Of Lions and Unicorns

by Michael Morpurgo

  Their footsteps sounded hollow in the empty street. They had to step off the pavement to pick their way round the edge of a pile of rubble that was still scattered halfway across the street. That was where the Perkins family had lived. They had been bombed out only a week before; they were all killed. Special prayers were said at school assembly for Brian and Garry Perkins, but no one ever mentioned them after that. They were dead, after all.

  In the gloom outside Highbury and Islington Underground Station there was already a crowd of people. Miss Evers’s voice rang out above the hubbub and the crying. She was calling out names. His mother pulled at his hand and they ran the last few yards.

  “Tony Tucker. Tony Tucker.” Miss Evers’s voice rose to a shriek. “Where’s Tucky? Has anyone seen Tucky?”

  “He’s coming, miss. I saw him.”

  “And what about David Carey? Is he here yet?”

  “Yes, miss. I’m here, miss.” David spoke out, pleased at the strength in his voice.

  “Here’s Tucky, miss. He’s just coming.”

  “Right then.” Miss Evers folded her piece of paper. “We’re all here, and it’s time to go. Say goodbye as quick as ever you can. The train leaves Paddington at half past eight, and we have to be there at least an hour before. So hurry it up now – and don’t forget your gas masks.”

  David felt the case being handed to him. “Goodbye, David. And don’t worry. It’ll be all right. I’ll send a letter as soon as I can. God bless.” She kissed him quickly on the cheek and turned away. He watched her until she disappeared at the end of the street. All around him there was crying: boys he’d never dreamt could cry, weeping openly, and mothers holding on to each other as they walked away. He was glad his mother hadn’t cried, and it helped him to see so many of his friends as miserable as he felt himself. He blinked back the tears that had gathered in his eyes and wiped his face before turning towards the station.

  The warmth of the Underground came up to meet them as the school trooped down the silent, unmoving escalator. They followed Miss Evers along the tunnels, down the stairways and out on to the platform. Tucky came up alongside David and dropped his suitcase.

  “H’lo, Davey.”

  “H’lo, Tucky.” They were old friends and there was nothing more to be said.

  They did not have long to wait. There was a distant rumble and then a rush of warm, oily wind that blew their eyes closed as it rushed into the platform. Miss Evers counted them as they pushed and jostled into the carriage, herding them in like sheep, so that every corner of the carriage was filled. The doors clicked and hissed shut, and the train jerked forward, throwing everyone against each other.

  David watched the last Highbury and Islington sign as long as he could, craning his neck until the carriage plunged into the darkness of the tunnel and it was gone.

  “That’s that, then,” said Tucky next to him. David nodded and looked up at the parallel rows of handles that swung from the roof of the carriage, always out of reach. And he remembered his father lifting him up high above everyone, and how he’d hung on to the strap next to his father’s looking down on a sea of upturned faces.

  Miss Evers was shouting at them again. “Boys, boys. Can you all hear me, boys? Sam, you’re not listening. I can see you’re not listening. You can’t listen and talk at the same time – it’s not possible. Now, we’ve been through all this many times before, but I’ll do it just once more to make sure. We’re going to … where are we going, Tucky?”

  “Devon, miss.”

  “What station do we have to go to, to get to Devon, Tucky?”

  “Don’t know, miss.”

  “Paddington, Tucky. We’re going to Paddington Station.” Whenever Miss Evers wanted to tell them all something, she always asked Tucky first; and when Tucky didn’t know, and he never did know, that was her excuse to tell them herself. She picked on Tucky mercilessly, and David hated her for it.

  “And what am I going to give you at Paddington Station, Tucky? Can you remember that, Tucky?”

  “No, miss.”

  “Your placards, Tucky. With your name and address on. Remember? In case you get lost.”

  “And the string, miss,” someone else said. Tucky was already sniffing, his hands screwed into his eyes. Another question from Miss Evers and he would dissolve into floods of tears.

