A Walrus With a Ticket

In a little harbour town where every door was painted blue and the lobster pots were stacked higher than the doors, there lived a girl called Tilly. She was the ferryman’s daughter, and she was eleven. She had rowed the little ferry across the bay a thousand times with Dad beside her, and never once alone.

Tilly was careful. Whenever she tied a knot, she tied it twice, and said the name of it out loud both times, so there could be no argument about it afterwards.

One evening Dad had to go over to the mainland, and he would not be back until the morning boat. “You’re in charge of the house,” he said at the door. “Not the boat. The house.”

“The house,” said Tilly.

She ate her supper. She put a lamp in the window, the way everyone in the town did for anyone still out on the water. Then she went to bed. At midnight exactly, somebody knocked, very politely, the way people knock when they are sorry about the hour.

It was a walrus.

He was a large walrus, and he filled the doorstep from one side to the other. He wore a long knitted scarf and held a round hatbox in both flippers. He would have tipped his hat, but he wasn’t wearing one, so he bowed, which for a walrus is a good deal of work.

“Good evening,” he said. “My name is Bristle. I am so sorry about the hour. I have a ticket.”

Tilly fetched the lamp and read the ticket properly, because a ticket should always be read properly. It said HARBOUR TO GULL ISLAND, ONE WALRUS. Underneath, in Dad’s square handwriting, it said BEFORE MORNING, WHENEVER THE BABY COMES.

The stub in Dad’s ticket book had the same number. The ferry had always taken buttons from walruses, and in the tin marked WALRUS there were six brass buttons and a note: Mr. Bristle, paid. Everything was in order.

“The baby came tonight,” said Mr. Bristle. “My niece’s baby, a little girl. Among walruses, the eldest uncle says a new baby’s name out loud at first light, so the whole island hears it. I am the eldest uncle. I have been practising all the way down the coast.”

You may wonder why a walrus needs a ferry at all. Mr. Bristle could swim perfectly well, but swimming made him seasick, so he had always gone by boat.

Dad had said the house. But Dad had also written the ticket, and the first rule of the ferry was one he had taught Tilly before he taught her to row.

“A ticket is a promise,” said Tilly. “The ferry keeps its promises.”

She put on her coat.

* * *

Tilly clipped the ticket with Dad’s clippers and put it in her pocket. She hung the lantern on the bow. “Round turn and two half hitches,” she said, tying it on. Then she tied it again. “Round turn and two half hitches.”

Mr. Bristle climbed in, and the boat rocked. “I beg your pardon,” he said to the boat.

He sat in the stern with the hatbox on his knees. Tilly rowed, the little sail filled, and behind them the town had a lamp in every window. Halfway to the lighthouse, Mr. Bristle lifted the lid of the hatbox. Inside was a very small knitted hat with a bobble on top. He checked that it had not got creased, and put the lid back on.

Then he practised. “Here is hmm-hmm,” he said, in a deep, round voice, “and she is welcome on this rock.” Nobody had told him the name yet. Walrus families take a long time to decide things.

Past the lighthouse, Tilly turned to look for Gull Island and could not see it. It was a long, low island with no lamps of its own, and much too far off to see by starlight.

She rested her oars. “A ticket is a promise,” she said. “The ferry keeps its promises.” Then she stood up and swung the lantern three times at the lighthouse, which is the ferry’s way of saying please.

High on the rock a window opened, and Mrs. Kettle leaned out in her dressing gown. “Where’s your dad?” she said, as loudly as she could.

“On the mainland,” said Tilly, just as loudly. “This is Mr. Bristle. He has a ticket. We can’t see the island.”

“That’s easily mended,” said Mrs. Kettle.

Mrs. Kettle could swing the great lighthouse beam wherever she liked, as easily as pointing a finger. She pointed it now. The beam came round over their heads, bent down, and lay along the water like a road. It ran straight and gold across the bay, all the way to Gull Island.

“Stay on the road,” said Mrs. Kettle, “and give my love to the baby.”

Tilly rowed along the road of light, and every time the oars came up they dripped gold. Mr. Bristle took out the hat again. It still was not creased.

Then the wind stopped.

The sail hung flat. Tilly rowed harder, and for a while that was enough. But in the middle of the bay the tide turned, as tides will, and began to run back toward the harbour faster than Tilly could row. Slowly, the little ferry slid backwards along the road of light.

Nobody was in any danger. The tide was only taking them home. But home was the wrong way, and the edge of the sky was going grey.

Tilly pulled until her arms ached. “A ticket,” she said, pulling, “is a promise. The ferry. Keeps. Its promises.”

Mr. Bristle had gone quite green, because watching the water go the wrong way felt exactly like swimming. “I am so sorry,” he said, to Tilly and to the boat. “I think I had better call.”

He had been saving his big voice for first light, but he used a little of it now: one long, deep call across the bay.

Six round grey heads came up beside the boat. They were seals, a mother and a father and four young ones, all whiskers.

“Evening, Mr. Bristle,” said the mother seal. “Pushing, is it?”

“If it’s no trouble,” said Mr. Bristle.

The seals put their noses to the stern and pushed. The ferry stopped going backwards. Then it went forwards, faster than Tilly had ever rowed it, faster even than Dad, with a white curl of water at the bow. The smallest seal pushed hardest of all and had to stop twice to sneeze.

Tilly shipped her oars and laughed. Mr. Bristle thanked each seal in turn, and then the boat.

* * *

They reached Gull Island just as the sky went pale. Tilly tied up to an iron ring in the rock. “Round turn and two half hitches,” she said, and did it again.

The whole walrus family was waiting on the stones: the baby’s mother and father, a long row of aunts, and the baby herself, small and brown and whiskery, blinking at the sea.

“Uncle!” said the baby’s mother. “We’ve argued since teatime and we can’t agree on a name. Will you choose?”

Mr. Bristle took the little hat out of the hatbox, without a single crease in it, and put it on the baby. Then he looked across at Tilly, sitting in the ferry with her hands red from rowing.

The first light came up over the edge of the sea. Mr. Bristle drew himself up, and in his big round voice, so the whole island heard, he said, “Here is Tilly, and she is welcome on this rock.”

The aunts cheered. The seals slapped the water with their flippers. Tilly sat very still in the boat with her ears going hot, because nobody had ever named a walrus after her before.

* * *

The seals towed the ferry home. Before they set off, Mr. Bristle tucked his long knitted scarf round Tilly. He said she had done all the rowing, and he had only done the shouting. She fell asleep before they passed the lighthouse.

She woke up just long enough to tie up at the harbour wall. “Round turn and two half hitches,” she said, with her eyes shut, and did it again. Then she lay down in the bottom of the boat and went straight back to sleep.

That is how Dad found her when he came in on the morning boat. The ferry was tied up at the harbour wall with every knot done twice. Tilly was asleep in the bottom of it, under a scarf far too long for anyone but a walrus. Sticking out of her pocket was a clipped ticket in Dad’s own handwriting.

Dad read the ticket. He checked every knot. Then he woke her up.

“I said the house,” said Dad.

“I know,” said Tilly. “But you wrote the ticket.”

“So I did,” said Dad. “A ticket is a promise. The ferry keeps its promises.” Then he lifted her out of the boat, scarf and all. He told her he had missed her, and that he was proud of her right down to the knots, and that there would be pancakes.

And to this day, whenever the ferry goes past Gull Island, a young walrus comes down to the stones to wave at it. Her name is Tilly, and her knitted hat is getting a little small for her. The ferryman’s daughter, who has rowed the ferry alone exactly once, always waves back.