Story-Go-Round - Story Corner

"There it is!" Nadia cried, as she always did when they came round this particular bend in the road. "The sea! At last!"

"At last," Moana echoed her mother, smiling to herself. They did the two-hour drive to Nan's house once a month, and Nadia was always overjoyed to see the triangle of ocean shining at the end of the valley. Moana sometimes wondered if her mother thought the sea might flow away over the horizon when she wasn't there to keep an eye on it.

"To the sea, to the sea, to the beautiful sea!" sang Moana's father, Dave. He made a joke of Nadia's fascination with the sea, but his laughter often seemed a bit forced. He was a farmer. He believed in good solid earth under his boots. As far as he was concerned, the sea was too unpredictable.

Moana leaned forward to stare at the sea through the front windscreen. She could understand why her mother always got excited, even if her father didn't. The sea was another world, humming with alluring songs. Its colours, shapes, and moods changed every minute. And that was only when you were looking at it from the shore. What amazing things were happening under the surface? Moana thought of endless seascapes stretching round the world, waiting to be explored, and her blood seemed to prickle under her skin.

"Faster, faster!" cried Nadia, leaning forward against the seatbelt, hands clenched on her knees, dark hair swirling round her face.

"Crikey," said Dave, steering the car round another tight bend. "Hold your horses. I'm going as fast as I can."

"Oh, I wish I were a seagull!" Nadia said. "I could swoop down the hill and be standing on the sand in two minutes."

"Oh no, not a seagull," Moana said. "A gannet would be better. Bigger and faster."

"How about an albatross?" Dave said gamely. "They're special, those big fellas."

At last they bumped along the sandy track that led to Nan's cottage by the sea. The little house had been built to gaze over the sandhills,with a lawn of buffalo grass between the front deck and the spiky seagrasses. It was Moana's favourite place in the whole world. She loved helping her father on the farm, where everything was safe and familiar, but Nan's cottage was truly magical.

Nan came out the back door, wiping her hands on her apron. "Welcome, all." She knelt down and held out her arms. "Hello, birthday girl." Moana buried her face in Nan's chest. Nan smelt of chocolate, but Moana could still detect her grandmother's special smell. It was like the sea – salty and sandy and seaweedy all mixed together. "Ten years old!" Nan laughed. "How grown up you are!" Then she looked at Nadia over Moana's head and said in a different voice, "She's ten, Nadia. It's time to tell her."

Dave cleared his throat loudly. "Hey, let's not spoil the birthday weekend with those silly old stories, eh?" He hauled the bags out of the boot. "Do I smell real live chocolate cake?"

"What stories, Dad?" asked Moana.

"Forget it. They're not important," Dave said over his shoulder. "This grass could do with a good mow, I reckon." He headed towards the back door.

Nan squeezed Moana's shoulder. "We'll talk later, Moana-mine." Her eyes sought Nadia's and something flashed between them, quick as sunlight on a wave. "Nadia? Are you all right?" Nan asked softly.

Much to her amazement, Moana saw her mother's eyes suddenly swim with tears. "Most of the time I can stop myself thinking about it by keeping busy," Nadia said. "There's always something that needs doing on a farm. But when I let myself think – oh, Mum, it tears the heart out of me. I don't know how much longer I can go on living so far from the sea." Her face looked sharp and wild, like a cat - or a seal. "One day I'll have to come back."

"Come back?" asked Moana, her stomach suddenly knotting up. "Come back where, Mum?"

Nan tightened her grip on Moana's shoulder. "Easy, child. We're still talking about the future. But this is why it's time for you to know the old story." She stared hard at her daughter. "I told you not to marry a farmer, Nadia. A man of the land. But you wouldn't listen to me. Too late now. Does Dave know?"

"Know what?" Moana cried. This was her birthday and it was all going wrong. Everyone was speaking in stupid riddles that she couldn't understand.

"I tried to tell him once," Nadia whispered. "He got it all mixed up in his head with some old Maori legends his grandmother told him. He kept on trying to fit my story into his stories. Then he got angry and said it was all a load of rubbish."

"What?" Moana wailed, feeling tears starting. "What are you talking about?"

Nan guided her into the house. "Time for some milk and chocolate cake therapy, I think. Then I'll tell you the story. Promise."

Later in the afternoon, when Dave was happily mowing the grass out the back in a haze of petrol fumes, and Nadia had disappeared along the beach on one of her long, solitary walks, Nan took Moana out to the deck so they could watch the setting sun painting a golden pathway on the sea.

Moana picked up Squabble and Peck, two painted wooden seagulls with black eyes and orange beaks who lived on the edge of Nan's deck. She settled them in her lap. They were solid and comforting. Sometimes they only seemed a breath away from being alive. "Now," she commanded. "Tell me the story."

"Once upon a time, many years ago, a young Scottish fisherman found a beautiful girl washed up after a terrible storm," Nan said, leaning back in her deckchair. "The storm was so violent she'd lost her clothes - and her memory. When the fisherman picked her up in his arms he noticed that she felt terribly cold. As though her blood was cold like a fish's, not warm like his.

"The fisherman and the girl fell in love and got married and lived by the sea and had several daughters. The fisherman's wife was mostly happy with her life on land, but sometimes she sat on the rocks for hours and stared longingly at the waves. Her daughters grew up, and they found that they were happiest when they were very close to the sea. That was because their blood was half warm and half cold, you see.

"One of the daughters emigrated to New Zealand and married a sailor. She had two daughters in her turn. One married a fisherman, and the other became an artist and painted dozens of pictures of the sea. The one who married a fisherman had one daughter. That daughter grew up and married a boatbuilder."

"Grandad was a boatbuilder," Moana interrupted, stroking Squabble's smooth, folded wings. "But he died when I was two, didn't he?"

"Yes," Nan said. "I married him because he loved the sea. Just like me. And your mother. And you."

"Dad doesn't like the sea," Moana said, running her fingers over Peck's strong beak. It seemed to open a tiny bit, as if he was trying hard to make a noise. "He's frightened of it, I reckon. He tells me awful stories about sea monsters and evil sprites - but I never get scared."

"One day, a long time in the future, your mother will leave the farm and come back to the sea, you know," Nan said softly. "That's what’s really frightening your father. Tell me, what will you do then, Moana? Stay or go?"

Moana listened to the blood surging under her skin. She thought of the soft-eyed cows on the farm, and the warm, speckled eggs in the chicken house, and the paddocks covered with crisp summer grass. How could Nadia think of walking away and leaving these happy, familiar things? "I'll stay with Dad," she said carefully. "He'll need me then, won't he, if Mum goes? I'll be all right as long as I can come here to visit you every month like we've always done."

"Oh glory, at last," Nan said in a voice full of relief. "After so many generations there's only a tiny drop of the cold stuff left. Not enough to pull you to the sea every hour of every day. Not enough to matter any more."

She looked at Moana's fingers stroking the seagull's head and smiled. "But maybe there's just enough of the cold to bring an old wooden seagull to life. Would you like Squabble and Peck for birthday presents? To keep you company on the farm? To sing you songs of the sea – just as they've done for me?"

"What? Me? Could I really bring them to life?" Moana asked in awe.

"If you try really hard, yes, you could," Nan said with a twinkle in her eyes. She leaned over and stroked Moana’s smooth, glossy hair. "That drop of cold stuff will surely manage one tiny spark of magic. Wish as hard as you can, whenever you can, and it will happen. Happy birthday, Moana-mine. Happy birthday, silky selkie-child."

The End

© 2005 Lorraine Orman