by Terry Deary
‘Time to set off,’ her father said. ‘Help me load the peat onto my sledge and we’ll drag it down to Skara Brae. I’ll leave it in front of the main passage into the village. Tuk will run through the passages, and the villagers will all come looking for me near the sled.’
Storm said, ‘I’ll slip around to the back and search the thief’s house.’
The northern winter night was long and the sun was a long time in rising. The sledge was loaded and the family made the slow journey back to Skara Brae, dragging the creaking wooden carrier behind them.
Orc looked ahead to see if anyone was on guard outside the village. His bright eyes were looking for any movement, for any danger.
Storm and Tuk fell silent as they slowly helped their father drag the sled. Not one of them saw any danger ahead. There wasn’t any.
They should have looked over their shoulders. Coming down the hill, a thousand steps behind them, was a large, dark figure pulling a lighter sledge with leather bags on the back.
Not even a snowy owl’s eyes could have made out the face in the shadow of the hood. But it could have seen two eyes shining in the moonlight.
6
Secret Search
The family stopped the sledge a hundred paces from the front of the village. The hidden sun was turning the sky the colour of amber. Bright as the amber stones that Storm would sometimes find on the beaches.
They went over their plan again, as the wind carried away the sound of the other sledge that passed behind a frosted hill, and hid near the back of the village. The large, hooded figure waited and chewed on a piece of dried seal meat. The fierce eyes didn’t blink.
Tuk walked down to the top of the slope that led into the half-buried village. Storm ran around to the back door. When she was ready she gave the cry of a snowy owl. Tuk breathed in the icy air and let out a wail as he ran down the slope into the dark passages.
‘Storm... Mother... Orc is back... they’ll hurt him... Storm... run and warn him!’ he cried. His voice was an echo on the cold-hard, stone-hard, rough-cut walls of the houses. The echoes faded. For a long while there was silence.
Then there was a sleepy grumbling from inside those walls. Sleepy villagers woke slowly to hear Tuk’s cries. What was he saying? Orc was back? There is a reward for catching Orc. Get up. Forget the cold. Stagger through the dark bedroom to find a coat, a cloak, a shawl, some boots, and stumble out into the street.
‘He’s at the front door,’ someone cried.
The blubbery face of Chieftain Tane loomed like a yellow moon in the half-light. ‘The leg of lamb goes to the first villager to lay hands on Orc,’ he said. Villagers crashed and barged against the walls as they struggled out of the village and into the yellow sun in a green and gold sky.
Tane used his elbows to get to the front. ‘There he is!’ He set off to lumber over the frozen ruts in the earth but felt a sharp tug on his cloak as a young man pulled him back. ‘I’ll get him and claim the prize,’ he said, laughing wildly.
Tane’s foot slipped and he fell to the ground. He was gripping the wrist of the young man to tear himself free. They both fell in a tangle on the ground and rolled back down the slope as the greedy villagers trampled over them to get to Orc.
Even the old man got ahead of Tane in the scramble. Orc watched in wonder as the rabble roared towards him, slithering and squealing, battling, barging and blundering their way over the frozen path. Their fingers were like the claws of hunting owls, their eyes bright as codfish.
Orc waited until they were ten paces away and turned and trotted steadily away from the shelter of the peat sled. Behind the crowd Tuk laughed.
At the other side of the village Storm slipped into the empty streets. Every villager was out chasing her father. Even her mother had followed the villagers outside to watch.
Storm knew which house the thief lived in. She crept through the door. A lamp burned to show her the way.
There was a cupboard by the bed. She opened it to look for meat but it was full of winter furs and boots. Under the bed there were fishing rods and lines. The villagers would give up soon and be returning. Storm looked around wildly.
The only place she hadn’t looked was in a stone chest in the corner. The lid was heavy but the girl struggled and slid it to one side. She smelled the smoked meat and then her eyes grew used to the dark she could make out pieces of lamb. They had been carved into small pieces so each piece could make a fine meal for two people.
She grabbed the top piece and slipped it under her coat. She could show it to the villagers. She crept back towards the door and stepped outside into the still street.
She looked towards the front of the village. If she had looked back she would have seen the large, hooded figure. She would have seen the frozen leg of lamb the figure held in the air, ready to come down and crack her skull.
But Storm was looking the wrong way.
7
Wild Hills
Storm heard a scream of pain and rage. She swung around and saw the figure in the hooded cloak was standing behind her, a frozen leg of lamb in its hand, ready to crash down. Suddenly, the sheep-meat fell and the hooded figure clutched at the hand that had been holding it.
Storm’s brother Tuk stood, pale-faced and angry, behind. He had another stone ready to throw. ‘You miserable little seal-pup, you broke my hand with your stone,’ the figure raged.
‘You would have done much worse to my sister,’ Tuk said quietly. ‘No one throws as well as I do. The next stone will be at your knee.’
