by Nick Garlick
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
1. A Storm and a Funeral
2. Mossum
3. A Thief
4. The Ghost Girl
5. Confusion
6. Bomber
7. Storm Horses
8. The Ghost
9. A Horse in the Waves
10. Rescued
11. A New Friend
12. Lover of Horses
13. A Dawn Conversation
14. A New Name
15. Too Much Energy
16. Brambles
17. Day by Day
18. A Fading Face
19. Heat
20. The Suitcase
21. Village in the Sand
22. Riders
23. Flip’s Punishment
24. The Ghost Girl’s Name
25. No Money
26. Cheated
27. The Handclap
28. A Luxury Hotel
29. Like a Magpie
30. Revenge
31. Storm’s Deadly Rampage
32. More Bad News
33. Visitors
34. A Warning Ignored
35. Alarm
36. Lightning Strike
37. Into the Waves
38. A New Home
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
For
Tom & Sheila Wahnsiedler
For all the years
THE WIND HOWLED. Rain lashed against the windows. The ferryboat lurched as a wave of dirty brown water slammed into its side, and for one terrifying instant, Flip thought they were going to capsize. His throat closed up. The blood roared in his ears and he squeezed his eyes tight shut, expecting the sea to come crashing in around him any second.
Then the boat righted itself and plowed on through the heaving sea. It was heading for Mossum, the tiny island that was to be Flip’s new home. He wasn’t looking forward to it. He didn’t feel happy. He’d never been to the island and he didn’t know anybody who lived on it. Nobody, that is, except for the silent, forbidding figure beside him.
Uncle Andries.
Uncle Andries scared Flip. He’d scared him from the moment they’d met, two days before, when he’d arrived in the city to arrange his brother’s funeral. His brother was Flip’s father. And as Flip’s mother had left them three years before and never been heard from since, twelve-year-old Flip was all alone in the world.
His uncle’s appearance had only made him feel more alone. He’d walked into the house where Flip had been staying, looked the boy up and down, and said, “I’m your father’s older brother. You will call me Uncle Andries.”
He was a tall man with a big head that looked even bigger because his hair had been cut so short that the back and sides were almost bald. The sleeves of his jacket and the legs of his pants were short too and made his hands and feet stick out. He loomed over Flip like a silent giant expecting a reply.
Then he frowned. “Don’t you shake hands here in the city?” he asked. “It’s considered good manners where I come from.”
Flip was too startled to speak. He’d never seen a picture of his uncle in his life. Even more confusing, Uncle Andries had a very thick northern accent Flip found hard to understand and he’d been busy concentrating on listening instead of offering a greeting.
“I suppose,” Uncle Andries continued, “your father never bothered teaching you. That does not surprise me.”
“I—I’m sorry,” Flip began, finally holding out a trembling hand.
But Uncle Andries had already left the room. He took Flip back to the apartment—the apartment where Flip had lived with his father—then left to speak to the landlord. Finally he went out. When he returned, he said he’d made all the arrangements for the funeral. He also said he’d arranged with the authorities for Flip to come and live with him, and told him he should pack everything he wanted to take in two suitcases. Only two. Then he’d made them both supper and gone to bed. Not once had he asked Flip how he was.
He didn’t ask the next day, either. The two of them got up, ate a silent breakfast, and carried their suitcases to the cemetery. There they stood at the graveside, listening to the priest intone the service. Flip did his best to pay attention, but he couldn’t concentrate. He missed his dad, but he missed his mom even more. And all he could do as he stood beside his uncle was keep looking up and across the gravestones to the cemetery gates, hoping—really, really hoping—that she would come walking through them any minute. Even though she’d left them all those years ago, Flip couldn’t believe his mom would leave him on his own now.
But she never appeared. And Flip’s loneliness only deepened.
With a start, he realized that the service was over. He looked up to see Uncle Andries shaking the priest’s hand, then scooping up some earth and letting it fall slowly onto the coffin.
“It’s time to go,” he said.
Less than thirty minutes later, they were in a train heading north and Flip had his face pressed to the window, watching as the canals, bridges, and bustling sidewalks of Amsterdam faded away. In their place came nothing but mile after mile of flat green fields dotted with sheep and cows. He wondered if he’d ever see his home again.
The boat heaved wildly once more, jolting Flip out of his memories. He could see a smudge of land ahead, which meant they’d nearly arrived. But the sky was even darker now and the wind even fiercer. Foam-flecked waves crashed against the side of the ferry. Flip, who’d never been anywhere near the sea in his life, was terrified. He clung grimly to his suitcases with every ghastly roll of the vessel and prayed for the journey to be over. He was certain he was going to be sick any minute. And if he wasn’t sick, he thought, then it would only be because the ferry had sunk and everyone on board had drowned.
Beside him, Uncle Andries paid the weather no attention at all. He didn’t even seem to know that there was a storm. He sat bolt upright with his arms folded across his chest and gazed out of the windows as though the sun were shining and the sea were as flat as a pond.
In the end, Flip wasn’t sick. And as the minutes crept by and Mossum’s harbor drew ever closer, the wind began to fade and the sea to calm. Soon the rolling stopped completely and the ferry glided gently in toward the dock. The crew threw ropes to the men on dry land to tie her fast. The other passengers gathered their belongings, ready to disembark.
