Kaspar by Michael Morpurgo

Author:Michael Morpurgo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Kids
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2007-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

‘We’ve Only Gone and Hit a Flaming Iceberg’

My life as a stowaway didn’t last long. It took me a while to understand that I was in the First Class part of the ship; and when I did, I discovered it wasn’t at all easy to blend in with the First Class passengers all around me. Everyone was in their travelling finery, and dressed as I was in my uniform of a Savoy bell-boy, I stuck out like a sore thumb. They even moved differently, as if they belonged there, as if they had all the time in the world. Maybe you need a lifetime to learn how to look nonchalantly wealthy.

For a while the uniform actually helped. I could pass myself off as a steward, and of course that was easy enough for me. I knew well enough how to touch my forelock, how to help old ladies down the stairs, how to point out to people where to go – even if I hadn’t a clue where anything was. For the first hour or so, as the other passengers promenaded the deck, exploring the ship, that was what I did too, until I began getting some strange looks from some of the crew and the other stewards who clearly thought my uniform a bit strange. I knew that sooner or later I’d be rumbled, that my luck couldn’t hold out for long if I went on pretending to be one of them. I also realised that if I stayed in First Class I was bound to bump into one of the Stanton family, and I wasn’t at all sure how they would respond if they discovered that I had stowed away. I could see the steerage passengers all crowded on the lower deck at the stern end of the ship. They were more my own kind I thought, I’d be safer there. So that’s where I headed. I took off my tunic and cap, and when no one was looking dropped them over the side.

Then I vaulted over the rail, and tried to mingle in among the steerage passengers as best I could.

We were well out to sea by now, the last of England fast disappearing over the horizon. The sea was flat calm, like a silver blue lake. No one was paying me any attention. They were all enjoying themselves far too much to know I was even there. You only had to use your eyes and ears to know that these steerage passengers came from all over the world. There were Irish, Chinese, French, Germans, Americans and quite a few London cockneys too. I was feeling much more at home already. I went below deck, and after a long search, at last, found myself an empty berth in a dormitory at the bottom of the ship. There were a few men in there, but they paid me little attention.

I was lying down, my hands behind my head, my eyes closed, the ship’s engines throbbing through me, believing absolutely I had got away with it, when everything went badly wrong.

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