Read Online Twist of Gold by Michael Morpurgo - Free Book Online Page B

you?
         He doesn’t wait for an answer and picks ANNIE up and carries her.
        And to think I nearly didn’t see you. If it hadn’t been for the bear that I’ve not seen or heard…maybe it was meant. I’ve
     been talkin’ to nothin’ but the birds and beasts and a few Indians –
    SEAN : Indians?
    SEAMUS FINN : Sure – no one but these creatures for ten years or more. Been trappin’ up here all that time. Bears. Met a Russian or two, a
     few Frenchmen. And I’ve known the odd American: you see them all down at the Fort where I take my bear skins for trading. But in all this time I’ve never met another proper
     Irishman. Jasus, Mary Mother of God, I think I could die of happiness.
    ANNIE : Don’t die, mister.
    SEAMUS FINN : Oh, I won’t die ’til I’m entirely happy.
    SEAN : What would make you happy?
    SEAMUS FINN : Gold.
    SEAN : Gold?
    SEAMUS FINN : Gold. The fur trade’s all but finished, you know.
    ANNIE : No, I don’t know.
    SEAMUS FINN : The creatures are scarcer now and more wily. So it’s gold I’ve been after these past two summers. An’ all I find is
     fool’s gold, by the bucketful. An’ now you. But I wasn’t lookin’ for you, now, was I?
         He puts ANNIE down.
        I suppose it would be too much to hope that one of you plays that fiddle?
    ANNIE : Sean plays it.
         SEAN gets the fiddle out of its case.
    SEAMUS FINN : What a fine instrument, a fine sight indeed. An’ would you want to play it for me, young man? ’Twould stop old Seamus Finn from
     prattling on, now, would it not?
         SEAN raises the violin to his chin – then lowers it.
    SEAN : Mr Finn. My heart would not be in it. Fiddler Donnelly – him that taught me how to play it – he said you should never play the fiddle
     if your heart’s not in it. I’m thinking I won’t ever have the heart for it again.
    ANNIE : We’ve lost our mother, Mr Finn. And the golden torc, the ancient saviour of the O’Briens. We’ve lost our friends in shipwrecks,
     waved goodbye to people we’ll never see again – and now we’ve lost the Colonel too, out there in the desert. We be looking for our father, out West in California. But now I
     fear we’ve lost him too.
    SEAMUS FINN : But we are out West, on the edge of California.
    SEAN : We are?
    SEAMUS FINN : For sure we are. And you’ll not need that torc of yours if she be lost.
    ANNIE : Why not, Mr Finn?
    SEAMUS FINN : Can you not see: ’tis nothing short of a miracle that you have survived to tell this tale. The torc has worked this miracle for you.
     But now, you won’t be needin’ it no more.
    SEAN : I don’t know…
    SEAMUS FINN : Well I do. There’s nothin’ at all to be sad about. Sure, that Fiddler of yours wouldn’t want you to stop fiddlin’,
     now, would he? It’s the fiddle too that has kept you alive in this beautiful world. Your friends gave their lives so you could live, and will you repay them now by grievin’? No.
     After a fine life, back home in Ireland, do we not hold a wake? Do we not dance and sing? We do not mope! We do not weep! Never! So now, right now, we’ll hold a wake and we’ll dance
     and we’ll sing. Take the fiddle, Sean O’Brien, for that’s your name – and make music! And all the Angels will sing.
         SEAN plays his fiddle – tentatively, melancholy at first, then faster, stronger, happier – and ANNIE and SEAMUS FINN dance together. All the ANGELS sing.
    ANNIE : Mr Finn. Would you take us to find our father?
    SEAMUS FINN : No bother, darlin’, no bother at all. But first you can help me with my pannin’ –
    SEAN : ‘Pannin’’?
    SEAMUS FINN : Panning for gold.
    ANNIE : I thought you said we didn’t need gold no more?
    SEAMUS FINN : You do not. But I surely do.
    SEAN : How do you pan for gold?
    SEAMUS FINN : Sure there’s nothin’ to it. (He demonstrates.) You just shovel the pay dirt from the river bank into the frying pan,
     take out the few sticks, add a touch of water and swirl it