I saw the old lifeboat, and the dark, squarish figure of my Pa steering her out of the harbour. The urge to call to him swelled in my throat – he looked so close through the telescope! – but I knew there was no way that he would be able to hear me. Some way behind him – a safe distance behind, I thought – I saw the rusty motor boat, Faith. Two strong feelings were fighting against each other: pride in my crazy, courageous sister, and anger at her for having deserted me. I allowed myself to feel both, watching the whole shoal of boats until their various shapes and colours began to be lost amongst the shifting patterns of sunlight on the waves. The smaller they became, the more I was aware of a painful, pulling sensation in my chest, as if someone had tied a rope around my heart and was tugging at it harder and harder.

I couldn’t bear to watch any more. I was just about to head back down to the kitchen when one more boat caught my eye. It was one of the Briggs’s family fishing boats, and it was zipping along at a terrific rate, chasing the wake of the last craft of the flotilla – my sister’s rusty motor boat.

‘Kipper?’ I said out loud, taking up the telescope again. It must be. I had never thought of Kipper Briggs as the heroic type, but perhaps, just like Mags, he had decided that this was his chance to be part of history. He wanted to make a difference too.

Kipper’s was the last boat to leave Stonegate. I folded up the telescope and made my way down the lighthouse stairs, trying to think of ways to make the time between morning and evening pass quickly; I knew it was going to be hours and hours until they came back.

Chapter 26

26

Ifed Barnaby. I polished the lamp. I cleaned the cottage from top to bottom. I weeded the vegetable patch. I washed clothes and mangled them and hung them out to dry. I mended my torn coat. I did every little job I could find that needed doing, and it was still only four o’clock. The cottage was horribly quiet.

I locked up the main door to the lighthouse. We never really bothered locking the cottage door, but keeping the lighthouse secure was one of Pa’s strictest rules.

I found my pencils and sketchbook in my room, and went to sit out on the clifftop. I had hardly drawn anything since Mutti had been taken away, but my head and my heart were so full this afternoon that it was the only thing I could think of that might make me feel a bit better.