Of Lions and Unicorns

by Michael Morpurgo

  have been teaching for over twenty years now, mostly around Hoxton, in north London. After all that time I am no longer at all sentimental about children. I don’t think you could be. Twenty years at the chalk face of education gives you a big dose of reality.

  I was sentimental to start with, I’m sure. I am still an idealist, though not as zealous perhaps as I used to be, but the fire’s still there. You could say that I have given my life to it – I’ve never had children of my own. I’m headmistress at the school now and I believe more than ever we should be creating the best of all possible worlds for our children, giving every one of them the best possible chance to thrive. That’s why every year for at least the past ten years I’ve been taking the children down to a farm in Devon, a place called Nethercott.

  It takes six long hours by coach from London and there, in a large Victorian manor-house with views over to distant Dartmoor, we all live together, all forty of us, teachers and children. We eat three good hot meals a day, sing songs and tell stories around the fire at night, and we sleep like logs. By day we work. And that’s the joy of it, to see the children working hard and purposefully out on the farm, feeding calves, moving sheep, grooming Hebe the Haflinger horse who everyone loves, mucking out stables and sheds, collecting eggs and logs, and apples too. The children do it all, and they love it – mostly, anyway. They work alongside real farmers, get to feel like real farmers, know that everything they are doing is useful and important to the farm, that they and their work are appreciated.

  Every year we come back to school and the whole place is buzzing. In the playground and in the staff-room all the different stories of our week down on the farm are told again and again. The magic moments – a calf being born, the glimpse of a fox or a deer in Bluebell Wood; the little disasters – Mandy’s welly sucked off in the mud, Jemal being chased by the goose. The children write a lot about it, paint pictures of it, and I know they dream about it too, as I do.

  But something so extraordinary happened on one of these visits that I too felt compelled to write it down, just as it happened, so that I should never forget it – and because I know that in years to come, as memory fades, it is going to be difficult to believe. I’ve always found miracles hard to believe, and this really was a kind of miracle.

  The boys and girls at our school, St Francis, come from every corner of the earth, so we are quite used to children who can speak little or no English. But until Ho arrived we never had a child who didn’t speak at all – he’d have been about seven when he joined us. In the three years he’d been with us he had never uttered a word. As a result he had few friends, and spent much of his time on his own. We would see him sitting by himself reading. He read and he wrote in correct and fluent English, more fluent than many of his classmates who’d been born just down the street. He excelled in maths too, but never put his hand up in class, was never able to volunteer an answer or ask a question. He just put it all down on paper, and it was usually right. None of us ever saw him smile at school, not once. His expression seemed set in stone, fixed in a permanent frown.

  We had all given up trying to get him to talk. Any effort to do so had only one effect – he’d simply run off, out into the playground, or all the way home if he could. The educational psychologist, who had not got a word out of him either, told us it was best simply to let him be, and do whatever we could to encourage him, to give him confidence, but without making demands on him to speak. He wasn’t sure whether Ho was choosing not to speak or whether he simply couldn’t.

  All we knew about him was that ever since he’d arrived in England he’d been living with his adoptive parents. In all that time he hadn’t spoken to them either, not a word. We knew from them that Ho was one of the Boat People, that as the war in Vietnam was coming to an end he had managed to escape somehow. There were a lot of Boat People coming to England in those days, mostly via refugee camps in Hong Kong, which was still British then. Other than that, he was a mystery to us all.

  When we arrived at the farm I asked Michael – he was the farm school manager at Nethercott, and, after all these years, an old friend – to be a little bit careful how he treated Ho, to go easy on him. Michael could be blunt with the children, pointing at them, firing direct questions in a way that demanded answers. Michael was fine about it. The truth was that everyone down there on the farm was fascinated by this silent little boy from Vietnam, mostly because they’d all heard about the suffering of the Vietnamese Boat People and this was the first time they’d ever met one of them.

  Ho had an aura of stillness about him that set him apart. Even sweeping down the parlour after milking, he would be working alone, intent on the task in hand – methodically, seriously, never satisfied until the job was done perfectly.

