A Keepers Job
After the view, Mrs Kvist showed them how the lamp worked. The lamp was huge. The light could be seen for thirty miles on a dark night.
"Why is it that bright?" asked Bo.
"Because boats need to see it from far away. The flash pattern tells them which lighthouse this is. Every lighthouse has a different pattern. Ours is *one long flash, two short, one long*. Like a sentence in code."
"You're a code-keeper," said Liv, very impressed.
"I am, in a way," said Mrs Kvist.
"Don't you get lonely?" asked Eyo.
Mrs Kvist thought.
"Sometimes. But I have my work, and I have my dog, and I have visiting classes like yours, and I have the sea. The sea is busy. There are seals, sometimes. There are storms, often. There is always something."
The class looked out at the sea again.
When they finally went down (more carefully than they came up; some children had jelly legs), Mrs Kvist gave them each a small piece of paper. The paper had her lighthouse's flash pattern on it: one long, two short, one long.
"Memorise it," she said. "If you're ever on the sea at night and you see this pattern, you'll know you're near home."
The class promised they would.
On the bus home, Liv slept against Eyo's shoulder. Eyo did not mind. Bo and Marek played their flash-pattern game, blinking their hands at each other like very small lighthouses.
Mr Halpern, very tired, smiled at Mrs Kvist's gift.
It had