The Singer Who Sailed the Pond

Part One. The Man Who Sang to the Snow

The first time we saw Mister Väinö was on a Monday, and he was singing to a snowflake.

It was the first proper cold morning. Everyone was standing in the playground in coats and bobble hats, blowing out little clouds of breath. Father Frost had arrived on the Friday, as promised, and gone straight into the staff room, said "Cold, isn't it?", and fallen into a deep sleep in the comfy chair. Missus Tibbs said this was perfectly normal for him and we weren't to wake him until Wednesday. So we hadn't.

But this was somebody else.

He was an old man, with a long grey beard that reached his belt, and twinkling eyes the colour of a lake. He wore a thick woollen jumper, and boots, and a pointed hat with a feather in it. In his arms he held a strange wooden instrument shaped like a triangle, with five strings across it, like a tiny harp lying on its side.

His badge said Mister Väinö, Choir and Sauna.

He sat on the low wall by the gate, and he plucked a string. A single clear note rippled across the playground. And above his head, a snowflake that had been falling slowly stopped, and hung in the air, turning round and round, as if it were listening.

"Hello, little one," he said to it, in a gentle, creaky voice. "Would you like a song?"

He started to play.

Foxes came out of the hedge. A bear (a real one, brown and shaggy) wandered across the car park and sat down. Every pigeon in the playground landed in a row on the wall, with its head on one side. And Willow, who was sitting on the bench next to Elfine and Marion, shut both golden eyes and began to purr, very slowly, like a small engine winding down.

"I don't understand," whispered Ollie. "Why's there a bear?"

"Ssh," said Alex.

"It's the best song I've ever heard," whispered Felix.

Part Two. Elfine Has a Fact

"I know this one," said Elfine.

She was sitting very straight, with her notebook open on her knee and her pencil forgotten in her hand. Her glasses were fogged up with the cold.

"The instrument is called a kantele," she whispered. "It's from Finland. And I think the man playing it is the oldest hero in a Finnish book called the Kalevala."

"A book of what?" said Marion.

"Stories and songs," said Elfine. "A man walked all over Finland, listening to old singers sing them by the fire, and wrote them down. Some of them were thousands of years old already."

"Who's the hero?" said Felix.

"Väinämöinen," said Elfine, and she said it slowly, like she was carrying something delicate. "Vai-na-moy-nen. We can call him Mister Väinö. He's the first singer. The wisest old man there ever was. His songs can make things happen."

"What sort of things?" said Alex.

"Trees grow. Boats appear. Bad guys sink into bogs," said Elfine. "He was born old, you know."

"Born old?" said Ollie.

"He was already grey and wise when he was born," said Elfine. "He'd been sitting in there thinking about things the whole time."

"That's the best thing I've ever heard," said Marion.

"And he made his own kantele," said Elfine. "From the jawbone of a giant pike. When he played it, every creature in the world came to listen. Bears. Birds. Even the sun and the moon."

Mister Väinö finished his song. The last note hung in the air. And the snowflake, very gently, drifted down onto his hand, and melted.

Part Three. The Little Mill

We found out the next bit on Wednesday, at the Soup Club.

If you remember, Baba Yaga runs the Soup Club every Friday in the dinner hall, with Dot as her assistant. But on Wednesdays she makes the soup base, in the big kitchen, and Dot helps with the flour.

"Look at this," said Dot, pulling Alex and Felix into the pantry. She had flour on her nose, and her tiny white chef's hat on crooked. "It's a secret."

In the corner of the pantry, on a low shelf, sat a little stone mill. It was about the size of a bucket, with a wooden handle, and tiny carvings all round the rim. They looked like waves, and wheat, and stars.

"When you turn the handle," whispered Dot, "it grinds out flour. And salt. And these."

She held out her hand. In her palm lay three small gold coins.

"Chocolate ones," said Dot.

"They're not chocolate," said Felix, after he'd bitten one.

"Chocolate's better," said Alex, who had just tried the second.

"It doesn't run out," said Dot. "Ever. The sack's always full. Even when we make soup for a whole school and half the town, and everybody has three helpings. Baba Yaga says it came with the building. Nobody remembers buying it."

Alex and Felix looked at each other. A small tingle ran down both their backs.

"I think," said Alex slowly, "that Elfine is going to want to see this."

Part Four. The Inspector from the North

She came on Thursday morning, in a snowstorm.

Not a normal snowstorm. This one came from only one direction, straight down the school drive, as if someone was blowing it through a pipe. The snow whirled up the steps, rattled the front door, and when the door opened, there she stood.

