Tim All Alone by Edward Ardizzone

5

Part I

One day, after a long holiday, Tim came back to the little house by the sea where he lived with his father and mother. He wanted to see them very much. But when he came up to the door, he could not open it. There was nobody in the house. Then he saw a piece of paper on the door with the words:

Gone away. House to let.

Tim did not understand anything. Why did his parents go away? Where did they go to? He sat down and cried a little. Then he got up and went to look for his parents.

It was already 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Tim had no money, so he stopped at a farm-house and asked the farmer to give him a bed for the night. “You can sleep here,” said the farmer, “and I shall give you supper and breakfast too, but for this you must work in my potato field.”

When night came and Tim could lie down and rest, he was so tired that he fell asleep very quickly.

At breakfast the next morning, Tim told his story. The farmer’s wife was sorry for him, so when he came to her to say good-bye, she gave him some bread and butter and two big apples, and put some money in his pocket, and gave him a kiss.

Tim’s plan was to find work on one of the small ships. These ships stopped at all the little ports where he could ask about his parents. “They love the sea,” he said to himself, “I know that they will live near the sea.”

So he went to the nearest little seaport town. There he saw a little old ship the “Amelia Jane”. He saw the captain and told him his story and the captain took Tim on as a sailor.

Part II

When the ship was at sea, Tim had much work to do and he had no time to be sad. At every little port which they stopped at (and there were very many of them), Tim left the ship and went into the town. There he asked different people about his father and mother. But nobody could tell him anything, and Tim was always sad when he went back to his ship. But the “Amelia Jane” was a happy ship and all the sailors on it were kind to Tim. So he was not sad very long.

One day the “Amelia Jane” came to a small port. Tim again went on shore and asked people about his parents. He met a woman in the street and asked her, too. “What! Have you lost your parents?” said the woman. “Then you must come with me to the home for lost children,” and she caught Tim by the arm.

“No, no,” cried Tim, “I don’t want to go to a home for lost children. I am a sailor and I must go to my ship now. It will go out to sea soon. Please, let me go!” But the woman held him by the arm, and Tim had to go with her. They came to a big, dark house with a big, dark door.

“Here we are,” said the woman. She took out a big key and began to open the door. At that moment Tim gave her a push. The key fell down to the ground. When the woman wanted to pick it up, Tim ran as quickly as he could back to the port. But when he got there, he saw that the “Amelia Jane” was out in the open sea.

Tim was afraid of the woman and he decided to hide. He saw another ship, went on deck and hid under one of the boats. Soon this ship also went out to sea.

The captain gave the order to leave the ship. All the sailors ran to the boats, but Tim remembered the cat.

“Oh, the poor cat,” he cried, “I must find him,” and he ran back. He found the cat and caught him and wanted to run to one of the boats when he saw the fire near him. Tim jumped into the sea with the cat in his arms and swam. When he was in the water, he put the cat on his back. Tim could swim well, so he did not drown. Soon he saw a boat and they got into it.

All that day the boy and the cat were out in the open sea, but in the evening the waves carried the boat to the shore. They got out of the boat and walked. Soon they were in the streets of a small town.

They stopped at a cafe and looked through the windows. They were cold and hungry, but Tim had no money. Then Tim saw a woman at one of the tables. He looked and looked. Then he saw that it was his mother!

In a moment Tim was in the cafe and in his mother’s arms. How happy they were!

Tim’s mother told him that when he was on holiday, they read in a newspaper about a tourist ship that went down at sea with all the people who were on it. By some terrible mistake Tim’s name was there too. The parents were so sad that they decided to leave their house.

Tim told his mother about his adventures and showed her the ship’s cat. The next day Tim and his parents and the cat all went back to the little house by the sea.