by Janis Mackay
I felt light-headed, scared I might fall out of the tree, then I would die and all this great effort would have been for nothing. I had to get out of the tree. It looked as if the creature was asleep … I had to eat something. Berries, even. I had seen some blueberries in the bushes, and I was suddenly gripped by this overwhelming need to devour loads of berries.
I slipped down the trunk of the tree. I was stealth itself! I jumped and landed without a sound on the carpet of pine needles. The blueberry bushes were clumped about near the seal. Great! I stood still as a statue and watched it. Its eyes were closed. It was slumped down over the bushes. Like a thief I approached the massive black creature until I was so close I could see its long silver whiskers. And folds in its leathery dark skin. And grey blotches under the black. I saw the rise and fall of its huge breathing body. I could smell it, strong and animal.
I edged around it, the plump dark blueberries calling to me like wallets in the market square used to call me. Nicking wallets felt like years ago, like another lifetime. I glanced down at the mighty creature and suddenly it opened one yellow eye, bared its teeth and then I really did scream.
The scream came out all husky and strangled. I bolted around the thing and ran for the sea. I forgot about food as I pelted over the bushes, the heather, the sand and over the flat rocks. Then I jumped into the sea. I swam a few strokes then stopped.
‘Don’t worry, Niilo.’ It was Hannu’s voice I heard calling to me. ‘It’s watching over you.’ That’s what he was saying. ‘One day you’ll find your wild song,’ he said, ‘then you’ll know where freedom is.’ Where was he? He wasn’t here. There was no boat. His voice was in my head. ‘It won’t hurt you,’ he said, and I knew he meant the seal. The fear drained out of me.
I twisted round, but the creature wasn’t stirring. I swam back to the shore and pushed myself up onto a rock. The creature was still watching me, but it hadn’t bothered to move. I clung onto Hannu’s voice – ‘Don’t worry, Niilo. Everything is going to work out fine’ – and I didn’t feel terrified with his voice in my head. The seal rolled over on the heather. It was making itself comfortable, like it was making itself a bed. It lowered its black head down and closed its eyes. Right now, all it seemed interested in was sleep.
And suddenly that seemed like the best idea in the world. I know it was light, but it was still the middle of the night. Tiredness washed over me like a wave. I yawned and slumped down in the bracken. I yawned again. I couldn’t keep my eyes open one second longer …
‘… it was once a huge kingdom, Niilo, the sea kingdom of Ahtola, but there are very few people of the sea left. Like wolves. Like bears. Like honey bees. Like dinosaurs. They disappear. But some are still with us. When we stand on the edge of our fear they come to us. When we need help, they help us. When it seems that we might die they come to save us. I believe that. Do you, Niilo? They know the wild song. They watch over us.’
They watch over us. My heart pounded hard. I rubbed my eyes and sat up. I heard a splashing noise. I was so tired, and confused that I couldn’t work out where I was. The dream fled. And where was Hannu? I called out his name and heard my voice echo back: ‘Hannu! Hannu!’ I heard the splash again and I blinked and saw the creature in the sea. All I could see was its black head, sticking up out of the water.
‘A husband and wife perhaps, or twins … but it wasn’t, it was a man and a seal.’
It was a man and a seal. A shiver ran over my skin. Hannu’s voice spoke in my head, as loud and clear as if he was sitting right next to me: ‘There’s more to life than what we see. Much more, Niilo. Know why I think you’ve come to the Wild School? Because something’s missing. You’re looking for magic. You’ve lost your song. You want more out of life. Me too, Niilo. Me too.’
I gulped in air, my heart kicking, my palms sweating. Maybe Hannu was right? Maybe the old stories were true? Something was missing. Everything was missing. I couldn’t peel my eyes away from the creature in the sea. Now the thing lifted its sleek black head and turned its head from side to side. Maybe none of this was real? Maybe I was dreaming the whole thing? I looked at my hands and I imagined Hannu’s clenched fist pounding into the soil. Maybe I was going mad?
I called for him again. ‘Hannu! Hannu!’ I could feel hot tears streaming down my face but I didn’t care. I’d never felt so lonely. I was the only person on this island and I felt like the last person in the world. I felt miserable.
