Michael Morpurgo - Boy Giant

In my panic, I cried out, calling for help, louder and louder, until my throat ached with it. Hearing myself at least lifted my spirits. If my voice worked and my throat ached, then that must be good. I was still alive. There was hope. But I knew I needed help. I could hear the waves tumbling on to the sand not too far away, they were rushing up towards me, every wave coming closer. I feared the worst. Sooner or later the sea would reach me, and then cover me. I had to find a way to move or I would drown. I shouted for help again, and again. But no one came.

I did hear that strange whispering again, and a chirruping and a chattering like a flock of thousands of birds gathering to roost at sunset. It was a sound that reminded me of evenings at home when we were out playing cricket in the last of the daylight. My hearing worked, and my memory worked. I could see the sun, and the sky. My seeing worked too. And there was more feeling now in my legs and feet. Every new sign of life in me gave me hope.

I felt something tickling my toe, then crawling up my leg. An insect, I thought, a scorpion maybe and it might sting me. But I didn’t mind. I could feel it. I could feel it.

I heard that whispering sound again. It wasn’t bird noise after all, but voices, small voices. I thought at first in my muddled head that these might be scorpions talking. I tried again to lift my head to see, and still could not move it. Then I was drifting away, down into a deep sleep. It was a comfortable sleep, a warm sleep. There was no more shivering. If this was dying then I did not mind a bit, not any more.

I woke to more whispering and murmuring. It was certainly not birds, I decided, nor was it the hush of waves washing back over the sand into the sea. It was not birds. It was not waves. It was people, lots of them, and they were speaking in small voices, voices that were all around me. When I tried to lift my head now, I found to my surprise I could do it, just a little, just enough.

Then I felt something on the forefinger of my right hand. I looked down, expecting to see a scorpion. Instead, there was a little man there, standing on my finger. Minute he was, too small to be real, I thought. He was wearing a three-cornered hat, a long coat, and he had buckles on his shoes. I never saw anyone dressed like this before. I imagined at first I must be dreaming. But then I knew I wasn’t asleep. I could smell the sea, and there were clouds in the sky, and birds, white birds flying above me, crying and cawing. I could feel the breeze on my face. None of this was imagined, none of this was a dream, and nor were the crowds of little people I could now see all over the beach, nor were the horses and carts imagined, nor were the little coloured blankets that I saw covering me like patchwork from my ankles up to my chest. The little man standing now in the palm of my open hand might have been no bigger than my little finger. But he was real. I was not imagining him. This was not a dream.

He was helping a little old lady up on to my hand, and then they were both making their way slowly up my arm and over my shoulder and across my chest, towards the point of my chin. The little old lady was walking with a stick and wore a long blue dress and feathers in her hat. They stood there together side by side, peering down in silence at me for a long while.

And when she spoke it was in a thin tremulous voice, which reminded me at once of how my grandmother’s voice had been. There was hushed silence all around me. Everyone was listening. I had no idea to begin with what she was saying to me. But then I began to recognise a word here, and a word there. The sound of the language was oddly familiar. It was how the aid workers in the camp used to speak. The little old lady was definitely speaking English. Her tone was warm, and hospitable, so I presumed this must be a speech of greeting, like an elder back home in my town might have given to a visitor. I could tell that she was assuming I understood every word she was saying, which I was not.

When the little old woman had finished speaking everyone clapped, and the children amongst them were jumping up and down cheering wildly.

A thousand thoughts were running through my mind and none of them made any sense. Was all this really happening to me? My shivering had stopped entirely. My whole body was tingling now with life, warmth and feeling. The old lady standing before me was breathing hard after the exertions of her speech, leaning heavily on her stick. I did not know what to say, but I felt I had to say something, that it was expected. The silence all around me told me that much. But I was struck dumb, still trying to take it all in, to believe what I was seeing. These people were all living, breathing creatures, but all were impossibly small, and dressed like no one I had ever seen before. They were real, as real as I was. So if they were real, and if they all spoke English, I thought, then maybe I had been washed up in England. But the aid workers that I had got to know near my town in Afghanistan were not small like these people, and neither did they dress like them.

I decided to try on them some of my English words I knew, to be sure I was right, that they did really speak English. I tried cricket words, then some words the aid workers had taught me. ‘Owzat,’ I said. ‘Not out, high five, hello, goodbye, chocolate, see you, doctor, you all right, son?’

No one seemed to be understanding a word I was saying. So I tried something else, the only other English words I could think of, hopeful that maybe they would know where it was. ‘Fore Street, Mevagissey. Fore Street, Mevagissey.’

They just looked at me, bewildered.

I tried again, louder this time. ‘Mevagissey! Mevagissey! Fore Street … Four! Six!’ The numbers did it.

I saw sudden recognition on the faces all around me and some alarm too. Perhaps I had spoken too loudly, I thought. I tried the same words again, softer this time, and then a few different words to see if they would understand. ‘Football. Manchester United. Chelsea. Joe Root. England. Afghanistan.’

The more I said, the less surprised they were looking, but the more puzzled and amused they became. They were whispering amongst each other, and some were laughing. Encouraged by this I tried again, and soon they were all laughing. ‘Fore Street, Mevagissey! Chocolate! Owzat!’ They particularly seemed to love it when I said ‘owzat’. So much so they were echoing it back to me.

‘Owzat! Owzat!’

But then I noticed that the old lady was not laughing any more, not smiling either. She was standing there staring at me. I had the strange feeling that she was not just trying to work out who I was, and where I had come from, but she was trying to remember me, to remember who I was. It was as if she thought that she recognised me, which I knew was not possible. Anyway, with some difficulty, and helped by her companion, she turned away from me, and made her way along my arm, over my hand and back down on to the sand. I watched her being led across the beach to a rock not far away. There she sat down, her hands folded in her lap, looking up at me, her eyes never leaving my face.