The Ghost of Grania O'Malley by Michael Morpurgo

  Then Mister Barney spoke up: ‘But aren’t I right in thinking that you’ll be getting a bigger share than anyone else, Mr Murphy?’

  Michael Murphy was blazing now. ‘It’s my hill, isn’t it? I own it, don’t I? And it’s my money brought these diggers here, so it’s my risk. Yes, so I’ll do well out of it, but so will everyone, we all will. But I’ll not stand here bandying words with a mad old fool like you. Now, are you moving or not?’

  ‘Not,’ said Jessie’s mother firmly. ‘What are you going to do, Michael? Set your men on us? You always were a bit of a bully, you know that?’

  Suddenly Marion broke the circle and ran crying towards her father. ‘Dad, please, please.’ She was pleading with him, tugging on his arm, but he wouldn’t even look at her. He waved a command to the Earthbusters. The engines fired up again, exhausts belching, then great yellow arms unfolding and stretching out, scoops lowered and poised for digging.

  High in the cab, the driver of the first Earthbuster recognised the lady in front of him. She was the same one who had screamed at him and kicked at his digger. The boy was there too, the American boy, and the girl with the limp beside him, arms linked. He lowered his scoop to the ground like the others, an eye on Mr Murphy, watching for the signal to stop. The plan had been clear. They would dig round them, and then move in slowly, scraping away the earth at their feet, just close enough to scare them. But it wasn’t working. Frightened or not, they weren’t moving. None of them were. Some of the children were crying, mothers and fathers holding them now, trying to comfort them. The digger driver thought of his children back home in Dublin, and he did not like what he was doing. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t go on.

  He was reaching for the ignition key when he saw them out of the corner of his eye. From out of nowhere they seemed to come: twenty, thirty men maybe. Swords drawn, they were striding through the circle, but somehow without breaking it. Then some of them were heading straight towards him. The digger driver knew them at once for what they must be, even though it was impossible in this day and age, quite impossible. Pirates, pirates straight out of the books he read his children. Baggy breeches, barefoot, some of them bearded, and even one with a black eyepatch. They were charging now, swords slicing the air, and yelling a bloodcurdling war-cry that sent warm shivers of fear up his back. The digger driver could not move. He wanted to run, but terror had frozen him to his seat. He looked towards Michael Murphy for help; but Michael Murphy was standing there, aghast, the blood drained from his face.

  There was a flag fluttering from the centre of the circle now, a black flag with a red pig on it; and beside the flag stood a tall figure of a woman with a mass of black hair, and there was a sword in her hand too. The pirates were all around his digger now. They were climbing up on to it. One of them had his hand on the cab door, and wrenched it open.

  ‘Nice morning,’ said the pirate. ‘I wonder if you’d care to step down for a little while?’ There was an unpleasant smile on his face. He had very few teeth, and those he did have were like yellow claws. ‘Out,’ he said. The digger driver did not hesitate, and neither did any of the others. Every digger was soon occupied by pirates, who clambered all over them, waving their swords in wild abandon and whooping in triumph. Michael Murphy and his uniformed army were entirely surrounded by pirates, who tickled them with the points of their swords, under their arms, under their chins, teasing them with terror.

  That was when the woman by the flag spoke up. ‘Easy boys, easy boys, easy . . . We wouldn’t want to frighten them, would we? Well, maybe just a little we would, but not so it hurts, eh?’ She turned to Mister Barney. ‘Hello, Mister Barney. And how are you this fine morning?’ Mister Barney tried to say something. His mouth moved but no sound came out. ‘Mister Barney knows well enough who I am – we’ve met before – and so do Jess and Jack.’ She smiled at Jessie.

  ‘By the look on your faces, there’s some of you maybe wondering who we are. Well, I’ll tell you. My name is Grania O’Malley. And these are my men, my boys. This is our island. This is our hill you’re standing on, mine and my forebears’, mine and my descendants’. And you,’ she went on, sweeping her sword all around her, ‘you are my descendants. You are too, Michael Murphy, and you should be ashamed of yourself.’ She was pointing her sword straight at him. ‘No one owns land, Michael Murphy. You look after it, you protect it for those who come after you, that’s all. Can you not understand that? That is why I’ll not let you cut off the head of this hill, why I won’t let you tear the heart out of it, not for a pot of gold, not for anything.’ Jessie wanted to run to her and hug her, out of sheer relief, out of pure love.

