Read Online The White Horse of Zennor by Michael Morpurgo - Free Book Online

surface. It was a display of comic elegance, of easy power. But to William it was more than this, it became an invitation he found he could not refuse.
    The seal had settled again in the centre of the pool, his great wide eyes beckoning. William never even waited for the water to stop churning but launched himself out into the water. He sank of course, but he had not expected not to. He kicked out with his legs and failed his arms wildly in a supreme effort to regain the surface. He had sense enough to keep his mouth closed but his eyes were wide open and he saw through thegreen that the seal was swimming alongside him, close enough to touch. William knew that he was not drowning, that the seal would not let him drown; and with that confidence his arms and legs began to move more easily through the water. A few rhythmic strokes up towards the light and he found the air his lungs had been craving for. But the seal was nowhere to be seen. William struck out across to the rocks on the far side of the pool quite confident that the seal was still close by. Swimming came to William that day as it does to a dog. He found in that one afternoon the confidence to master the water. The seal however never reappeared, but William swam on now by himself until the water chilled his bones, seeking everywhere for the seal and calling for him. He thought of venturing out into the open ocean but thought better of it when he saw the swell outside the pool. He vowed he would come again, every day, until he found his seal.
    William lay on the rocks above the pool, his eyes closed against the glare of the evening sun off the water, his heart still beating fast from the exertion of his swim. He lay like this, turning from time to time until he wasdry all over. Occasionally he would laugh out loud in joyous celebration of the first triumph of his life. Out on the seal island the cormorants and shags were startled and lifted off the rocks to make for the fishing grounds out to sea, and the colony of seals was gathering as it always did each evening.
    As William made his way back along the cliff path and up across the fields towards home he could hear behind him the soft hooting sound of the seals as they welcomed each new arrival on the rocks. His foot was indeed still twisted, but he walked erect now, the stoop gone from his shoulders and there was a new lightness in his step.
    He broke the news to his family at supper that evening, dropped it like a bomb and it had just the effect he had expected and hoped for. They stopped eating and there was a long heavy silence whilst they looked at each other in stunned amazement.
    â€˜What did you say, Billy?’ said his father sternly, putting down his knife and fork.
    â€˜I’ve been swimming with a seal,’ William said,’ and I learnt to swim just like Sam said. I climbed down to therocks and I swam in the pool with the seal. I know we mustn’t swim in the sea but the pool’s all right isn’t it?’
    â€˜By yourself, Billy?’ said his mother, who had turned quite pale. ‘You shouldn’t have, you know, not by yourself. I could have gone with you.’
    â€˜It was all right, Mother,’ William smiled up at her. ‘The seal looked after me. I couldn’t have drowned, not with him there.’
    Up to that point it had all been predictable, but then his brothers began to laugh, spluttering about what a good tale it was and how they had actually believed him for a moment; and when William insisted that he could swim now, and that the seal had helped him, his father lost his patience. ‘It’s bad enough your going off on your own without telling your mother, but then you come back with a fantastic story like that and expect me to believe it. I’m not stupid lad. I know you can’t climb over those rocks with a foot like that; and as for swimming and seals, well it’s a nice story, but a story’s a story, so let’s hear no more of