is sleeping and everything is quiet, you know they’re there and it feels all right even if it’s boring. But when there’s no sound at all except from outside, especially when it gets dark and all you can hear is army boots going
tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp
, well, then it’s completely different.
“GONE, GONE, GONE, GONE, GONE.”
That’s what the boots are saying.
THE BASKING SHARKS
If Nadia was here I would tell her about the basking sharks. She’d love them. We could put on a play with basking sharks and pretend her theatre had got flooded because it had a river underneath it, like the deep black river that flows under the Paris Opéra House. Mama told us about that. It’s even got fish in it.
Today I read about the basking sharks in the Professor’s encyclopedia. That was before I got fed up with reading. Or before it got dark anyway.
Basking sharks are the biggest sharks in the world but they don’t eat people at all. They’re more like big vacuum cleaners. They just drift around the Atlantic Ocean and suck up every scrap of food they can see. Only they don’t even have to look for the food, they just open their mouths and everything floats into it. It goes straight down into their liver which is the size of a football field, or something nearly that big.
Maybe it was a basking shark that swallowed the Jonas in the Bible. Not a whale, like it says. Old Jonas probably didn’t know the difference anyway. Mama says they called me after him, No. 1 – because he was a great survivor, but really No. 2 – because they liked the name. So do I. It’s not a boring name like Henri or Georges.
It was the sharks’ enormous mouths I loved best. The encyclopedia had a good picture. They gape open and look like métro tunnels. They don’t have teeth, like other sharks. If you could fit a basking shark into the Deyrolle shop and hang it from the ceiling it would be the best thing they ever had. And Papa could do a really good job making big round eyes for it.
Only it’s just too bad for the basking sharks that everybody wants their oil. The fishermen in Ireland go out on the ocean in tiny boats that look like baskets. They harpoon the sharks and drag them over to the nearest beach and then cut out their livers. Then the livers are sent off somewhere and squeezed like oranges to get the oil out. Cities used to use that oil for street lights in the last century. Now there are no proper street lights. I suppose the basking sharks can be happy about that, even if nobody else is.
I’ll ask the Prof if he knows about them when he comes home. I’ll sit on the top step outside the toilet so he’ll see me when he comes upstairs to go to bed.
THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK
There are just a couple of pages left in this notebook so I’ll fill them up and then I’ll begin a new one. And this time I will definitely keep to Monsieur Lemoine’s rules of writing: BEGINNING, MIDDLE, END . I’m not sure about today’s date but I know it’s the tenth week anyway because I’ve made nine notches on the leg of the bed. I was pretty good at keeping the score until last week, when I couldn’t stop thinking about bad things.
On the really awful night, the Prof came home and found me on the stairs. He had to pick me up and bring me to bed, but I wouldn’t let him go. I couldn’t. I kept my arms clasped around his neck as if he was Papa. But the Prof is so old I could hear his heart going
boom-boom
. He had to lie down with me until I went to sleep.
The next day he told me we couldn’t go on like this for ever.
“I can’t forget the way I found you, Jonas, curled up and whimpering like a puppy. You could have fallen down the stairs and broken your neck.”
I think he’s making a plan but he hasn’t told me anything. I suppose that’s in case it doesn’t happen. And I don’t know if I want anything else anyway. It might be worse.
The Prof doesn’t have a wireless but he does have a wind-up
tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp
, well, then it’s completely different.
“GONE, GONE, GONE, GONE, GONE.”
That’s what the boots are saying.
THE BASKING SHARKS
If Nadia was here I would tell her about the basking sharks. She’d love them. We could put on a play with basking sharks and pretend her theatre had got flooded because it had a river underneath it, like the deep black river that flows under the Paris Opéra House. Mama told us about that. It’s even got fish in it.
Today I read about the basking sharks in the Professor’s encyclopedia. That was before I got fed up with reading. Or before it got dark anyway.
Basking sharks are the biggest sharks in the world but they don’t eat people at all. They’re more like big vacuum cleaners. They just drift around the Atlantic Ocean and suck up every scrap of food they can see. Only they don’t even have to look for the food, they just open their mouths and everything floats into it. It goes straight down into their liver which is the size of a football field, or something nearly that big.
Maybe it was a basking shark that swallowed the Jonas in the Bible. Not a whale, like it says. Old Jonas probably didn’t know the difference anyway. Mama says they called me after him, No. 1 – because he was a great survivor, but really No. 2 – because they liked the name. So do I. It’s not a boring name like Henri or Georges.
It was the sharks’ enormous mouths I loved best. The encyclopedia had a good picture. They gape open and look like métro tunnels. They don’t have teeth, like other sharks. If you could fit a basking shark into the Deyrolle shop and hang it from the ceiling it would be the best thing they ever had. And Papa could do a really good job making big round eyes for it.
Only it’s just too bad for the basking sharks that everybody wants their oil. The fishermen in Ireland go out on the ocean in tiny boats that look like baskets. They harpoon the sharks and drag them over to the nearest beach and then cut out their livers. Then the livers are sent off somewhere and squeezed like oranges to get the oil out. Cities used to use that oil for street lights in the last century. Now there are no proper street lights. I suppose the basking sharks can be happy about that, even if nobody else is.
I’ll ask the Prof if he knows about them when he comes home. I’ll sit on the top step outside the toilet so he’ll see me when he comes upstairs to go to bed.
THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK
There are just a couple of pages left in this notebook so I’ll fill them up and then I’ll begin a new one. And this time I will definitely keep to Monsieur Lemoine’s rules of writing: BEGINNING, MIDDLE, END . I’m not sure about today’s date but I know it’s the tenth week anyway because I’ve made nine notches on the leg of the bed. I was pretty good at keeping the score until last week, when I couldn’t stop thinking about bad things.
On the really awful night, the Prof came home and found me on the stairs. He had to pick me up and bring me to bed, but I wouldn’t let him go. I couldn’t. I kept my arms clasped around his neck as if he was Papa. But the Prof is so old I could hear his heart going
boom-boom
. He had to lie down with me until I went to sleep.
The next day he told me we couldn’t go on like this for ever.
“I can’t forget the way I found you, Jonas, curled up and whimpering like a puppy. You could have fallen down the stairs and broken your neck.”
I think he’s making a plan but he hasn’t told me anything. I suppose that’s in case it doesn’t happen. And I don’t know if I want anything else anyway. It might be worse.
The Prof doesn’t have a wireless but he does have a wind-up
Similar Books
