Alone on a Wide Wide Sea. Michael Morpurgo
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HarperCollins Children’s Books a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
Text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2006.
Photographs © AKG Images, Corbis, Getty and Topfoto Maps and yacht diagrams © Tim Stevens 2006
Cover photographs ©: by kind permission of the author (boy); Ralph A. Clevenger/Corbis (porthole); Patrick Robert/Sygma/Corbis (river texture); Kevin Schafe/Getty Images (albatross); Altrendo Images/Getty Images (splash); The Mariners’ Museum/Corbis (ship); William Vandivert/Getty Images (waves).
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Michael Morpurgo reserves the right to be identified as the author of the work.
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Source ISBN: 9780007230587
Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2010 ISBN: 9780007369980
Version: 2019-01-11
To Lula Léa and Clare, who helped make this book with me.
Contents
Copyright
Part One: The Story of Arthur Hobhouse
Arthur Hobhouse is a Happening
Three Red Funnels and an Orchestra
Kookaburras, Cockatoos and Kangaroos
Cooper’s Station and Piggy Bacon and God’s Work
Suffer Little Children
Wes Snarkey’s Revenge
Saints and Sinners
Mrs Piggy to Ida
“Only One Way Out”
“Did We Have the Children Here for This?”
“Just Watch Me”
“For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow”
Wide as the Ocean
“Couple of Raggedy Little Scarecrows”
Henry’s Horrible Hat Hole
I Must Go Down to the Sea
Scrambled Eggs and Baked Beans
“You’re my Boys, Aren’t You?”
Freddie Dodds
One January Night
An Orphan Just the Same
Things Fall Apart
The Centre Will Not Hold
Oh Lucky Man!
Kitty Four
Part Two: The Voyage of the Kitty Four
What Goes Around, Comes Around
Two Send-offs, and an Albatross
Jelly Blobbers and Red Hot Chili Peppers
And Now the Storm Blast Came
Just Staying Alive
“Hey Ho Little Fish Don’t Cry, Don’t Cry”
Around the Horn, and with Dolphins Too!
Dr Marc Topolski
“One Small Step for Man”
Alone on a Wide Wide Sea
“London Bridge is Falling Down”
Now you’ve read the book
Afterword
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by the Author
About the Publisher
Arthur Hobhouse is a Happening
I should begin at the beginning, I know that. But the trouble is that I don’t know the beginning. I wish I did. I do know my name, Arthur Hobhouse. Arthur Hobhouse had a beginning, that’s for certain. I had a father and a mother too, but God only knows who they were, and maybe even he doesn’t know for sure. I mean, God can’t be looking everywhere all at once, can he? So where the name Arthur Hobhouse comes from and who gave it to me I have no idea. I don’t even know if it’s my real name. I don’t know the date and place of my birth either, only that it was probably in Bermondsey, London, sometime in about 1940.
The earliest memories I have are all confused somehow, and out of focus. For instance, I’ve always known I had a sister, an older sister. All my life she’s been somewhere in the deepest recesses either of my memory or my imagination – sometimes I can’t really be sure which – and she was called Kitty. When they sent me away, she wasn’t with me. I wish I knew why. I try to picture her, and sometimes I can. I see a pale delicate face with deep dark eyes that are filled with tears. She is giving me a small key, but I don’t remember what the key is for. It’s on a piece of string. She hangs it round my neck, and tells me I’m to wear it always. And then sometimes I hear her laugh, an infectious giggle that winds itself up into a joyous cackle. My sister cackles like a kookaburra. She comes skipping into my