by Terry Deary
Contents
White Bird
Empty Tank
Grey Stones
Silver Moon
Dangerous Plan
Secret Search
Wild Hills
Fallen Hood
Fact File
You Try
1
White Bird
Skara Brae, Orkney, Scotland – 5,000 years ago
The great white seabird soared over the shores of the island, searching for food. The grey sea was whipped into white waves by a sharp wind from the Arctic ice-fields. The only sound it could hear was the soft whisper of the wind in its feathers as it turned in sweeping circles.
It hung on the wind over a half-buried village of stone huts. Humans hurried along the lanes around them, bent and huddled against the cold wind off the sea. The bird closed its wide wings a little and dropped towards the sea.
Among the wave crests the dark sea showed no sign of the shoals of fish that lived below. But there were two dead fish scattered over the silver sands on the shore. All the gull had to do was land and fill its curving, yellow beak.
But it was an old bird. A wise bird. Between the rocks were lumpen shapes hidden under the skins of seals. They were humans, shivering in the shelter of the weed-slimed rocks. They were waiting for some greedy bird to land and snap at the fish. Then the humans would pull ropes and lift a net and snare the bird. It would make fine fresh meat for their cooking pot.
The gull swooped low and fast across the sand. It dipped its beak and snatched at a fish without landing.
In that moment it looked across the sands towards one of the faces under the sealskin cloaks. It was a girl human with a flame of red hair. In that glimpse the bird saw the girl’s face flash with rage as she was robbed of her supper.
If a gull could laugh, then it would have jeered at her. Then the other human – a boy – snatched a pebble from the beach. He threw it straight and true at the gull. It caught the wing-tip of the bird. The gull gave a rasping cry of ‘cark’, and that made it drop the fish back onto the sand that hid the net. It climbed upwards towards the sea-grey clouds and looked back. The girl was on her feet, shaking her fist and laughing and shouting.
If the bird spoke human it would have known she was calling out, ‘Serves you right you thieving, ugly bird! I hope you dive for fish and smash your greedy beak against a rock!’
The bird rode off on the wings of the wind to find safer food to fish for.
A boy with hair the colour of wet sand stood alongside the girl. ‘It didn’t work, Storm,’ he sighed. ‘I said it wouldn’t. I catch more gulls with my stones. No one throws as well as I do.’
Her pale face turned red as her hair. She copied his voice with an added whine. ‘Urr, Storm, I said it wouldn’t work. Urr, aren’t I the clever boy? No one throws as well as I do.’ Her voice turned as fierce as her name. ‘We eat nothing but fish. More fish. And then, just for a change, we have fish again. At least I am trying to catch birds for a bit of red meat. What are you doing?’
The boy shrank small inside his sealskin jacket. ‘Nothing, Storm,’ he muttered. ‘It’s just that we spent all morning catching those fish to bait the birds.’
The girl gave a wide grin. ‘Exactly, Tuk. So, we may not have a bird to eat, but at least we have a couple of fat herring.’
The boy frowned. ‘One of them’s been a bit chewed around by that white bird,’ he said.
Storm nodded. ‘Such a pity. That one was yours.’
His mouth fell open in dismay. ‘But...’
‘Never mind,’ Storm went on quickly. ‘Maybe Mother has a little old, stinking fish stew left over for you. And, if you are a really good little brother, I’ll let you watch me eat my big, fat, fresh fish.’
She picked up her herring and led the way back to the village. But when they arrived there would be very little fish stew for Tuk.
2
Empty Tank
Storm ran into the covered passages that kept the whipping winds out of the stone houses. They usually had to squeeze past the villagers who moved from house to house or over to the main hall. Today the passageways were quiet and empty.
Storm ran through the stone door to her house. It stood open. She cried, ‘Mother, I almost caught a huge gull...’
The main room of the house was empty. The fire was dying in the hearth in the middle and smoke drifted through the room.
