Chapter 4
“Bother,” thought Cory. “I’m back.”
He looked out and sure enough he was back in the Millers’ shed once more. “That was amazing, though,” he thought, and grinned to himself as he went back to the house.
“Where have you been?” cried Meredith as he came through the kitchen door. “I’ve been looking for you for ages. Well, ten minutes anyway.”
“Hiding, It’s a secret,” said Cory, wondering if he had dreamt the whole thing. He had been on the ship for at least an hour but only a few minutes seemed to have passed here.
“Ugh, yuck, you’re filthy. You must have been hiding somewhere really dirty.”
Maggie came in as she heard their voices.
“Oh good. Cory, I’m ready for you to try this on,” she said holding out a new sweatshirt.
“He’s all dirty Mum,” said Meredith indignantly.
Her mother laughed.
“That’s what boys do, get dirty. Perhaps you’d better have a quick wash, Cory and I’ll put some clean clothes out for you.”
Cory scowled and did as he was told. Fortunately Meredith didn’t want to play anymore and was content to help her mother or read a book. Cory retreated to his room and pretended to read a book while he lay and thought about the ship.
“I can go there whenever I want to,” he thought. “It will be neat. I’d love to live on a ship.” He mentally planned the sort of ship he would have when he grew up. He would naturally be the captain and there would not be any girls allowed on board. He decided he might make an exception for an old woman, such as Maggie, to do the cooking. He would have his own private cabin with his own computer and his own television set that he could watch whenever he wanted to.
He thought about this a lot more until tea time where he suffered through Meredith’s chatter as he stuffed himself with stew and baked potatoes. After tea Maggie relented and let them watch television while she cleared the table so he was spared the ordeal of having to make conversation with her.
Breakfast the next morning was a disaster. Cory was not a morning person. He liked to wake up gradually and he did not appreciate girls who tried to ask him questions and plan his day before he had even woken up properly. He finally lost his temper and swore at Meredith.
“Cory!” Maggie was shocked. “You can leave the table this minute. There’s a pile of wood in the shed and you can bring some in for me for the fire. Go on, off you go.”
Cory stamped out muttering. “It’s started already. I knew it would. I’m no better than a slave.”
He picked up a couple of logs from the carefully stacked pile and threw them at the wall. They hit with a satisfying ‘clang’ before rolling to the ground with a thud.
“ Why should I get their stupid wood, I’m not their servant?” He hurled another couple of logs at the wall. “Who wants to stay in this stupid place anyway?” he thought. “I should run away to that ship. No-one would be able to find me. They would all think I was dead. Then they’d be sorry.” He picked up and threw another half dozen of the small logs.
The more he thought about this idea, the more it appealed to him. Looking around carefully, he ran back to the house and into his room through the outside doors. Stuffing his possessions hurriedly into his backpack, he hurried back to the shed and quickly climbed under the boat canopy, where he threw his bag into the cabin. Holding his breath he pressed the silver button, praying that it would work again. He felt a jolt and then a gentle rocking motion. Cory smiled in relief. “It’s worked,” he thought happily and pulled the canopy back and stood up.
“A stowaway!” roared an angry voice, and Cory felt himself lifted by his collar and dumped down in a heap onto the deck.
“And where did you spring from?” demanded the voice.
Cory looked up. A giant of a man stood there. His feet and legs were encased in large black boots and a faded yellow shirt was tucked into large baggy stripped trousers. The man wore a black patch over one eye and Cory was petrified with fright when he noticed that the man had a shining silver cutlass thrust through his belt.
“A pirate, he must be a pirate!” Cory had wild thoughts about making a run for it, although where he was going to run to he wasn’t quite certain.
“Come on, cat got your tongue? I haven’t got all day. Where have you come from?”
“Er, I hid in the boat,” stammered Cory. This, at least, was true.
“Hoping to stowaway were you? Don’t you know what I do to stowaways on my ship? I cut them into strips and use their guts for garters,” thundered the pirate.
Cory began to shake with fright.
