Our island is called Featherstone Island because the ragged rocky coastline makes it look like a feather. There are no trees. It’s too windy and wild for them to grow. The only tall thing is the lighthouse. It is the sort of tower you might imagine a princess from a fairy tale living in, except it’s painted with red and white stripes so it can be seen far out at sea.

Featherstone Island is very flat and tufted with grass. The earth is rich with seabird droppings, and the grass is straight and strong. On the side of the island closest to the mainland we grow vegetables in the sheltered patches in our walled allotment. There are pumpkins and squashes that are nearly ready for cutting, and carrots ready to lift. Sometimes we fish off the rocks with lines and nets, and other times we collect cockles and mussels to eat.

The sea and sky change all the time here. In spring the sea can be so flat and blue that you can’t tell where the water ends and the sky begins. In summer the clouds sit on the horizon like floating herds of sheep. In autumn the thunderhead clouds are as big as mountains and as black as the ink in Dad’s inkwell. In winter it rains most days and the waves get so rough they look like sheets billowing from a clothes line on a windy day.

You might imagine it would be lonely being an only child on a small island, but there are all sorts of creatures to study and play with.

As well as our goat and hens, there are wild rabbits and sea birds – cormorants, divers, gulls, terns and skimmers. Sometimes there are seals and sea lions, even dolphins. Occasionally I have seen whales surfacing to blow water far out at sea.

And there are all sorts of fish: fish for catching and fish for eating, and fish just for watching in rock pools. Plus crabs and barnacles. If you love wildlife like I do, then Featherstone Island is the perfect place to live.

Truth be told, I have never lived anywhere else. Twelve years ago, Mum went to the mainland to have me with Grandma’s help. While she was away, Grandpa came to work with Dad on the island. He had been the lighthouse keeper before, when Dad was a boy. Grandpa taught Dad everything he knows, just like Dad is teaching me.

Gulls screech and circle above my head. The sea crashes on the shore in its non-stop rhythm as I walk around the rocky edges of the island searching for my meteorite.

I look everywhere, but there’s nothing to be found.