Butter-Fingers Molly and the Eight Bows

There was once a bright little harbour where every boat was painted a different colour. Blue-and-yellow bunting ran all the way from the harbour office to the end of the quay. Stone steps went down from the quay into the water. Eleven of them always showed. The twelfth, the lowest, only came up at low tide.

The harbourmaster was Grandpa. The youngest of his grandchildren was Molly, and everybody along the quay called her Butter-Fingers Molly.

She did not mind, because it was true. This summer alone she had dropped her hat, her spoon and one red boot into the harbour.

“It’ll come back,” she said each time.

And each time, it did.

The hat went on a windy Monday, when Molly leaned out to wave at the fish boat. When the tide went out, there it was on the lowest step, clean and dry, with eight small shells laid in a ring inside it like candles on a cake.

The spoon went on a Wednesday, when Molly was eating her porridge on the harbour wall, which she had been asked not to do. It came back polished so bright she could see her own nose in it. On the back were eight little round shiny spots, as if somebody had rubbed it with eight thumbs.

The red boot went on a hot Friday, when she was swinging her legs off the end of the quay. It came back with its laces done up in eight neat bows, one at every pair of holes, which is not how anybody ties a boot.

“Somebody is being very kind to me,” Molly said to Grandpa, “and I don’t know who to thank.”

“Then keep your eyes open,” said Grandpa, “and your fingers shut.”

* * *

The day before the Harbour Regatta, Grandpa was up a ladder at the end of the quay, tying on the last of the bunting.

Every year at the Regatta, Grandpa stood on the top step and read out the winners in his big harbourmaster’s voice. But Grandpa could not read a word without his round spectacles. Once, without them, he had read the tide chart and told everyone that high water was at a quarter past cabbage.

“Molly,” he called down. “Fetch my spectacles from the office windowsill, would you?”

Molly fetched them. She carried them down the quay in both hands.

“Both hands,” she said to herself. “Both hands, both hands.”

She got all the way to the ladder with both hands still round them. Then a gull landed right beside her and shouted, the way gulls do. Molly jumped. The spectacles went up, turned over once in the sunshine, and went down into the harbour. Plop.

Grandpa came down the ladder. He looked at the water. Molly looked at the water. Bob the seal, on his flat rock, looked at both of them.

“Well,” said Grandpa. He was not cross. He was worried, which is worse to see on a grandpa. “I’ll manage tomorrow somehow.”

Molly thought of the quarter past cabbage and knew he would not.

“It’ll come back,” she said. But she said it smaller this time. A hat is a hat. These were Grandpa’s spectacles, and the Regatta was tomorrow.

So she sat down on the last dry step to wait for the tide. And while she waited, she decided to find out who her kind somebody was.

She tried Bob first.

“Bob,” said Molly, “have you been bringing my things back?”

Bob yawned. He had a strand of seaweed across his nose that had been there since Tuesday, and he had not once thought of taking it off.

“No,” said Molly. “You’ve never tidied anything in your life.”

Bob yawned again, which was as good as saying so.

Next she tried the gulls. But gulls take things. They take a sandwich, a chip, the corner of a pie. Molly had never known a gull give anything back.

“Not you,” she said. The gulls shouted, which is all gulls ever say.

Last she tried the harbour cat, asleep on a coil of rope in the sun. A cat that would walk the long way round a puddle was never going to swim to the bottom of the harbour for a spoon.

“Not you either,” said Molly. The cat did not wake up to argue.

Now, you have probably been counting. Eight shells. Eight shiny spots. Eight bows. Molly had not been counting. Molly had been busy with gulls.

* * *

As the sun went down, Grandpa came down the steps with Molly’s jumper and a jam jar of warm milk. He had screwed the lid on very tight, because he knew who he was bringing it to.

“Any luck?” he said.

“Not yet,” said Molly.

Grandpa sat with her until the milk was finished. He put the jumper over her head the right way round. Then he went back up to light the harbour lamps, and Molly screwed the lid back on the empty jar and kept watching.

The water went down the way water does when somebody is watching it, which is slowly. And at last the lowest step came up out of the harbour, wet and shining.

Then a long arm came up beside it. It was the colour of a ripe apricot, and it curled at the tip like the handle of a teacup. Another arm came up after it, and another. Molly counted them, because all at once she had remembered to.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

After the eight arms came a round, rosy head. And on her face, upside down, sat Grandpa’s round spectacles.

“Eight,” said Molly. “Eight shells. Eight shiny spots. Eight bows. Oh! It was you!”

The octopus took the spectacles off with one arm. She polished them with a second, folded them with a third, and laid them on the lowest step with a fourth. They were clean and dry, and the right way up.

“Thank you,” said Molly. “For these, and for the hat, and the spoon, and the boot. Especially for the bows.”

The octopus waved two arms, which plainly meant it was no trouble at all.

“I wish I had something to give you back,” said Molly.

One arm came across, very politely, and touched the lid of the jam jar.

Molly unscrewed the lid of the jar and screwed it on again, to show how it went. Then she held it out. The octopus took it in four arms. She unscrewed the lid. She screwed it on. She did this eight times, and then she held the jar against her middle, and Molly could see it was the best present an octopus had ever been given.

Then she sank. The water at low tide was as clear as a window, and Molly saw where she went. Under the harbour wall lay an old copper kettle on its side. The kettle lid lifted. The octopus poured herself in through the top, jam jar and all, and pulled the lid shut behind her.

Molly decided that anybody so tidy must be a Mrs., and anybody so fond of eights must be called Eight. So that is who she was from then on: Mrs. Eight, of the copper kettle.

Molly ran up all twelve steps with the spectacles in both hands, and this time she did not drop them once. Grandpa put them on and looked at her properly.

“There you are,” he said, and it was hard to tell whether he meant Molly or the spectacles.

Molly told him everything.

“An octopus,” said Grandpa. “In the old kettle. Well, I never. She ought to be thanked properly. In front of everybody.”

* * *

The next day was the Regatta. There was a rowing race and a sailing race and a race for anything that floated, which was won by a bathtub. Grandpa stood on the top step and read out every winner in his big harbourmaster’s voice, and not one of them was a cabbage.

Then he said, “And one extra prize this year.”

He held up a big blue-and-yellow rosette. On it, in Grandpa’s best writing, it said FOR BEST FINDER OF THINGS.

Grandpa put the rosette in a jam jar and screwed the lid on tight. He walked down to the lowest step, which was showing, because this year Grandpa had read the tide chart properly and picked his moment. And Grandpa, who had never dropped anything in his life, dropped the jar into the harbour on purpose.

Everybody leaned over the edge. For a moment there was nothing but a few bubbles. Then one long apricot arm came up out of the water, and waved.

The whole quay cheered. The gulls shouted. Even Bob sat up for it, and only yawned a little.

Molly went on dropping things after that, of course. A cup. A kite. Grandpa’s pencil, twice. “It’ll come back,” she said each time, full size again. And at every low tide, there it was on the lowest step, clean and dry, with eight of something to say who had been. Every time, Molly left a jar with a lid on the step, to say thank you back.

“Keep your eyes open,” Grandpa told her, “and your fingers however you like.”

And that is why, in that bright little harbour, nobody has ever been so glad to be called Butter-Fingers as Molly.