‘She’s not here,’ Tuk panted as he followed her in. ‘Father went out to the hills gathering peat. But Mother hardly leaves the house.’
The pottery dishes were neatly stacked on the stone dresser and the stone beds had their fur covers tidy. Mother’s sewing had been dropped untidily, so she had left suddenly.
‘Maybe that great white bird swooped down and snatched everyone up,’ the girl gasped.
Tuk rolled his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Storm, that’s just a story that mothers tell their children. It stops the young ones straying too far from home.’
‘No,’ his sister argued. ‘There really are huge birds with wings as wide as a man is tall. They could easily pick up a person. ‘
The boy sighed. ‘But they couldn’t pick up a whole village,’ he told her. ‘There’s no one around.’
Storm stuck out a stubborn lip. ‘Maybe there was a flock of them,’ she said.
‘And maybe a sea monster sneaked past us on the shore, swallowed everybody and then sneaked back into the sea.’
Storm’s eyes were wide. ‘I’ve heard of sea monsters too,’ Storm said. ‘Do you think that’s what happened?’
‘No,’ Tuk said fiercely. ‘I think we’ll find everyone in the great hall if we go along and look.’
Storm looked disappointed. ‘I suppose so,’ she said. She laid her fish down beside the hearth and wiped her hands on her fur trousers. ‘Let’s go and see.’
The passageways were dark but they knew their way. Soon they heard voices from a house that was larger than the rest. The village chieftain, Tane, was speaking. ‘What should we do with a thief?’ he roared.
‘Throw him off the cliffs at Thule!’ a woman cried back.
‘Tie him with ropes to a rock and let the tide come in and drown him,’ an old man croaked.
‘That’s too good for him,’ a younger man said. ‘He should be made to fish every day until our stores are full again.’
‘Aye,’ the shouting woman called, ‘make him feed us and then throw him off the cliffs!’
Most of the villagers mumbled that they agreed. But one woman turned and ran from the gloomy, lamp-lit hall. She pushed through the crowd of fifty villagers and stumbled out of the door.
‘Mother?’ Storm cried and ran after her. ‘What’s happened?’
Their mother kept walking but spoke over her shoulder in a broken voice. ‘There has been a theft. Half of our winter fish supplies have gone. Someone has stolen them.’
‘And you’re upset because you think we’ll starve?’ Tuk asked.
The woman stopped and rubbed her red eyes. ‘No, I’m upset because they say the thief is your father. They want revenge.’
3
Grey Stones
The early winter storms had left the village short of fish. In the summer the store of smoked fish had been full. But raging gales had made fishing impossible for the last two weeks. No one could remember such a storm. Egg-hunters like Tuk had not been able to climb down the cliffs to find gulls’ nests to rob.
Everyone was getting short of food. One of the women had gone to the stone storehouse to get some herring and found it was half empty.
The village chieftain, Tane, was still speaking. He was a large man with a deep voice. ‘No one would want fish from Skara Brae except the people from the other side of the island,’ Tane was sa
ying angrily. ‘Someone from our village must have given it to them.’ The villagers’ voices rumbled and agreed.
Storm turned and went back into the hall. ‘The Far-Islanders love our fish,’ she argued. ‘They could have stolen it themselves.’
Tane’s mouth was soft like seal blubber and it turned down in a sneer. ‘The Far-Islanders are our friends. They trade the meat of their sheep for our fish. How dare you call our friends thieves?’
The girl’s face turned red as her hair. ‘How dare you call my father a thief, you walrus-faced sack of fish-guts with all the sense of a rock on the beach?’
The room fell silent as the villagers waited for Tane to burst with anger. Instead he gave a soft smile and spoke quietly.
‘You are well named, Storm,’ he said. ‘You have a stormy temper.’
‘I was named because I was born in a storm,’ she snapped.
Tane took two steps towards her. ‘No one goes far from the village,’ he said, ‘except your father, Orc.’
‘He cuts peat in the wild hills for everyone to burn on their fires,’ Storm argued. ‘He can’t do that on the beach.’