‘Know why you’ve come to the Wild School?’ Well, I wasn’t on the Wild School. God knows where I was. Some rock with a clump of trees and a wild animal with yellow eyes and fangs instead of teeth that is way too interested in me. It’s planning me for its next meal. No one had bothered to search for me. They didn’t care. They didn’t send out the helicopters. Too expensive for the bad boy. They didn’t send out the lifeboats. They were probably having a party in the Wild School right now.
I lay down, pounded the ground with my fists, and howled.
Chapter Seventeen
I must have cried myself to sleep. I dreamt the drowning dream again. I was reaching out through the water, trying to grab at someone’s hand. My throat clammed up with terror. Then the hand vanished. In my sleep I tried to reach for that hand. But the hand wasn’t there.
When I woke, sweating, the sun was already high in the sky. I was hot. Then I was shivering with cold. My heart was hammering. I told myself it was only a dream. I didn’t drown. I’d swum in the sea and I hadn’t drowned. I grabbed at clumps of moss and draped it over me. The exhaustion came back. I resisted sleep in case the drowning dream returned, but I couldn’t resist for long. Sleep sucked me like water down a drainpipe.
Hours later I woke, blinking in the bright light. The horrible fear I had felt earlier had gone. Now I felt relaxed. I had survived one night and what felt like most of the next day, and I was still alive. I heard gulls screech above me and I felt my chest pressed against springy heather and soft moss. I lay there, face down, not moving, still drowsy with sleep, feeling weird, all light like a balloon. Eventually I opened one eye and stared at a bright green blade of grass. It was a millimetre from my eye. For ages I lay there staring at that one blade of grass. It was huge. It was like a sword. There was a tiny insect crawling up it and I studied it, like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. The tiny insect took ages, and sometimes it slid down a bit, then started over. Then I became vaguely aware that there was more in the world than a tiny insect and a towering blade of grass. There was more grass. I opened my other eye and lifted my head, then I dragged myself along on my front, like I’d seen the creature do. I felt like a paratrooper slinking along in enemy country in the long grass. Finally I rolled over, sat up and did a quick scan of my surroundings.
I was on my island. There was a lot of grass, and bushes, and further off a clump of pine and birch trees, like on the Wild School, but different. The Wild School island had the human touch, with its rope bridges, benches, piers, buildings and stuff. This island that I had swum to didn’t. That was what I had wanted but it was pretty scary. Not a house. Not a road. Not a wooden bench. No electricity. Not a person. Not a boat. Not a rope bridge. I swallowed hard. This was a real Wild Island – Niilo’s island.
I rose to my knees and looked for the seal. I couldn’t see it anywhere. It wasn’t lounging about on the rock. It wasn’t slinking around in the sea. That made me uneasy, not knowing where it was, but I didn’t feel frightened. Maybe it was the long sleep that had calmed me. And the fact I had drunk half the fresh water in the pool. I think a whole night had passed – maybe half the next day too? The sun was high in the sky. Maybe the seal had left the island? Maybe, and I liked this thought, it had been one of those magical creatures from Ahtola – those creatures Hannu spoke about – and it had guided me to this island and just hung around to check I was okay. It had been watching over me.
Maybe I really was going mad, but that version sounded like a possibility. Just when I was feeling relaxed about being watched o
ver, another thought popped into my head. It wouldn’t want to eat me, would it? I batted that mad thought away. I had read the books and I knew seals didn’t eat humans, but part of me feared that anything could happen on this island. And nobody would know. Or care.
I looked down at my body – suntanned, torn shorts, scratches everywhere and looking pretty skinny. If I didn’t eat soon I’d be skin and bones. I’d only been gone one or two days and already I looked wild. There were still amazingly a few streaks of grease on my arms. And I felt ravenous. I had planned on gorging myself on berries. Now I couldn’t remember whether I had eaten any the night before or not.
