Read Online The Ghost of Grania O'Malley by Michael Morpurgo - Free Book Online Page B

begun and there’s nothing more to be done about it, then we’ll be fine, you’ll see.’ Jessie felt a surge of relief coursing through her and warming her like sunshine. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t believed her ghost story. It didn’t matter at all.
    â€˜Your hands are disgusting,’ he said, and she wriggled her fingers in his face and giggled.
    The weekend was spent shearing the sheep, all four of them together in the barn: her father pouring sweat as he bent over the sheep, her mother and Jack rolling the fleeces into bundles and sweeping up, while Jessie opened and shut the gate and drove the sheep into the shearing pen. Jack took to the shepherding as if he had been doing it all his life. Through it all, Jessie’s mother and father scarcely spoke. Liam called in on Sunday morning after Mass. Marion Murphy had found a baseball bat, he said. Her father had brought it back from Miami on one of his trips. She’d lend it if she could play too. ‘You could teach us,’ said Liam. ‘I’ve got a tennis ball. Five o’clock at the field. Will you come?’
    Jessie went with him that evening, not because she had the slightest interest in baseball, but because at last she’d have a chance to talk to Jack about Grania O’Malley. All they had been able to do since they had met her was to exchange conspiratorial glances. They sauntered along the farm lane, side-stepping the puddles, Mole following along behind. Jack did all the talking.
    â€˜Jess, I’ve been thinking. About her, I mean, about what happened up there. Here’s what I remember, or what I think I remember. We got to the top, right? We found the earring in the pool. I had it in my hand. Then out of nowhere comes this weird lady, kind of like a gypsy. She said she was a pirate, right? And she had a sword. She kept telling us all about the gold she’d taken off some ship, a Spanish ship, wasn’t it? And her hair was black and curling down to her shoulders. I mean, I can see her like she was here right now. I didn’t make this up, did I? You saw her too, right?’ Jessie tried to answer, but Jack wouldn’t let her.
    â€˜Now, we’ve got two choices. Either the whole thing was some fantastic dream, and we just dreamed the same dream – or it really happened. I don’t reckon two people can dream the same dream. So, it happened, and if it happened, then we really met a ghost up there. Right? But there’s something I can’t figure out. It seemed like she knew you somehow, like she’d given you an earring before.’
    â€˜That’s because she did,’ said Jessie. ‘I’ve seen her before. She came to my room. And she talked to me, on the Big Hill, the day you came. That’s when I found the first earring. In the same pool. I keep it in Barry’s bowl. But I didn’t know who she was.’
    â€˜Something O’Malley, wasn’t it?’ said Jack.
    â€˜Grania O’Malley,’ she said and Jack looked at her blankly. ‘Don’t you know who she is? She’s in the history books. She was a terrible woman, a sort of pirate queen. She’d slit your throat as soon as look at you. Mrs Burke says she was a wicked scarlet woman. She had as many husbands as she had children, and sometimes they weren’t husbands at all. But what I don’t understand is the earring, the second earring. If she really was there, if it wasn’t a dream, then where’s the second earring? You had it in your hand.’
    Then Liam and the others came along on their bikes and walked with them down towards the field. There could be no more talk of Grania O’Malley’s ghost or the missing earring.
    Baseball was like rounders, Jessie thought, except you wound yourself up into a frenzy before you threw the ball, the bat was a lot longer and, for some reason she didn’t quite understand, the batter always got to wear