She was tall and thin and icy. Her coat was made of grey wolf fur. Her hair was white, and tied up in a point. Her earrings were two long icicles that chimed when she moved. Her breath came out in sharp white puffs, and everywhere she stepped, tiny crystals of frost spread across the floor.

She carried a clipboard. It was frozen to her hand.

Her badge said Inspector Louhi, Northern Office.

"Good morning," said the Inspector. Her voice was as thin and cold as a draught under a door. "I am here to inspect this school. Please do not fidget."

Mister Harris went the colour of a boiled egg. "Of course," he stammered. "We're ready for anything. Would you like a cup of tea?"

"No," said the Inspector. "Tea is for people who have time to be warm."

She walked down the corridor, writing as she went. She wrote about the paint. She wrote about the coat pegs. She wrote about the smell in the hall, which was fried onions. She gave the library two out of ten. She gave the playground one. She looked at Dot's drawing of a sunflower and said, "Hmm."

At lunchtime, she walked into the dinner hall, and stopped dead. She was staring through the kitchen door, at the stone mill on the shelf.

For the first time that day, she smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.

"Ah," said the Inspector. "There you are."

Part Five. Taken for Inspection

By the time we noticed, it was too late.

She was already in the pantry. She had one frozen hand round the handle of the stone mill, and her icicle earrings were ringing like bells. Baba Yaga was shouting. Dot was clutching her apron. Mister Harris had his hands up, saying, "Excuse me, there are procedures."

"This item," said Inspector Louhi, "has been identified as stolen property of the Northern Office. It is hereby confiscated for inspection."

"It's ours!" shouted Dot.

"I made it," said the Inspector. "A very long time ago. And it has been hiding in the wrong cupboard ever since."

She lifted the mill off the shelf. It was glowing. A faint hum of flour and salt and gold filled the room. She wrapped it in her wolf-fur coat, and swept out of the kitchen. The wind howled. A sleigh pulled by six white reindeer was waiting on the field, and the reindeer lifted off the ground, and the sleigh vanished into the snow-clouds with a jingle of bells.

The kitchen was quiet.

Baba Yaga picked up the sack of flour. It was nearly empty. She shook out the last handful, and it fell like dust. She looked at Dot, with tears rolling down her cheeks.

"No Soup Club," she whispered. "No more soup. How will we feed everyone?"

"We'll get it back," said Alex.

"We will," said Felix.

"Together," said both twins.

Part Six. Mister Väinö Knows

Mister Väinö was waiting in the playground.

He had his kantele across his knees, and his beard was white with frost. He looked sad and serious. The foxes and the bear had gone. Only Willow sat beside him, with her ears forward, as if waiting.

"I thought so," he said, when we told him. "That is the Sampo. I made a song about it, long ago."

"The Sampo?" said Elfine, and her pencil fell out of her hand. "The magic mill. It grinds out grain, and salt, and gold, for ever and ever, so that nobody ever goes hungry."

"And Louhi wanted to keep it," said Mister Väinö. "She is the mistress of the North, you see. Where it is cold and dark and nothing grows. So she locked the Sampo inside a mountain with nine locks, and nine roots growing round it, very deep underground."

"How do we get it back?" said Marion.

Mister Väinö looked at the school pond. It was frozen and grey, and silent.

"We sail north," he said.

"On the pond?" said Ollie.

"On the sea," said Mister Väinö. He smiled his gentle smile. "You just have to sing it big enough."

Part Seven. The Sea in the Pond

He sat on the bank, and tuned his five strings. Then he began to play, a low, steady, rolling tune, like waves on a shore. And as he played, he sang. It was an old song in a language none of us knew, but we felt the meaning in our chests.

The ice on the pond cracked. Melted. Rippled. The water spread out wider and wider. It swallowed the reeds. It swallowed the little wooden jetty. The far bank slid away into the distance, until there was nothing but grey sea, stretching to the horizon, with white-capped waves.

Beside us, bobbing on the water, was the school's old rowing boat, the one that Mister Harris keeps upside down behind the shed. It was the right way up now, and it had grown a tall mast, and a red sail, and a carved bird's head at the front.

"All aboard," said Mister Väinö.

Alex and Felix climbed in first. Then Elfine and Marion. Then Dot, who refused to be left behind, in her little chef's hat. Then Kenji, with a tin of biscuits. Ollie stayed behind to hold the fort with Mister Harris. And last of all, Willow stepped delicately over the side, took up position at the very front, and sat like a figurehead, gazing at the horizon with her tail curled round her feet.

