The Boy, the Bird and the Coffin Maker Read online

  For all the jewels encrusting it, the mayor’s coffin had grown heavy. Yet Alberto and Tito could still lift it and they hoped it would still float.

  Alberto and Tito hauled the mayor’s coffin up the hill. The clock tower chimed eleven as they placed it beside their things. Alberto was ready to go right then, but Tito insisted on doing one final thing.

  “Please,” he said as he pulled on Alberto’s hand. “It’s important.”

  So they hurried back to their house and gathered every flower in the garden. Then they sped back up the lane and laid whole bushes of flowers across five graves.

  “Enough flowers for a year,” Tito said as he arranged the last cluster above his mother’s.

  “Don’t forget this one,” Alberto said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ruby flower Fia had dropped in the porridge. “This one will last a whole lifetime.”

  Tito took the flower and gently placed it on his mother’s grave. In the moonlight, it twinkled like a lonely ember star.

  It was halfway to midnight when Alberto opened the back gate. It let out a pained, piercing creak as its hinges moved for the first time in thirty years. Then, with their belongings stored inside, they carried the mayor’s coffin down to the rocky sea.

  Warm water lapped at their feet as they moved amongst the rocks. Carefully they lowered the mayor’s coffin into the water. Despite all the additions, it floated with ease. It barely moved when Tito climbed in and only lowered an inch when Alberto joined him.

  Alberto looked up at Allora – at the town that had been his home for fifty-five years – for one final time and then pushed off.

  The surface of the sea was calm, but the water carried them out quickly. The moon lit their way, and Fia swam through the air as if to guide them. Soon they were so far out that if they turned their heads back to shore, they could see all of Allora branching before them.

  Alberto and Tito had been on the water for ten minutes when the clock tower chimed twelve. It echoed on and on across the water, making twelve chimes sound like sixty. The last echo fell silent and a light appeared at the bottom of the hill. It left the prison gates and marched up Allora Lane. Many more joined it until a whole chain of flames snaked their way towards Alberto’s home.

  When the men reached the front door, Alberto’s breath caught inside of him. He imagined them smashing the windows and charging inside: their yells and flames and searching eyes. Horror filled him as he realized how close Tito had come to being taken. Before he could imagine any more, Tito spoke.

  “Can you see it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Alberto replied gravely. “They are at the front door.”

  “No. Not back there. Out here. Look.”

  Alberto turned around. Tito held the telescope towards him. The paper was worn and wrinkled, but when he raised it to his eye he could still see through to the other side. He searched the distant horizon, but could not see a thing. A flicker of doubt formed in the pit of his stomach. Was this all a mistake? Was he taking Tito to a place that didn’t exist? But then Fia flew down and pecked the paper a little to the left.

  “Yes, Tito,” Alberto said, his voice flooded with wonder. “I can see it.” Tears glistened in his old eyes. “Truly, I can.” Lights – thousands of them, each one as bright as Fia’s feathers – clustered together on an island far out to sea. They were invisible from Allora, but the moment you left land they came into sight, as if you had to be on the sea to see them.

  “Here.” Alberto put down the telescope and handed Tito a piece of wood. “Take it, Tito, and row. Row as hard as you can.”

  And so, in the mayor’s coffin, the boy, the bird and the coffin maker sailed towards those distant lights and the promise of a new life on the magical island of Isola.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

  For Polly, who believed in this story before anyone else did.

  For Lucy and Lauren, who took this story and turned it into a book.

  And for Anuska who made this book come to life with her wonderful drawings.

  Thank you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Matilda Woods lives in the Southern Tablelands of Australia, where there are no flying fish but there is the world’s largest cement sheep! The Boy, the Bird and the Coffin maker is her debut novel.

  Scholastic Children’s Books

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  SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2017

  This electronic edition published by Scholastic Ltd 2017

  Text copyright © Matilda Woods, 2017

  Illustration copyright © Anuska Allepuz, 2017

  The rights of Matilda Woods and Anuska Allepuz to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them.

  eISBN 978 1407 17953 7

  A CIP catalogue record for this work is available from the British Library.

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  Produced in India by Newgen

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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