Michael Morpurgo - The Sleeping Sword

Dan was like a big friendly puppy, full of energy and bouncy. He always made us laugh a lot. Of the three of us I was the quietest, happy enough usually to go along with whatever the other two dreamed up. I just liked being with them. But I had my own very private reason, too, for going along with them. Anna.

Anna was Dan’s big sister, and I loved her. Simple as that. I loved her. I couldn’t tell her of course, because I was ten and she was fourteen. I didn’t love her just because she was beautiful, which she was (just the opposite in every way to big, lumpy Dan), but also because we talked – and I mean really talked – about things that really mattered, like books, like feelings, like oystercatchers. Liam and Dan were my mates, best mates, but Anna was my best friend and had been as long as I could remember.

I was finding it difficult to concentrate on my book. I kept regretting I hadn’t gone with them down to the quay. It was the sudden thought that it was Friday and that Anna might possibly be there, back for the weekend from secondary school on St Mary’s, that finally decided me. I would finish the book later.

I pulled on my wetsuit and ran down the sandy track through the farm to the quay. As I rounded the corner by the shed, I saw them all larking about on the quay. Anna was there. She’d already been in swimming, I could see that, but the other two hadn’t. They were standing on the edge, looking down into the water and hesitating.

The sea was murky and choppy and uninviting. I didn’t want to go in, not one bit, but Anna had seen me. I saw an opportunity to impress her, and just went for it. I charged down the quay going full pelt, screaming like a mad thing. Anna tried to wave me down but I ignored her.

I dodged past Dan, who was shouting at me to stop, sprang off and launched myself into the most spectacular swallow dive I could, the best dive of my life, just for her. I remember thinking that it seemed to be taking longer than it should to reach the water. After that I remember nothing.

WHEN I CAME TO, I KNEW AT ONCE I WAS IN hospital. Nowhere else sounds or smells like a hospital. At first I thought that I was back visiting Gran in hospital in Truro, but then I realised that it was me lying there on a bed, not Gran. I couldn’t see where I was because there was a bandage round my eyes. I could feel it. In fact, most of my head seemed to be swathed in bandages. Someone was holding my hand and telling me not to worry, not to move. It was my mother. I wasn’t worried, but I was hurting. My whole head was heavy with pain.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘You’re fine, Bundle. You’re in hospital. You had an accident.’

‘What happened?’ I asked again.

‘You went in off the quay. But the water was too low. Your head hit a stone. You were lucky, Bundle. It could have been a lot worse.’ It felt bad enough to me.

‘You need water to dive into, Bun, you silly chump. Didn’t you know that?’ My father was there too, and his voice sounded strange, as if he’d been crying. Now I was worried. ‘Created quite a stir, you did,’ he went on. ‘Anna dragged you out of the sea, and gave you mouth-to-mouth. You’d have drowned else, and the boys went for help. We had the air ambulance in and they flew us straight here to Truro.’

‘You’ve broken your arm, and you’ve had a bit of an operation on your head,’ my mother was saying, ‘so you’ll have to stay in here for a few days. You sleep now.’

She didn’t have to tell me. I was already drifting away. I was in and out of sleep for days and nights, nearly a week they told me afterwards. My mother always seemed to be there when I woke up. Doctors and nurses came, to ask questions mostly and occasionally to examine my head. These were the only times the bandage came off – not that it made any difference, because my whole face was still so swollen that I couldn’t even open my eyes to see.

The doctors always seemed very pleased with me. I was making a good recovery. I wasn’t to worry they said. The swelling would go down in time and I’d be going home soon. I had visitors every day and my mother would always tell them the same thing, that I had had a very lucky escape, that I’d be fine.

I woke up one afternoon and heard my mother saying much the same thing, again. ‘He’ll be fine. But if it hadn’t been for you, Anna, there’d have been no lucky escape at all, and that’s the truth of it.’ Anna was there! In the room! She’d come to visit me. Oh God, how I wished I could see her.

‘And you two boys,’ my mother went on, sounding a bit weepy – it could only be Liam and Dan – ‘going for help like you did. You were wonderful, all of you, truly wonderful.’

I didn’t know what to say to any of them. I was overjoyed they were there, but somehow I couldn’t say it. Why is it that the most important things are so difficult to say? As it was I just pretended I was asleep under my bandages, and listened.

‘He’s sleeping now,’ my mother was saying. ‘But the doctors are sure he’ll be fine. Like I said, he’s lucky to be alive. You stay with him for a while, will you? I need to see the staff nurse. I shan’t be a moment.’ And I heard her go out.

For some moments no one spoke. Then Dan whispered, ‘With all those bandages, he looks like a mummy or something. Not a mummy mummy – an Egyptian tomb mummy, the haunting kind. You know what I mean.’ At that, I curled my hands into claws and then rose up, howling horribly. The giggling that followed was infectious. In the end all four of us were quite helpless with it. It made my head hurt, but I didn’t mind. I was just so happy, so relieved to be back with them.

‘I’ll come and see you again, Bun,’ Anna said as she left. ‘As often as I can.’

I cried behind my bandages when they left, but out of joy, not sadness. Anna had come to see me, and she’d be back. I’d be out of hospital and home in just a week, a couple at the most, that’s what they’d told me. Everything would be back to normal.

THE NEXT DAY THE BANDAGES CAME OFF SO that the doctor could examine the wound on the side of my head. ‘Good, Bun, very good,’ said the doctor. ‘The swelling’s gone right down. You can open your eyes now.’

It took some doing – they felt a bit gummed up. But I did it. I opened them. The trouble was that I couldn’t see anything. I blinked and tried again. Blackness. Only blackness. I squeezed them tight shut, and opened them again. I felt I was deep inside a black hole, that there was no way out. I was drowning in blackness, unable to breathe, my heart pounding with sudden terror.

‘That looks a lot better, Bun,’ the doctor went on, turning my head with his cold hands, ‘a lot better.’

‘I can’t see,’ I told him. ‘I can’t see.’ There was a long silence. Then I could feel his breath on me, his face close to mine. He was lifting my eyelids.

‘What about now?’ he asked me. ‘Can you see a light? Can you see anything?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘What’s the matter with him, Doctor?’ My mother was asking just the question I wanted to ask, and she was frightened, really frightened. I could hear it in her voice.

‘Well, it’s a little difficult to say at this stage,’ the doctor said. ‘I expect it’s just a side effect of the trauma. He’s had a nasty crack on his head. It’ll correct itself in time, I’m sure. But we’ll do some tests. It’s nothing to worry about, Bun.’ His hand squeezed my shoulder. ‘You’ll be fine.’

If I had a pound for every time doctors told me that in the next few months, I’d be rich, extremely rich. But you can’t blame them. What else could they say? They had to try to reassure me. Everyone was trying to reassure me. When they discharged me and I got back home, it was the same old refrain: ‘Don’t worry, Bun. It’ll be fine.’