"The ship's cat," said Marion, with great pride.

"Everyone hold on," said Mister Väinö. "And whatever happens, keep your voices low. It's the kind of sea that listens."

Part Eight. The Pike

We sailed for what felt like hours.

The grey sea heaved. The red sail billowed. Gulls wheeled overhead, and a cold wind whistled in the ropes. Ahead of us, the horizon was dark with storm-clouds, and the sky had turned the colour of an old saucepan.

Then the boat stopped.

It did not hit a rock. It did not run aground. It simply stopped, with a bump, and tilted a bit to one side.

"We're stuck," said Marion, leaning over the rail. "On something. Something big. And bumpy."

The something shifted. A huge ridged back rose out of the water beneath us, grey-green and shiny, covered in scales as big as dinner plates. A tail the size of a bus swished lazily. And a giant eye, round and golden as a coin, rolled up and looked at us.

"A pike," whispered Elfine. "The giant pike. Remember? In the story, he got stuck on its back too."

"What did he do?" whispered Kenji.

"I think," said Elfine, "he fought it."

"We don't have to fight it," said Felix, quietly. He leaned out over the water, and held out his hand. "Excuse me, Mister Pike. We're so sorry to bother you. We're just trying to get to the North, to rescue something. Could you possibly move?"

The pike blinked. A very deep, rumbling voice, like a rock rolling down a hill, boomed up through the planks. "Nobody has asked me nicely in a thousand years."

"We'll sing you a song if you like," said Alex.

"Both of you?" said the pike.

"Both of us," said Alex and Felix.

They sang the lullaby that their nana sings at bedtime. Alex sang the tune, and Felix sang the harmony, and their voices wove round each other, soft and sweet. The pike's huge eye slid half-closed. His tail went slack. Slowly, slowly, with a happy sigh, he sank beneath the waves, and the boat slid free.

"Thank you," said the pike, drowsily. "Come again."

Part Nine. Pohjola

The North was cold.

It was colder than we had ever been. The sea froze into a sheet of white, and the boat's keel scraped against ice. The sky was dark, even though it was only afternoon. On the shore ahead of us, a black mountain rose out of the snow, steep and jagged, and at the top sat a hall of ice with towers like icicles.

"Pohjola," said Mister Väinö. "The land of the north."

Snow whirled down. Our noses went numb. Dot's hat was frozen to her head. Even Willow shivered, and pressed herself close against Elfine's coat.

We crept up the mountain path, in single file. At the top was a huge door, studded with iron. Two enormous guards stood either side, in thick fur cloaks, holding spears. They were as tall as trees. They had cold, hard faces, and their eyes were wide open.

"What do we do?" whispered Kenji.

Mister Väinö stepped forward. He sat down in the snow. He laid his kantele on his knee. And he began to play.

It was the softest music we had ever heard. It rolled across the mountain like a slow tide. It was a lullaby, but a lullaby for giants, long and deep and slow. And one by one, the guards' eyelids began to droop. Their heads nodded. Their spears slid from their hands. With a great, heavy sigh, they slumped to the ground, and began to snore.

"It works," whispered Marion.

"It works as long as I keep playing," said Mister Väinö. "If I stop, they wake."

Part Ten. Nine Locks

We tiptoed past the snoring guards and pushed open the great door.

Inside was a huge hall of ice, glittering blue in the gloom. In the centre sat the stone mill, glowing gold, sitting on a pedestal. Round it, nine iron chains were wound, each one locked with a massive padlock. Nine roots, thick as tree trunks, grew up through the floor and curled round the base.

"Nine locks," said Marion, running her hand over the chains.

"Nine roots," said Elfine.

"I can do locks," said Marion. She pulled out her ball of string, her tin of oil, and a small bent nail she had found in her pocket. "I'm very good at this."

She knelt by the first padlock. Elfine knelt beside her, holding her notebook. And they started to work. Marion picked and twisted. Elfine read out the old riddle carved round each lock, and told her the answers. Click. Click. Click. One by one, the chains fell away.

"Six," whispered Elfine.

"Seven," whispered Marion.

Outside, Mister Väinö's music wavered. His fingers had gone white. His hands were shaking with cold. The song stumbled, and one string went flat. Far away, a guard stirred in his sleep.

"Mister Väinö!" cried Dot. "Your hands!"

"I can't feel my fingers," whispered Mister Väinö. His voice cracked. "I've been playing for so long. I might have to stop."

"No," said Alex. "Let us."

