The Puffin Keeper Read online

  LEVEL

  2

  Michael Morpurgo

  * * *

  THE PUFFIN KEEPER

  RETOLD BY KORU VAUTIER

  ILLUSTRATED BY BENJI DAVIES

  SERIES EDITOR: SORREL PITTS

  Contents

  People in the story

  New words

  Note about the story

  Before-reading questions

  Chapter One – I meet Benjamin Postlethwaite

  Chapter Two – Grandfather’s house

  Chapter Three – Boarding school

  Chapter Four – I go to Puffin Island

  Chapter Five – The puffin

  Chapter Six – Island life

  Chapter Seven – The war

  Chapter Eight – A new start

  Chapter Nine – My place

  During-reading questions

  After-reading questions

  Exercises

  Project work

  Glossary

  Note about the story

  Michael Morpurgo writes many books for children. His most famous book is War Horse (1982). Steven Spielberg made a film of War Horse in 2011.

  Benji Davies drew the pictures for this book. People all over the world read and love Morpurgo’s stories and Davies’s pictures.

  The Scilly Islands are a small group of islandsfn1 near Cornwall in England. One night, in a storm, a ship hits the rocks. Allen, a young boy, is on the ship. Allen and the other people from the ship arrive on a small island – Puffin Island. Only one old man lives on Puffin Island, but Allen is quickly his friend. Allen has to leave the island, but he travels back to it many years later.

  Before-reading questions

  1 Look at the cover of the book. What do you learn about the story?

  2 Read the chapter titles on the “Contents” page. Write four questions about the story.

  3 In the story, some of the people live on an island. What do you know about life on islands?

  4 Look at the “People in the story”. Choose one of the people and write about them.

  CHAPTER ONE

  I meet Benjamin Postlethwaite

  For many years, Benjamin Postlethwaite had one important job. He was a lighthouse keeper on Puffin Island. He also lived in the lighthouse. Many sailors travelled near Puffin Island on small boats and big ships. Sometimes there were storms and the sky went very dark. The sailors could not see easily and Benjamin helped them. The light in his lighthouse was always bright.

  The sailors out at sea saw the light and travelled away from the island. They were very thankful to have Benjamin’s help. But sometimes the storms were too big, and Benjamin could not help every ship.

  One night, there was a very bad storm. A ship – the Pelican – sailed near Puffin Island. The wind was very strong and the sea pushed the Pelican near the rocks. Thirty people were on the Pelican and they were not safe.

  Benjamin Postlethwaite was in his lighthouse. He saw the Pelican and he wanted to help the people on the ship. But he needed to do it very quickly.

  My name is Allen Williams and I was a child on the Pelican that night. I was five years old, and I was with my mother. The Pelican hit the rocks and started to go under the water. We were very, very frightened. It was difficult, but everyone left the ship. Then we all stood on one of the rocks.

  Then we saw a very small boat through the wind and the rain. It was Benjamin Postlethwaite and we were very happy to see him. Benjamin helped some people into his little boat and slowly rowed them to Puffin Island. He rowed from the rock to the island five times. Nobody died that night in the black sea because Benjamin helped us.

  Benjamin took us into his lighthouse. He gave us hot sweet tea and biscuits. The storm was very bad, but we were safe and warm by his fire inside the lighthouse.

  Everyone was very thankful. I watched Benjamin. He did not smile often, but I smiled at him. Then he smiled at me too.

  There were many beautiful paintings of different ships and boats on the walls of the lighthouse. My favourite picture was a painting of a big boat and a lighthouse. “That boat is the Pelican,” I thought. I looked at it for a long time. The pictures were all Benjamin’s work. He was a very good painter.

  The next day, I was surprised because Benjamin gave me the painting of the ship. Then he walked quickly back to his lighthouse. I tried to say “thank you” to him but he did not wait. The sun was bright and there was no storm. A boat came and took the people from the Pelican away from Puffin Island.

  I did not see Benjamin Postlethwaite, or Puffin Island, for a long time, but I never forgot him. I often thought about the night of the storm. I always kept his beautiful painting with me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Grandfather’s house

  In 1921, my father fell off his horse in Central Park in New York, and he died. I was a baby and I do not remember him. My mother did not have much money. After five difficult years in New York, we had to leave. We travelled across the sea on the Pelican to my grandparents’ house in England. They were my father’s mother and father. My mother and I did not know them and they did not know us.

  They were cold grey people, and their house was cold and grey too. For many hours on many days, I was with a cold grey nanny in a cold grey room in my grandparents’ house.

  Mother was often not well. For weeks she stayed in her bedroom and I could not see her. The doctor came and I asked him about her. He always said, “Not strong”. Mother did not speak a lot, and she was sad because of my father.

  I was sad too. Not for my father, because I did not remember him. I was sad because Mother was sad.

  Miss Duval was my nanny and my teacher. She was never kind to me. Sometimes small things made her angry – my hair or my dirty hands. Then she took my hand and she hit it hard. I was very frightened of her.

  Miss Duval did not like Benjamin’s beautiful picture. “It’s a child’s painting,” she said. I was sad because I could not put it on the wall.

