‘Uh, that’s not exactly. . .’ Arthur started to say. Then he shrugged and nodded.
I guess if my eyes do turn yellow and I start yabbering peculiar it probably would be best to hit me on the head, he thought.
Sunlight — or the light from the ceiling of the Border Sea — streamed in through the porthole. Arthur sat down, got out the mirror, angled it to the light, and raised the shell to his ear.
Once again, Arthur tried to think of Leaf. A few images rose up in his mind. When he’d first seen her, refusing to run, with her brother, Ed. Then in her house, with the Scoucher cutting its way through the front door.
These images briefly crossed the surface of the mirror, then it went dark. Arthur heard the hiss inside the shell change. He caught the sound of footsteps, followed by a match striking. Light flared in the mirror and the darkness ebbed.
Arthur saw a pale hand transfer the match to a lantern. Then, as the wick caught and flared, another view of a small space aboard a ship. Not the same prison area Leaf had been in before, though the ceiling was only four feet high. This was a long, narrow room.
Leaf was there. She looked quite different. She had a blue bandanna tied around her hair and was wearing a blue-striped shirt and black breeches, with the tops of her high sea-boots folded down over her knees. Even in the flickering light, Arthur could see her skin was much darker than it had been, burned brown by some otherworldly sun.
There was a boy with her, dressed in the same style. He was the one who had lit the lantern, which now hung by a hook in the ceiling.
‘I don’t see why we have to fight, Albert,’ said Leaf. ‘It seems kind of dumb to me. I mean, it’s not as if we don’t get along okay.’
‘Tradition,’ replied Albert glumly. ‘I don’t want to fight either, but the Captain told me we have to. “Ship’s boys always fight,” he said, “and Miss Leaf has been aboard a month without a drubbing. See to it, or you can both have twenty of the best over the twelve-pounder.”’
‘What?’
‘Twenty strokes of Pannikin’s cane over one of the cannons,’ explained Albert. He was rolling up his sleeves. ‘Which would hurt a lot more than anything you could do.’
‘You’re just trying to make me angry,’ said Leaf. She didn’t bother to roll up her sleeves, instead leaning back against a curved internal strut. ‘Which won’t work. I’ve studied psychology. I know what you’re trying to do.’
‘You don’t know much else,’ said Albert, though there wasn’t much heat in his words. ‘I get tired trying to teach you everyday stuff you should already know.’
‘What, like the difference between the mizzen gaff and the mizzen topsail yard?’ snorted Leaf. ‘As if I’d ever need to know that back home.’
‘I keep telling you, you won’t be going home,’ said Albert. ‘That just doesn’t happen. You might as well face up to the fact that you’re one of the Piper’s children now, or good as.’
‘Arthur will find me,’ said Leaf. ‘He’s the Master of the Lower House and everything. I’ll be going home, sooner or later.’
‘Sure, and Pannikin will give us extra plum pudding for good work,’ Albert scoffed, then suddenly darted forward and punched Leaf fair in the face.
‘Ow! What the —’ Albert darted in again, but this time when he threw a punch, Leaf ducked aside and trapped his arm with an obviously well-practised move using her left hand and right arm. She followed this up with a swinging movement of her body that propelled Albert into the side of the ship.
He hit hard and Leaf let go. But instead of falling down or giving up, Albert turned around and punched her again, this time in the stomach. Leaf fell back, gasping, the wind knocked out of her.
‘That’ll probably do it,’ said Albert, wiping his bloodied nose with the back of his hand. ‘S’ long as the Captain sees blood he’ll be satisfied, and if you can walk around all hunched up like that for a hour or two —’
‘I might have to, you idiot,’ complained Leaf. ‘If you just needed a bloody nose why didn’t you say so?’
‘I thought it’d be better if you had the bloody nose,’ said Albert. ‘Didn’t know you could fight, did I? What was that wrestling trick?’
‘Judo.’ Leaf straightened up and took a breath. ‘And that’s not all I know either, so you watch it.’
‘We can be friends again now,’ said Albert, holding out his hand. ‘For about another three months or so, I reckon, before the Captain decides we should be fighting. Or if we get any more ship’s boys aboard. Or we get washed between the ears and have to start all over again.’