Best Mates

  On the Sunday afternoon walk along the River Okement I felt him tugging suddenly at my arm and pointing. I looked up just in time to see the flashing brilliance of a kingfisher flying straight as an arrow down the middle of the river. He and I were the only ones to see it. He so nearly smiled then. There was a new light in his eyes that I had not seen before. He was so observant and fascinated, so confident around the animals, I began to wonder about his past – maybe he’d been a country boy back in Vietnam when he was little. I longed to ask him, particularly when he came running up to walk alongside me again. I felt his cold hand creep into mine. That had certainly never happened before. I squeezed it gently and he squeezed back. It was every bit as good as talking, I thought.

  At some point during our week-long visit, Michael comes up in the evening to read a story to the children. He’s a bit of a writer, as well as a performer. He likes to test his stories out on the children, and we like listening to them too. He never seems to get offended if someone nods off – and they’re so tired, they often do. We have all the children washed and ready in their dressing gowns (not easy, I can tell you, when there are nearly forty of them!), hands round mugs of steaming hot chocolate, and gather them in the sitting room round the fire for Michael’s story.

  On this particular evening, the children were noisy and all over the place, high with excitement. They were often like that when it was windy outside, and there’d been a gale blowing all day. It was a bit like rounding up cats. We thought we’d just about managed it, and were doing a final count of heads, when I noticed that Ho was missing. Had anyone seen him? No. The teachers and I searched for him all over the house. No one could find him anywhere. Long minutes passed and still no sign of Ho. I was becoming more than a little worried. It occurred to me that someone might have upset him, causing Ho to run off, just as he had a few times back at school. Out there in the dark he could have got himself lost and frightened all too easily. He had been in his dressing gown and slippers the last time anyone saw him, that much we had established. But it was a very cold night outside. I was trying to control my panic when Michael walked in, manuscript in hand.

  “I need to speak to you,” he said. “It’s Ho.” My heart missed a beat. I followed him out of the room.

  “Listen,” he said, “before I read to the children, there’s something I have to show you.”

  “What?” I asked. “What’s happened? Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine,” Michael replied. “In fact, I’d say he’s happy as Larry. He’s outside. Come and have a look.” He put his fingers to his lips. “We need to be quiet. I don’t want him to hear us.”

  And so it was that the two of us found ourselves, minutes later, tiptoeing through the darkness of the walled vegetable garden. It was so quiet, I remember hearing a fox barking down in the valley.

  There was a light on over the stable door. Michael put his hand on my arm.

  “Look,” he whispered. “Listen. That’s Ho, isn’t it?”

  Ho was standing there under the light stroking Hebe and talking to her softly. He was talking! Ho was talking, but not in English – in Vietnamese, I supposed. I wanted so much to be able to understand what he was saying. As though he were reading my thoughts, at that very moment he switched to English, speaking without hesitation, the words flowing out of him.

  “It’s no good if I speak to you in Vietnamese, Hebe, is it? Because you are English. Well, I know really you are from Austria, that’s what Michael told us, but everyone speaks to you in English.” Ho was almost nose to nose with Hebe now. “Michael says you’re twenty-five years old. What’s that in human years? Fifty? Sixty? I wish you could tell me what it’s like to be a horse. But you can’t talk out loud, can you? You’re like me. You talk inside your head. I wish you could talk to me, because then you could tell me who your mother was, who your father was, how you learnt to be a riding horse. And you can pull carts too, Michael says. And you could tell me what you dream about. You could tell me everything about your life, couldn’t you?

  “I’m only ten, but I’ve got a story I could tell you. D’you want to hear it? Your ears are twitching. I think you understand every word I’m saying, don’t you? Do you know we both begin with ‘H’, don’t we? Ho. Hebe. No one else in my school is called Ho, only me. And I like that. I like to be like no one else. The other kids have a go at me sometimes, call me Ho Ho Ho – because that’s how Father Christmas talks. Not very funny, is it?

  “Anyway, where I come from in Vietnam, we never had Father Christmas. I lived in a village. My mum and dad worked in the rice fields, but then the war came and there were soldiers everywhere and aeroplanes. Lots of bombs falling. So then we moved to the city, to Saigon. I hated the city. I had two little sisters. They hated the city too. No cows and no hens. The city was so crowded. But not as crowded as the boat. I wish we had never got on that boat, but Mum said it would be much safer for us to leave. On the boat there were hundreds of us, and there wasn’t enough food and water. And there were storms and I thought we were all going to die. And lots of us did die too, Mum and Dad, and my two sisters. I was the only one in the family left.

  “A big ship came along and picked us up one day, me and a few others. I remember someone asked me my name, and I couldn’t speak. I was too sad to speak. That’s why I haven’t spoken to anyone since then – only in my head like I said. I talk to myself in my head all the time, like you do. They put me in a camp in Hong Kong, which was horrible. I could not sleep. I kept thinking of my family, all dead in the boat. I kept seeing them again and again. I couldn’t help myself. After a while I was adopted by Aunty Joy and Uncle Max and came to London – that’s a long way from here. It’s all right in London, but there are no cows or hens. I like it here. I want to stay here all my life. Sometimes at home, and at school, I’m so sad that I feel like running away. But with you and all the animals I don’t feel sad any more.”

