The Island That Grew Out of the Sea in 1963
The Island That Grew Out of the Sea in 1963 — a science story. 10 illustrated pages, narrated, on the kids shelf, free to read on Wonder Science.
Page 1
Grey dawn light crept over the harbour as the crew of the Ísleifur II worked the quay, rolling heavy barrels along the planks and hauling crates of salted fish up the gangway, waist-high stacks swaying with each heave. Halla balanced along the harbour wall, arms out like a gull's wings, when she froze and flung her arm south-west. "Look! Look at that!" she shouted, pointing at a towering black column boiling up from the open sea beyond the skerries. Pétur dropped the rope he was coiling and spun around, mouth falling open. But nobody noticed the barrel Baldur had set down too near the slope — it tipped, rolled, and went rumbling down the wet pier, gathering speed toward the edge. Baldur lunged, boot stamping flat against the rolling wood, stopping it dead with a thud that shook the planks. "Eyes on your work, not the sky, before we lose the whole catch to the sea!" he barked, though even he couldn't help glancing south-west himself, past the black cliff of Heimaklettur, toward that strange smoking tower rising where no land had ever been.
Page 2
The sky over Ísleifur II turned the colour of wet slate as warm ash came rattling down like hail, bouncing off the deck boards and pinging off the wheelhouse glass. Pétur yelped and spun round, grabbing his camera and shoving it deep inside his windbreaker, hunching his bony shoulders over it to keep the lens clean. Baldur, legs braced wide against the pitching deck, hauled the wheel hard over, the spokes groaning under his big hands as the boat swung away from the thickest drift of smoke. Halla scrambled across the tilting planks on hands and knees, boots skidding, dragging a bucket of seawater between her arms. A hot pebble of pumice bounced past her boot and she snatched it out of the air, dropping it straight into the bucket. It hissed furiously, spat a thread of steam, then bobbed up and floated on the water like a little grey cork. Halla stared, soot on her cheeks, forgetting to be afraid, while behind her the ash kept falling and Baldur kept shouting course corrections into the wind.
Page 3
The crane swung overhead, its chain groaning as the crate of glass sample jars dropped slowly onto the wet quay, settling with a clink beside Dr. Sigrún's two battered trunks. Baldur hauled the crate the last few inches by its rope handles, planting it square. Then a gust off Faxaflói tore across the stones, snatching the stack of blank logbook pages straight out of Sigrún's mittened hands. "My pages! Catch them!" she cried, lunging and missing. The sheets scattered and skated along the wet quay toward the water's edge. Halla was already running, braids flying, yellow boots slapping the stones, scooping two pages out of a puddle before they could blow into the harbour. The last three skittered right to the lip of the quay, and she threw herself forward, stamping her boot down and pinning them flat just above the dark water. Pétur grabbed for a fourth page as it flapped past his knees, and Baldur clamped a huge hand over the whole rescued stack to stop any more escaping.
Page 4
The herbarium room was a tower of wooden drawers stacked floor to ceiling, each taller than Halla herself, and Pétur had climbed nearly to the top rung of a wobbling ladder to reach the heavy plant press stored up there. "Pass it down slow!" boomed Baldur, planting his huge hands below to catch it. Pétur hauled the press free with both skinny arms, but his elbow caught a drawer edge, and it slid loose with a crack, sending a snowfall of pressed poppies, curled mosses and crumbling leaves tumbling over everyone's shoulders. Halla squealed and spun, catching a poppy on her sleeve. "Careful, you beanpole!" she laughed, brushing petals from Baldur's beard. Baldur steadied the ladder with one oven-glove hand while grabbing the falling press with the other, grunting under its weight as he set it safely on the table. Down on the floor, Sigrún knelt amid the drifting plant snow, smoothing a crisp new sheet of paper with her mittened hands and lettering carefully in black ink: SURTSEY — ARRIVALS, No. 1, EMPTY. "Our island's very first page," she said, tapping it twice with pride.
Page 5
The dinghy scraped up onto the black sand, heavier than four pairs of arms could manage alone, so Baldur rolled fat driftwood logs under its belly and bellowed for everyone to heave. Pétur threw his whole stick-thin weight against the stern, boots slipping, while Sigrún pushed from the side, her mittens gripping the rope. Slowly the boat climbed clear of the hissing shoreline, where the sea itself steamed against the new black ground. Then Baldur and Pétur laid wooden duckboards end to end across the ash, testing each plank with a boot before trusting it, since the ground still breathed heat from below. Halla couldn't wait her turn — she scrambled straight up the warm cinder slope beside the path, hands grabbing at loose stone, knees digging in, small puffs of smoke curling up from every bootprint she left behind. At the top she stood grinning, scarf trailing, framed against the smoking crater, while below her the grown-ups called up anxiously, laughing despite themselves at her nerve.