“I’m sorry,” he squeaked “I won’t do it again.”
“I should toss you overboard,” continued the pirate, as Cory cowered at his feet, “but I’m too kind hearted. Tell me boy, are you any good at scrubbing decks?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never tried,” said Cory uncertainly.
“Then now is your chance. Hey Sam.” He called to a skinny young man with his hair tied back with a grubby length of string and blackened teeth grinning from thin lips.
“Put this young stowaway to work scrubbing the decks. Then I’ll decide whether to toss him to the fishes or take him on as a cabin boy.”
“Aye, aye captain. Come on you.”
Sam prodded Cory with his foot and led him over to one end of the deck where he issued him with a brush, a large block of coarse soap and a bucket of cold seawater.
“Get scrubbing.”
He cuffed Cory on the side of the head and Cory frantically began to scrub at the deck. After a while he got into a rhythm – soap, scrub, rinse, but his knees began to hurt from kneeling while his hands were cold and rough from the water. The ship was obviously at sea but where Cody did not know. There was no land in sight and a chill wind whistled across the deck. The ship rocked from side to side but the motion was not unpleasant.
“I wouldn’t like to be here in a storm,” thought Cody with an anxious look at the sky.
He kept scrubbing and began to realise why women always complained that their work was never done. The deck looked as if it was the size of a football field and Cory was dismayed to see how little he had done when he looked around. From time to time Sam would come and watch him for a few minutes then grunt and walk away. Although the sun was only a pale one, seen fitfully through misty clouds, Cory began to feel hot and uncomfortable. He felt as if he had been scrubbing for hours and hours. His back hurt and he wanted to go back. He almost thought “home” and reflected that the Millers’ place hadn’t been all bad.
“At least they don’t make me scrub floors,” he thought. Collecting the wood for the fire seemed a small thing to do now, and Cory felt sorry he had left the logs in such a mess. Even washing the dishes with Meredith had turned out to be loading and emptying the dishwasher. It was such a change from the piles of plates to be hand washed in the Home that Cory was quite sure he would never complain about that.
Cory had a lot of time to think as he was scrubbing. The creak of the wood was punctuated with curses and the occasional snatch of song as the crew heaved on ropes to adjust the sails, mended nets and polished fierce looking cutlasses and daggers. Cory glanced across at Brian’s boat and saw it was now a lifeboat tied to the ship’s side.
“If I can get back into it and press the button, maybe it will take me back,” he thought. He started cleaning near the edge of the deck, getting closer and closer to the lifeboat. Just as Cory was only a few metres away, Sam came back.
“Do the middle, you useless cur,” he commanded with a kick.
Cory had to work back to the middle of the deck, the only relief from the back breaking scrubbing coming when he had to throw the bucket overboard at the end of a long rope, to fill it again.
At the end of what felt like several hours Cory heard a gruff voice.
“Take a break, lad.”
An old man with a straggling white beard gave him a nudge and pointed to a barrel la
shed to the mast. “There’s drinking water in there and the cook will find you some biscuit if you ask him.”
Cory thankfully went to the barrel where a battered tin cup hung. Dipping it in the water he took a large mouthful then spluttered and spat it out. It tasted awful.
“I can’t drink this,” he gasped. Following a couple of the pirates, making sure to keep a wary distance behind them, he went down a short ladder to the galley. There, a large African man was sweating profusely as he chopped vegetables and strips of salted meat to make a stew. To Cory’s request for a biscuit he nodded to a box on the shelf by the door. Cory reached in and drew out a rock hard piece of what looked like dog biscuit, which he despondently took back up onto the deck. He watched the other men knock their biscuits on the deck before eating them and bashed his one down hard as well. To his disgust, several maggots dropped out onto the deck. Cory retched as the other men laughed at him.
“Eat up boy, that’ll put hairs on your chest,” sniggered Sam.
Cory decided he was definitely not enjoying himself. He leapt to this feet and starting running back towards the lifeboat.
“Grab him. Don’t let him get away,” came a shout.