‘Breakfast time,’ I said – out loud, just for the company. My voice sounded tiny. I staggered up to my feet, realising that I still felt wobbly. I took a few steps, and a few deep breaths. I was beginning to feel like a real castaway. Good thing I had learnt to pick berries and dandelion leaves, fir-tree sprouts and nettles at the Wild School, and to know which were poisonous and which were good. I set out over the springy bushes in search of food … and I didn’t have far to go. I grabbed at a few dandelion leaves and crunched them down. They tasted sweet. I crammed fistfuls into my mouth. Then it was time for pudding. I looked down at the bushes and spied the small round dark berries. Blueberries. I could see the bushes flattened out, where the seal had been sleeping. I saw again, by its imprint, how huge it was. I forgot about monster seals and grabbed a berry. The juice burst in my mouth with a zing, so I ate more, scrambling over the ground, grabbing at berries and shoving them into my mouth. It took a lot to make me feel full. And when I was I fell down, rolled over and gazed up at the blue sky. A few flies droned above me. Drowsily I swatted them away.
I still felt uneasy at the edges about loads of things – like the huge seal, the nightmare, Hannu getting married, and a search party coming to look for me, and my parents getting told I had drowned, and maybe my name being in the newspapers. I liked to imagine the whole of Finland searching for me, and here I was chilled out and just doing my thing. I wondered what picture of me would be in the papers. I wondered if I was on TV. I wondered what my mum would say, if the journalists came and interviewed her. ‘I loved him so much,’ she would say, crying buckets. ‘I gave him everything.’ None of that seemed real. The only thing that was real was the sharp taste of blueberries in my mouth and the scratchy heather under my back. It felt so good to lie back and stare up at the sky. To have my belly full of food, and not plastic food from some supermarket, but food I had hunted for with my own hands. And it felt great to have my very own island.
Maybe this was it? This was the life I had always been waiting for, preparing for? I took slow deep breaths and lay there feeling perfect bliss for about ten minutes. Then I began to wonder, and doubt, and worry.
I was all alone.
When I let that thought sink in it scared me. For years I’d vanished into my capsule. I was used to feeling alone. But as I gazed about, over the pine trees and heather and out to the blue ring of sea, it hit me that for the first time ever, I was really alone. Scary. But exciting too. I had just got used to the idea that I was alone when I had another thought. Maybe I wasn’t? Maybe this wasn’t my very own island? I mean, I hadn’t checked the whole island out yet. I got up and picked bits of heather out of my hair. I would need to explore. Maybe there was a summerhouse tucked away, or a small hut? Maybe there was a helicopter landing pad? Maybe this island belonged to a film star? An artist? A hermit? Or an axe murderer? I took a few hesitant steps and stubbed my toes against a stone. It hurt. And I was shivering with cold – the sun was warm, but there was a cool wind off the sea. Apart from these baggy black swimming shorts, I was naked. I had been so tired, and thirsty, and hungry, I hadn’t noticed that I was cold. I looked around helplessly, like a hoodie might miraculously appear out of thin air, and a pair of trainers, my size.
That’s when it really hit me: that I had managed to swim to another island. I had escaped and now I was alone. No money. Apart from leaves and berries, no food. Apart from shorts, no clothes. Apart from moss and springy bushes, no bed. Apart from one mysterious animal that now seemed to have vanished, no company.
I kept glancing over my shoulder as I walked over the springy heather. My feet hurt from the scratches, but I quickly learnt to place my bare feet in soft moss, or on flat stones. And the more I explored the less nervous I felt. It was like I was growing taller and stronger. This was my island. There was nobody here and nothing to worry about. I’d been told how there were thousands of islands in the Finnish Archipelago and most of them were uninhabited. I punched the air. By this time I was pretty sure my little island was one of the undiscovered. I felt great. I didn’t care about anything. This was it: the thing worth fighting for – freedom! I whooped loudly.
I heard my voice carry over the island and waited for somebody to appear. No one did. I strode off over the heather and walked to the top of a small hill. From here I could see the whole island. There was no hut. No house. No wisp of smoke. I lifted my arms into the air, flexed my small hard muscles. I was king of this world. And I felt better than I ever felt. I had beaten my fear of the sea. I had swum to freedom. I had survived. I shouted like a crazy boy – ‘I’m free!!!’
My voice didn’t sound tiny now. It sounded huge. Maybe the wild animal thought I was in trouble? Maybe it thought I was calling it back? Whatever it thought, the wild animal that was either a seal or a walrus or a mythical beast came back.
