The Dreamer's Page

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The Sea
Once upon a time there was a little boy, who lived in a house by the seaside. He kept dreaming about the sea, ships and foreign countries. His daddy worked as a pilot and his mother was always busy, and had no time for him, so he was lonely and even became bullied.

Once a big ship came to the harbour of his town. The boy sat on a bench and read a newspaper, that somebody had forgotten on the bench, when he first noticed the ship.

Suddenly his eyes were set on an advertisement in the newspaper, which said that the captain of this very ship needed a deck hand, but when he saw that you had to be at least 10 years for the job a deep sigh was heard. The boy was only 6 years old.

He started to walk slowly down the road, when all of a sudden the first mate from the ship appeared in front of him. The boy politely greeted the first mate and they started to talk. After a little while the first mate said: "You would be a perfect deck hand!" Then the little boy followed the first mate back to the ship, but the captain said to the little boy: "You would not even manage to climb up the mast!" "Surely I am able to!", exclaimed the little boy, and agilely climbed up the mast. "Well, you will be better as time goes on", said the captain, who did not wish to give too much praise to the quick boy.

The little boy got the work as a deck hand, but after the ship had come out on the sea the trouble started. On the ship there was another deck hand, who was very mean and he often hit the little boy. The boy eventually fell in love with a little girl named Sofia, who worked in the galley, and the other deck hand now filled with jealousy became even worse, because he had never succeeded to win any lady´s heart, and in the dark night he sneaked into the little boy´s cabin with the intention of beating him up. The boy was beaten so badly that he started to bleed, but right then Sofia turned up and saw what was happening.

The little boy wanted to be brave when Sofia saw him, so for the first time he hit back, and the other deck hand, who really was a coward like the bullies often are, immediately went away. After that the little boy was left in peace, and he spent almost all of his time off duty with Sofia. One day the captain said that the ship would go to the little boy´s home-town, and the little boy was overjoyed.

Now the little boy and Sofia signed off the ship. Safe and sound at the little boy´s home they told his family about all of their adventures, and then the little boy´s father in his turn told them that he had sold everything the family owned and had bought a boat, which they would live in. The little boy gave some gifts to his family and he gave a beautiful necklace of pearls to Sofia. Among the gifts was a parrot that from now on woke up the family to the daily chores from its cage in the ceiling of the saloon of the boat, and now the whole happy family sailed away from all schools and tommy-rot.

Peter Dreamer (9 years)
(Written 1997)

The Big Storm
Once upon a time there was a boy named Zach who was offered a work as a deck hand on a big ship. The following day he was going to sail away. He was very sad he had to leave his mum and his dad, but otherwise the house-owner would have taken the house they lived in, because they had not paid their rent. Zach´s father had lost his job, so Zach had to go out into the world to earn some money, since there was no work for him in his home-town.

The first day at sea, when Zach was laying in his cabin, there suddenly broke out a big storm and all the sailors of the ship became worried, and some of them left the ship in the lifeboats. The boy saw a cat which he tried to save, but when trying to save the cat he was washed overboard.

The next day he woke up on a beach. It looked like he was on an Island and he saw many things that had floated ashore from the ship. He took some of the things and put them under a tree. When looking around he even found his best friend from the ship, Jack. He then helped his friend, who was exhausted, and had him lay down beside the stuff he had collected.

Zach started to build a little hut and when he was done, he dragged all the collected things into the hut, which he had built out of planks that had been torn off from the ship.

The day after the building of the hut the boys went out to explore the Island. When they came back to the hut it started to rain heavily and the lightning stroke right and left. When they came into their dry hiding-place they heard something howl outside. Suddenly the lightning stroke right into their little hut and made a big hole in one of its walls. The rain was pouring down and they had to repair the hole. They then decided to take a towel and put it into the hole, because for the moment they had nothing else handy to repair the hole with.

When the storm had calmed down the boys went out to look for the animal that earlier had been howling outside and they finally found a wet, lonely and very scared little dog. They brought the dog inside their hut and put a coat on it, but even the boys were freezing so severely that they were convinced they would not make it through another night.

The boys then decided to take their binoculars and go outside to look for a ship. Suddenly Jack spotted something on the horizon. They hastily made a fire and started to wave with some flags floated ashore from the shipwreck and the crew of the arriving ship noticed them and came to their rescue. Jack´s and Zach´s parents were on this ship, too, and they were just overjoyed to see the boys alive and healthy and told them they had heard the radio-officer from the boy´s ship call for help just before the shipwreck had taken place.

Now happily together with their parents on their way back home the boys had their new-found friend, the dog, and afterwards safe and sound at Zach´s home they got some money from an insurance-company, and could have bought the house, that Zach used to live in with this money, but they decided not do so. Instead they bought a sailing-boat and the whole family together with Jack set off for the sea. A couple of years later both these boys were married to Australian girls in Tasmania.

Peter Dreamer (10 years)

Sail away, seaman
Sell up and sail to the sea and sun
to where the people have guaranteed fun
so pack your bags and sail away
to where the daring have full sway

Peter Dreamer (10 years)

(Published 1998)