Free Bird of Passage by Catherine Czerkawska

bugger!’ he said. ‘You leave it to me.’
    ‘What will you do?’ asked her mother.
    ‘I’ll write back to him.’
    ‘And what will you say?’
    ‘I will just tell him that he can leave earlier or later himself if he wants, so that he can avoid the terror of seeing our red headed monster on the road!’
    ‘What’s wrong with your hair?’ asked Finn.
    ‘There are people on this island who don’t like my red hair. They think it’s unlucky. So maybe it’s the same for you if you’re left handed.’
    ‘They beat me for it. But I can’t do it. I can’t write properly. Not with my right hand.’
    ‘That’s so unfair. Our teacher doesn’t much like it when folk write with their left hand either, but she doesn’t beat them for it. ‘
    ‘They’re lucky.’
    ‘You should hit them back,’ she declared, robustly.
    ‘That’ll be the day! Will you come and fight them for me, Kirsty?’ He started to laugh, imagining her confronting Brother Bernard, arms akimbo, or flying at him in a rage, her red hair streaming out behind her. And then the thought of brave Kirsty, only a little girl, rushing in where the angels themselves would fear to tread, gave him a strange, queasy feeling.
    ‘I would too. I’d fight them all for you!’ She looked at him, and gave a sigh of pleasure. In her eyes at least he was a hero, even now, when it seemed to her that his laughter was very close to tears. But big boys weren’t supposed to cry, were they?
     

 
    CHAPTER SIX
     
    In late July of that year, Finn and Francis worked elsewhere on the island all day, but came back to Dunshee at nights. Sometimes, Alasdair would borrow Finn for the day,  to do this or that job about the farm, slipping a little money to Micky Terrans to keep him sweet. Often he would take Finn out on the water to help him with his creels, and now that the boy could handle the boat competently, he was allowed to take Kirsty out fishing as well. They took mackerel flies, and sometimes they caught a box full of striped fish and sometimes they caught nothing at all. That was always the way of it with mackerel: none or a dozen. Alasdair had rigged up a miniature smokehouse in one of the outhouses,  where he could smoke mackerel and trout and the occasional salmon for their own use.
    Isabel was anxious, all the time they were gone.
    ‘I’m surprised you let her go with him!’ she said, gazing down towards the bay, where the boat was just visible, unmoving on the turquoise water, two heads in silhouette.  
    ‘It’s flat calm out there. And the lad knows fine how to handle a boat now. You don’t think I would have let them go otherwise, do you?’
    ‘All I know is, if it was up to our Kirsty, they would be off to Eilean Ronan, looking for the brownie.’
     Eilean Ronan was a nearby island, little more than a rock, with a ruined chieftain’s house and chapel and not much else. The brownie was a magical creature who was said to live there. He would do all your housework for you, so long as you didn’t attempt to pay him. But once you offered him money, he would leave and never come back.
    ‘He’ll not take her to Ronan, no matter how much she nags him. I told him not to go so far, in case the weather changes, and whatever else you think about the lad, he always does as he’s told.’
    ‘Well I’m pleased to hear it!’
     In the bay, Finn had shipped the oars, and they put out the mackerel lines, slopping about in the evening sunlight.  They still couldn’t persuade Francis to come out in the boat. He always made excuses. This time, he had agreed to walk into the village with a group of the older men.
     ‘This school of yours, is it up in the hills, then?’ Kirsty asked Finn.  She had been reading the Chalet School books, and had conceived a romantic notion of Finn’s school as a sort of Irish equivalent.
    Finn sighed. He wished she wouldn’t keep asking. He didn’t want to talk about the school at all. He preferred to forget all about it