Chapter Eighteen
I stood on the top of the hill and watched it. I saw its round black head way off in the sea. It swam towards the island. In a weird way the creature seemed familiar. And in another weird way, I was almost happy to see it again. Was I so starved for company that even a seal was better than being totally alone? Or maybe because I felt so good and strong and free, I thought I could handle anything. Anyway, it slid onto the pebbly beach – a fat long sleek thing. It had two stunted arms. Flat hands. It dragged its heavy body up the beach with these spread-out hands. I had a good view of it and I felt like a visitor had entered my private island. Maybe it comes every day to snuggle down in the heather? Maybe it likes sunbathing on that flat rock? Maybe this isn’t my private island? It is the creature’s private island. My mind raced. I sunk down onto my knees, wondering what my visitor would do next.
It lifted its head and the black animal looked straight at me. Pushing down on its hands (from where I stood they looked like hands!), it pushed the upper half of its body up high, lifted back its head and stared at me. That freaked me out, getting eyeballed like that, and I could feel my knees tremble. But I held its gaze. I didn’t faint or keel over and suddenly I got the strangest sensation. Images, like fast-moving film, flashed into my head. A boat. A man. A child. And then towering waves. I didn’t understand it. It was like the seal was planting these pictures in my head. These were pictures from my nightmare. I felt a shiver creep over my skin. But I kept staring.
I was a master starer. I could win battles just by shooting the evil eye at people. But this was different. This was an animal. The weird pictures in my head vanished. As I stood there on the top of the hill the creature dragged itself up the stony beach and onto the springy heather. There was something totally prehistoric about the way it moved. Beneath my ribs, my heart pounded, and the hairs on my arms prickled. But I didn’t flinch. Sometimes the creature dropped its head to concentrate on where it was going. Sometimes it looked up, as if it was checking that I was still there.
‘Just think, Niilo, a man and a seal, buried together, one hand on top of the other, five thousand years ago. We were brothers, back then.’
It had managed to haul itself over the heather. It stopped at the flattened patch where it had slept the day before. It lifted its head and sniffed. Then it rocked itself around and headed back down to the sea. I watched it slide into the water again and felt a tiny slither of disappointment, like I had believed my story. I had imagined this really was some magical guardian come to look over me.
But it had lost interest.
I was curious now. The seal called me like a magnet calls a pin. I ran down the hillside, over the beach, then slowed when I came to the rocks. The black thing was swimming round and round like it was waiting for me. It lifted its head and looked in my direction. Sometimes it made funny blowing sounds. It didn’t look like a monster at all. More like a dog. I suddenly got the feeling it wanted to play with me.
I was feeling brave and strong, so I hooted, like I remembered it had done yesterday, or was it the day before? It seemed to study me, then it howled back. It kicked up its tail fins and dived under the water. I ran a few more steps over the flat rocks. Then suddenly it broke the surface of the water and – I couldn’t believe it – it had a fish between its teeth. Beads of red blood around its mouth gleamed in the sun. The seal swam towards me and flung the fish at my feet, then flipped round and swam off.
I stared down at the fish. Its silvery body trembled. It jerked its tail back and forth, then suddenly stopped. A wide round eye stared up at me. This was a present. I was supposed to eat this dead thing. Its silvery scales had tints of blue and red – it was like a small rainbow. I knew if I was serious about surviving on this island I would have to eat fish. I glanced up at the seal. It had its black head lifted out of the water, like it was waiting to see what I was going to do. I looked back at the gift of fish, and swallowed hard.
Hannu had tried to teach me how to build fires. He had held a piece of glass next to tinder dry grasses and miraculously the grasses had caught fire. He had said it was the sun’s reflection. I remembered he’d brought little twigs and made a spire shape. He had been busy while I had stood doing nothing. I’d watched him gut a fish. Then he’d speared the fish onto a stick. It had been that simple. He’d said this was the way our ancestors survived. And how he and I had the north in our blood. We knew the ways of nature, deep down inside, he’d said. It was just a question of remembering. He’d held the fish over the flames then, till I could smell the flesh singe. It had caught in the back of my throat and made me feel sick. I had watched him flick its charred body back and forth. To make sure it was all cooked through, he’d said. I’d thought it was disgusting, and I had told Hannu there was no way I would ever eat that. ‘Suit yourself, Niilo.’ That’s what he had said, biting into it. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing,’ he’d said.