Манан дундах фургон

It is six in the morning, and the coast road is white with fog. Grandad's old blue van goes slowly towards the market with six boxes of fish. Then the engine coughs twice, and the van breaks down at the top of the hill.

“Can it be fixed?” asks Sara from the back seat. “Not here,” says Dad. “The engine can't be fixed in this fog. The van must be towed to the harbour garage.” Grandad opens the bonnet and looks inside for a long time. “It could be a wire,” he says. “Or it could be the fuel.”

Nick finds an old rope in the back of the van. “The van can be pulled with this,” he says. A small argument breaks out at once. “That rope is thirty years old,” says Grandad. “It should be kept for the boat.” Dad ties it to the front anyway. Nick and Dad pull hard. The rope breaks off at the knot, and they both sit down on the wet road.

Nobody speaks for a minute. Slowly the fog breaks up, and the sun breaks through over the sea. Sara looks down the hill and starts to laugh. The harbour garage is only a hundred metres below them. “We were nearly there all the time,” she says.

Sara breaks away from the others and runs down to the garage. The big door is open, and a window is broken. “Did somebody break in?” she calls. “No,” says Grandad behind her. “That window has been broken since last winter. And I never lock the door.”

They push the van down the hill and into the garage. Grandad touches one small wire under the bonnet, and the engine starts at once. “It can be fixed in one minute,” he says, “but only by me.” Dad breaks into a laugh, and the fish get to the market by eight.