The secular angel in contemporary children's literature: David ...

appalling at first. His first meetings with Michael are scary and unpleasant. He looks like a
homeless, dying man who has forgotten how to eat, live, and has neglected himself, his body,
and everything that makes him “human”. Although Michael does not know at first that Skellig
is not human, he does sense something peculiar about him. In the first page he blatantly
confesses that he was “filthy and pale and dried out, and I thought he was dead. I couldn’t
have been more wrong. I’d soon begin to see the truth about him, that there’d never be another
creature like him in the world” (Almond, 2007, 1). It is remarkable how Michael reacts to
Skellig, and how despite his filthy appearance and rude behavior he does not abandon him. He
does not tell anybody else about him, yet he does not neglect him; in fact he does not even try
to throw him out or send him away. Michael’s kindness and concern, as well as his desperate
need to help and become useful, surface when he meets Skellig. Although the creature seems
abrupt and rude at first, resigned to his doomed situation and sickness, Michael keeps
returning to the garage and begins to take care of him. Michael is not discouraged by his rude
behavior nor does he get angry or regret his decision to bring him food and medicine. He
seems, in fact, unaffected by his words and insults; he deliberately ignores them and
approaches him to get the food closer. He desperately tries to find out who and what he is and
what brought him there. After a few futile efforts, Michael tells him that his baby sister is ill.
“Babies!’ ‘Is there anything you can do for her?’ ‘Babies! Spittle, muck, spew and tears.’ I
sighed. It was hopeless” (Almond, 2007, 28). Skellig’s statement is, in effect, somewhat
ironic in that he himself is behaving like a baby and is just as fragile and needy. The first thing
that a reader will wonder at this point is why would Michael even conceive of, or even
suggest, that Skellig could help his sister in any way.
Michael never discovers where Skellig came from, when he came to live in this garage,
what circumstances brought him there or what he was doing before. The terrible condition in
which Michael finds him is not only physical—weakness, malnourishment, arthritis,
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