  He particularly loved to touch the animals, I remember that. Looking wasn’t enough. He showed no fear as he eased his hand under a sitting hen to find a new-laid egg. When she pecked at him he didn’t mind. He just stroked her, calmed her down. Moving the cows out after milking he showed no sign of fear, as many of the other children did. He stomped about in his wellies, clapping his hands at them, driving them on as if he’d been doing it all his life. He seemed to have an easiness around animals, an affinity with the cows in particular, I noticed. I could see that he was totally immersed in this new life in the country, loving every moment of every day. The shadow that seemed to hang over him back at school was lifting; the frown had gone.

  On the Sunday afternoon walk along the river Okement I felt him tugging suddenly at my arm and pointing. I looked up just in time to see the flashing brilliance of a kingfisher flying straight as an arrow down the middle of the river. He and I were the only ones to see it. He so nearly smiled then. There was a new light in his eyes that I had not seen before. He was so observant and fascinated, so confident around the animals, I began to wonder about his past – maybe he’d been a country boy back in Vietnam when he was little. I longed to ask him, particularly when he came running up to walk alongside me again. I felt his cold hand creep into mine. That had certainly never happened before. I squeezed it gently and he squeezed back. It was every bit as good as talking, I thought.

  At some point during our week-long visit, Michael comes up in the evening to read a story to the children. He’s a bit of a writer, as well as a performer. He likes to test his stories out on the children, and we like listening to them too. He never seems to get offended if someone nods off – and they’re so tired, they often do. We have all the children washed and ready in their dressing gowns (not easy, I can tell you, when there are nearly forty of them!), hands round mugs of steaming hot chocolate, and gather them in the sitting room round the fire for Michael’s story.

  On this particular evening, the children were noisy and all over the place, high with excitement. They were often like that when it was windy outside, and there’d been a gale blowing all day. It was a bit like rounding up cats. We thought we’d just about managed it, and were doing a final count of heads, when I noticed that Ho was missing. Had anyone seen him? No. The teachers and I searched for him all over the house. No one could find him anywhere. Long minutes passed and still no sign of Ho. I was becoming more than a little worried. It occurred to me that someone might have upset him, causing Ho to run off, just as he had a few times back at school. Out there in the dark he could have got himself lost and frightened all too easily. He had been in his dressing gown and slippers the last time anyone saw him, that much we had established. But it was a very cold night outside. I was trying to control my panic when Michael walked in, manuscript in hand.

  “I need to speak to you,” he said. “It’s Ho.” My heart missed a beat. I followed him out of the room.

  “Listen,” he said, “before I read to the children, there’s something I have to show you.”

  “What?” I asked. “What’s happened? Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine,” Michael replied. “In fact, I’d say he’s happy as Larry. He’s outside. Come and have a l
ook.” He put his fingers to his lips. “We need to be quiet. I don’t want him to hear us.”

  And so it was that the two of us found ourselves, minutes later, tiptoeing through the darkness of the walled vegetable garden. It was so quiet, I remember hearing a fox barking down in the valley.

  There was a light on over the stable door. Michael put his hand on my arm.

  “Look,” he whispered. “Listen. That’s Ho, isn’t it?”

  Ho was standing there under the light stroking Hebe and talking to her softly. He was talking! Ho was talking, but not in English – in Vietnamese, I supposed. I wanted so much to be able to understand what he was saying. As though he were reading my thoughts, at that very moment he switched to English, speaking without hesitation, the words flowing out of him.

  “It’s no good if I speak to you in Vietnamese, Hebe, is it? Because you are English. Well, I know really you are from Austria, that’s what Michael told us, but everyone speaks to you in English.” Ho was almost nose to nose with Hebe now. “Michael says you’re twenty-five years old. What’s that in human years? Fifty? Sixty? I wish you could tell me what it’s like to be a horse. But you can’t talk out loud, can you? You’re like me. You talk inside your head. I wish you could talk to me, because then you could tell me who your mother was, who your father was, how you learnt to be a riding horse. And you can pull carts too, Michael says. And you could tell me what you dream about. You could tell me everything about your life, couldn’t you?

