Voyage of the Dolphin (4 page)

The three young women went below.

In the cabin that had been reserved for Miss Catalina, everything was shining—there was fresh paint, a pretty blue and yellow spread on the bunk, a porthole with curtains to match. The floor was clean enough to eat on. Sarah and Abbey had polished it themselves. Everything was lovely.

But it seemed to Sarah that the girl was looking for something to criticize.

“It's so little,” Dawn sneered. “My room at home is twenty times this big.”

Sarah could not resist saying, “Yes, but your room at home will not get you to your fiancé.”

Instantly Dawn looked at her and snapped, “I'll have none of your insolence.” She seemed to expect Sarah to
argue, but Sarah said nothing. “Well, I suppose it'll have to do,” the bride announced, then turned and walked out.

Sarah waited until she was out the door, then shook her head, whispering to Abbey, “She
is
a pain in the neck.”

“But she
is
beautiful,” Abbey said.

Up on deck, the captain and Catalina waited, Daybright anxiously.

“She may decide not to go,” Catalina had said when the girls went below.

Daybright recognized that this man knew his daughter well. “I'd be disappointed, sir, but that's her choice.” He wanted to add,
If you had spanked her when she was smaller, you wouldn't be trembling with fear before her right now,
but this was his employer, and he could say nothing.

When the girl stepped on deck, he glanced at her face eagerly.

“It will have to do, I suppose,” she said. There was a sullen pout on her lips, and she turned to Daybright. “You understand, I will expect those two girls to be my maids.”

Abbey and Sarah had come on deck just in time to hear this. Both blinked in surprise, and Abbey's jaw dropped open.

At once Daybright said smoothly, “I'm sure the young ladies will do all they can to make themselves helpful. Isn't that right?”

Trapped, both nodded, and Sarah said, “Well be happy to be of service to you, Miss Catalina.”

“Very well. I will go finish packing.”

“How much luggage will you have, Mistress Dawn?” Daybright inquired.

“Only eleven trunks,” the girl said calmly, turned, and walked off the deck.

Mennic Catalina grinned sympathetically. “I'm sure you'll find room for my daughter's things.”

“Yes, sir, of course.”

“You may find her a little difficult. I'm afraid I've spoiled her.”

When the men were alone again, Daybright could not help asking, “Are you satisfied with your prospective son-in-law?”

Catalina said under his breath, “Not at all, Captain.” At the look of surprise on Daybright's face, he said, “This is not of my doing. From the moment my daughter heard she would be a queen, nothing would answer but that she would have this man for a husband. I hear nothing much of him except through the marriage broker, and they lie worse than lawyers.”

“I see.”

“I fear you are judging me harshly,” Catalina said. He was silent for a moment, then added, “Well, no more harshly than I've judged myself.” He turned and walked off the ship, his back stiff.

Daybright studied him as he left, then called his crew. “Let's get ready for those blasted trunks.” He smiled shortly at the two girls and said, “There'll be extra pay for you for being nursemaids for Her Highness.”

“You don't like her, do you, Captain?” Sarah asked.

“She's a spoiled child and needs a paddling—but they're paying us to take her to her wedding, so ‘Here Comes the Bride!'”

I
don't care if she
is
going to be a queen. I'd like … I'd like to throw her overboard to the sharks!”

Sarah slammed down a plate so hard that it broke into pieces. She stared at it and with an angry motion swept it off the table.

Abbey looked a little shocked at Sarah's explosion. The older girl had always been easygoing. She seldom lost her temper, except sometimes when Josh teased her.

Stooping down, Abbey began to gather up the fragments of the plate. “Well, she is difficult, I'll admit that.”

“Difficult? Nothing pleases her!”

“I guess she's used to having her own way.”

“No doubt about that. She's spoiled to the bone. I don't know if I can put up with her highfalutin ways much longer.”

“What's this?” Daybright stepped down into the galley where the two girls had been doing some cleaning. “Break a plate?”

“I did it,” Sarah said briefly.

“Well, I break one every now and then myself.” But Daybright was a quick man to see things. “Is Her Highness getting on your nerves?”

“She'd get on your nerves too, Captain, if you had to put up with her all the time. She's impossible.”

Daybright said, “I know it's hard. I have the best of it—I can stay away from her, but you two have to take all of her temper tantrums.”

“Nothing pleases her!” Sarah burst out. She shoved her hair back from her forehead with an angry gesture. “I thought I'd seen vile-tempered people before but nothing like her.”

“I think her father's shipping her off just to get rid of her.” Daybright shrugged. “She had him over the fire, I could see that.”

“How much longer are we going to be on this trip?” Sarah asked suddenly. Her lips trembled with anger and humiliation. “She treats me like I was—was nothing but dirt!”

