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favourite rock pool. He put his surf shorts on and went through to the kitchen to make his breakfast.
    “Happy birthday, son,” said his father, “I’ve got a present for you.” Ragnor was up and dressed. He seemed excited and nervous. Magnus Fin felt the excitement transfer to him till a shudder ran up his spine. Suddenly he remembered – the story! Today he would hear this strange story. His heart missed a beat. Normally he enjoyed his breakfast cereal, but today he couldn’t eat.
    “I want you to come with me to the cave,” continued his father, “soon as you’re ready. Remember I told you? Well, son, now you’re eleven, it’s time for the story.”
    “I’m ready,” Magnus Fin said, pushing aside his bowl of untouched Rice Krispies. The thought crossed his mind whether, now he was eleven, he should still be eating Rice Krispies, or should he be having something grown-up instead, like muesli? Tarkin ate muesli.
    Magnus Fin was at the front door in two minutes. He could feel his eleven-year-old heart thudding in his ribs. He was trembling with fear and excitement. He loved stories, but somehow he felt that this birthday story would not be like the other stories. “You’ll be shocked,” that’s what his father had said. Magnus Fin’s stomach was a flutter of butterflies.
    Just as father and son were about to leave the house they heard Barbara call out from her bedroom, “Magnus. Happy birthday, Magnus.”
    “Give her a hug, son,” Ragnor said, “go on.”
    Magnus Fin ran through to where his mother lay propped up in bed. “Here is the best present,” she said, reaching over to her son and giving him a warm hug. Magnus Fin smiled at his mother, for once not seeing the aged face but only the warm brown eyes. Then he ran out to where his father stood at the garden gate.
    “Come on then, birthday boy,” said his father, and the two of them set off for the cave. The sun was already high in the sky and sparkling on the water. Ragnor’s cave was a good twenty-minute walk along the shore at the slow pace he walked.
    The cave was deep enough to shelter from the rain and wind, and there was many a day that Ragnor sought out his beach cave. No one knew what he did there, and though there were rumours enough, no one from the village ever came to find out. The truth was he sat there, he made fires there, he gazed out to sea there, he sang his old songs and sometimes he slept there. In the old days he and Barbara had done their courting there, but nowadays this cave was a place Ragnor went to be alone.
    Magnus Fin watched his father limp across the rocks while he himself jumped lightly from stone to stone. He wondered if Ragnor would ever make it. On the sand they walked side by side and eventually reached the mouth of the cave.
    Magnus Fin stared in. It had changed since the last time he was there. His father had made a seat from stones. There was even a small stone table and in the middle of the cave there was a dug-out fireplace surrounded by a circle of stones. Everything was neat. There were natural shelves in the cave where the rock jutted inwards. Here Ragnor had placed stubs of candle and circles of shells. There was even, Magnus noticed, what looked like a drawing of a seal or mermaid on the cave wall. Fin had never seen it before. Perhaps he had never looked closely enough – or perhaps they had come to a different cave.
    “It’s cosy in here,” said Magnus. “You’ve got it like home, Dad.”
    “It is in a way. And it’s fine and quiet. Sit yourself down, son,” Ragnor said, nodding in thedirection of the stone seat. For a long time Ragnor didn’t speak. Magnus Fin sat on the seat and waited. His father arranged driftwood into a spire then sparked the dry wood into life. It crackled and soon a strip of smoke curled up and wafted towards the mouth of the cave.
    “Rare smell, isn’t it?” Ragnor said, sitting on the stone table because there was only one seat. Magnus Fin nodded. It