For once Storm had no words. Her mouth hung a little open and at last she said, ‘You saved me, Tuk.’
‘We saved our father,’ Tuk said. ‘This is the fish thief, and that is more of the sheep meat they traded to stuff their fat faces. Now let’s tell the village that our father is no robber.’ He held the stone high and jerked it towards the hooded thief. ‘Let’s go and tell the village,’ he went on.
Storm picked up the leg of sheep meat. She followed the thief through the low covered passages towards the slope at the front where all the villagers were gathered. Tuk spoke to her quickly. ‘I woke the village and set them off after Father. Then I came around to see how you were getting on. I saw this hooded figure follow you.’
The villagers had given up the chase. Orc stood on a low hill a hundred paces from Skara Brae and looked back at the raging mob of people. People he’d thought were his friends.
Tane was shouting at the crowd. ‘We must put a guard on the village; never let that wicked man return. Let him starve in the wild hills.’
‘He’ll probably go to see his Far-Island friends,’ someone sneered, bitter and angry.
‘We should take our fishing spears and drive the Far-Islanders away!’ a woman cried. The crowd cheered and Tane waved a spear over his head.
‘No,’ came the sharp voice of Storm. She walked into the centre of the circle and held up the leg of sheep-meat. ‘My father is no thief. I know the real thief.’
Tane stepped forward and pointed at the girl. ‘See? She has some of her father’s meat in her hand. We should throw the whole family out into the wild hills to freeze and die.’
But the crowd had fallen silent. Storm was standing quiet and half-smiling. ‘I am no thief. My father is no thief. But I have found out who the thief is. This is the sheep-meat they have just brought back from the Far-Island. Their sled is full of the meat and it’s at the far doorway.’
Tane’s eyes bulged and his face turned red. ‘Yes, that will be your father’s sled. You probably helped him bring it back.’ The chieftain swung around, ‘See? The whole family have robbed their own friends. They all need to die in the cold.’
‘What do you say to that?’ the old man asked, pointing a twisted finger at her.
Storm gave a wide smile. ‘I say you can search our house and find no meat. You can search the thief’s house and find a stone box full of meat.’
Tane looked around, wild and fierce. ‘You just put it there. Took it
from your house and put it in the house of some poor helpless family while we were all out here.’
Storm shook her head slowly. ‘I have the thief’s helper here,’ she said, pointing back to the entrance slope where the hooded figure stood. ‘Blood on their hands.’
Everyone turned to where Tuk stood behind the hooded thief. Tuk reached up and pulled back the hood.
8
Fallen Hood
The hood fell from a furious face. The people of Skara Brae gasped. The face that looked out was the face of their chieftain’s wife, Mara.
‘Ah!’ Tane roared. ‘This is nonsense. All nonsense. Tell them, Mara – tell our dear friends why our chest is full of sheep meat.’
Mara glared. Her bottom lip stuck out. At last she muttered, ‘We were looking after it for the people of Skara. I found a dead sheep in the wild hills and brought it back. It must have strayed from Far-Island and died of the cold.’
‘Yes,’ Tane said with a hearty, false laugh. ‘We knew we’d be short of fish after the winter storms. We decided to keep it in our cold chest so we could feed everyone when the fish ran out.’
‘Very good of you,’ Storm said. ‘So, who emptied our fish store?’
‘Well... well, your father, of course,’ Tane said, spreading his hands. ‘The leg of sheep-meat was found under your bed.’
‘Liar,’ Storm’s mother hissed. ‘Your wife Mara said she found it there. She didn’t. She used some of the meat you’d stolen. But you are greedy. You wanted more. We watched Mara heading to Far-Island last night for more meat. The sled was loaded with fish. She traded it. The meat is on her sled now.’
‘Look in the fish store now,’ Tuk said. ‘It must be empty. Mara and Tane stole it all to feed their walrus-faced sack-of-fish-gut faces. Look in the store.’
The young man raced down the slope to look. He was soon back. ‘It’s empty,’ he told the villagers.
‘We should cut Tane and Mara to pieces and use their flesh for fish-bait,’ the old man said.
‘Send them to the wild hills!’ a woman shouted.
‘No,’ came a firm voice from behind the villagers. Orc stood there. While they had been talking he had come down from the hill, silent as a fish.
‘We need someone to spend long, cold hours fishing through the winter. Fishing so we can stay alive until spring returns.’
‘Tane should do the fishing,’ the old man croaked.
The villagers cheered at the idea. Storm stepped forward. ‘So, walrus-faced sack of fish-guts, what do you choose? The wild hills or a winter by the freezing sea, fishing to feed us all?’
Tane looked across at Mara, his blubber lips turned down in hate. ‘It was your idea,’ he said. ‘Never happy with what you had. Always wanting more food. You can help me do the fishing,’ he snarled.
