Frozen Billy by Anne Fine Page B

galley.’
    â€˜Well, I can—’
    But I could think of nothing else that I could do, and the tears flowed.
    Mother gathered me into her arms and told the captain proudly, ‘Nobody knows how she managed it. But if my Clarrie can get us all safely on a boat to Australia to join her father, then surely she can do anything .’
    â€˜I have no doubt of it,’ said Captain Percival drily. And maybe because he’d been parted too often and too long from his own family to show a marble heart to ours, suddenly his tone softened.
    â€˜So, Clarrie, if nobody knows quite how you did it all, then you can begin your punishment by writing your story so even a humble ship’s captain can follow it.’
    So that’s what I do. In notebook after notebook, I’m setting down the story. Mother snatches away each notebook the moment I move on to the next, and I amuse myself by listening to the little cries she lets out as she reads: ‘Oh, Clarrie! . . . Oh, my poor love! . . . No, surely not! . . . What courage! . . . You amaze me!’
    She’s not the only person taken up by the thrills of the story. Day by day, Captain Percival strolls by to read the next few pages, and tell me that if my father’s any man at all, he will be sterling proud of me.
    â€˜Of both of you. I know I would be! Yes. And of your mother too, who did more than most sailors will – stepping off one boat straight onto yet another.’ He gives a little smile. ‘And Len, who’s such a showman I swear he could stop a mutiny simply by picking up one of his puppets!’
    He’s kind to Mother, too. He’s even found her a little job, copying things into the log – so by the time we leave his ship, our family will owe so little for our passage that, with the money Father must have saved, we’ll be free to start our lives again before you can blink and say ‘Jacaranda!’
    Everyone smiles as they watch me hunched over the notebooks, writing and writing. I think Mother sees it as a way of making up for all the time I didn’t go to school. But Uncle Len can’t help thinking of it as a terrible punishment, so he’s forgiven me for tricking him on board.
    In any case, he’s happy as a bird. He’s heard enough from all the other passengers to know he’ll make a fine living with the dummies, once we arrive. (I’ve given him Still Lucy.) When he’s not giving shows, he strides up and down the deck, whistling and charming the ladies. Today he wheedled me into darning a few of the holes in his clothes. ‘Hurry up, Clarrie! Even the poor devils in steerage need amusing. I’ve promised them a few moments with Still Lucy before my show for the nobs tonight, and I must look my best.’
    â€˜Plenty of time,’ I assure him, and he grins.
    â€˜Clarrie, even this endless voyage will be over before I trust your word again.’
    I hang my head and blush, in part from shame, in part from pride. After all, if I’d not been ‘Good Clarrie! Good girl, Clarrie!’ all those years, somebody might well have noticed when I began to take my family’s fortune in my hand, and risk it all to get our heart’s desire.
    And so I sit on deck, raising my head every few minutes to watch the cormorants that follow us. The girl on the cocoa tin smiles at me as I lift the lid to take out my pen, or the needles and threads that one of the sailors has lent me. This tin is my only possession in the world now, and yet my smile’s as wide as hers.
    Mother leans over the rail to stare down at where the Fresh Hope ’s steep bows slice through the water. When I come near, she reaches out an arm to draw me closer.
    Together we watch the wide waves part.
    â€˜Just twelve days more!’ she tells me. ‘Captain Percival said he thinks it will be only twelve days more.’
    I tell you honestly. I cannot wait