 I am excited to read to you the seething child by Russell Cobain and illustrated by Patrick Bidson. Here, the wind was howling, the sea was wild and the night was black when the storm flung the seething child up on the beach. In the morning the sky was fresh and clean, the beach was littered with seaweed and there he lay a little blackheath of scales and feathers all alone. Alone he was and behind him the ocean roared and shook its fist. He lay there howling not very loud. Ow! Ow! Ow! While the foam washed over him and went hissing away again. He was too little to swim very well and hadn't learned to fly yet. He was nothing but a little draggled heap of fright. Very little draggled heap of fright. After a while he crawled up among the big old seaweed-bearded rocks by a tide pool and he went to sleep there, cheaping softly to himself. When he woke up he ate some seaweed and some mussels and he felt stronger. He listened to the pebbles clicking in the tide wash as the tide came in. Then he gathered up some round stones and some broken bits of bottles, cups and saucers that the sea and the sand had smoothed to lumps of sea glass. And sea china. He built a sea stone igloo all around himself with no door and no window. There he sat inside it, breathing hard and making faces. After a while he heard a thin whispering voice yelling, Oh, if only I had a bow what music I could play. The voice sounded as if it came from something smaller than the seething child. So he peeped through the space between the stones of his igloo. He saw a fiddler crab waving his fiddle and shouting, Oh, oh, oh, if only I had a bow what music I could play. Walruses and great green turtles from the track us deep would gather to the sound of my fiddling, yes. The seething child pushed some stones off the top of his igloo and stuck his head out. Why don't you have a bow? What a brutal question, said the crab and began to cry. The seething child began to cry too. When they finished crying, the seething child said, but why don't you have a bow? If the fiddler crabs had bows, said the crab, the noise of their fiddling would be deafening and nobody could hear the long, long magic of the silent curb arching beneath the day's long sky. As far as I can see, you are nobody and if you come out of nowhere and you want to change everything. But you were the one who was complaining, the seething child said, I wasn't. Oh, oh, said the crab, his eyes stopped straight up. I was not complaining and everything was all right until you showed up. If you say so, said the seething child, he pulled his head back into his sea stone igloo, put the stones back on top and sat in the dark and made faces. And after a while, the crab said, are you there? Yes, said the seething child. Do you still think I should have a bow, said the crab? I don't want to make trouble, said the seething child. I want you to be frank with me, said the crab. The seething child stuck his head out of his igloo. How many fiddler crabs are there around here? he said. I am the only one, said the crab. This is a one fiddler crab beach. In that case, said the seething child, I think the sound of your fiddle would make one hear even better, the long, long magic curve of silence. Thank you, said the crab, and he began to cry. Why are you crying now, said the seething child. I don't want to talk about it, the crab sniffled and sobbed. Let us put this matter off to another time and go strolling in the foam. The seething child looked out at the white foam. The sparkling surf, the green waves and the deep, dark blue line of the ocean where it met the sky. And then he pulled his head in and put the stones back on top of his sea stone igloo. I don't want to go strolling in the foam, he said. All right, said the crab, but will you come out and play? What do you want to play, said the seething child. Stones, said the crab. Yes, said the seething child, and he took off the top of his igloo and came out. And he and the crab played stones all afternoon, and while they played, they sang. Perfectly round, seldom found, but egg shapes are a bounding. The seething child was restless in the night, and he left igloo and went for a walk on the beach all alone. Not very close to the edge of the water where the white foam gleamed in the dark. He walked to where a river round down to the sea, and there he heard an eel singing as it came down the river. Fresh to salt, salt to deep, need must find. Finding nose, water goes, fresh to salt, salt to deep, deep to finding. Where are you going? asked the seething child. Far and deep, said the eel, far and deep. The seething child looked at the ocean that was black in the night. How will you find your way? he asked. Finding nose, said the eel, dark in the stars shine on the river. The finding is in me, and the finding finds the way. Of what? said the eel, aren't you afraid? said the seething child. Of what? said the eel, slipping through the water, tasting it in his mouth, the sea brine, and the salt night. Of the deepness and the darkness, in the farness of the sea, said the seething child. When the eel answered, he was out beyond the foam, and his voice was almost lost in the slap and gurgle of the waves. Born from the sea, he called and headed for the deep. The next day, the seething child fussed with his igoo all morning, and when the fiddler crab came to visit him, he said that he did not want to play stones again. Perhaps today is a good day for strolling in the foam, said the crab. Why don't you make a bow for your fiddle, said the seething child, and then you can play beautiful music while we stroll in the foam. And perhaps the walruses and green turtles will come strolling in the foam with us. When the crab heard that, he scuttled into his hole and cried all afternoon. That night, the seething child took his igloo apart and scattered his sea stones and sea glass and sea china all over the beach. He went down to the edge of the foam that gleamed in the dark, and he smelled the salt air and listened to the surf. He waited in and out and felt the dark water flow past his tail. He went deeper, and it wet the scales on his belly. The water was warm, but he knew that further out he would feel the cold coming up from the deeps. A little wave broke over his head and ran past, and then the bottom tried to slide away from under his feet and pulled him out to the deep water with it. He said, the seething child. He came out of the water and ran up to the big old seaweed-bearded rocks. He built his igloo all around him again with no door and no window, and he went to sleep, cheaping