The Tide Key
Grandad Sully left Tess a note on the kitchen table, and all it said was NINE. He had underlined it three times, so hard that the third line went through the paper.
Tess was a little offended by that note. Of course it was nine. All summer she had stood beside Grandad on the quay at midnight, singing the Nine Fishes song while he turned the key. But tonight Grandad was across the bay at his sister’s wedding, probably dancing badly. Tonight the tide was hers.
And tomorrow at dawn was the Harbour Race. Tess wanted to stand on the quay at sunrise and see every boat sitting on the water as neat as a cup on a saucer. She wanted to know that she had done it.
The town went up a hill in painted houses, pink and yellow and blue. At the bottom was the harbour. Every evening the sea went out of it all by itself and left the boats lying on the mud, tipped over like boots by a door. And every night at midnight, somebody had to wind the sea back in.
On her way down, Tess said goodnight to Gerald, a small brown fish who lived in the fountain in the square. Nobody could remember how Gerald had got there. Gerald had always been there, going round and round.
At the bakery, Mrs. Bunce was in the doorway, washing out her buckets for the morning bread. She had one answer to every trouble in the world: she handed you whatever was nearest. When the postman lost his hat, she gave him a cream bun, and he said it had helped.
“Nervous?” said Mrs. Bunce.
“A bit,” said Tess.
The nearest thing was a bucket, so Mrs. Bunce gave Tess a bucket. Neither of them knew what it was for, but they both felt better.
The tide key lived in a long box on the harbour wall. It was brass, as long as a broom, with a round handle as big as a dinner plate. Tess had just lifted it out when there was a wet snort from under the quay, and Barnaby put his head up.
Barnaby was a seal who lived under the quay steps. He was a good seal in most ways, but not when you were trying to concentrate, because he liked to be watched, and he had tricks.
“Not tonight, Barnaby,” said Tess. “Tonight I’m counting.”
She put the bucket down on the quay. Barnaby looked at it with great interest.
The harbour clock struck twelve. Tess fitted the key into the keyhole low in the wall and said Grandad’s rule out loud, the way he always did. “Once the key turns past midnight, it only goes forwards. The sea won’t have it any other way.”
Then she leaned on the key, and it turned.
Somewhere deep under the town there was a slow, heavy clunk, like a very large clock catching hold. Out at the mouth of the harbour, the sea came shining in over the mud in one long silver edge. The boats felt it, and lifted, and stood up straight.
Tess sang, because that is how you count when your hands are busy.
One fish home to the harbour, one fish home to me.
Clunk went the town, and in came the sea. Two fish, and the boats came off the mud. Three fish, four fish, and they were all afloat. Tess had just started the fifth fish when Barnaby hauled himself onto the quay, tossed the bucket in the air, and caught it upside down on his nose.
It was a very good trick. He put his chin up and shut his eyes, the way people do when they are being admired. Tess laughed out loud, and her hands went on turning the key, because hands do.
Afterwards she was not sure she had finished the fifth fish. So to be safe she sang it again, and turned again. Then six, seven, eight, and nine.
Nine fish home to the harbour, and now the sea can sleep.
Tess put the key away, very pleased with herself.
Now, you have been counting, and you know how many turns that was. Tess did not know yet. She found out when the sea came up the steps.
It came up the first step, which was all right, and then every step after that, quite politely. It came over the quay and up the lane and spread across the square, ankle-deep and glittering under the lamps. Gerald came up to have a look. And on the bakery step, flat and surprised, lay a flounder.
Down in the harbour the boats rode much too high, tugging at their ropes.
Tess counted on her fingers, and found the fifth fish twice.
First she tried to wind the key back. She knew the rule, but she tried anyway, because you do. She hung off it with all her weight, and it did not move at all. The sea would not have it, just as the rule said.
Next she fetched the broom and tried to sweep the sea back down the steps. The sea went down in small, bright waves, and then came straight back up in small, bright waves, round her ankles. It was like trying to sweep a bath.
So, last of all, Tess did the third thing. She knocked on doors.
She knocked first at the bakery. Mrs. Bunce opened the door, looked at the sea in the square, and handed Tess the nearest thing, which was the flounder.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Bunce. “No. Sorry.” She put the flounder in a bucket of sea for safekeeping. Then she picked up the rest of her buckets and came out.
Tess knocked on the blue door and the yellow door and the pink door, all the way up the hill, and the town came down in its nightgowns. The schoolteacher came in a nightcap with a tassel. The twins from the top house came with a teapot each. The mayor came in a nightshirt and the tall hat of office, and could not find a bucket, so used the hat.
They made a line from the fountain, down the steps and out along the harbour wall to the open sea, and Tess stood at the very end. Barnaby lay at the bottom of the steps and passed every bucket along on his nose without spilling a drop, because that was the trick he was best at.
Then they passed the extra sea home, hand to hand. Bucket, teapot, bucket, hat. The flounder came down the line in its own bucket, and Tess tipped it over the wall, and it swam off flat and fast, as if it were late for something. With every bucket, the boats came down a little on their ropes.
At last there was only one puddle left, beside the fountain, too shallow for a bucket and too wide for a teapot. Barnaby went flumping up the steps and across the square, turned round, and gave it one tremendous flip with his tail. The puddle went up in a shining sheet, over the top of the steps, and all the way down into the harbour. Splash.
Everybody cheered, and Barnaby bowed, which was another thing he was good at.
Tess ran to the edge of the quay and looked down. Every boat was sitting on the water as neat as a cup on a saucer.
“Thank you,” she said to the whole town in its nightgowns. “I’m so sorry. Thank you.”
Mrs. Bunce went inside, came back, and handed her the nearest thing, which was a hot bun. Then she handed one to everybody else, and two to Barnaby.
The Harbour Race went off at dawn. The mayor rang the starting bell in a hat that was still a little damp, and every boat slid away clean and level. Tess watched from the quay with her eyes half shut. It was exactly the morning she had wanted, and the cobbles behind her were shining.
Grandad came home on the afternoon ferry, and Tess told him the whole story very fast, to get it over with.
Grandad laughed until he had to sit down on a coil of rope.
“Eleven,” he said, when he could talk. “My first night on my own, I did eleven turns. There was a gull with a sandwich. The sea came right up into the square, and we bailed it out in our nightgowns, same as you. And when it was all done, there was one little fish left over in the fountain, going round and round.”
Tess stared at him. “Gerald,” she said.
“Gerald,” said Grandad. “Why do you think I underlined it three times?”
Then he put his arm round her. “You put it right,” he said. “And you knocked on doors. That’s the part that took me longest to learn.”
So Tess was forgiven, and she was proud, and the town was very well washed, which nobody minded in the least. That night she wound the tide again, nine turns exactly, with Grandad singing along. Barnaby was given a bucket of his own to balance at the far end of the harbour, where Tess could not see him.
Nine fish home to the harbour, and now the sea can sleep.
And then, at last, so did Tess. The end.