  “Well, I’m glad someone was paying attention. Placards and string. You’ll be wearing the placards round your neck. Remember now, Tucky?” Tucky nodded into his raincoat sleeve, and Miss Evers left him alone after that.

  They had to change trains once and Sam left his case behind on the train. Miss Evers screamed at the guard and the doors hissed open again and she went back in for it. When she came out she screamed at Sam, but Sam braved it out and then grinned sheepishly as soon as her back was turned.

  Placards strung round their necks, and two by two, the boys climbed the long stairs up into Paddington Station. David and Tucky were almost last in the crocodile and as far away from Miss Evers as possible.

  Up to that moment it had been just his school that was being evacuated, but now David discovered that every other child in London seemed to be at the station. Miss Evers shouted back at them to hold on to the belt of the boy in front and they wound their way like a long snake through the crowds of milling children and screaming teachers, who paused only to blow their whistles. And above it all came the thunder and rhythmic pounding of steam engines, and the rich, exciting smell of the smoke.

  David had been on a train once before. Just before the war started he’d been on a school journey to Birchington, but then his mother and father had been on the platform waving him off. He felt the belt in his hand jerk and the crocodile stuttered forward again towards the platform.

  Miss Roberts, the headmistress, was waiting for them by the ticket barrier; and so was Miss Hardy. Miss Roberts was in her usual bird’s nest hat, and Miss Hardy, as usual, was clucking around her like a worried hen. Miss Evers seemed relieved to see them, and smiled for the first time that morning. Miss Roberts took charge and beckoned everyone closer.

  “The train’s at least two hours late, boys, so we’ll have to wait. Put your cases down and sit on them.” It was good to have Miss Roberts there in her hat and bright clothes. There wasn’t a boy in the school who didn’t like her, and now her smiles and laughter were familiar and comforting in the strangeness and noise of the station.

  David spent the two hours chatting to Tucky and looking at everyone else – that was all there was to do. The marches blared out of the loudspeakers, but they were so loud he could hardly make out the tune – and when there was a tune he recognised, a great explosion of steam would ruin it for him. Miss Hardy gave everyone a roll and jam with a mug of warm milk, and Miss Roberts sat heavily on her suitcase and smoked her way through a packet of cigarettes.

  It seemed as if the train would never leave, but it did – three hours late. The boys piled into the train, fourteen to a carriage, and the train stood there, hissing gently.

  David and Tucky found themselves sitting in Miss Roberts’s carriage. They knew it would mean cigarette smoke all the way to Devon, but that was better than Miss Hardy’s fussing, and a lot better than Miss Evers’s waspish tongue. Miss Roberts collected all their placards and put them in the luggage rack above their heads.

  “You won’t need those for a bit. I think I know who you all are.” Miss Roberts sat down next to Tucky, and the seat sank. “You’ll need them again when we get to Devon – if we ever do.” She took off her bird’s nest hat with a flourish and shook out her red hair, and then settled down to a packet of Senior Service cigarettes and a pile of orange paperbacks.

  She was a huge lady, and Tucky wondered if he would ever be able to stop himself from sliding down towards her into the crater she had made in the cushioned seat.

  Doors were banging all the way down the train and a group of sailors ran past waving and shouting. More banging, the shrill whistle, the pressure building up in shor
t blasts of steam; and then the train heaved forward, the engine settling into a slow pulling rhythm as they watched the platform slip away.

  “We’re off,” said Tucky.

  “On our way, boys,” said Miss Roberts. “Say goodbye to London, and good luck. Not for ever, you know. We’ll be back.”

  David stared out of the window and wondered what his mother was doing at that moment and how long it would be before he’d see her again.

  he necklace stretched from one end of the kitchen table to the other, around the sugar bowl at the far end and back again, stopping only a few inches short of the toaster. The discovery on the beach of a length of abandoned fishing line draped with seaweed had first suggested the idea to Cherry; and every day of the holiday since then had been spent in one single-minded pursuit, the creation of a necklace of glistening pink cowrie shells. She had sworn to herself and to everyone else that the necklace would not be complete until it reached the toaster; and when Cherry vowed she would do something, she invariably did it.