‘No, he goes to the circle of stones,’ Tane said, still soft. ‘That is halfway between Skara Brae and Far-Island. He robs the fish store and uses his peat sledge to carry the fish to the Grey Stones. He meets the Far-Islanders and gives them the fish.’
Storm shook her head. ‘Why would he do that?’
Tane snorted and spread his arms wide. ‘The Far-Islanders would give him a sheep in return for the fish, so you and your family can get through the winter with red meat.’
There were grumbles from the villagers in the hall. ‘We should cut Orc to pieces and use his flesh for fish-bait,’ the old man whined.
Storm shouted over the angry, muttering crowd. ‘My father isn’t a thief and we don’t have any sheep meat in the house.’
A voice spoke gruffly behind her. ‘Then what is this?’
Everyone turned towards the door. Tane’s wife, Mara, stood there. She was as large as her husband. In her heavy hand she held up a leg from a skinned sheep. ‘I found this in Orc’s living room,’ she said. ‘It was hidden under his bed.’
The villagers howled with rage. ‘What a traitor! He wants to see us starve while he feasts.’
Tane raised his voice. ‘He doesn’t know we’ve discovered his theft. He’ll come home and we’ll catch him.’
An old man cried, ‘That leg of lamb should go to the villager who catches Orc!’
‘Yes,’ the crowd cheered.
‘No,’ Tane’s wife tried to argue. ‘I found it... Tane and I should keep it.’
No one was listening.
Storm looked at her brother. ‘We have to warn Father,’ she said and dragged her brother out of the village into the freezing wind. The sun was setting behind the steep hill in the middle of the island. On top of the hill was a ring of stones, a long walk away.
Tuk pulled his sealskin coat tight around him and set off after his sister. ‘Did you really call Tane a walrus-faced sack of fish-guts with all the sense of a rock on the beach?’
Storm nodded and made a sad face. ‘I did. Do you think I was being too kind to him?’
‘Far too kind,’ Tuk said and laughed as he hurried over the frozen ground.
4
Silver Moon
Most days at Skara Brae were spent in work to help the villagers stay alive. But earlier in the year, on a summer day, Orc had taken Storm and Tuk on a journey to the stones. The food stores were full and the breeze was warm, and Orc had taken his children to the grey stones.
They had seen them from Skara Brae but Storm had fallen silent when they’d come close. The stones were three times as tall as Orc and stood in a circle a hundred paces wide.
‘Who put them here?’ Tuk had asked.
‘Our grandfathers’ grandfathers,’ Orc had said. ‘They dragged them here on sledges like my peat sledge.’
‘All that wood to make the sledges,’ Storm had gasped. Wood was the most precious thing on the islands. Rare and too precious to burn when it was washed up on the shores. The villagers used the peat moss that Orc dug to give them heat for cooking.
After they had eaten a little fish Orc had scooped a hollow in the soil beneath the greatest stone. ‘Put some of your fish there as a gift to the gods. They will make sure we catch plenty of fish.’
Storm had done as Orc told her.
Now that winter had come, and her father was called a thief, she followed the path to the stones and grumbled, ‘Our gift of fish didn’t work. That storm went on so long this year.’
‘Maybe the gods were arguing with one another. The god of the sea might have had a row with the winds,’ Tuk explained. The path led them up the coast with the sea to their left. It looked calm enough now and as blue-grey as the stones ahead of them.
‘I hope the god of the sea won,’ Storm sighed.
They heard their father working before they saw him. His spade was clanking as it struck the frosted earth. Squares of peat were stacked on the ground ready to load onto the sledge. ‘He needs the sledge for shelter when he stays out all night,’ Storm explained to Tuk.
‘I know that,’ her brother said, sulkily. ‘I’m not Tane – I have more sense than a rock on the beach.’
Orc looked up from his work and smiled. ‘Just in time to help me load the peat,’ he said. ‘I’ll get back to Skara Brae before sunset.’