Mara stayed silent, but walked away to gather the fishing lines and nets.
The old man said, ‘We can’t have a thief for a chieftain.’ The crowd murmured that he was right. ‘We need someone brave and wise and strong.’
‘You do,’ Storm said. ‘But I’m too young. Maybe a in a few years...’
‘Not you, pebble-brain,’ Tuk said. ‘They mean our father.’
Storm sniffed. ‘Well, yes, I was going to say he’d be best... or second best.’
And so it was that Orc became chieftain of Skara Brae. The villagers lived through the worst winter storms the island had ever seen. The houses, half hidden in the earth, kept them warm. Tane and Mara kept them fed with fish.
When spring came Tuk and Storm climbed the cliffs to steal the eggs of gulls. The villagers caught seals while Chieftain Orc crossed the island to trade the soft skins for sheep meat. Summer brought the warm winds and content to Skara Brae... although not to weary and worn Tane and Mara.
And on those warm winds there soared a large white bird. He looked down on the children climbing cliffs and setting traps to catch careless animals and birds.
Those human creatures were dangerous, the bird decided. Dangerous to any living thing. But, most of all, dangerous to one another.
The white bird sailed off to find the colder lands the humans hadn’t conquered. Not yet.
FACT FILE
• Skara Brae, in Orkney, Scotland, was a small settlement where humans lived between 5,200 and 4,200 years ago. Eight houses have been found there, linked by low, covered passages.
• An ancient road crosses the island from Skara Brae. It passes near the Standing Stones of Stenness, a mysterious circle of massive slabs of rock.
• The houses were sunk into mounds that sheltered them through Orkney’s harsh winters. Each house had a large, square room, with a stone hearth in the middle for heating and cooking. There were maybe fifty people living in Skara Brae at any one time.
• Each house had a low doorway with a stone-slab door that could be closed. The houses also have several stone-built pieces of furniture inside them – cupboards, seats and storage boxes. It’s rare that everyday objects like these survive for us to see, as most furniture at the time was made of wood and rotted away hundreds of years ago.
• Drains were built under the village and each house had a simple toilet.
• Wheat and barley crops were grown in the fields.
• Fish bones and shells have been found in rubbish tips, so we know that the people of Skara Brae ate seafood. Bones found in the rubbish piles show that cattle and sheep were eaten as well, and red deer and wild boar were hunted. Villagers would have collected seabirds’ eggs and trapped the birds for food, too. Bones of whales, walrus and killer whales show us what they feasted on when a big sea creature was washed ashore.
• The houses contain stone boxes in which limpet shells were found. They may have been filled with seawater to keep the shellfish alive. The limpets could then be eaten fresh, or used for fish bait.
• The inside of a Skara Brae house would have been dark and smoky. Fish would be hung from beams and the smoke would stop them rotting until the villagers were ready to eat them.
• What did they do on the long northern nights? Games and crafts seem to have been popular: dice, tools, beads, necklaces and brooches have been found.
YOU TRY
PARTY PLANNER
If you were Storm or Tuk, what would you have to eat at your birthday party? On a piece of paper, make a birthday invitation for a friend. You have to say where and when the party will happen – but you also have to tell them what food they will get at the party. Of course you can only offer the food that was around in Skara Brae 4,000 years ago. Decorate the invitation with pictures of the food. Maybe you could start with ‘Fingers of smoked fish served on boiled seal flipper’!
CHIEFTAIN CHALLENGE
Imagine you were made the chieftain of fifty Skara Brae villagers. Whatever you say will be the law of the village. What five laws would you have for your people? Write them down.
Now imagine you are chieftain of your class at school. You are even chief over the head teacher and the classroom teachers!
What five laws would you make them obey now you are in charge? Write them down.
TOWN PLANNER
You have been shipwrecked on a desert island. It is as empty as Skara Brae once was... but warmer. There are plenty of trees to cut down, and a lot of tools have been washed ashore with you. You have walked around the island – so now draw a map of it.
On your trip, you found there are animals you can hunt, fish you can catch and fruits you can eat. There are even stones you can use for building – but you need to plan a small town for the thirty people who landed with you.
Add the town to your map. Think of all the things the people will need, to survive. The next ship to pass this way will not arrive for a year. Can you keep the people safe and happy with your plan?
Should there be a place where they can all meet? A square in the middle, perhaps? And should there be a statue carved and stood in the middle? A statue of you, of course!
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First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
This electronic edition published in 2018
Text copyright © Terry Deary, 2018
Illustrations copyright © Tambe, 2018
Terry Deary and Tambe have asserted their rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author and Illustrator of this work
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: PB: 978-1-4729-5026-0; ePub: 978 1 4729 5028 4; ePDF: 978 1 4729 5027 7
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