  Cherry was the youngest in a family of older brothers, four of them, who had teased her relentlessly since the day she was born, eleven years before. She referred to them as “the four mistakes”, for it was a family joke that each son had been an attempt to produce a daughter. To their huge delight Cherry reacted passionately to any slight or insult whether intended or not. Their particular targets were her size, which was diminutive compared to theirs, and her dark flashing eyes that could wither with one scornful look, her “zapping” look, they called it. Although the teasing was interminable it was rarely hurtful, nor was it intended to be, for her brothers adored her; and she knew it.

  Cherry was poring over her necklace, still in her dressing gown. Breakfast had just been cleared away and she was alone with her mother. She fingered the shells lightly, turning them gently until the entire necklace lay flat with the rounded pink of the shells all uppermost. Then she bent down and breathed on each of them in turn, polishing them carefully with a napkin.

  “There’s still the sea in them,” she said to no one in particular. “You can still smell it, and I washed them and washed them, you know.”

  “You’ve only got today, Cherry,” said her mother, coming over to the table and putting an arm round her. “Just today, that’s all. We’re off back home tomorrow morning first thing. Why don’t you call it a day, dear? You’ve been at it every day – you must be tired of it by now. There’s no need to go on, you know. We all think it’s a fine necklace and quite long enough. It’s long enough, surely?”

  Cherry shook her head slowly. “No,” she said. “Only that little bit left to do and then it’ll be finished.”

  “But they’ll take hours to collect, dear,” her mother said weakly, recognising and at the same time respecting her daughter’s persistence.

  “Only a few hours,” said Cherry, bending over, her brows furrowing critically as she inspected a flaw in one of her shells, “that’s all it’ll take. D’you know, there are five thousand, three hundred and twenty-five shells in my necklace already? I counted them, so I know.”

  “Isn’t that enough, Cherry?” her mother said desperately.

  “No,” said Cherry. “I said I’d reach the toaster, and I’m going to reach the toaster.”

  Her mother turned away to continue the drying-up.

  “Well, I can’t spend all day on the beach today, Cherry,” she said. “If you haven’t finished by the time we come away, I’ll have to leave you there. We’ve got to pack up and tidy the house – there’ll be no time in the morning.”

  “I’ll be all right,” said Cherry, cocking her head on one side to view the necklace from a different angle. “There’s never been a necklace like this before, not in all the world. I’m sure there hasn’t.” And then, “You can leave me there, Mum, and I’ll walk back. It’s only a mile or so along the cliff path and half a mile back across the fields. I’ve done it before on my own. It’s not far.”

  There was a thundering on the stairs and a sudden rude invasion of the kitchen. Cherry was surrounded by her four brothers who leant over the table in mock appreciation of her necklace.

  “Ooh, pretty.”

  “Do they come in other colours? I mean, pink’s not my colour.”

  “Who’s it for? An elephant?”

  “It’s for a giant,” said Cherry. “It’s a giant’s necklace, and it’s still not big enough.”

  It was the perfect answer, an answer she knew would send her brothers into fits of laughter. She loved to make them laugh at her and could do it at the drop of a hat. Of course she no more believed in giants than they did, but if it tickled them pink to believe she did, then why not pretend?

  She turned on them, fists flailing and chased them back up the stairs, her eyes burning with simulated fury. “Just cos you don’t believe in anything ’cept motorbikes and football and all that rubbish, just cos you’re great big, fat, ignorant pigs …” She hurled insults up the stairs, and the worse the insult the more they loved it.

  Boat Cove just below Zennor Head was the beach they had found and occupied. Every year for as long as Cherry could remember they had rented the same granite cottage, set back in the fields below the Eagle’s Nest, and every year they came to the same beach because no one else did. In two weeks not another soul had ventured down the winding track through the bracken from the coastal path. It was a long climb down and a very much longer one up. The beach itself was almost hidden from the path that ran along the cliff top a hundred feet above. It was private and perfect and theirs. The boys swam in amongst the rocks, diving and snorkelling for hours on end. Her mother and father would sit side by side on stripey deck chairs. She would read endlessly and he would close his eyes against the sun and dream for hours on end.

