Storm Horse
Page 15
Then Flip frowned. “How long have I been asleep?”
“More than twenty-four hours!” Renske said, running to his side. “It’s six o’clock. In the evening. Last night I slept in your bed. In the barn. And I wasn’t scared once!”
Flip sat up. The grown-ups had left the table and gathered in front of him. He looked at Mr. Bouten, who had a bandage around his head and bruised and blackened eyes. But he was smiling too, and he leaned over and patted Flip’s shoulder.
“I owe you a big thank-you,” he said. “I heard what you did.”
“We did,” Flip said. “Storm and me. He pulled you out of the water.”
Mr. Bouten nodded. “He did. But he wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t taken him down to the sea in the first place. He’s a clever horse, but he’s not that clever.”
“Is he all right?” Flip asked.
“He’s fine,” Uncle Andries said. “He’s out in the field with Leila.”
“What he’s doing?”
“Eating,” said Renske. “And rolling. We cleaned him up but he went straight out and had a roll.”
“Can I see him?” Flip asked, and started to get out of bed.
“Soon,” Aunt Elly said, pushing him back. “You just lie still for a while.”
Flip looked at Uncle Andries. “What happened to the boat?” he asked. “Did you rescue them?”
“We rescued everyone,” Uncle Andries said. “We got them all off safely and brought them back. And just in time. The engine had broken down and they were drifting out to sea. The waves out there would have swamped them in minutes. That boat wasn’t built for the North Sea in a thunderstorm.”
There was a moment’s silence. Flip looked at Mrs. Elberg. “Are you leaving now?” he asked. “Going back to The Hague?”
She looked different somehow, as if the sound of her daughter’s voice had brought her life back too. “Oh,” she said, finishing her coffee and putting her cup down, “we’re not leaving. We’ve got a new house now, Sophie and me.”
“Where?”
“Here,” Mrs. Elberg said. “On Mossum.”
“We’re going to live in the hotel,” Sophie blurted out. “Mama bought it.”
“You bought it?” Flip said. “But that means there’ll be two hotels when Mr. Mesman builds his new one.”
Mrs. Elberg shook her head. “He’s not going to build a new hotel. All he’s going to do is leave the island and take his three boys with him.”
“And not come back!” Renske said.
“Why?” Flip asked. “What happened?”
“Well, for a start,” Mrs. Elberg said, “when the investors found out he’d ignored the storm warning from your uncle and Mr. Bouten, they were furious. They didn’t feel like going into business with a man who’d almost gotten them drowned. So they left. But,” she went on, “I spoke to one of them before they did, and he told me Mr. Mesman doesn’t have any money. He did some checking up before he came and found out that Mr. Mesman doesn’t even have enough to buy your uncle’s farm. He certainly hasn’t got enough for a new hotel. That’s why he needed investors. And Mr. Mesman realized that once the story about the boat and the storm got out, he’d find it very difficult to attract any other investors. So when I offered to buy the hotel, he said yes.”
“Are you rich?” Flip asked.
Mrs. Elberg smiled, a real smile with no sadness in it at all. “I’m rich enough to buy a hotel from a man who doesn’t have much money,” she said. “And can’t argue about the price.”
“And she paid for the damage Storm did,” Renske said. “So we don’t have to leave the island either.”
Flip was confused. “But I thought you didn’t like it here. I thought Mossum was a disappointment. Because it hadn’t helped Sophie.” It felt strange saying her real name. But, he thought, it sounded much better than the Ghost Girl.
Mrs. Elberg shook her head. “I’ve spent the last nine months going back and forth from here to there and every doctor in between, trying to find someone who could help Sophie speak. None of them worked. And neither did Mossum. But then she met you.”
Flip wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “Me?” he said.
“If it hadn’t have been for you, she wouldn’t have run up the beach to get help when you were saving the horses. That’s where she went and that’s when she spoke. She had to, to get people to understand. To get them to come and help.”
“And once I started,” Sophie broke in, “it got easier and easier and I could say lots of other words.”