  ‘Now, as I see it, Michael Murphy,’ Grania O’Malley went on, ‘the good people of Clare have given this a lot of thought. Maybe some of them have come to their senses more slowly than others, but no matter. They have decided they want you to leave and take your machines with you, that they want to keep the Big Hill as it is. They asked you nicely – I heard them. But you didn’t listen. If you had listened, then there’d have been no need for me to go sticking my piratical nose in, would there now? As it is, I’m going to have to give a little helping hand.’ And, with a wink at Jessie, she said, ‘You’ll enjoy this, I think, Jess.’ Then she whipped up her sword and flashed it above her head. ‘Right, boys. You know what to do. But take care now.’

  All the engines started up at once. Every digger had a crew of pirates, one in the cab and others sitting on the sides, legs dangling. Grania O’Malley took up her flag and strode forward. ‘They’ve been dying to do this ever since they saw those machines. Little boys at heart, just little boys.’

  The Earthbusters were on the move, manoeuvring so that they were soon lined up and facing towards the cliff-tops, the pirates hanging on to anything they could. The engines revved to full, thunderous throttle; and then, as if unleashed, they lurched forward into the bracken, bumping over the rocks, in a helter-skelter race for the cliffs. The pirates leapt off this way and that, diving off the sides and out of the cabs, into the bracken and rolling away. Everyone was rushing to look. Jessie was just in time to see the first of the Earthbusters flying out over the cliff and somersaulting through the air. The others were soon to follow. Jack was hoping there would be massive explosions, but there weren’t. Instead, there were four spectacular splashes, and a lot of steaming and hissing, as the diggers sank slowly into the sea and disappeared.

  It was a moment or two before they all realised what had happened, before the cheering began. When it did, it was deafening. Everyone jumped up and down and hugged each other, everyone that is except Michael Murphy and his blue and orange army. Jessie felt herself swept off her feet, and then she was swinging in the air, round and round and round until she was giddy with it and begged to be let down. Grania O’Malley set her on her feet and held her fast by the shoulders so she didn’t tumble over.

  ‘I think,’ said Grania O’Malley, ‘I think the enemy has decided they’ve had enough. Take a look.’ And sure enough, there wasn’t a sign either of Michael Murphy, nor of his blue-uniformed security guards, nor of the orange-overalled drivers. The battle was over, over before it had begun.

  One by one the pirates gathered around Grania O’Malley from all over the Big Hill. One of them said he had never had so much fun in all his life – nor since, he added with a laugh. Grania O’Malley was talking to Jessie’s mother and Mister Barney. Everyone else, Jessie noticed, was keeping their distance from her. They stood together in hushed and huddled groups, eyes wide with wonder and fear.

  ‘Well, you’ll not be needing us any more, will you?’ Grania O’Malley was saying. ‘I think we’d better be going. No sensible ghost wants to outstay her welcome. Now where’s that daughter of yours, and where’s Jack?’ She turned, saw them and held out her arms. Like it or not, and he wasn’t at all sure he did, Jack was clasped in an enveloping hug. ‘Give my best to America when you see it, Jack,’ she said, and she released him. ‘Maybe I’ll pay you a visit one day. H
ow would that be?’

  ‘Great,’ said Jack. ‘I know a lot of people who’d like to meet you.’

  ‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ said Grania O’Malley. And she smiled sadly down at Jessie. ‘All good things have to come to an end, Jessie. Look after the place for me, won’t you?’ She bent down, put her arms round Jessie and held her close. Jessie clung to her. ‘I’ll be seeing you,’ Grania O’Malley whispered. And then, quite suddenly, there was nothing to cling to any more. Jessie looked around her. Grania O’Malley was gone, and her pirates with her.