  Cherry moved away from them and clambered over the rocks to a narrow strip of sand in the cove beyond the rocks, and here it was that she mined for the cowrie shells. In the gritty sand under the cliff face she had found a particularly rich deposit. She was looking for pink cowrie shells of a uniform length, colour and shape – that was what took the time. Occasionally the boys would swim around the rocks and in to her little beach, emerging from the sea all goggled and flippered to mock her. But as she paid them little attention they soon tired and went away again. She knew time was running short. This was her very last chance to find enough shells to complete the giant’s necklace, and it had to be done.

  The sea was calmer that day than she had ever seen it. The heat beat down from a windless, cloudless sky; even the gulls and kittiwakes seemed to be silenced by the sun. Cherry searched on, stopping only for a picnic lunch of pasties and tomatoes with the family before returning at once to her shells.

  In the end the heat proved too much for her mother and father, who left the beach earlier than usual in mid-afternoon to begin to tidy up the cottage. The boys soon followed because they had tired of finding miniature crabs and seaweed instead of the sunken wrecks and treasure they had been seeking. So, by teatime Cherry was left on her own on the beach with strict instructions to keep her hat on, not to bathe alone and to be back well before dark. She had calculated she needed one hundred and fifty more cowrie shells and so far she had only found eighty. She would be back, she insisted, when she had finished collecting enough shells and not before.

  Had she not been so immersed in her search, sifting the shells through her fingers, she would have noticed the dark grey bank of cloud rolling in from the Atlantic. She would have noticed the white horses gathering out at sea and the tide moving remorselessly in to cover the rocks between her and Boat Cove. When the clouds cut off the warmth from the sun as evening came on and the sea turned grey, she shivered with cold and put on her sweater and jeans. She did look up then and saw the angry sea, but she saw no threat in that and did not look back over her shoulder to Boat Cove. She was aware that time was running out so she went down on her knees again and dug feverishly in the sand. She had to collect thirty more shells.

  It
was the baleful sound of the foghorn somewhere out at sea beyond Gurnard’s Head that at last forced Cherry to take some account of the incoming tide. She looked for the rocks she would have to clamber over to reach Boat Cove again and the winding track that would take her up to the cliff path and safety, but they were gone. Where they should have been, the sea was already driving in against the cliff face. She was cut off. In a confusion of wonder and fear she looked out to sea at the heaving ocean that moved in towards her, seeing it now as a writhing grey monster breathing its fury on the rocks with every pounding wave.

  Still Cherry did not forget her shells, but wrapping them inside her towel she tucked them into her sweater and waded out through the surf towards the rocks. If she timed it right, she reasoned, she could scramble back over them and into the Cove as the surf retreated. She reached the first of the rocks without too much difficulty; the sea here seemed to be protected from the force of the ocean by the rocks further out. Holding fast to the first rock she came to and with the sea up around her waist, she waited for the next incoming wave to break and retreat. The wave was unexpectedly impotent and fell limply on the rocks around her. She knew her moment had come and took it. She was not to know that piling up far out at sea was the first of the giant storm waves that had gathered several hundred miles out in the Atlantic, bringing with it all the momentum and violence of the deep ocean.

  The rocks were slippery underfoot and more than once Cherry slipped down into seething white rock pools where she had played so often when the tide was out. But she struggled on until, finally, she had climbed high enough to be able to see the thin strip of sand that was all that was left of Boat Cove. It was only a few yards away, so close. Until now she had been crying involuntarily; but now, as she recognised the little path up through the bracken, her heart was lifted with hope and anticipation. She knew that the worst was over, that if the sea would only hold back she would reach the sanctuary of the Cove.

  She turned and looked behind her to see how far away the next wave was, just to reassure herself that she had enough time. But the great surge of green water was on her before she could register either disappointment or fear. She was hurled back against the rock below her and covered at once by the sea.