  All the time Ho was talking I had the strangest feeling that Hebe was not only listening to every single word he said, but that she understood his sadness, and was feeling for him, as much as we did, as we stood there listening in the darkness.

  Ho hadn’t finished yet. “I’ve got to go now, Hebe,” he said. “Michael’s reading us a story. But I’ll come back tomorrow evening, shall I? When no one else is about. Night night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” And he ran into the house then, almost tripping over the doorstep as he went.

  Michael and I were so overwhelmed that for a minute we couldn’t speak. We decided not to talk about it to anyone else. It would seem somehow like breaking a confidence.

  For the rest of the week down on the farm Ho remained as silent and uncommunicative as before. But I noticed now that he would spend every moment he could in the stable yard with Hebe. The two had become quite inseparable. As the coach drove off on the Friday morning I sat down in the empty seat next to Ho. He was looking steadfastly, too steadfastly, out of the window. I could tell he was trying his best to hide his tears. I didn’t really intend to say anything, and certainly not to ask him a question. It just popped out. I think I was trying to cheer him up.

  “Well, Ho, didn’t we have a lovely time?”

  Ho didn’t turn round.

  “Yes, miss,” he said, soft and clear. “I had a lovely time.”

  Once upon a time, the little fishing village was a happy place. Not any more.

  Once upon a time, the fishermen of the village used to go out fishing every day. Not any more.

  Once upon a time, there were lots of fish to catch. Not any more.

  Now the boats lay high and dry on the beach, their paint peeling in the sun, their sails rotting in the rain.

  Jim’s father was the only fisherman who still took his boat out. That was because he loved the Sally May like an old friend and just couldn’t bear to be parted from her.

  Whenever Jim wasn’t at school, his father would take him along. Jim loved the Sally May as much as his father did in spite of her ra
ggedy old sails. There was nothing he liked better than taking the helm, or hauling in the nets with his father.

  One day, on his way home from school, Jim saw his father sitting alone on the quay, staring out at an empty bay. Jim couldn’t see the Sally May anywhere. “Where’s the Sally May?” he asked.

  “She’s up on the beach,” said his father, “with all the other boats. I’ve caught no fish at all for a week, Jim. She needs new sails and I haven’t got the money to pay for them. No fish, no money. We can’t live without money. I’m sorry, Jim.”

  That night Jim cried himself to sleep.

  After that, Jim always took the beach road to school because he liked to have a look at the Sally May before school began.

  He was walking along the beach one morning when he saw something lying in the sand amongst the seaweed. It looked like a big log at first, but it wasn’t. It was moving. It had a tail and a head. It was a dolphin!

  Jim knelt in the sand beside him. The boy and the dolphin looked into each other’s eyes. Jim knew then exactly what he had to do.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll fetch help. I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

  He ran all the way up the hill to school as fast as he could go. Everyone was in the playground.

  “You’ve got to come!” he cried. “There’s a dolphin on the beach! We’ve got to get him back in the water or he’ll die.”

  Down the hill to the beach the children ran, the teachers as well. Soon everyone in the village was there – Jim’s father and his mother too.

  “Fetch the Sally May’s sail!” cried Jim’s mother. “We’ll roll him on to it.”

  When they had fetched the sail, Jim crouched down beside the dolphin’s head, stroking him and comforting him. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “We’ll soon have you back in the sea.”

  They spread out the sail and rolled him on to it very gently. Then, when everyone had taken a tight grip of the sail, Jim’s father gave the word, “Lift!”

  With a hundred hands lifting together, they soon carried the dolphin down to the sea where they laid him in the shallows and let the waves wash over him.

  The dolphin squeaked and clicked and slapped the sea with his smiley mouth. He was swimming now, but he didn’t seem to want to leave. He swam around and around.

  “Off you go,” Jim shouted, wading in and trying to push him out to sea. “Off you go.” And off he went at last.

  Everyone was clapping and cheering and waving goodbye. Jim just wanted him to come back again. But he didn’t. Along with everyone else, Jim stayed and watched until he couldn’t see him any more.

  That day at school Jim could think of nothing but the dolphin. He even thought up a name for him. ‘Smiler’ seemed to suit him perfectly.

  The moment school was over, Jim ran back to the beach hoping and praying Smiler might have come back. But Smiler wasn’t there. He was nowhere to be seen.

  Filled with sudden sadness he rushed down to the pier. “Come back, Smiler!” he cried. “Please come back. Please!”

  At that very moment, Smiler rose up out of the sea right in front of him! He turned over and over in the air before he crashed down into the water, splashing Jim from head to toe.

  Jim didn’t think twice. He dropped his bag, pulled off his shoes and dived off the pier.

  At once Smiler was there beside him – swimming all around him, leaping over him, diving under him. Suddenly Jim found himself being lifted up from below. He was sitting on Smiler! He was riding him!

  Off they sped out to sea, Jim clinging on as best he could. Whenever he fell off – and he often did – Smiler was always there, so that Jim could always get on again. The further they went, the faster they went. And the faster they went, the more Jim liked it.