  I had to put the painting under the floor, and I could not see it every day. Sometimes Miss Duval was not there and I looked at the painting. I remembered Puffin Island and the lighthouse and Benjamin Postlethwaite.

  Grandfather was often angry with me. “You must never run in the house or talk at meals,” he told me. “And you must use the back door, not the front door. And you must have a cold bath every morning. Cold baths are good for you.”

  I was very frightened of Grandfather, but Grandmother was not as bad as him. She sat by the window all day and did not speak. She tried to make Grandfather happy. She did not think about me much. But she and Grandfather were not nice about Mother. They talked about “that French woman”. They spoke quietly but I could hear them. They were angry with Mother because my father was dead. They did not have any other sons.

  Mother and I hated that cold grey house. But we could not leave because we had no money.

  Sometimes Mother came to my room at night. She sat on my bed and she read to me. We talked for many hours about Father and New York and the Pelican on the rocks. We talked about that dark, stormy night and Benjamin Postlethwaite and his lighthouse and his pictures. I took my beautiful painting from under the floor and Mother and I looked at it together. We remembered the ship, the sea and the sky on Puffin Island. We remembered Benjamin Postlethwaite’s fire in his lighthouse.

  One night, Mother had a good idea. “Write a letter to Benjamin Postlethwaite and say, ‘thank you’ for the beautiful painting,” she said.

  “Thank you for your beautiful painting,” I wrote. “Thank you for helping Mother and me and the other people on the Pelican. I want to visit Puffin Island again one day and see you and your lighthouse.”

  Mother helped me to put my letter in the l
etterbox near the cold grey house. I waited for many months for a letter from Benjamin Postlethwaite, but he never wrote to me. Then, one day, I had some happy news and also some sad news. Miss Duval was very angry with me. “I’m leaving because Allen is a difficult child,” she said. I was very surprised, and I smiled.

  Miss Duval left. Then Grandfather wanted to speak to me. He was not happy because now I had no teacher. Mother and Grandmother were in the room with him and Mother looked very sad. I had to go to boarding school.

  “You are eight years old, and you need to learn many things,” Grandfather said. “Boarding school will be good for you.”

  This was bad news. I was very, very sad. I did not want to leave Mother. “Please can I stay here,” I asked her. But she cried and ran out of the room.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Boarding school

  I was now at boarding school, and I did not see Mother for a long time. But I loved reading her letters. I put them in a box under my bed. I put my beautiful painting in that box too. Sometimes I read Mother’s letters for many hours. I looked at my picture too. One day I ran away from boarding school, but somebody found me. They took me back there again. “This is not a school. It’s a prison!” I thought.

  I ran away again, and a teacher took me to Mr Mortimer, the headmaster. He was very angry with me. He looked at me and his big eyebrows moved up and down a lot. They looked very funny! I wanted to laugh at him. “You can’t frighten me,” I thought, “not after Grandfather.”

  “You wanted to run away,” said the headmaster. “You need to learn a lesson! You must run for a very long time every day after lunch. You won’t like that!”

  I was surprised because I liked running a lot! I loved feeling the rain and the wind, and I liked seeing the different birds by the river. After a month or two, I was very good at running and the teachers wanted me for the school team. I did very well, and I won many races. Everybody was very happy. The headmaster’s big eyebrows moved again. But now they moved because he was happy with me.

  Mr Carter was my art teacher. Most teachers at the school were not kind to me, but Mr Carter was always nice. I learned something important in my art class. I could draw! I could paint too. And I liked it. Then I often painted ships and lighthouses. Sometimes I painted Benjamin Postlethwaite’s picture. The painting was safe in my box. But I did not need to see it because I remembered it very well.

  I knew everything in the painting – every bird, every colour, every part of the sea. Mr Carter liked my ships and lighthouses, but he wanted me to paint different things too – fruit and flowers and birds and trees. I liked Mr Carter, and sometimes I painted these things for him. But I painted ships and lighthouses more often.

  I loved running and art, but I also loved reading. I read many books about islands and lighthouses and ships. I did not have lots of friends at boarding school but the books were friends to me.

  At school, we could not read books late at night, but sometimes I read in bed with a small light. Every week I did a lot of painting and running and reading. “Everything is getting better,” I thought.

  Then I had some very, very good news in a letter from Mother.

  “I don’t like living in this cold grey house,” she wrote. “I want to be with you. I have a job. I’m going to teach French at your school, and you can live with me near the school.” I was very happy and I smiled all day.

  I lived with Mother in a little house in a village near the school for two years. I loved it there. We walked in the country for hours at weekends. We often talked about Benjamin Postlethwaite and his paintings. I ran in races and I won. “Go, Allen, go!” Mother shouted happily. Everyone loved her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I go to Puffin Island

  My days at school were much happier now. Holidays came and went quickly.

  I read a lot of books. Then, one day, I found some old magazines at school. I loved looking at the photos in them. One day, I found a magazine on a table. It was from 1926. I opened it and I was very surprised, because on page three there was a picture of Benjamin Postlethwaite! He was not smiling. There were other pictures too, of the lighthouse and the Pelican.

