by Sam Gayton
It was no longer fixed to his wrist. The leather strap had been taken off completely. Instead, it dangled on a chain. The ticking of the jagged iron hand still made him shiver, but Finn had never thought of breaking it. There were times when the Waste-Not Watch still had its uses.
He checked the jagged hand, going tick, tick, tick, telling him what he already knew – this was a waste of time.
It was no use waiting.
Swift wasn’t coming back today.
‘Will you watch for Swift?’ he asked Mr Ozinda. ‘Will you let me know if he comes?’
‘I will.’
‘Promise,’ Finn insisted. ‘Swear on Dumpling, on Spain, on chocolate itself!’
‘I swear,’ Mr Ozinda said solemnly.
Finn sighed. He supposed that was good enough. Picking himself up from the tiles he crawled back through the attic window. With Horatio and Mr Plinker gone the mice had moved in. Finn startled one, a little thing with half a tail, nibbling on the bed sheets.
He stood, looking at the birdcage still hanging on a hook above Gulliver’s old medicine chest. At the tiny footprints in the spilled candle wax on the desk. Everything was just where it had been all those months ago when he had first crept in through the door. But Lily was gone. The sprugs had all been picked up from the workshop and tossed in to the Thames. And Gulliver’s Travels wasn’t there, either.
At first Finn had wanted to burn the book – to keep Lilliput secret and Lily safe. But eventually he realised that it didn’t matter if all of London read it. Without proof, no one would believe a word.
And so they had sent Gulliver’s Travels, along with his body, up to Nottingham. Mr Ozinda had said it was only right that Gulliver’s family should know what he had died for. Who knew whether they would believe the book.
Whatever happened, Gulliver’s Travels would for ever more be nothing but a story.
Finn ran from the room and down the stairs. He was leaving this damp and ruined workshop, leaving this city, leaving for a great adventure, just like Lily had done.
He burst out of the workshop and onto Tock Lane. Mr Ozinda threw him the sack, and Finn slung it over his shoulder.
‘Now make haste,’ Mr Ozinda grinned. ‘You have no more time to waste! Even your watch thinks so. Look – it has stopped ticking.’
Finn looked down at the clock in his hand. It was true. The Waste-Not Watch was completely frozen.
And then up above …
A cry of: ‘Skee! Skee!’
Finn whirled round, heart pounding in his chest, scanning the sky. A dark shape arrowed through the air and dived down towards the street.
‘Look!’ Mr Ozinda gasped. Then he glanced at Finn. ‘It might not be …’
But Finn was already rushing back up the workshop stairs, dropping his sack on the street. In a moment he was wriggling through the attic window and onto the roof.
‘Skee, skee!’ he heard in the sky above. ‘Skee, skee!’
Finn looked up and saw the bird. The elegant arcs, the sharp turns, the sheer drops, the long, lazy circles … It had to be Swift. It had to be.
He threw back his head and laughed at the sky. His hand came up to trace the bird’s flight in the air. What message was written there, in Swift’s sketching on the sky? Had Lily made it? Was she home?
Suddenly Swift swooped down smoothly into his nest. Finn could barely breathe. He ran across the tiles and peered inside the chimney. The bird sat gripping the brick with his stubby little feet, staring at Finn with his head cocked. He had grown bigger and stronger. The silk saddle was still on his back, but there was no rider on him. No Lily.
He was carrying something else.
A small shimmer, tied to his foot.
Swift flitted from brick to brick and called out again. Slowly Finn stepped closer. He reached a trembling hand to Swift’s leg and pulled at the knot of string. The shimmering thing came loose, and Finn snatched it before it fell down the chimney. It was a glass bottle, the size of a raindrop.
He held it in his palm, the way he had once held her. Then he pulled away the speck of cork that stoppered the bottle and shook out a roll of paper as thin as a sheet of skin.
It was a message. A message in a bottle.
Hardly daring to breathe in case he blew it away, Finn teased open the paper. There were no words. Just a picture, the size of a stamp.
She was older, but still the same. Her hair was a wisp of smoke and her eyes shone. Together with Swift she stood on the shore. She had let the bird’s reins drop to put her arms round her nana. There were people surrounding them, for as far as Finn could see. Cheering and smiling, laughing and crying. Welcoming Lily home.
AFTERWORD
I was with my brother on the Cornish cliffs. We were chatting, making jokes, but mostly we were just walking and watching the sea and stone crash against each other. The gulls were wheeling in the precipice right next to us, an arm’s reach away.
It was a grotty, blustery day and my mum and dad were far behind us – I could make out their brightly coloured coats as they made their way along the path. They looked tiny – like jelly babies.
It was one of those moments where everything connected – the bluster of the wind, the scary sea, how small my parents seemed out there, and the birds. Maybe if I’d have been on my own, I would have said nothing. But I had an audience. I turned to my brother and I started to tell him Lily’s story.
