8

First Birthday

“IT WAS AWFUL!” said Kirstie to Mother. “Turning away and just leaving him. How can he know he’s done anything wrong?” Her eyes filled with tears.

Mother gave her a cuddle. “I’m sure he’ll soon learn,” she said.

“It’s bound to be hard for him at first,” said Father, “but it’s the only thing to do.”

“He’ll be happy enough with all those fish to eat,” said Grumble. “Why, his stomach looked as tight as a drum.”

“When’s lunch?” said Angus.

They went down again that afternoon. Kirstie called Crusoe and he came and they all made a tremendous fuss over him, so that she was much happier when she went to bed that night.

But as soon as she awoke the next morning, she felt miserable to think that she must once again pretend to be angry with him if he came without being called. And of course he did, and the whole performance of berating and shooing him was repeated.

For several days there was no sign that he understood, but then one morning they went down to the lochan and stood, silent, and the Water Horse did not come. They could see his head clear of the water over on the far side, watching them, but he did not move.

“Better,” said Father, “but not good enough. Anyone could see that great noodle sticking up.” And he shouted “DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!” in a loud sailors bellow. The head submerged with a startled splash.

Gradually, it seemed as though the Water Horse was getting the message. Before long, he never came unless called, and by the time Father went back to rejoin his ship, the others were all confident that, unless they shouted his name, they could not see a hair on his head (if he’d had any hair). Somewhere a pair of nostrils would be protruding just above the water, perhaps even a pair of watching eyes, but no one could ever have spotted them amongst the shifting ripples of the surface.

Now at last there was no longer any need to speak harshly to Crusoe. The lesson had been learned, and they could simply enjoy spoiling him each time he answered his name, and he could enjoy the tickling and the warm words of praise and, now, the occasional treat of a special (and, for the Water Horse, unusual) tidbit.

One day Angus had arrived carrying a cookie in his hand. It was his habit to provide himself with emergency supplies of some sort, to see him through the difficult gap between one meal and the next. But on this occasion—maybe because it was not long after breakfast—he had reached the lochan without having yet eaten the cookie. It was chocolate chip, his favorite kind.

They called Crusoe and stood waiting on the bank, when, so suddenly as to make them jump, he surfaced right beside them, stretched out his long neck, and took the chocolate chip cookie neatly out of Angus’s hand.

“Avast, there!” shouted Angus angrily. “Give that back, you son of a sea cook!” But the cookie had vanished and a pleased expression had appeared upon the face of the Water Horse. He licked his lips in appreciation and gave a short deep grunt, a sign, they knew, of great contentment.

From then on, by common consent (with the exception of Angus), a chocolate chip cookie was Crusoe’s special treat, and on March the 27th, 1931, they gave him a whole box as a first birthday present.

“Do you remember, Grumble,” said Kirstie as they watched the box disappear, cardboard and all, “when he was only as long as the span of your hand? Just look at him now!”

Now, it was of no use trying to describe Crusoe’s size as matching that of any kind of tiger, even a sabertooth. He was far bigger. Grumble reckoned that at the end of that first year of life he measured roughly fifteen feet from nose to tail tip. “It’s all the fish he’s eating,” he said.

“What happens,” said Kirstie, “when he’s caught all the fish in the lochan?” But before Grumble could answer, they heard a sound that was quite uncommon in those parts in those days. It was the sound of a car, farther down the glen and coming toward them.

“Dive!” snapped Grumble, and Crusoe instantly obeyed.

When the car reached them, it stopped on the road above, and the driver got out to ask directions from the big old man with the droopy mustache who stood by the lochan hand in hand with a girl and a small tubby boy.

“Thanks awfully,” said the driver when Grumble had given him directions. He looked at the mirror-still surface of the lochan. “I say, what a peaceful spot!” he said. “Nothing ever disturbs it, I should imagine.”

They waited until the sound of the departing car had died away, and then Grumble said, “Call him, Angus,” and Angus shouted, “Crusoe! Ahoy there, Crusoe!” and up out of the center of the lochan in a great fountain of water like a breaching whale rose the weird and wonderful shape of the Water Horse. In a flurry of spray and foam he hurtled shoreward at his best speed, bellowing softly with pleasure at this second summons from his friends.

“I say, what a peaceful spot!” drawled Angus. “Nothing ever disturbs it, I should imagine.”

—

Nothing did disturb it, throughout that spring and summer of 1931. Grumble took the children down to the lochan less frequently now, perhaps only once a week. When they asked why, he said that Crusoe needed to get more used to being on his own. It was like a child growing up, Grumble said: before long he would have to make his own way in the world.

But one day in the autumn they witnessed an incident that showed that Crusoe’s tastes in food were not confined to fish (and chocolate chip cookies).

As they approached the usually deserted lochan, they saw, standing on the road above it, a party of about a dozen people. They were certainly not locals, for there was nothing Scottish in the loud voices that they could hear, and they were all oddly dressed. They wore pants—men and women alike—and thick Fair Isle sweaters and heavy hobnailed boots, and they had knapsacks on their backs and carried stout walking sticks.

“Who are they?” said Angus.

“Hikers,” said Grumble sourly.

“What are hikers?” said Kirstie.

“Folk who tramp all over the countryside, townsfolk mostly. It’s all the fashion these days. Don’t know a sheep from a pig.” Just then they saw one of the hikers point out across the lochan, and then the whole party turned and looked and pointed. Kirstie caught her breath. Had they seen Crusoe? She listened tensely to the loud voices.

“Look at that goose!” said one.

“That’s not a goose,” said another, one of those men who knows everything, “that’s a swan.”

“Look, it’s put its head right under the water. Doesn’t it look funny with its bottom sticking up in the air! Why’s it doing that?”

“It’s looking for fish,” said the clever one.

“Now it’s come up again.”

“Now it’s put its head down again.”

And as Grumble and the children watched, the swan dived once more. Then, quite silently and suddenly, it disappeared beneath the surface.

“Where’s it gone?” said the hikers.

“It’s dived,” said the clever one.

There was silence then for several minutes, until somebody said, “It’s been underneath an awful long time.”

“They can hold their breath,” said the clever one, and the hikers turned away and tramped off down the road, swinging their walking sticks.

Out on the water, a few white feathers rose and floated on the surface.