Free The Wreck of the Zanzibar by Michael Morpurgo Page A

artist. I’ve promised myself.

JANUARY 20TH
    â€˜LAURA PERRYMAN, YOU ARE FOURTEEN YEARS old today.’
    I said that to the mirror this morning when I wished myself ‘Happy Birthday’. Sometimes, like this morning, I don’t much want to be Laura Perryman, who’s lived on Bryher all her life and milks cows. I want to be Lady Eugenia Fitzherbert with long red hair and green eyes, who wears a big wide hat with a white ostrich feather and who travels the world in steamships with four funnels. But then, I also want to be Billy Perryman so I can row out in the gig and build boats and run fast. Billy’s fourteen too – being my twin brother, hewould be. But I’m not Lady Eugenia Fitzherbert, whoever she is, and I’m not Billy; I’m me. I’m Laura Perryman and I’m fourteen years old today.
    Everyone is pleased with me, even Father, because I was the one who spotted the ship before they did on St Mary’s. It was just that I was in the right place at the right time, that’s all. I’d been milking the cows with Billy, as usual, and I was coming back with the buckets over Watch Hill when I saw sails onthe horizon out beyond White Island. It looked like a schooner, three-masted. We left the buckets and ran all the way home.
    The gig was launched in five minutes. I watched the whole thing from the top of Samson Hill with everyone else. We saw the St Mary’s gig clear the harbour wall, the wind and the tide in her favour. The race was on. For some time it looked as if the St Mary’s gig would reach the schooner first, as she sooften does, but we found clear water and a fair wind out beyond Samson and we were flying along. I could see the chief holding on to the mast, and Billy and Father pulling side by side in the middle of the boat. How I wanted to be one of them, to be out there rowing with them. I can handle an oar as well as Billy. He knows it, everyone knows it. But the chief won’t hear of it – and he’s the coxswain – and neither will Father. They think that’s an end of it. But it isn’t. One day, one day . . . Anyway today we won the race, so I should be pleased about that, I suppose.
    The St Mary’s boat lost an oar. She was left dead in the water and had to turn back. We watched our gig draw alongside the schooner and we all cheered till we were hoarse. Through the telescope I could see the chief climbing up the ladder to pilot the schooner into St Mary’s. I could see them helping him on board, then shaking hands with him. He took off his cap and waved and we all cheered again. It would mean money for everyone, and there’s precious little of that around. When the gig came back into Great Porth we were all there to meet her. We helped haul her up the beach. She’s always lighter when we’ve won. Father hugged me and Billy winked at me. It’san American ship, he says, the
General Lee
, bound for New York. She’ll be tied up in St Mary’s for repairs to her mizzenmast and could be there a week, maybe more.
    This evening, Billy and I had our birthday cake from Granny May as usual. The chief and crew were all there as well, so the cake didn’t last long. They sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to us and then the chief said we were all a little less poor because Laura Perryman had spotted the
General Lee.
And I felt good. They were all smiling at me. Now’s the time, I thought, I’ll ask them again.
    â€˜Can I row with Billy in the gig?’
    They all laughed and said what they always said, that girls don’t row in gigs. They never had.
    I went to the hen-house and cried. It’s the only place I can cry in peace. And then Granny May came in with the last piece of cake and said there are plenty of things that women can do, that men can’t. It doesn’t seem that way to me. I want to row in that gig, and I will. One day I will.
    Billy came into my room just now. He’s had