Read Online The Ghost of Grania O'Malley by Michael Morpurgo - Free Book Online Page A

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.
    Mole wouldn’t be caught, so Jack had to give Jessie a piggyback all the way down the hill. They reached the bottom in time to help Jessie’s father drive the sheep along the road into the barn. They would be shearing the next day, he said, and it felt like rain. The fleeces had to be dry, so it was best to keep the sheep in overnight.
    That evening the thunder rolled in from the sea and clattered around the island, and the rain fell hard and straight in huge drops that drummed incessantly on the tin roof of the kitchen. Inside, there was an unnatural silence over the supper table. Jessie’s mother and father weren’t speaking. She looked from one to the other willing them to talk, but neither did. It was just as Jack had said, first the shouting, then the silences.
    Jack ate his peanut butter sandwiches ravenously and scarcely looked up. He seemed all wrapped up inside himself. Jessie longed to talk to him about everything that had happened up on the Big Hill, but there was never an opportunity to be alone together. He went up to bed early, and Jessie was about to follow him upstairs when her father asked her to help him check the sheep. ‘Two pairs of eyes are always better than one,’ he said.
    The sheep filled the barn from wall to wall. Every one of them was lying down, except for one in the corner. ‘I thought as much. She’s lambing. She shouldn’t be, but she is. That old ram must have got out again,’ he said. ‘She’s only young. I think she’ll need a hand. Do you want to do it?’ Jessie had never told her father that she didn’t like doing it. It was all the slime and the blood; and worst of all, the possibility that the lamb might be dead. She pretended. She had always pretended, and she pretended again now. Her father knelt down, holding the sheep on her side. Jessie found the feet inside and felt for the head. The lamb was alive. She tugged and her hands slipped. The little black feet were sucked back inside. She tried again. The lamb came out at the third pull and lay there, steaming and exhausted, on the ground. They sat watching the ewe for a while as she licked over her lamb, her eyes wary.
    â€˜Something the matter with Jack, is there?’ her father asked suddenly.
    â€˜Not as far as I know. He can’t find his lucky arrowhead, that’s all.’
    She had never before found it difficult to talk to her father, but then she’d never before wanted to ask him about such a thing. She wanted to ask him outright: ‘Are you and Mum going to split up?’ Then it occurred to her that maybe just by asking, just to speak of it, might make it more likely to happen.
    â€˜Come on, Jess,’ he said, ‘what’s up?’
    Luckily, there was something else troubling her, something she was longing to talk about to someone.
    â€˜I think I’ve seen a ghost, Dad.’
    He looked down at her and laughed. ‘Have you been at my whisky, Jess?’
    â€˜Course not.’
    â€˜You’re serious, aren’t you?’
    â€˜I’ve seen her in my mirror, Dad, and I heard her up on the Big Hill. Then today, this afternoon, I saw her. I really saw her. Honest, up at the top of the Big Hill.’
    â€˜At the top of the Big Hill, you say,’ said her father, getting to his feet and brushing himself down. ‘Now there’s a thing.’ He smiled down at her and helped her. ‘D’you know, Jess, you go on like this and you’ll make a writer one day. All the best writers don’t know where the truth begins or where it ends. They’re not liars at all, they’re just dreamers. Nothing wrong with dreaming.’ He pulled some straw out of her hair and let it fall to the ground. ‘And by the by, don’t you worry about your mother and me. It’s the Big Hill. It’s only the Big Hill that’s between us. Once the mining’s