“Well, she treats everybody else the same way,” Daybright said. “I had a first mate like that on my first voyage. By the time we had been out to sea for two weeks, I was ready to cut his head off.”

Abbey had been moving about preparing some things for the evening meal. “You know,” she said, “my guess is that she's really a nice person—underneath all that bluster.”

The other two stared.

“Nice?” Sarah said. “How can you say that, the way she treats you?”

“Because I was a little like that myself when I was younger.”

Daybright smiled. “Well, Granny, you're getting mighty old. How much younger were you when you were such a horrible person?”

Abbey flushed but laughed at her own words. “She's pretty and the daughter of a rich man. She's never had to make her own way. And I don't think people like that are happy.”

Sarah had known, of course, that Abbey herself had been spoiled. Abbey was a beautiful girl; and as long as they had been together, Sarah had been slightly jealous of the younger girl's attractiveness.

“Something happened to me on our last adventure,” Abbey said. “I learned that beauty isn't everything.”

“What do you mean, Abbey?” the captain asked.

“You must have noticed that the most attractive people aren't always completely happy.” Abbey spoke this with some surprise as if she thought everybody knew it. “I knew several beauty queens back in the old world.”

“What's a beauty queen?” Daybright asked.

“Oh, they have contests to pick the prettiest girls,” Abbey answered.

“And did they pick you?”

Abbey blushed and shrugged her shoulders. “Once or twice,” she said. “I was never Miss America, but I knew some girls that went up pretty high. And you know what?” She stopped and looked at them curiously. “Those were always the ones who seemed the most insecure.”

“I'd think if they were all that pretty, they wouldn't have to be insecure.”

“I guess they're never satisfied. Like some men who never get enough money. Once a girl starts running on her beauty, she's always thinking about losing it—or whether the next girl is going to be prettier.”

Abbey picked up a cup and wiped it slowly, her eyes thoughtful. “You never know whether someone likes you because of what you are on the outside—because you're pretty—or whether they like you for what you are.”

Sarah was staring at her friend, understanding. “I've seen a little of that. I guess that's why those beautiful actors and actresses never stay married. They're always jumping from one man or one woman to the next.”

“I don't understand any of this,” Daybright said. “All I know is she's a royal pain in the neck.”

“Yes, she is,” Abbey said slowly, “and I guess she always will be—unless something happens to change her.”

“Let her husband change her. He can take a stick to her,” he joked. “That would make her see things a little differently.”

Both girls laughed.

“I can see you don't know much about marriage, Captain,” Sarah said. “Would you take a paddle to your bride?”

Daybright grinned. “Why, of course I would. Don't you have to treat a wife just like a horse that needs discipline?”

“Don't ever tell that to a woman you're interested in,” Abbey said, sobering up. “It'd be the worst thing you could do.”

“Well, I admit I don't know anything about women. All I know is ships and the ocean, and that's all I'll probably ever know.”

That afternoon Wash baited a line with a small fish and threw it over the stern. He let out the line and held it for a while.

Soon Reb came back to sit beside him. “Let me hold that thing! I'm a pretty good fisherman myself.”

“All right.” Wash handed him the line and watched as Reb wrapped two or three turns around his wrist. “I wouldn't do that if I was you.”

“Why not?”

“'Cause you might get something too big on there. Might pull you out of the boat.”

“Ship.” Then Reb shook his head. “Just let something get on there! I'll show you who gets pulled.”

His boastful words were to haunt him; for not five minutes later, Wash, who was lolling alongside the rail, heard Reb give a cry. He turned to see the lanky Texan go sailing over the rail.

“Man overboard!” Wash yelled.

Daybright, who was at the helm, spun the wheel furiously.

All the crew members who were on deck rushed to the rail.

Dave yelled, “What was he doing?”

“He had his wrist tied onto a fish line, and something yanked him over the side. Could be a shark!”

The
Dolphin
wheeled slowly.

As the boat came alongside, it appeared Reb had managed to free himself from the fishing line. He grabbed the rope Dave threw to him and soon was standing on deck, dripping and staring at his wrist. “Look at that!” he said.

They all crowded around. His wrist was rope-burned.

“What was that you caught?”

“Nothing,” Reb said, abashed. “He caught
me.”
But a light of battle appeared in the boy's blue eyes. He loved a challenge and said, “You wait—I'll get that varmint.”

Reb began preparing another line, but this time he looped it around a capstan, saying, “Come on, fish. You bite one more time, and we'll see what's what!”

Daybright steered the
Dolphin
back on course, and Reb stayed at the rail with the loose end of the line in his hand.

Perhaps a half an hour later Reb let out a yell, and Wash ran to see that the line was tight. Something was pulling and plunging on the end of it.

“He's a big'un, whatever he is,” Reb shouted, “but I'll get him.”