But Uncle Andries remained in his seat. He stared down at Flip. “I have something to say to you,” he said.
Flip, whose stomach was still rolling, waited in nervous silence.
“Your father and I were not friends,” Uncle Andries said. “Did you know that?”
Flip had absolutely no idea how to reply, so all he did was nod again.
“He was lazy,” Uncle Andries continued. “He didn’t like working on the farm. When our father died, your father left and went to Amsterdam. He became a thief. This is why we never spoke after he left. Because I do not like thieves. If you want something in this world, you must earn it. You can’t just take it, the way your father did.”
In front of them, the passengers were lining up before the exit. Uncle Andries still hadn’t moved.
“I say this,” he continued, “because I want you to know what to expect from me. I did not trust my brother and I am not sure whether I trust you. I think you may have picked up many bad habits from him. But I am your new father now, so I will look after you. That is my duty. My wife, Elke, is your new mother and my daughter, Laurentia, is your new sister. You will treat them both with respect. You will also do what I say and you will not argue with me, because small boys do not argue with their fathers. And that,” he finished, “is all I have to say. So now we will leave.”
&nb
sp; He got up, took his case and one of Flip’s, then walked away without a backward glance. Flip followed reluctantly. In his hand was the other suitcase, the one he’d guarded jealously every inch of the way from home to the cemetery and then to the station.
That had been hard. Really hard. It was so heavy it had kept banging against his legs as he walked, no matter how much he’d shifted it from hand to hand. It was just as bad lugging it off the boat and down the gangplank because now he not only had aching fingers to deal with, but a queasy stomach and legs still wobbly from the trip across the Wadden Sea. But he never let on. He never gave a sign of how he felt. The last thing he wanted was for his uncle to discover what was in the case—it was too important to him to let that happen.
As they stepped onto dry land, the clouds above them parted and a thick, dazzling beam of sunlight shone down directly onto the dock. The vacationers ahead of them clapped their hands and let out a happy cheer.
Flip, with Uncle Andries’s last words still ringing in his ears, had never felt so lonely in all his life.
WAITING ON A horse-drawn cart near the foot of the gangway were a blond-haired woman and a little girl. As Flip and his uncle approached, the woman climbed down and stepped forward.
“This is my wife,” said Uncle Andries. “Her name is Elke. You will call her Aunt Elke.”
“It’s Elly,” she said. “Just like everyone else on the island calls me.” But she smiled as she said it and gave her husband a kiss on his cheek to welcome him home.
“I like Elke,” Flip heard his uncle mutter as he put his suitcases in the cart.
“Well, you’re the only one who does,” she said.
But she said that with a smile too. She seemed to have a face made for smiling. It lit up the gloomy surroundings and made Flip feel just a little bit less lonely.
“I was very sorry to hear about your father,” she went on. And unlike her husband, she really did look sad about her brother-in-law’s death. “But now you’re here, I hope you’ll be happy. I hope you’ll enjoy your new home.”
Uncle Andries turned to the little girl waiting impatiently to be introduced. “This,” he said, “is your cousin Laurentia.”
“But everyone calls me Renske,” she said, jumping down to stand beside her mother. “That’s short for Laurentia. I’m seven. Our horse is called Leila. Did you really live in Amsterdam?”
Flip nodded. Both mother and daughter had the same northern accent as Uncle Andries and he had to concentrate to make out what they were saying. Growing up in Amsterdam hadn’t prepared him for this, and he wondered if it would always be so difficult to understand the islanders.
“Is it true there’s water everywhere you look?” Renske asked. “And do the houses keep falling into the canals? My friend Loes says the houses are always falling into the canals in Amsterdam. She’s my pen pal. She writes to me. She lives in Groningen and has a television. Did you have a television?”
“No,” Flip said.
“We don’t either,” Renske said. “We’re poor.”
“We’re not poor!” Aunt Elly said. “We just don’t have any money.”
“What’s the difference?” Renske asked.
“A lot!” Aunt Elly said.
Renske pouted. “Loes says if you don’t have a television, you must be poor.”
“I’ve got candles in the cupboard with more sense than your friend Loes,” Aunt Elly said. “And what she knows about Amsterdam you could fit in the head of a mouse. And still have room left over for a bookcase.”
Flip moved a little closer, to hear his aunt more clearly. He didn’t realize he’d ended up standing next to the horse until both Aunt Elly and Renske stared at him.
“Well, well, well,” Aunt Elly said, surprise all over her face. “She’s never done that before.”
“What?” Flip whispered nervously, wondering if he’d made a mistake.
“Leila,” Renske said. “She’s scared of strangers. She hardly ever lets anyone new get close to her.”
And it was true. Leila hadn’t shied away from Flip. In fact, she was leaning forward to sniff his pockets. When he turned toward her, she snorted warm air straight into his face.
“She likes you!” Renske giggled.
“I think she does,” Aunt Elly agreed. “Do you like horses?” she asked Flip.