As soon as I’d finished, two marvellous things happened. First, we all went for a cream tea (yum). Then, I made a decision: I was going to write down Lily’s story. I was going to make it into a book.
But I felt bad. Guilty. Lily’s story was full of someone else’s ideas – his name was Jonathan Swift, and he wrote a book about the tiny island of Lilliput and the people who lived there. His book is called Gulliver’s Travels.
Could I write a story about a Lilliputian too?
Wasn’t that stealing? Or copyright infringement? Or plagiarism?
It wasn’t like I could ask Jonathan Swift for his permission, either. He died in 1745. Darn. It looked like I was 267 years too late.
Suddenly, my cream tea didn’t taste so creamy.
Thank goodness for Mum, is all I can say.
‘Miffs fin rer fubric fromay,’ she cried out to me, halfway through munching a scone.
No one understood her at all. We wiped the scone crumbs from our eyes and waited for her to chew a bit more.
‘Gulliver’s Travels is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN,’ Mum said at last. ‘That means, because it is so old, it belongs to everyone.’
I stared at her. She was right. Gulliver’s Travels belongs to the public. That means me, you, him, her, the Queen’s butler …
In short: EVERYONE!
Which meant I could DEFINITELY give myself permission to write a sequel to a book I hadn’t written in the first place.
And so I have.
In fact, as I began to research Gulliver’s Travels, I discovered that I was being even LESS original than I had first thought. When it was published in October 1728, Gulliver’s Travels was about as original as you can get. It was a book of ‘firsts’. It featured:
• The first ever computer, which Swift calls ‘The Engine’.
• The first ever bespectacled hero (take THAT, Harry Potter!)
• The first ever mention of aerial bombardment
As well as plenty of other cool stuff. Everyone loved it. But people weren’t happy with just a first helping. They wanted seconds too. In fact, as soon as Gulliver’s Travels was published, people began to carry on his story. The book inspired spin-offs, sequels, poems, pamphlets and films. It still does. Gulliver’s Travels is also the first story in English literature to inspire what we now call ‘fanficton’ – a story inspired by someone else’s story.
Writers wrote hundreds – literally HUNDREDS – more adventures, all set in Gulliver’s world. These stories have a collective name, ‘Gulliverania’.
Hmm, I thought. If all those famous, im
portant, brilliant writers can do it, why can’t I?
So I have.
You should too. Gulliver’s Travels are like a wonderful collection of old keys. Once you’ve got hold of them, they’ll start opening doors in your head that have never been opened before. You’ll find places where islands float in the air, horses talk, and scientists try to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. Weird places, wild places, funny places. Places full of stories. Places everyone should visit.
So go on. Follow Gulliver. Get travelling. And if you do visit anywhere interesting, I’d love to hear from you …
twitter: @samgayton
email: [email protected]
web: www.samgayton.com
A LIST OF SOME OF MY FAVOURITE GULLIVERANIA …
As soon as Gulliver’s Travels was published, Alexander Pope (who was good friends with Jonathan Swift) wrote a poem called a ‘Lilliputian Ode’, which has two syllables in every line. It’s about Gulliver putting out a fire in the Lilliputian palace by weeing on it.
That same year, Murtagh McDermot wrote a sequel where Gulliver begins to travel again, and this time visits the men in the MOON. (This was before we knew that the moon is a big dead ball of dust, of course.)
After Swift’s death, someone else wrote a story about the adventures of Gulliver’s son, who was half-Lilliputian (and so about three feet tall).
In 1946, T. H. White wrote Mistress Masham’s Repose, which is about a young girl who discovers a group of Lilliputians living in her old English country house.
In 1986 Studio Ghibli released their first ever motion picture, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, about a boy’s quest to find the mythical floating island of Laputa (which Gulliver visits in his third travel …)
Sam Gayton
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to thank Eloise and Ruth at Andersen Press for making this book happen, Kate at Andersen Press for making this book look spectacular, Becky at Lindsay Literary Agency for her advice and encouragement, Mum and Erin for reading drafts, Sarah for story-chats, Natalia at Under the Greenwood Tree for Señor Chitchat’s Spanish Squawkings, Pete for his illustrations and Swift for everything else!
THE
SNOW
MERCHANT
SAM GAYTON
‘A germ of JK and a pinch of Pullman’ TES
Lettie Peppercorn lives in a house on stilts near the wind-swept coast of Albion. Nothing incredible has ever happened to her, until one winter’s night. The night the Snow Merchant comes. He claims to be an alchemist – the greatest that ever lived – and in a mahogany suitcase, he carries his newest invention. It is an invention that will change Lettie’s life – and the world – forever. It is an invention called snow.
‘A delightful debut … full of action and invention’ Sunday Times
Illustrated throughout by Tomislav Tomic
9781849393348 £5.99 Paperback