in the dark. The fiddler crab and the seething child had very little to say to each other for a while. The seething child kept making igloos and taking them apart, and as time passed, he had to make them bigger and bigger because he was growing fast. One day, an albatross landed on the beach, pulled a little stubby pipe out and sat down to have a smoke. The fiddler crab hid among the rocks, but the seething child came over to talk to the albatross. Aloy, said the albatross, nice beach you've got here, good landing strip, good fishing, good rocks, nice place. He puffed, big clouds of smoke from his little black pipe and stared out to sea with fearless eyes. You don't happen to play the fiddle or anything like that, do you? I like a bit of music and fun when I am ashore. No, said the seething child, but I have a friend who has a fiddle. No boat, said the fiddler crab from his hiding place in the rocks. Oh well, said the albatross, I'll just sit a while and enjoy the view then. Fine day, sea for miles, lovely wind, good flying, made know how well it was I do you being a seething. Yes, said the seething child, I am a seething. I fly and swim just like me, said the albatross, but you can go under too. You can go the deep swimming. What have you seen down in the deeps? I've never seen anything, said the seething child, except the big storm that blew me out of my nest and washed me up here. Don't tell me you've been on the beach all this time, said the albatross. Yes, I have, said the seething child. How come, asked the albatross? Well, the storm, you know, said the seething child, and the wind and the waves and the dark and the ocean being so big and me so small. Small, said the albatross. What isn't small compared to the ocean? The blue whale is the biggest thing that swims, and that is small in the ocean. If the ocean weren't so big, it wouldn't be the ocean. The whale is whale-sized. I'm albatross-sized, and you're seething-sized. What more do you want? He stood up and brushed the sand off his bottom. You are never afraid, said the seething child, not afraid of getting lost in the middle of the ocean, not afraid of the storms and the dark and the wind howling all around you. There's no such thing as an afraid albatross, said the albatross. The ocean wouldn't be the ocean without storms, and the ocean is where I live. How can you get lost when you're where you live? I was born on a rock in the middle of the ocean, and wandering is my name. He knocked the ash from his pipe and turned into the wind. Clear the runway, he said. I'm taking off. He started his run, flapped his wings hard, and went up into the air. The seething child watched the albatross fly out of sight. Then he went back to one of the big old seaweed-bearded rocks and sat on it all afternoon, looking out to the sea until the sky grew dark. The seething child stopped building igloos, but sometimes he made little heaps of stone and sea glass and sea china and drew a circle in the sand around them and sat inside the circle. Do you make a break in the circle when you want to come out or do you just step over it? said the crab. I have to make a break in the circle, of course, said the seething child, but that's much less bother than moving stones and much easier to close up again. Yes, said the crab. That's very sensible. It's a fine day. Perhaps we might take a walk among the rocks. Why don't we stroll in the foam? said the seething child. In the foam, said the crab. Right in it you mean where it's wet? Yes, said the seething child. He rubbed out just enough of the circle so that they could walk through the space and then he closed it up again and they went strolling in the foam, singing the song the sea sang. Breathing and sighing far and deep, his singing and foaming never sleep. At night the seething child felt more and more restless. He looked up at the stars and when he closed his eyes he went on seeing the stars in his mind. He could not sleep unless he was facing a particular star that burned and flickered over the sea and when he slept he dreamed of wind rushing past him. He dreamed of the ocean too, black and heaving in the night. Sometimes under him, sometimes over him, he would run along the beach in the dark, cheaping to himself and then he would come back to his circle and every night before he went to sleep he drew a second circle around the first one. One day when the seething child woke up, the sky was gray, the sea was rough and huge, the air hummed. The seething child stayed inside his double circle all day staring at the ocean. And while the crab came and stood outside the double circle with his eye stalk turned away from the seething child, you never want to play stones anymore, he said. You never want to stroll in the foam. You are tired of listening to my lies. What lies, said the seething child? My lies about what I could do if I had a bow, said the crab. But you don't have a bow, said the seething child. With a bit of bone and seaweed I can make one, said the crab. But what if I have no music in me? Need must find, said the seething child. Find what? said the crab. Whatever there is, said the seething child. All right, said the crab. I'll make the bow. Will you stay then and not go away? I never said I was going away, said the seething child. At night I hear you running in the dark, said the crab. Sometimes I see you looking at the stars and I hear something in the wind. What do you hear in the wind, said the seething child. Whatever there is, said the crab. That night the seething child heard the air humming. He looked up at the sky for the star that he always looked at, but it was blotted out. He could not see the star with his eyes, but in the dark of his mind he saw it burning and flickering over the sea. The humming of the air grew louder and the seething child stepped out of his double circle and faced into the wind. The ocean was high and wild and the sky and the sea roared together, heaving in the dark. The seething child spread his wings to keep from falling down and the wind blew him backward. He moved forward against the wind and then he began to run faster and faster. The beach slipped away from under him. He laughed and flapped his wings and left the ground behind. When the crab heard the beating of his wings he came out of his hole and looked up. Whatever there is, he shouted, whatever there is called the seething child. He swooped down through the dark and dived through the wild waves into the blackness below. Rose up out of the foam, soared into the night and away into the storm over the ocean he was born in.