  “I’m only ten, but I’ve got a story I could tell you. D’you want to hear it? Your ears are twitching. I think you understand every word I’m saying, don’t you? Do you know we both begin with ‘H’, don’t we? Ho. Hebe. No one else in my school is called Ho, only me. And I like that. I like to be like no one else. The other kids have a go at me sometimes, call me Ho Ho Ho – because that’s how Father Christmas talks. Not very funny, is it?

  “Anyway, where I come from in Vietnam, we never had Father Christmas. I lived in a village. My mum and dad worked in the rice fields, but then the war came and there were soldiers everywhere and aeroplanes. Lots of bombs falling. So then we moved to the city, to Saigon. I hated the city. I had two little sisters. They hated the city too. No cows and no hens. The city was so crowded. But not as crowded as the boat. I wish we had never got on that boat, but Mum said it would be much safer for us to leave. On the boat there were hundreds of us, and there wasn’t enough food and water. And there were storms and I thought we were all going to die. And lots of us did die too, Mum and Dad, and my two sisters. I was the only one in the family left.

  “A big ship came along and picked us up one day, me and a few others. I remember someone asked me my name, and I couldn’t speak. I was too sad to speak. That’s why I haven’t spoken to anyone since then – only in my head like I said. I talk to myself in my head all the time, like you do. They put me in a camp in Hong Kong, which was horrible. I could not sleep. I kept thinking of my family, all dead in the boat. I kept seeing them again and again. I couldn’t help myself. After a while I was adopted by Aunty Joy and Uncle Max and came to London – that’s a long way from here. It’s all right in London, but there are no cows or hens. I like it here. I want to stay here all my life. Sometimes at home, and at school, I’m so sad that I feel like running away. But with you and all the animals I don’t feel sad any more.”

  All the time Ho was talking I had the strangest feeling that Hebe was not only listening to every single word he said, but that she understood his sadness, and was feeling for him, as much as we did, as we stood there listening in the darkness.

  Ho hadn’t finished yet. “I’ve got to go now, Hebe,” he said. “Michael’s reading us a story. But I’ll come back tomorrow evening, shall I? When no one else is about. Night night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” And he ran into the house then, almost tripping over the doorstep as he went.

  Michael and I were so overwhelmed that for a minute we couldn’t speak. We decided not to talk about it to anyone else. It would seem somehow like breaking a confidence.

  For the rest of the week down on the farm Ho remained as silent and uncommunicative as before. But I noticed now that he would spend every moment he could in the stable yard with Hebe. The two had become quite inseparable. As the coach drove off on the Friday morning I sat down in the empty seat next to Ho. He was looking steadfastly, too steadfastly, out of the window. I could tell he was trying his best to hide his tears. I didn’t really intend to say anything, and certainly not to ask him a question. It just popped out. I think I was trying to cheer him up.

  “Well, Ho, didn’t we have a lovely time?”

  Ho didn’t turn round.

  “Yes, miss,” he said, soft and clear. “I had a lovely time.”

  am snow bear. I am sea bear. I am white bear. I wander far and wide, king in my wild white wilderness.

  The snow has darkened around me again. I have dug my den deep into the mountainside. Here I am warm. Here I shall dream away the winter …

  There will be plenty of hopping hares to pounce on. But hares are tricky. Plenty of frisking foxes. But foxes are fast. Plenty of wallowing walruses. But walruses are big.

  Seals are slow. Seals are best. I stalk them silently. Silently. I am snow bear in a world of white and they cannot see me coming. But one sound, and a seal slips away into the sea.

  A seal in the sea is slippery quick. Narwhals and beluga whales are strong, too strong. Fish flash by like silver light and are gone before they were ever there. Here all about me is whooping and whistling of whales. Here is groaning and grinding of ice. Here I am snow bear no more. I am green and blue and indigo and turquoise. Here I am sea bear.