Storm shook her head. ‘You can’t go back,’ the girl said.
‘They’ll kill you,’ Tuk added.
The smile slid from Orc’s face like a seal off a rock. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked.
Storm told the story of the theft and how the chieftain’s wife had found a leg of sheep meat in the cupboard in their house. ‘You didn’t steal the fish, did you?’ she asked her father.
Orc asked her questions.
Where had their mother been when Tane’s wife, Mara, walked into the hall with the meat? Standing at the door to the hall.
What happened to the meat? The old man said it should go to the person who captured Orc.
What did Tane’s wife think about that? She was angry.
Where was the rest of the dead sheep? Storm didn’t know... but she was sure it wasn’t in her home.
‘So, who stole the fish and traded it for the sheep meat, Storm?’
The girl shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What will they do next, Tuk?’ the man asked.
‘I don’t know.’
Orc looked out over the green-grey sea. The sun was setting in an orange blaze to the west. The moon was rising in the east and slowly turning the frosted land from gold to silver.
The man spoke quietly. ‘I know who stole the fish.’ His eyes shifted back towards Skara Brae. ‘And I could guess what they will do next. I just didn’t expect them to do it so soon.’
Storm looked back to where her father was staring. Her eyes were sharp as any sea eagle’s. In the pale light she saw a dark shape leaving the half-hidden village of Skara Brae. It was dragging a sledge loaded with leather sacks. The sort of sacks that the villagers used to store their smoked fish.
The figure was heading their way.
‘Hide,’ Orc said.
5
Dangerous Plan
The path to the Far-Island village ran along the cliff top. Orc dragged the empty sledge to the stones at the other side of the circle.
Storm and Tuk each chose a stone to hide behind. A snowy owl hooted and hunted some mouse. Storm felt like the mouse as the dark figure climbed up from the village.
The girl shivered and waited. She risked a glance from her hiding place. The stranger had stopped and was looking at the pile of peat that Orc had left ready to load. She couldn’t see the face under the fur hood, but she felt its eyes were looking straight at her. Straight through her.
At last it hitched the rope over a stout shoulder and plodded on. When the figure was well down the path to the Far-I
sland Village Orc stepped out. ‘Now, Storm, I need your help.’
‘Anything,’ she said, breathless.
‘It sounds as if the villagers are furious with me. If I return to Skara Brae they’ll kill me,’ her father said.
‘Tell them you didn’t do it,’ Tuk said.
‘That’s not good enough. I’ll have to show them all who did do it. We need to find the rest of that sheep meat,’ Orc went on.
‘It will be in someone’s cupboard... or hidden under their bed,’ Storm said. ‘You stay safe. I’ll go in. I can easily find it. All the houses are built the same.’
Orc looked worried. ‘It will be dangerous. The houses are so small. The thief may see you as soon as you go into their house. That’s why we need Tuk.’
The boy grinned, his teeth sparkling in the moonlight. ‘What we need is for someone to get the thief out of their house so you can slip in.’
His father nodded. ‘How can you do that?’
‘Easy,’ the boy laughed. ‘I’ll run through the streets shouting for Storm. I’ll cry out that our father is on his way back to Skara Brae with his peat sledge. Oh, I’ll cry. Poor Father doesn’t know the villagers are waiting to capture him! And if they do they’ll throw him over the cliff! Oh, Storm, I’ll shout, help me run to him!’
Orc nodded. ‘Everyone in the village will rush out. The first one to catch me will get a feast of sheep-meat, remember.’
‘The villagers are like fish,’ Storm nodded. ‘And you are the bait.’
‘No one can run faster than me, Storm. If they try to chase me then I’ll be safe.’
She nodded. ‘You can fly like the great white bird.’
Her father said, ‘If I run too fast they’ll give up and go home. I’ll have to stumble and slip a little. I’ll have to let them get close enough to give them hope.’
‘I suppose so,’ she sighed. ‘It will be dangerous.’