Part Eleven. The Twins Take the Kantele

Alex and Felix knelt down in the snow, one on each side of the old man.

"We don't know how," said Felix.

"I know," said Mister Väinö. "But your voices are true. And a song is just a feeling, put in order. You know how to feel."

He laid the kantele across their knees. It was heavy, and it hummed under their hands. Alex put his fingers on the three lowest strings. Felix put his on the two highest.

"On three," said Alex.

"One, two, three," said Felix.

They plucked the strings. It wasn't perfect. The first note was a bit wobbly. But the second was clearer, and the third was clear as a bell. And somehow, between them, the music found its way back. It flowed along. Alex played the low part, slow and steady, like a heartbeat. Felix played the high part, bright and sweet, like a bird. And they sang the same bedtime song, in two voices, and one tune.

The guards slept. The wind softened. And inside the hall, Marion and Elfine clicked open the last padlock.

"Nine!" whispered Marion.

"Pull!" said Elfine.

Dot and Kenji pulled. The nine roots curled away like sleepy snakes. And the little stone mill rose from its pedestal into the air, glowing gold, and settled into Marion's arms.

Part Twelve. The Eagle

That was when the hall began to shake.

A great crack ran across the ice floor. The icicles on the ceiling quivered. And a terrible shriek of fury echoed down from the sky.

Inspector Louhi had come home.

She stood at the entrance, tall and white. Her wolf-fur coat blew out round her like wings. Her eyes blazed with cold light. She was holding her clipboard, and it was frozen so hard that it had turned into a spear.

"THIEVES!" she screamed. "That belongs to ME!"

Then she changed.

Her arms became enormous wings. Her nose became a hooked beak. Her coat turned to grey feathers. In the blink of an eye, a gigantic eagle, as large as a lorry, swooped through the doorway, with claws like hooks.

"RUN!" shouted Mister Väinö.

We ran. Alex and Felix dropped the kantele (Mister Väinö caught it), and everyone sprinted for the boat. Marion clung to the mill. Elfine held Dot's hand. Willow streaked down the mountain like a spotted comet. Behind us, the eagle shrieked and dived.

"The boat!" yelled Kenji.

We tumbled aboard, shoved off the ice, and the red sail caught the wind. But the eagle was right behind us. She dived, her claws outstretched, and seized the mill from Marion's arms.

Part Thirteen. The Tug of War

"Let go!" shouted Marion.

"Never!" screamed the eagle.

The mill was caught between them. Marion held on with both hands. The eagle held on with both claws. The boat rocked and tilted. Spray flew everywhere. Mister Väinö was playing as fast as he could, but his hands were so cold he could barely strum.

Then a spotted streak shot across the deck. Willow leapt, landed on the mill with all four paws, and hooked her claws round its rim. The eagle's dive stopped dead. She could not lift it. Not with a cat on it.

"Everyone pull!" shouted Alex.

"Together!" shouted Felix.

We all grabbed hold. Elfine caught Marion round the waist. Dot caught Elfine. Kenji caught Dot. The twins caught Kenji. And the whole line of us hauled, back and back, with Willow still holding on tight, and Mister Väinö playing a wild, fast song.

The eagle pulled. We pulled. Everything went tight, like a stretched elastic band.

Then something went CRACK.

The stone mill split in two. It broke into a thousand pieces. Sparkling fragments of gold and stone flew out in every direction, and plunged into the sea. Splash. Splash. Splash. Some sank in the deep. Some drifted on the waves. A few tiny pieces washed ashore on the far side of the sea. And the eagle was left, wobbling in the sky, holding just the lid, an ordinary stone lid with a handle.

"My Sampo," she whispered.

She spiralled down, and landed on the ice, and changed back into a tall, white-haired woman in a wolf-fur coat, standing alone, with a lid in her hands.

Part Fourteen. The Inspector's Report

We came ashore on a stony beach, in a thin grey light. The snow had stopped. The wind had dropped. And Inspector Louhi was still there, standing at the edge of the water, holding her lid.

She looked smaller than she had before. Her icicle earrings hung still. Her clipboard had melted back to a plain brown board, and the pages fluttered. She was shivering. And she was crying.

"Nobody ever invites the North," she said. Her voice was thin and shaky. "They say it's too cold. Too dark. Too far away. They go to the sunny places. And I wanted something of my own. Something that makes plenty. Something good. So I made a mill. And everyone said I was a thief."

Alex looked at Felix. Felix looked at Alex. They didn't have to say anything.

"You took our mill," said Alex.