  I clamber out of the sea. I shake myself dry in the sun. I am snow bear again. I look about me.

  Rainbow! Rainbow over my wild white wilderness. Beautiful and bright he was, more wonderful than anything I had ever seen before. I knew at once I had to catch rainbow and make him mine. So I went after him. I went hunting rainbow.

  I leapt from ice floe to ice floe. I galloped through snow. Ever closer, ever closer. I stalked him silently. Silently. And there at last was rainbow, just one leap away. I pounced.

  But I pounced on snow, on white white snow. Rainbow was gone, vanished with the wind. I lay in wait for him, for days, for nights, but he never came back. So I went looking for him. I roamed my wild white wilderness. I would hunt nothing but rainbow.

  How long I wandered I did not know. I was weary. I was hungry. I knew I must eat, or I would die.

  I smelt man. Then I saw man. Man is clever. Man is danger. But this man was alone and I was hungry. This man was sitting on the ice. He was fishing.

  I stalked him silently. Silently. When he saw me, he did not try to run. There was no fear in his eyes, only wisdom.

  “So, my friend,” he said, “so you have come to eat me. I’m old, very old, I’m not much of a meal for a king of a bear like you.”

  And it was true. He was old, little more than skin and bone. But a meal was a meal. I made ready to pounce.

  “Only leave me to live out my days, my friend,” he went on, “and I shall grant you your dearest wish. For I am wiser than man. I am shaman. I know all there is to know. I know you hunt rainbow. But rainbow cannot be hunted, cannot be caught. All you can do is let rainbow come to you. And when he does, you must not pounce on him, you must wish on him. Then all you wish will come true. This I promise you.”

  The wise old shaman turned back to his fishing again.

  So I walked off and left him there on the ice. I did just as he had told me. I hunted no more for rainbow, only for seal and fox and hare. But I still looked everywhere for rainbow.

  Every night I dreamt of him. Then one morning I woke and rainbow was there. It was him! It was rainbow leaping out over the sea and across the sky towards me. I remembered again the wise old shaman’s words. So I sat on my mountainside and waited, and hoped. And waited and hoped. Nearer he came, nearer still, until he stopped
right over me. I was soaked through in his colours. I was rainbow too! I knew at once what to wish for.

  I closed my eyes and I wished. “Let me only stay like this, just as I am at this moment. Let me be rainbow bear.”

  When at last I opened my eyes, rainbow had gone from the sky above me. But I was rainbow, rainbow all over! I was rainbow bear!

  I cavorted, I frolicked. I tumbled down the mountainside. I rolled in the snow. I plunged into the sea. When I came out I shook myself dry. I was still rainbow bear! No bear before me had ever been happier than I was then.

  I went to find the old shaman, to tell him, to show him. It was far to go, so I hunted as I went. I smelt seal. I stalked him silently. Silently. But seal saw me coming and was quickly gone. I smelt fox. I stalked him silently. Silently. But fox saw me coming and was quickly gone. I smelt hare. I stalked him silently. Silently. But hare too saw me coming and was quickly gone.

  By the time I found the wise old shaman again, I was weak with hunger.

  “Ah, my friend,” he said. “Wherever I go they speak of little else but you. Out at sea, the whales whistle and whoop of it. The waves murmur it. At night the snowy owl hoots to the moon of it. And all say the same: ‘Have you seen the rainbow bear? Is he not the most beautiful bear the world has ever seen?’ And you are. But there is much danger in beauty, my friend.”

  And even as he spoke, he pointed out to sea. A great ship was stealing towards us through the ice floes, silently. Silently.

  “Look!” he cried. “They have come for you, my friend. Run! Hide yourself! Go, before it is too late!”

  So I ran and ran, but the men from the great ship came after me with their dogs and guns. I hid where I could, but wherever I hid they found me. I was no longer a white bear in a white world. I made for my mountainside, for my winter den. But the men soon dug me out. I was too weak to fight the net they threw over me.

  “We have him!” they cried. “We have the rainbow bear! Let’s take him back to the ship. He’ll make us a fortune.”