Sara said, “Are you ready for me?”
Prin started reading, and Sara came to sit at her side. Only twice did she help Prin. When she reached the bottom of the page, Sara reached over and turned the page. “Let’s see how you do on this.”
Prin recognized two words, then correctly sounded out the third. Sara made her read each word in a sentence, then read it all at once. Prin’s eyes were smiling when Sara told Prin she had to go to work. Prin placed the book back on the shelf and went in search of the bos’n. Along the way, she went to the head and sat. Her eyes were drawn to movement, and again she found Jam watching while pretending to work.
She walked to the cargo stacked on the deck near him, and as she passed each crate, she tested the ropes, just to be sure. Near the main mast her eyes went up to the top of the wheelhouse, and she found the bos’n there, watching.
Suddenly, she felt no privacy. People watched everything she did. Her anger flared briefly, then calmed. They watched her because she was new to the ship, because she had never been to sea, and because they didn’t know her. They did know that she came aboard under mysterious circumstances. Not every sailor came to a ship hidden inside a crate.
Yes, they knew there was more than one thing odd about her. They had to be forgiven for their curiosity. All but Jam. He was different, and suddenly she understood the vague words of the bos’n. If he were not the son of the captain, the bos’n would have thrown him overboard long ago—but he was. Then bos’n accepted that, and she would also have.
Back in the kitchens, Prin had used what little skill she had to defend herself, but one of the most effective weapons had been what her mother called, killing with kindness. She smiled to herself. That was her best option here.
If she caused Jam problems, and those reached the captain’s ears, he would side with his blood. So, she wouldn’t let that happen, mostly because the bos’n had mentioned something about it. The captain had no choice but to support his son.
She went to where she’d last seen Jam watching her. He held a paintbrush, but she saw no can of paint nearby. “May I help?”
“Help what?”
“Paint. I have always liked to paint, but haven’t had much experience.”
He handed her the brush. “The can is over there,” he jabbed a thumb.
“But what do I paint?”
“If it’s white, paint it.”
He left her as he scurried to the stern of the ship again. She wondered what was back there that was so interesting to him. She was determined to think of an excuse to check on Jam. In the meantime, she painted and watched the river and banks pass by. There were buildings on the shore, usually small farmhouses, and the ground looked marshy. There were more farm animals than crops.
As she worked her way down the one side of the ship, she painted anything white, which was always iron. The only people she’d seen on deck were the bos’n and Jam. She hadn’t met Sammy, the helmsman at night, and the captain spent his time in the wheelhouse. The cook and Sara were in the galley. She didn’t know where Sayed worked. Counting her, that made seven, a full crew.
The ship that had been astern caught up and as it passed, she stood at the rail and watched, comparing it with the Merry Princess, a wonderful play on words for the ship she sailed, although only her and Sara would understand the joke about her name.
The other ship was taller, something unexpected. Its three masts pushed a ship nearly twice as long. She counted nine on deck and knew there had to be at least one cook, two helmsmen, a captain, and probably more. All told, it held at minimum thirteen. It also carried cargo on the decks, and probably below, but it carried at least three times as much.
She gave a friendly wave of her arm as they pulled alongside, and a few waved back. Soon the ship was well ahead of the Merry Princess, and Prin was back to painting anything white that didn’t move. The bos’n stormed to her side. “What’r you doing?”
“Painting.”
“Who told you to do that?”
“Oh, I didn’t see you, so I asked Jam if I could help him.”
“And he readily agreed? But, he is not helping?”
“He did give me the brush, but it was my fault. I asked him.”
The bos’n stormed away, heading directly for the stern. That told her something else. The bos’n knew where to look for Jam, so he must have been there several times. Prin turned back to her painting when an odd scent tickled her nose, overriding the strong smell of wet paint. She looked up and found that ahead, the water was no longer greenish, but blue.
She looked at the sides of the river and could barely see them in the hazy distance. The smell of the air held a tang, and the rocking motion of the boat increased. It now surged ahead and slowed, surged and slowed, as well as it rolled slowly from side to side. Her stomach twisted, and she felt dizzy.
The ship made a turn to her right, and the waves struck the ship from the left side, causing it to roll more, and her stomach did the same. She took hold of the railing and closed her eyes, but it got worse. She broke out in a sweat and tried to regain her balance, but the deck refused to hold still long enough.
Her meal came up without warning. She managed to direct most of it over the side, but glanced down and saw there was more on the deck to clean—but she didn’t care. The movement of the ship’s rolling and plunging unpredictably caused her to lose her balance, and she almost fell to the deck. She sat and groaned, and threw up again.
The motion continued. She watched the rolling waves strike the side of the ship and anticipated the next roll, and that seemed to help somewhat. Her body felt weak and tired. When her feet touched the ground again, she would walk back to Indore.
Sayed touched her shoulder. “Come with me little one.”
He helped stand Prin, and when her knees gave out, he caught her and carried her into the door to the crew’s quarters. He placed her in a hammock strung in the same place as the night before, and he found a shallow bowl in case she upchucked again. The hammock was strung fore and aft, so the rolls of the ship were lessened as the hammock reduced the effect, but the pitch and sudden drops were the same. She curled into a ball, her knees drawn up to her chin.
Her eyes closed. Later, she refused dinner and acknowledged Sara stringing her hammock beside her with a groan, but couldn’t speak. Keeping herself from throwing up again was as much as she could manage. When she woke later, a small loaf of dry bread had been placed in her hammock, and she nibbled on a piece of crust.
In the morning, she rolled out of bed with the rest of the crew, finding the motion of the ship didn’t bother her—and she was starving. She ate voraciously, expecting to take a good ribbing from the others, but found only sympathy.
The bos’n said, “Probably all of us have been there.”
Sayed said, “Once we were out of the river mouth and changed course, the motion became less, but by then you were too sick to notice.”
“I didn’t get sick,” Jam declared.
The captain paused, with a spoon halfway to his mouth. As if in slow motion, he turned. “Not this time.”
More than one man laughed, telling Prin he’d been sick on another voyage or two. She kept her head down, refusing to laugh with the rest, lest she makes things between them worse.
Later, at the end of the meal, the bos’n handed out work assignments. When he came to Jam, he said, “Paint the iron.”
“Again?” Jam whined.
“And if I find the brush in Prin’s hand, or you at the stern chewing that mind-weed again, you’re going over the side.”