“So I asked myself,” Mrs. Elberg continued, “why I would leave the one place where something good had finally happened to my daughter? Where she started speaking again? Not to mention smiling and laughing. And that’s when I decided to stay. Now,” she said, standing up and putting on her jacket, “I’ve got a thousand things to do, so we must be off. I hope, Flip, that when you’re fully recovered you’ll come and see us. And when you do, bring Storm with you. I might have a job for him.”
“A job?”
“I’m thinking of having a horse-drawn carriage to bring guests up from the harbor. Storm’s a handsome fellow, and now you’ve calmed him down and made him listen to others, I think he might enjoy pulling a carriage all by himself. It would give him a chance to show off, which I think is what he likes doing most of all.” She walked to the door with her daughter. Just before she left, she turned back to Flip and pointed at the table. “There’s a present for you, by the way. I thought you’d appreciate it.”
When the two of them had left, Aunt Elly helped Flip out of the bed and sat him down at the kitchen table in front of a parcel wrapped in thick brown paper.
He opened it … to find his record player!
“Mrs. Elberg thought you’d like it back,” Uncle Andries said. “So now you can play those records you brought with you.”
“Down here?” Flip asked.
“No,” Uncle Andries said. “In your room.”
“But there’s no elec—” Flip began.
Uncle Andries held up his hand. “Did you know Mr. Bouten was an electrician?”
Flip shook his head.
“One of his many talents,” Uncle Andries said. “And as soon as he’s better, he’s running a cable up to your room. You’ll have a proper light. And you’ll be able to play your records.”
Flip hardly knew what to say. He couldn’t take in all the changes and developments. But despite the good news, there was really only one thing he was interested in.
“May I go and see Storm?” he asked. “Just for a few minutes?”
Uncle Andries looked at Aunt Elly.
“Do you feel dizzy?” she asked.
Flip shook his head.
“Can you stand up, close your eyes, and touch your nose with your forefinger without looking?”
Flip did it with both forefingers.
“Are you hungry?”
“I’m starving!”
Aunt Elly smiled and nodded. “Then you can get dressed and see Storm while I make you something to eat. Then it’s straight back to bed with you.”
Flip nodded and, before anyone could change their minds, threw on some clothes, grabbed a carrot from the larder, and dashed out into the yard and across to the field.
Storm was all the way at the far end of the field when he heard Flip climb onto the gate. His ears pricked up, he let out a long loud whinny, and he turned and galloped toward him.
Flip hid the carrot in his pocket. Storm found it and gobbled it down in seconds. When he was finished, he let out a soft snort of contentment and lowered his head.
“I know,” Flip said, resting his forehead against Storm’s muzzle and stroking his neck. “I missed you too.”
And that was how the two of them stayed while the sun sank in the sky, while the shadows stretched out across the farm, and while darkness settled slowly, ever so slowly, on the island.
On Flip and Storm’s new home.
Three people helped enormously with th
e writing of Storm Horse and I would like to thank them here: my agent, Catherine Pellegrino; Chicken House editor Imogen Cooper; and my sister, Patricia Waldron. It wouldn’t have become what it is without you.
NICK GARLICK was born in 1954 and lived, worked, or went to school in just about every part of England before moving to the Netherlands in 1990.
His first book, California Dreaming, was a science fiction thriller published in 1981. After many years working as a freelance technical writer, copywriter, editor, and translator, he published his first two children’s stories with Andersen Press.
He now lives with his wife and a vegetable-eating cat in the city of Utrecht, where he’s currently working on more children’s stories.
Copyright © 2017 by Nick Garlick
All rights reserved. Published by Chicken House, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, CHICKEN HOUSE, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by Chicken House, 2 Palmer Street, Frome, Somerset BA11 1DS.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
ISBN 978-0-545-90414-8
First edition, February 2017
Jacket art © 2017 by Liam Peters
Jacket design by Carol Ly
e-ISBN 978-0-545-90416-2
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