  Everyone thought they had gone for good. They were still standing, stunned by all they had seen, by all that had happened, when Marion grasped Jessie by the arm and pointed out to sea. The galley, under full sail, was moving out over the mist-covered sea towards Clew Bay, towards Rockfleet in the distance, the oars dipping together. Grania O’Malley was standing in the prow of the galley, her flag fluttering above her, her hand raised in farewell. The galley sailed on, drawn slowly into the mist, until they saw it no more.

  Jessie felt Jack beside her. ‘We won’t see her again, will we?’ she said.

  ‘Never can tell, not with her,’ Jack replied.

  ‘She wanted me to give you this,’ said Jessie, taking his hand and laying the arrowhead on his open palm.

  ‘Where? Where did she find it?’

  Jessie shrugged her shoulders. ‘She didn’t say.’ She thought it safer to change the subject before he could ask any more about it. ‘We’ve done it, haven’t we?’ She looked up at him and smiled. ‘We’ve saved the Big Hill.’ But Jack turned away and looked out to the open sea.

  ‘I don’t want to go home,’ he said. ‘I don’t ever want to go home.’

  ‘You haven’t got to, not yet,’ Jessie replied. ‘You’ve got three weeks still.’

  Mrs Burke was standing there, barefoot, her shoes dangling from her fingers. ‘Well, Jessie Parsons,’ she said. ‘You can climb the Big Hill, and I’m going to have to eat a lot of humble pie, aren’t I? I’m going to write you a hundred lines, Jessie, and do you know what they’ll say? “There’s more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Mrs Burke.” That’s Shakespeare, you know,’ she added with a smile. And Jessie remembered then that Grania O’Malley had once quoted Shakespeare to her, and tried to remember what it was. Then it came to her, and she said it out loud.

  ‘“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” that’s Shakespeare.’

  ‘So it is,’ said Mrs Burke, wide-eyed with amazement, ‘so it is.’

  Mrs Burke was a changed woman after the ‘Battle of the Earthbusters’, as it came to be called. She ended term a day early – ‘by decree,’ she said, ‘by Burke’s decree’ – and of course no one argued. So Jack had almost three weeks of baseball and rollerblading and fixing Clatterbang. He was happiest chatting away to Jessie, with his hands deep inside Clatterbang’s clapped-out engine, trying to repair the unrepairable.

  Marion came over often now. It was very strange, Jessie thought, how fascinated Marion Murphy had suddenly become by carburettors and exhaust systems and brake pads, very strange indeed! Jessie didn’t mind so much now. She couldn’t bring herself to like Marion, but at least she had stopped fearing her. Much as they might have liked to, neither Marion nor Jessie could keep Jack entirely for themselves. Everyone else wanted him on the baseball field, particularly now that the gloves, and the New York Yankee caps had arrived from home, along with a real baseball ball.

  Of course the newspapers had a field day. Journalists came from all over the world. Clare Island became known as ‘Ghost Island’. Everyone had a story to tell. Ghost-hunting tourists came over in their droves and went on treks up the Big Hill. But journalist or tourist, they all went away disappointed, concluding that the islanders were all conspiring together to spin them a fantastic yarn, that there had been no ghost pirates at all, that the islanders had simply dressed up as pirates, terrified the digger drivers and then run the Earthbusters off the cliffs themselves. In time, even some of the islanders themselves began to doubt the evidence of their own memories.

  There was a last baseball game on the field – the Pirates (the children, including Jack and Liam and Marion) against the Earthbusters (the grown-ups, including Jessie’s father, Father Gerald and Miss Jefferson). The Pirates won, but only because Jack hit four home runs, and pitched with such venom that the Earthbusters barely saw the ball. Pirates 4, Earthbusters 0. As Father Gerald pointed out, exactly the same score as the Battle of the Earthbusters.

  After the game, they had an American-style barbeque on the field with fried chicken and beefburgers and Coke – and peanut butter sandwiches. Almost everyone was there, and it didn’t rain either. Even Mister Barney came along. They all watched and clapped as he drank down his very first Coke. He said afterwards that it would be his last, quite definitely his last. It was like bog water, he said, with sugar in it; but that all the same, it had given him an idea, a wonderful idea. He would keep the idea to himself, he said, until he had it all worked out.