“I’ve never met a horse in my life,” he replied. He was puzzled by Leila’s behavior, but he had to admit he liked it. The horse’s presence was calming. Comforting.
“Well, if they all react like that,” Aunt Elly said, “you’ll do fine on Mossum. We’ve got lots of horses on Mossum.”
Uncle Andries was already sitting up on the front seat of the cart. “Can we get on?” he demanded. “I’ve spent quite enough time away from the farm. I’ve got work to catch up on.”
“All you’ve got to catch up on is supper,” Aunt Elly said, climbing up beside him. “Hendrick took care of everything and Mr. Hofstra lent a hand yesterday afternoon. Everything’s doing quite nicely, thank you.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Uncle Andries muttered.
Aunt Elly just smiled.
Flip clambered into the back of the cart next to Renske, still clutching tight to his heavy suitcase. As they moved off, he saw a girl watching him.
She was as thin as a stick, with long stringy hair so blond it was almost white. Her eyes were big and round and set in a face even paler than her hair. In her hand was a teddy bear. She didn’t blink and she didn’t move. She just stared. But when three young boys appeared, she darted away behind a pile of wooden pallets and vanished.
One of them threw a stone at her.
Aunt Elly sprang to her feet. “You leave that girl alone!” she shouted. “Or I’ll come down there and throw something at you!”
The boys laughed. Aunt Elly jumped off the cart and started after them, but the moment she did so, they ran off into a big white building at the end of the street.
“Those Mesman Boys,” she said to Uncle Andries, shaking her head. “They were in Mr. de Groot’s garden while you were away. Got into the chicken coop and smashed all the eggs.”
“Did he see them?” he asked.
“He only heard them,” Aunt Elly said. “So of course their father said there wasn’t any proof and refused to do anything about it.”
“Who are the Mesman Boys?” Flip asked Renske.
“Their father’s Mr. Mesman,” she said. “He owns the hotel. Papa says he wants to own the whole island and—”
“We don’t talk about the Mesmans,” Uncle Andries said without looking around.
“Why not?” Renske asked.
“Because we don’t!” he said, and that was that.
The cart rolled on into the village. It wasn’t very big, not much more than two streets lined with towering elm trees that met at a crossroads in the middle. On one side of the crossroads was the hotel. On the other was a redbrick church with a tall square tower Flip had seen from the ferry. He could see big cracks at the top, under the roof. In front of the church was a sign calling for funds to help repair it.
Flip saw a butcher’s and a baker’s and a greengrocer’s shop, a café, and a lot of small houses with white walls and gray tile roofs, tiny front gardens, and neatly trimmed hedges. It was quiet too. The only sound he could hear apart from the patter of the rain was the steady clip clop clip of Leila’s hooves on the road.
Renske told him that there were only two cars on the island. One belonged to the doctor and the other to Mr. Mesman. Nobody else could afford one, she said, so if you wanted to go anywhere, you either walked or rode a bike or traveled in a horse-drawn cart. It wasn’t anything like Amsterdam, with its rattling trams and roaring cars and people walking and talking wherever you looked. Flip had never known such stillness in all his life and he couldn’t help wondering what there was to do on Mossum. It all seemed so boring.
Not far from the village was Uncle Andries’s farm. The family lived in a small house whose gr
ound floor was taken up almost entirely by an open, airy kitchen. It was warm and dry, without a speck of dust anywhere. Absolutely nothing like Flip’s dark and shabby basement apartment in Amsterdam—the sun hadn’t ever shone through the windows there.
Once inside the kitchen, Flip watched as Renske ran over to two doors in the wall and pulled them open to reveal a cupboard. When Flip looked closer, he realized that it wasn’t a cupboard but a little bed, with a quilt and a rag doll on a plump pillow.
“I sleep here,” she said proudly. “Papa slept here when he was a boy. And so did his papa.”
“Isn’t there a bedroom upstairs?” Flip asked.
“Yes,” she said. “But only one. That’s for Mama and Papa.”
Then where, thought Flip, am I going to sleep?
He found out after supper, when Aunt Elly lit a gas lamp and led him across the farmyard and over to the barn. It was an old bent building held up by massive wooden beams. Above a couple of horse stalls and a row of concrete cow stalls and milking equipment was a wooden floor. Most of that was filled with bales of hay and straw, but in one corner was a door. Aunt Elly opened it to reveal a snug little room with a bed in one corner and a chest of drawers in the other.
“This used to be where your great-grandfather made clogs for the islanders,” she said. “Back when men didn’t wear anything else on their feet. We haven’t used it in years, though, so we thought it would do for you. No electric light, I’m afraid—we can’t afford that in here right now. But it’s warm and it’s dry. And it’s all yours, so you won’t be disturbed if you don’t want to be.”
She showed him how to work the lamp, then wished him good night and left. Flip unpacked his clothes and put them away. Then he slid his two suitcases under the bed. He put the heavy case at the back, so nobody could see it.
As he straightened up, he looked out of the window. Standing on the far side of the road that led to the village was the girl with the white hair. She was clutching her teddy bear and gazing up at the barn. When she saw Flip looking back, she spun around and darted away across the fields. Within less than a minute, like a ghost, she’d vanished entirely from sight.