  And there was the story about that cold, stormy night near Puffin Island. I read it quickly. “It wasn’t easy, but I had to help the people from the Pelican,” said Benjamin. “They were not safe.” There was another photo of him in front of his lighthouse. I remembered everything!

  Then, I had a good idea. I wrote another letter to Benjamin Postlethwaite. “I want to see you. Can I come to Puffin Island, please?” I wrote. I also painted a picture for him and sent that too. “Maybe Benjamin will remember me,” I thought.

  But I never got an answer from him. Mother wrote too. We heard nothing. “Sometimes people don’t want to see other people,” she said.

  But I could not stop thinking about him. I needed to know. “I’ll go to Puffin Island again!” I thought. “I’ll find Benjamin Postlethwaite and say ‘thank you’ to him.”

  ————

  I finished school. I was now a young man.

  “I’m going to travel,” I told Mother. “I’ll see you again in about six weeks.” She was very happy for me because she always wanted me to travel. But I did not tell her everything about my plans.

  I took a train and then a small ship to the island near Puffin Island. I had Benjamin’s painting in my bag. I asked a man on the island, “Where is Benjamin Postlethwaite?”

  “He’s at his lighthouse on Puffin Island. Nobody goes there,” the man said. “It’s sad about his lighthouse.”

  “What’s sad about his lighthouse?” I asked.

  “They closed it. It’s not easy for Ben. Ships don’t need him now,” he said.

  I found a man with a boat and he took me to Puffin Island. The sea moved the boat a lot and I did not feel good. The boatman smiled all the time. “Sometimes there are big storms here,” he said.

  “I know,” I thought, but I could not speak. I wanted to tell him my story, but my stomach felt very bad.

  “I hope you don’t want to find puffins,” he said. “There are no more puffins on the island. Nobody sees them. And Ben won’t be happy to see you.”

  I watched some sea birds sitting on a big rock. “Did I stand on that rock with Mother in 1926?” I thought.

  Soon I saw the tall lighthouse and I felt much better. We were nearly there.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The puffin

  I stood on the island, and I watched the small boat moving away. “How will I get back now?” I thought.

  I walked slowly to the door of the lighthouse and looked up. “Hello …” I said quietly. The door opened immediately. And there he was. Older, greyer, but the same eyes.

  “I saw you on the boat,” he said. “You’re Allen, the boy from the Pelican. I remember you. Come in and close the door – it’s very windy.”

  Benjamin took me into his living room and I sat down by the fire. He brought me a cup of sweet tea but I did not see it. My eyes looked at all the paintings on the wall.

  “Have you got my painting?” he asked.

  I opened my bag. “Here it is,” I said. Benjamin smiled.

  “Look at that one,” said Benjamin. I looked up. There was a page of photos from a magazine on the wall. “See? Everyone from the Pelican. And that’s you – a small boy then. You’re taller and older now. I never forgot that night.”

  We drank our tea. “I have a little friend here,” said Benjamin. He put his hand in a box near the fire. “A friend in a box.”

  “That is strange,” I thought.

  Then I saw the puffin. It was in Benjamin’s hand. I was very surprised. “He flew here in the night,” said Benjamin. “He flew into one of the lighthouse windows and fell on the rocks. His leg doesn’t look good. I can help him but he needs time. We’ll find some fish for him – puffins like fish. You can help me, Allen.”

  At night, I slept next to the fire and the little puffin. In the day, I ca
ught a lot of fish, and I ate a lot of it too! Our little puffin also ate the fish and got stronger. Benjamin and I were very happy because we loved the puffin. First, he learned to walk again. Then, he walked across the room, and he slowly moved his little wings. The next week, he flew across the room.

  The puffin looked at me and his eyes spoke. “I want to fly in the sky now,” they said. I understood but I wanted him to stay. Benjamin wanted the puffin to stay too.

  But the puffin needed to go. We knew that. One day, we fed him some fish and then we opened the window. Ben’s eyes were very sad. He gave the puffin to me. “I can’t,” he said. “You do it.”

  And I did. I held the puffin out of the window. His wings started to move up and down. Then I slowly opened my hands, and he flew from them. Our puffin flew near the lighthouse for three minutes, and then he flew across the sea.

  That night, Ben said, “He’ll come back, you know. We’ll see him again. One day you’ll leave the island but you’ll come back too, Allen. But don’t go this week. I want to show you something.” He gave me a box. “Look!”

  I opened the box. There were many letters inside. My letters were there and Mother’s letter was there too. I was very surprised.

  “I can’t read,” said Benjamin. “I didn’t go to school, but I know you wrote the letters.”

  “I can read,” I said. “I can stay and teach you.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Island life

  I stayed with Ben in the lighthouse, and I taught him. He learned quickly because he wanted to read. “I want to read all my letters,” he said. After two months, he could read them. We also read from magazines. One day, we went across the water to the town on the island. I found my favourite books there, and I read them with Ben. He loved them too, and he read them many times.