  * * *

  The next day, Mister Barney was there on the quayside, along with everyone else, to wave Jack off. Jessie had insisted on going with her mother to see Jack on to his plane at Shannon. It was a grey drizzly day, with the waves heaving and the mainland invisible behind the mist. Jack told Liam he had to keep the Pirates going, he had to make them practise, because he would be back. And Jessie knew he wasn’t just saying that. For the first time in his life, Liam didn’t seem to know what to say. Marion just hugged Jack quickly, and ran off. Jessie’s father thanked him for all he had done, and for his work on Clatterbang.

  ‘I won’t say it goes a lot better, Jack,’ he said. ‘You’d need a miracle for that, and I think we’ve used up all the miracles due to us, don’t you? But the exhaust sounds different, I’ll give you that. Ruder.’

  As the ferry moved out of the harbour and into the swell of the ocean, the goodbyes dying on the wind, Jessie began to wish she had stayed at home. Jack seemed so sunk in himself. He kept turning the arrowhead over and over in his fingers, and hardly looked up at all. Once back on the mainland, they sat side by side in the back of the car. She had so much to say, but could say nothing. They would catch each other’s eye from time to time to try to smile, but they couldn’t. Jessie was crying inside already. She just hoped she would be able to manage a smile when the time came to say goodbye.

  At the departure gate at Shannon Airport there was a panic about his passport before Jessie’s mother found it in a sidepocket of his bag. ‘A pity,’ she smiled ruefully. ‘We could all have gone home again for peanut butter sandwiches and Coke. We’re going to miss you so much, Jack. Give my love to your dad, won’t you?’ And she hugged him tight. ‘God bless,’ she said.

  Jack put his baseball hat on Jessie head, fixed it sideways at the proper angle, and said, ‘See you, Jess.’ He walked backwards for a few steps. ‘I’ll write you,’ he called out. He waved once and was gone. And she hadn’t even said what she had meant to say, that she hoped his father would get better.

  He did write, but not for some time. Jessie searched through the post whenever it came, but it was over a month before Jack’s letter finally arrived. Jessie ripped it open and read:

  Dear Jess,

  I had a great time. I met just about the best friend I’ll ever have too – and I’m not talking about Liam or Marion. They’re good guys, but I’m talking about you. Are you sure what happened up on the Big Hill really did happen? Sometimes, now I’m back home, I think the whole thing was just one wild dream. It wasn’t, was it? I’m glad it wasn’t only you and me that saw her – her and her pirates. I guess if everyone else saw them, then it really did happen, didn’t it?

  I’ve still got the arrowhead, only it isn’t mine, is it? I thought it was, but mine had the point chipped off. But I figured it out. It’s Grania O’Malley’s, isn’t it? She gave it to you, and you gave it to me, and you had to pretend it was my lucky arrowhead, the one I lost. Well
, if you see her, will you tell her thank you, and tell her that her arrowhead is a lot luckier than mine was. When I had mine, Dad was sick and getting sicker. Now he’s a lot better after his surgery, and better every day. He’s smiling again. He says the new valve in his heart is real state of the art, and better than anything I’ve got in my VW Bug. Some arrowhead!

  After what happened with you, the treasure and the Big Hill and all, I don’t believe things just happen. I think maybe we can help make them happen. Next year I want you to come over to Long Island. I’ve asked Dad, and he says yes. I’ll show you my VW Bug. OK, so I know you’re not that interested, but I’m going to show you anyway. We’ll go sailing and I’ll take you Rollerblading in Central Park. But I can’t promise you ghosts.

  The other day I told Mrs Cody – she’s my teacher, remember? – that during the vacation I found out it was the Irish, an Irish pirate called Grania O’Malley, who discovered America first, and not the Dutch, not the French, not the British. She told me it was all just wishful thinking – the Irish blood in me. She’d never even heard of Grania O’Malley. One day I’m going to prove it, not just to her, but to everyone, then no one will be able to argue.

  I hope you’re getting along with Marion – she wasn’t too bad after all, was she? Say hi to your folks and to Liam and all the guys. And a big hi to you and to Mole and to that stinky old dog of yours.