  Around and around the bay Smiler took him, and then back at last to the quay. By this time everyone in the village had seen them and the children were diving off the quay and swimming out to meet them.

  All of them wanted to swim with Smiler, to touch him, to stroke him, to play with him. And Smiler was happy to let them. They were having the best time of their lives.

  Every day after that, Smiler would be swimming near the quay waiting for Jim, to give him his ride. And every day the children swam with him and played with him too. They loved his kind eyes and smiling face.

  Smiler was everyone’s best friend.

  Then one day, Smiler wasn’t there. They waited for him. They looked for him. But he never came. The next day he wasn’t there either, nor the next, nor the next.

  Jim was broken-hearted, and so were all the children. Everyone in the village missed Smiler, young and old alike, and longed for him to come back. Each day they looked and each day he wasn’t there.

  When Jim’s birthday came, his mother gave him something she hoped might cheer him up –a wonderful carving of a dolphin – she’d made it herself out of driftwood. But not even that seemed to make Jim happy.

  Then his father had a bright idea. “Jim,” he said, “why don’t we all go out in the Sally May? Would you like that?”

  “Yes!” Jim cried. “Then we could look for Smiler too.”

  So they hauled the Sally May down to the water and set the sails. Out of the bay they went, out on to the open sea where, despite her raggedy old sails, the Sally May flew along over the waves.

  Jim loved the wind in his face, and the salt spray on his lips. There were lots of gulls and gannets, but no sight of Smiler anywhere. He called for him again and again, but he didn’t come.

  The sun was setting by now, the sea glowing gold around them.

  “I think we’d better be getting back,” Jim’s father told him.

  “Not yet,” Jim cried. “He’s out here somewhere. I know he is.”

  As the Sally May turned for home, Jim called out one last time, “Come back, Smiler! Please come back. Please!”

  Suddenly the sea began to boil and bubble around the boat, almost as if it was coming alive. And it WAS alive too, alive with dolphins! There seemed to be hundreds of them, leaping out of the sea alongside them, behind them, in front of them.

  Then, one of them leapt clear over the Sally May, right above Jim’s head. It was Smiler! Smiler had come back, and by the look of it he’d brought his whole family with him.

  As the Sally May sailed into the bay everyone saw her coming, the dolphins dancing all about her in the golden sea. What a sight it was!

  Within days the village was full of visitors, all of them there to see the famous dolphins and to see Smiler playing with Jim and the children.

  And every morning, the Sally May and all the little fishing boats put to sea crammed with visitors, all of them only too happy to pay for their trip of a lifetime. They loved every minute of it, holding on to their hats and laughing with delight as the dolphins frisked and frolicked around them.

  Jim had never been so happy in all his life. He had Smiler back, and now his father had all the money he needed to buy new sails for the Sally May. And all the other fishermen too could mend their sails and paint their boats. Once again, the village was a happy place.

  As for the children …

  … they could go swimming with the dolphins whenever they wanted to. They could stroke them, and swim with them and play with them, and even talk to them. But they all knew that only one dolphin would ever let anyone sit on him.

  That was Smiler.

  And they all knew that there was only one person in the whole world who Smiler would take for a ride.

  And that was Jim.

  This morning I met a whale. It was just after five o’clock and I was down by the river. Sometimes, when my alarm clock works, and when I feel like it, I get up early, because I like to go birdwatching, because birdwatching is my favourite hobby. I usually go just before first light. Mum doesn’t mind, just so long as I don’t wake her up, just so long as I’m back for breakfast.

  It’s the best time. You get to hear the dawn chorus. You get to see the sunrise and the whole world
waking up around you. That’s when the birds come flying down to the river to feed, and I can watch them landing in the water. I love that.

  If you’re already there when they come, they hardly notice you, and then you don’t bother them. Hardly anyone else is down by the river at five o’clock, sometimes no one at all, just the birds and me. The rest of London is asleep. Well, mostly, anyway.

  From our flat in Battersea it takes about five minutes to walk down to the river. The first bird I saw this morning was a heron. I love herons because they stand so still in the shallows. They’re looking for fish, waiting to strike. When they strike they do it so fast, it’s like lightning, and when they catch something they look so surprised and so pleased with themselves, as if they’ve never done it before. When they walk they will walk in slow motion. When they take off and fly they look prehistoric, like pterodactyls almost. Herons are my best. But soon enough they all came, all the other birds, the moorhens and coots, the crested grebes and the swans, the cormorants and the ducks. This morning I saw an egret too, perched on a buoy out in the river, and you don’t see many of those. They’re quite like herons, only much smaller, and white, snow-white. He was so beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

  I was watching him through my binoculars, and he was looking right back at me. It was like he was asking me, “Hey, you, what are you doing here? This is my river, don’t you know?” Suddenly, without any warning, he lifted off. Then they all lifted off, all the birds on the shore, all the birds in the river. It was really strange. It was just as if I’d fired a gun or something, but I hadn’t. I looked around. There wasn’t a single bird anywhere. They’d all disappeared. For a while the river was completely still and empty and silent, like it was holding its breath almost, waiting for something that was about to happen. I was doing the same.