It turned out to be quite a battle. For more than two hours Reb struggled to bring the fish in. If it had not been for the turn taken around the capstan, he would never have been able to land it.

Daybright came to watch the struggle. “You'll never get him on board,” he predicted. “He's too big.”

“I'll do it or die!” Reb said and threw his head back and gave a loud Rebel yell.

Finally the fish was brought to the surface.

“It's a big marlin. It might go five hundred pounds,” Daybright said. “Good eating if we can get him on board.”

“Gotta be some way to do it.”

“We can winch him on if I can get another hook through his mouth.”

At once Daybright began throwing out lines, attaching them to a winch that was used to ease the
Dolphin
backward in a port. Then he brought a piece of iron with a hooked shape on one end. “Let me get this in him, and I think we can do it.”

Apparently Dawn Catalina had heard the yelling, and she came up on deck. She was wearing a delicate pink dress made of very fine silk. It was adorned with ribbons, and she looked beautiful. But it was not a dress for the deck of a ship—especially not when landing a fish.

Daybright got the fish gaffed and then ran back and turned the winch. “Give me a hand, Dave.”

The two of them worked it hard, and the huge fish came slowly over the stern.

Reb was yelling all the time, and the others were cheering enthusiastically. The boat shifted, the fish gave a sudden flip and was on deck.

“Look out,” Daybright yelled. “He could stab you with that sword of his.”

The fish turned sideways. He slid along the deck and gave a tremendous lunge, doubling over and releasing his tail. The tip of it caught Dawn in the stomach.

“Oooph!”

If the full force of the tail had caught the girl, she would have been knocked overboard. As it was, she flipped backward, legs flying and ruffled pantaloons showing in the bright sunlight.

Daybright jumped to her side, reached down, and lifted her to a sitting position. These fish were dangerous! “Are you all right, Miss Catalina?” he asked with concern.

Dawn's face was red, and she was trying to get her breath. Finally she did and began to scream incoherently. “You clumsy oaf!”

Daybright stared at her. “I'm afraid I wasn't the clumsy one,” he snapped. He pulled her to her feet and looked at the slimy trail the fish's tail had made on the front of her dress.

She looked down and saw it and said, “My best dress!” She jerked away from him. “I might have expected it from you!” She flounced off and disappeared down the ladder, screaming, “Sarah! You come at once and help me clean up this awful mess!”

As soon as she was below, everyone on deck broke into wild laughter.

The fish was still flopping around, and Daybright picked up a short club and knocked him on the head. Then he looked at Sarah and said, “There'll be a bonus in this for you if you can calm her down.”

Sarah grinned suddenly. “Let me borrow that club, Captain. I think I know how to handle this.”

A round of laughter went up again, and Josh warned, “Don't give it to her, Captain. She'd use it. I know her!”

Sarah erased the laughter from her face and went below. The next thirty minutes were as hard as anything she'd ever had to endure. She helped Dawn remove the dress and put on fresh clothing, all the time suffering a string of insults. Nothing she did pleased the girl.

Finally she escaped and went back on deck.

Daybright was waiting. “Was it bad?”

“Bad enough.” Sarah's lips were tight. She had kept her temper but only by a small margin. “You may have to
use that club, Captain. I've never seen anyone so unreasonable. It was her fault, not yours or anybody else's.”

“I don't think Miss Dawn Catalina is used to accepting blame for her actions.” Then he added thoughtfully, his eyes turning moody, “She may have to learn that the hard way. On a long voyage, people sometimes have to face up to what they are.”

At supper that night, the entire crew gathered around the table—Daybright had showed them how to tie the wheel in position to keep the ship on course.

“For a short time,” he said, “we won't get too lost. Time to have a little celebration.”

Jake, with some help from the others, had prepared a fine meal. None of them except Daybright had eaten marlin before, and it turned out to be a delicious fish.

Dawn came in wearing a light green dress that perfectly matched her eyes.

“That dress must have cost enough to feed a starving village for a year,” Jake whispered. “Boy, she's a looker, ain't she now?”

Dawn was seated as was customary at one end of the table while Captain Daybright took the other end. The Sleepers arranged themselves, and Sarah and Reb had volunteered to serve.

“Well, now, this is fine, isn't it?” Daybright commented. “You wouldn't eat a better meal than this, Miss Catalina, in the finest castles in the land.”

Dawn tasted the fish and nodded reluctantly. “It does very well. I've had better, though.”

It appeared that Daybright had to grit his teeth, but he managed to smile. “And this fresh bread—I don't see how you do it, Jake. It's delicious!”

“An old family recipe,” Jake said. “I grew up on it.”

He grinned, his homely face bright. “That's why I'm so pretty. I ate lots of it. It's guaranteed!”