Page 6
The wind hit the crater rim like a slap, and Halla leaned into it with both hands wrapped round the middle of the striped survey pole, taller than Baldur himself. Baldur hauled it upright while Pétur scrambled on his knees, dropping flat rocks around its base. Sigrún shoved the biggest stone of all against it with her whole round body, panting. "Lean on it, don't let it swing!" Baldur shouted, and Halla threw her arms round the pole, boots skidding on loose cinder. Once the cairn stood knee-high and solid, Baldur strolled to a hissing vent, knelt, and balanced his battered kettle right on the steam hole. It shrieked like a gull within minutes. Pétur yelped, grabbing for his notebook as the gale tore pages loose, flapping and snapping like a trapped bird caught in his bony fingers. Sigrún laughed, snatching one page out of the air before it sailed over the crater edge. Halla hopped from foot to foot, delighted, pointing at the smoking bowl below where white steam curled up between black rocks.
Page 7
The gale slammed into Pálsbær like a fist, and the little green door burst wide open, banging against the wall. A slap of cold spray shot across the hip-high table, soaking the half-drawn map into a grey smear. Baldur roared over the wind, grabbing a coil of rope from the hook, and Pétur scrambled after him on hands and knees as they crawled out into the dark to haul lines over the groaning roof, pegging them hard into the cinder ground so the whole hut wouldn't lift like a kite. Inside, Halla planted her yellow boots wide and held the swinging lantern high in the doorway, bracing her thin arms against the wind so the men could see their knots. Sigrún spun around, snatched the logbook off the table and jammed it inside her jacket just as her elbow caught the cocoa pot, sending it clattering and spilling brown puddles across the floorboards. Nobody stopped to mop it up — the roof came first.
Page 8
Sigrún crouched in the warm-ash hollow, swinging her huge magnifying glass low over the ground, and gasped: six green shoots stood in a suspiciously tidy row. "Nothing grows that straight by accident," she said, narrowing her eyes. Halla scrambled closer on her knees, poking a shoot, while Baldur folded his huge arms and stared hard at Pétur, who had gone pink to his ears. "Confess," Baldur rumbled. Pétur mumbled that he'd buried a few potatoes for a joke, hoping to surprise everyone with the island's first harvest. Nobody laughed. Sigrún handed out trowels and they all dropped to their knees, digging along the row, hauling pale tubers free of the hot ash one by one and dropping them into Baldur's canvas sack, which grew heavy and lumpy at his hip. When the last potato came up, Halla grabbed the stiff brush from her coat pocket and scrubbed her boot soles hard, passing the brush along so everyone scoured every speck of foreign soil away before standing.
Page 9
Halla grabbed a long rope of kelp, slick and heavy as a wet hose, and hauled it sideways off the black sand. Underneath, tucked between two bleached planks, sat one small grey-green seedling, no taller than her thumb. "Look! Something grew here all by itself!" she shouted, dropping the kelp and scrambling closer on her knees. Pétur came running, camera thumping his chest, and flopped flat onto the sand on his stomach to line up the shot, elbows digging into the grit. Baldur knelt beside him, raised his big hammer, and drove a numbered wooden stake into the ground with three heavy thuds, the plant now officially marked. Sigrún bustled over, pockets jingling, and crouched to ring the seedling with smooth white stones she pulled from her waxed jacket, laying them one by one like a tiny fence. Then she licked her pencil and wrote carefully in the logbook balanced on her knee.
Page 10
The last slope was the steepest, and the brass telescope — as long as Baldur's whole arm and heavy as a sack of fish — slipped sideways on its tripod legs until Baldur hauled it back with both oven-glove hands and grunted up the final stretch. Pétur scrambled ahead with the bolts rattling in his pocket, dropping to his knees at the stone pillar, which stood waist-high and solid at the cliff edge. Baldur swung the telescope down onto it and slammed the first bolt home with a clang that rang off the rock — and the whole headland exploded with puffins bursting out of their burrows underfoot, flapping low over the grass. Sigrún laughed and ducked, steadying the tripod legs with both mittened hands while Pétur tightened the second bolt. Halla didn't wait for permission — she grabbed the pillar's edge and hauled herself up, boots scrabbling on stone, until she stood balanced above them all, pressing her eye to the glass.
About this story
- Audience: kids (ages 6–12)
- Format: 10 illustrated pages, narrated, on the kids shelf, free to read on Wonder Science
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