the land, and long for the land when we’re at sea. So I’ve made my choice. I stay on land. I’m happier that way.”

Yann took a deep breath, and stepped into the boat, which rocked wildly from side to side. He leapt back onto the jetty.

Catesby squawked. Yann glared at him. “Humans can do it. I can do it.”

So he watched the boat, judged its gentle movement on the slight swell, and timed his step carefully. This time he got two hooves in the boat before it lurched and he reversed again fast.

Helen said, trying to sound serious, “In the olden days, horses and cattle were tied to the back of boats, and they swam along behind. We could try that.”

“I am not
cattle
!” Yann said angrily, as he tried again.

Lavender and Catesby didn’t manage to hide their sniggers, as it took three more attempts before the centaur finally stood awkwardly in the rocking boat.

Helen stepped lightly into the front of the boat to pick up the oars, checking they were secure in their rowlocks, and once Sheila had untied the rope, Helen started to
row. She gasped as she pulled on the oars. She’d rowed her mum and little sister round St Mary’s Loch in the Borders last summer, but rowing a boat with a centaur in it would be harder work.

Sheila called from the jetty, as Helen got into a slow steady rhythm, “Will you be alright, Helen?”

“I’m fine. But Yann’s not getting any pudding if he wants me to row him back!”

Because she was rowing, Helen was facing the stern, the back of the boat. So she was looking at where they had been rather than where they were going, though she could hardly see the lights of the campsite past Yann’s huge bulk. “You’re just too
heavy
!”

“Nonsense. The water is supporting my weight, all you’re doing is moving us along. If you can pull me up a cliff, human girl, you can row me over the water.”

When Helen took a break, she twisted round to see the dark island ahead of them, outlined against the black sky. Eilan nan MacCodrum was like a tipped-over slice of cake on the water: high cliffs at one end, sloping down to a beach at the other.

Helen started rowing again, wishing that her friend Sapphire was here to fly them all from shore to island. But the dragon couldn’t leave her Borders home until she had shed her old skin, so Helen would have to get used to being a taxi service this weekend.

“Stop splashing me, Helen!” said Lavender, perched on the side of the boat. “You’re getting my dress wet!”

“I’m rowing as smoothly as I can.”

“Stop it!” Lavender squealed again. “Who’s doing that?”

Then a voice called:

Helen stopped rowing. All the fabled beasts looked frantically around, Yann’s movements making the boat wobble.

The voice had come from the sea.

Lavender lit the air above the boat with shaky lightballs from the end of her wand.

The boat was surrounded by a ring of people, bobbing in the sea. Their wet heads and upper bodies were dark and shiny in the magical light.

“Finish our rhymes, or we soak you!” said the nearest boy in a cheerful voice.

They all swam forward and grasped the edge of the boat, one at the bow, one at the stern, and four on each side, rocking it slightly. Then they chanted:

There was a pause.

“Finish the verse, or we’ll soak you,” repeated the smiling boy, hanging on beside the port-side rowlock to Helen’s right.

“Finish the verse, or we’ll
sink
you!” said the boy at the bow, behind Helen. They all chanted again:

Yann’s deep voice continued:

“Perfect!” said the boy to Helen’s right. “Now we need three more verses for the other three in the boat.”

Helen whispered to Yann, “Who are they? What should we do?”

Yann replied, clearly and openly, “Helen, meet the blue loons, the sons of the blue men of the Minch. This tribe have a nasty habit of drowning people who can’t create poetry up to their low standards of doggerel, but don’t worry. I can make up rhymes for most words except orange and silver.”

“But a poetic pony isn’t enough,” called a boy near the stern. “You
all
have to answer or we won’t let you past. Can the lilac blossom rhyme?

Lavender answered in her high voice:

The smiling boy said, “Rhyming
and
punning! Well done!” But they didn’t stop their uncomfortable rocking of the boat.

“Your turn now, ugly ducking,” said another blue loon, on the starboard side.

Helen gasped. How could Catesby complete a rhyme, when he didn’t speak English?

After a tense pause, Catesby fluttered above their heads, and chittered a chant with the same rhythm as the blue loons’ couplet, which ended in a loud squawk.

The blue loons laughed. Helen hadn’t understood Catesby’s verse, but that squawk at the end had definitely rhymed with “talk”.

Helen had no time to feel relieved, because Catesby’s success meant she was next. The boy to her right called out:

Helen looked up at Yann. He shrugged. He was powerless here, away from the land where he was so fast and strong.

The blue loon repeated the lines:

Helen had no ideas at all. The rhythm was simple enough, but she had never liked writing words for tunes. Violinists weren’t expected to sing.

The voice behind Helen called angrily, “Rhyme
now
, human child, or we’ll sink the boat. Once you’re in the water, we’ll sink you too, unless you give us the rhymes in your head.”

 “I don’t have any rhymes in my head,” she said quietly.

And the blue loons attacked the boat. In one sudden shocking movement, the ones to port dragged the boat’s edge down, the ones to starboard shoved upwards, and the boat lurched to the side.

Helen screamed as she slid out towards the water. She let go of the oars and grabbed the side of the boat. She wedged her feet under the bench in front. She flung herself sideways to starboard as if her weight could count against the force of ten teenagers determined to drown her.

Yann roared and Helen felt the boat jerk as the centaur leapt into the air then crashed down again to stay in the boat.

Then the boat swung back, and righted itself. The blue loons had only tipped it once. It wasn’t an attempt to drown them. Just a warning of what would happen if she didn’t answer.

Yann was shifting his hooves to get his balance, Catesby was fluttering in the air above her head, and Helen groped about for the oars, vaguely aware she’d lost something even more vital.

“LAVENDER! Where’s Lavender?”

A tiny cough came from her right.

Lavender was clinging to the port side of the boat. She was completely soaked. “I’m going to a party!” she yelled furiously. “And I look ridiculous!”

“You won’t get to the party unless the human girl rhymes,” said one of the blue loons.

“We won’t get to the party unless I find both oars,” muttered Helen. The left oar was in its rowlock, but the right oar had slipped free.

She peered past the blue loons at the water. The oar should float, but it might already be out of reach. “More light, Lavender,” she whispered, “I’ve lost an oar.”

Before Lavender could shake the water off her wand, Helen saw the oar. The blue loon nearest her was grinning as he pushed it back through the rowlock.

As she bent closer to grasp the oar, he murmured, “Don’t overthink the rhyme, just listen to the rhythm, then answer it. It’s easy, you have it in your head already.”

Then he called out, “Last chance, human child, rhyme the third time of asking, or we overturn the boat.

Helen closed her eyes, mouthed the words along with him, and rather than planning an answer, she let her thumb keep the beat on the oar, and her mouth keep the words going …

“No,” the boy at the bow said. “That’s not true. They aren’t any worse than rhyming seas and please, or talk and squawk. So your verse is a lie and you have to rhyme again.”

“You challenged us to top your rhymes, not speak the truth,” Yann objected. “We’re late for the feast, so let us past.”

“A human is most likely to know the answers we need,” said a higher voice. “So she rhymes again.”

“That’s not how we do it,” said the blue loon by Helen’s right oar. “They’ve all rhymed, they’re free to go.”

“Just because you gather at least one verse a day, Tangaroa, doesn’t mean you can deny the rest of us our chance,” muttered the boy at the bow. “This girl might know our way home.”

“Not when we keep changing the rules. They have rhymed. They have the right to pass.” He spoke with clear authority, and the others let go of the boat when he did.

He nodded to Helen. “Row on, human child. We’ll see you at the feast.”