MUDSKIPPERS – Synopsis


Twelve year old Evie Doubleday, bearing the scars of childhood operations, feels like a different species from the rest of her family. She has no say in the matter when they are forced to live with Evie’s squirrel-stuffing grandfather, Jeremiah – as unwelcoming as his forbidding house on a bleak northern bay. Mum hates Jeremiah because of something he did in the past, but Evie is shut out of the secret.
Jeremiah ignores Evie completely; Dad is busy trying to find work; Toby is football mad and afraid of vampires. And Mum is hiding more secrets about the driftwood dolphin and the gaps in the family photo album. All Evie wants to do is swim, but she is forbidden to do so. Left to her own devices, Evie is drawn to the strange, nameless boy she finds washed up on the shore one night, wounded and web-footed. Evie now has a secret of her own.
When Evie and Toby explore the house, Evie steals a photograph of Mum as a child, her arm round a mysterious girl with a strong family resemblance. Evie is horrified to discover Jeremiah’s collection of freakish stuffed animals, including a baby Mudskipper – an amphibious creature with an evil history and murderous habits, believed to be extinct. Evie realises that the boy, whom she has named Finn, is a Mudskipper. Can Evie trust him, or is he as wicked as Jeremiah thinks? Finn offers to bring her a sea urchin, to prove his integrity.
Evie withdraws from her family and wanders the shore at night. She strays too far and gets swept out to sea, where Mudskippers try to drown her. When Evie wakes, disappointed and betrayed, in the hospital, doctors discover a strange wound behind her ear that refuses to heal. Evie discovers the remains of a sea urchin in her pocket, and realises the Mudskippers were trying to help her. But Jeremiah sees the bruises on her ankles; he realises that Mudskippers are still living in the bay, and declares war on them. It is more important than ever that Evie keeps her friendship with Finn a secret.
Finn gives Evie another sea urchin, carved from the same wood as the dolphin. Evie questions Mum about the origins of the dolphin and the identity of the girl in the photograph. She finds that the girl is Mum’s sister...and Evie’s real mother. Evie is shocked to discover that she is adopted. She takes her distress to Finn, who identifies the wound behind her ear as a set of gills. Evie understands that she is half Mudskipper. She learns to breathe underwater and Finn invites her to come away with him and the other Mudskippers.
Evie and her family become more distant and angry as the secrets between them mount up. Evie draws out of Mum the full story of her birth – and the dreadful fact that Jeremiah wanted to kill her. Realising the full extent of her family’s rejection, Evie vows to run away with Finn, but Jeremiah locks her in her bedroom as he leads a gang of local men to kill the Mudskippers.
The ever-resourceful Evie escapes, and rescues a wounded Finn. The Mudskippers accept her as one of them. She and Finn are caught in the battle, with Jeremiah himself hunting them down. They overturn his boat and Finn sees the perfect moment for revenge. He insists that Evie come with him but Evie, choosing her own destiny at last, embarks on a more radical means of ending the conflict. She gives up her dream of running away with Finn, rescues Jeremiah and goes back to her own family, so that the Mudskippers will be free to live in peace.
Jeremiah reveals to Evie the root of his bitterness, and he and Evie begin a new relationship based on forgiveness and shared loss.