"That wasn't kind," said Felix.

"But we understand," said Alex. "It's hard to be left out."

"And you're an inspector," said Felix. "So you spend all day looking for what's wrong. You don't see what's right."

Louhi stared at them.

"We can show you," said Alex. "Come back to school. Walk round again. Only this time, look for the good bits."

"Find three things you like," said Felix. "Just three."

Inspector Louhi sniffed. She looked at her clipboard. She looked at the sea. And, very slowly, she nodded.

Part Fifteen. Three Good Things

Mister Väinö sang us home.

The red sail lifted, and the grey sea shrank, and a warm wind carried us back across the pond. Louhi sat in the stern, with her fur coat around her, saying nothing. When we landed, the frost on the field had gone, and a pale yellow sun was shining.

We took her on a tour. We showed her the library, with its beanbags and its map of the world. She stopped at the shelf of books and ran her finger along the spines. We showed her the playground, where Reception were building a snowman. She watched Dot give it a carrot nose. We showed her the dinner hall, where Baba Yaga was ladling out soup from the biggest pot in the world, with a very sad look on her face.

"Mmm," said Louhi.

She took a spoonful. She went very still. Then she wrote something on her clipboard.

"What did you write?" said Dot.

The Inspector read it out, in a small, strange voice. "Good thing number one. The soup."

She walked on. She watched Alex and Felix's class singing, with Mister Väinö conducting. She wrote: "Good thing number two. The singing." And at the end of the corridor, she stopped by Dot's drawing of a sunflower. She looked at it for a long time.

"Good thing number three," she said softly. "The sunflower. It's very yellow."

Dot burst into a huge smile.

"I'm going to give this school an Outstanding," said Louhi. She sounded as if she couldn't quite believe it. "I've never given one before."

Part Sixteen. The Real Sampo

The Sampo never did come back.

The pieces that fell in the sea became the salt in the waves, and the shimmer on the fish. The ones that washed ashore became lucky stones, and Mister Väinö gathered every one he could find and planted them in the school garden. By spring, the vegetable patch grew twice as tall as anyone expected.

But Soup Club carried on, just as before.

We turned up on Friday and found the dinner hall full of people. Every family in our class had brought something. Nana brought a bag of potatoes. Missus Tibbs brought a sack of flour. Maya's dad brought three kilos of carrots. Even Mister Raven turned up, with a bag of shiny things he'd collected, which turned out to be a very nice set of spoons. Everyone had brought what they could.

Baba Yaga looked at the pile, and Dot looked at Baba Yaga.

"Where did it all come from?" said Dot.

"From all of you," said Mister Väinö, from the corner, plucking a gentle chord. "That was the secret of the Sampo. People think it was a stone with magic inside it. But the real magic was in turning the handle. Everyone in the village, together, grinding a little each. That's where plenty comes from. From everyone giving a bit."

"So we don't need the mill," said Alex.

"We never did," said Felix.

Louhi, at the back, with a bowl of soup in her hands, wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "I'd like to come again," she said gruffly. "If that's allowed."

"Friday," said Baba Yaga, with a toothy smile. "Bring a spoon."

Part Seventeen. The Staff Room Door

On Wednesday, just as Missus Tibbs had promised, the staff room door creaked open.

It was late afternoon. The sun was going down behind the sports hall, and the playground was silver with frost. We were all out there, in our coats: Alex and Felix, Elfine and Marion, Dot and Kenji, Willow sitting on a post, and Mister Väinö with his kantele, tuning a string.

A figure stepped out of the staff room into the cold air.

He was very, very tall. He wore a long blue coat trimmed with white fur, and a tall hat. His beard, thick and white and sparkling with frost, reached down to his knees. In his right hand he held a long staff with a crystal on the top. He yawned an enormous yawn, and a small blizzard came out of his mouth.

"Is it Wednesday?" said Father Frost. His voice was like ice cracking on a lake. "I've had a lovely sleep. Was there something I was meant to be doing?"

Behind him, in the doorway, a girl in a shimmering silver dress was building a tiny snow-owl out of nothing.

Every head in the playground turned. Mister Väinö's hand paused on the strings. Baba Yaga, in the kitchen window, stopped stirring. Willow's whiskers quivered.

"Why can't he remember what he came for?" whispered Felix.

"And what is she building?" whispered Alex.

Nobody knew. Everyone looked at Alex and Felix. The twins looked at each other, with their breath rising in soft white puffs, and the playground went quiet. They said, at exactly the same time, "Monday."

The End.