Young Storykeeper Volume III

188 | STORYKEEPERS VOLUME III AGE TEN | 189
THE LIGHTHOUSE MUSEUM
“Welcome to the museum! I’m the museum curator and I’m now going
to tell you a story. The story of how I came to be here today, in fact I was
about your age.” That was what Lucy Young said to a group of eager
schoolchildren visiting the lighthouse museum.
I’m going to tell you exactly what Lucy said to those schoolchildren.
So, here’s her story.
Lucy was sitting out at the front of the lighthouse. She loved the
lighthouse like a young child loves their favourite teddy. She also was
very good friends with the lighthouse keeper, Tom Wilkins. Everyone
called him Old Tom. Therefore, when she heard a group of girls from
school saying that Tom was being kicked out of the lighthouse because
they were putting in an automatic bulb, Lucy was absolutely horrified!
She needed to find out more and the best way to find out more was to
talk to Tom.
And talk was what she did! Lucy asked many questions - it’s the
only way to get answers, really! Tom wasn’t a very talkative man, he kept
things to himself but that’s only because he never had or has anyone to
confide all his worries to. Inwardly, Tom was very pleased that someone
wanted to help him, but at the same time he didn’t want to worry Lucy
with all his worries. Yet he found himself pouring out everything to her,
about how all his life he had been pursued and told what to do by a big
company wanting to change the lighthouse bulb into an automatic one.
Lucy thought for a second and then replied to Tom, “We cannot
let you be torn away from this wonderful building! We have got to do
something!”
“There is nothing to do about this situation,” Tom replied sadly.
On her way home that day, an idea suddenly spread across Lucy’s
mind. She thought about it for the rest of the day and decided to propose
her plan to Tom the following night. The next day she presented her idea
to the old man. Tom thought, Well there’s a young girl with a plan!
They had arranged a meeting with Lighthouse Improvement Ltd.
on Saturday afternoon at midday. An idea about this meeting suddenly
dawned on Lucy: What if it all went wrong?
What if Tom was reduced to one of those poor homeless people
who have been torn away from that wonderful occupation of lighthouse
keeper? Overall, the meeting went well, just as Lucy had planned. The
idea was that Tom could stay and since the lighthouse was so old and
had loads of valuable artefacts - it could be turned into a museum. The
company agreed, Tom could stay and run the museum. Lucy saved Tom’s
home and when he became to old to run the museum, Lucy took over.
“And that children, is how I came to be here today,” said Lucy to
those eager schoolchildren as the story ended.
Ella Dodds
Co Down
TWINS IN TROUBLE
Last summer the MacDonncha family moved!
Ciara and Lily had spent their whole life living in Dublin. Now theywere
moving to Connemara. Colman, Lily and Ciara’s dad, needed a better paid
job and their mom Olive agreed.
They drove for hours until they saw something big ahead. It was a red
and white tower. Colman said it was a lighthouse. It had been built 300 years
ago to help the fishermen . As they approached, a small boy came out of
the lighthouse and said, “Hello. Are you the MacDonncha family?”
He said he was Owen Lawlor. He was 11 and he told them that he lived
in the lighthouse. Owen was their new neighbour.
Noah, Owen’s identical twin brother, arrived and said, “I see you girls are
identical twins too.”
They all started to make plans. Every night at 10pm sharp the girls
would come over and they’d go for a swim in the sea. It was so exciting!
They would upstairs at bedtime, climb out the window and go down to the
ground using an old washing line. Then the boys got out the side of the
lighthouse and down the ladder to the outside.
One night, they all ran to the beach - the boys got in the water first and
started swimming. When the girls got there, they put their toes in and started
screaming as the water was so cold. The boys said the water was lovely and
warm, so Lily got in and finally Ciara was pushed in by everyone! They were
having lots of fun when Noah went a bit further out.
“Come on guys, it deeper over here!”
Ciara and Owen swam over to Noah, but Lily stayed back because
she was worried about going out too far. She was right. Noah went a little
further and started to climb on a big buoy but slipped and banged his head.
He said he was okay, but he wasn’t. Lily was close to land so she got out
and ran fast as she could to the lighthouse. Noah and Owen’s dad was
asleep. When he heard the story, he was really mad, but he didn’t have time
to be mad. He didn’t have time to get the ladder out, so he jumped from the
lighthouse.
He ran to the water and started to swim towards Noah, who was just
about hanging on to the buoy. Noah was still breathing, but his eyes were
closed. He got Noah out of the water and ran with him to his car. The
hospital was far away so he drove over the speed limit. A Garda tried to pull
him over, but Noah’s dad didn’t stop. He loved Noah too much and didn’t
want anything bad to happen to him.
After a few days, they heard news that Noah was alive but had lost five
teeth, his arm was broken, he had concussion and had a huge scar on his
face.
Owen and Noah were not identical twins anymore!
Ciara MacDonncha
Co Dublin
.