‘I’m sorry, Gramps,’ I whispered. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. The old man sighed and patted me on the head. ‘Not as sorry as that island,’ he said. ‘Not half as sorry as that island. Stripped, it was. All the trees destroyed. All the vegetation. All we left were rocks. Rocks and dust. Dust, blowing away. We did that. Me and my dad. And my mum. And the others that came to build the lighthouse. Strange, hey? We built a lighthouse to save the odd boat, but wrecked an island to do it.’ ‘Doesn’t make sense,’ I said. ‘Wiped out paradise, we did. And all the wildlife that lived there. All the birds gone. Not one left. Not one. “And all the tiny wrens extinct,” the naturalist said. Extinct just two years after we landed!’