Prudence

Percy eased them up several more puffs – there must have been a dozen in total. Then the Mandenall Pudding Probe spat and they knew that directly above them swept the Tripoli herself.

Rue shouted to the deckhands, “Everything secure?”

“Aye aye, captain.”

“Decklings?” Rue asked.

“All buttoned down, Lady Captain, ready on your mark,” answered a familiar chipper voice.

“Spoo? What are you doing abovedecks?”

“Transferred position, captain. Bit of a snafu down below. You don’t mind, do you? I’ve worked topside before.”

“Certainly not.”

Spoo seemed to have become unofficial leader of the decklings in a very short space of time. Some kind of coup? Rue supposed she would have to make it official if the girl proved capable. For now she was glad to have someone whose name she knew to yell.

“Wait for it,” Rue instructed the girl and turned to her next concern. “Primrose?”

Her friend was solemn-faced, seated primly off to one side of the navigation area, parasol raised against the grey nothingness of aetherosphere, hat pinned firmly down. Rue trusted her to have warned the steward, cook, and purser so that the inside staff was prepared.

Prim tilted her chin in acknowledgment.

To free her hands, Rue tossed Prim Sand and Shadows on a Sapphire Sea for safekeeping.

Prim caught it easily.

Rue picked up the speaker tube. “Boiler room, are you ready?”

“We have never been more so,” came Quesnel’s reply.

Rue said to Percy, still holding the tube so Quesnel could overhear, “Make the hop, Professor Tunstell, on my mark. Three, two, one, and… mark.”

Percy pressed the puffer. The Spotted Custard jerked up, caught the current, and began to shudder uncontrollably. It was as if the whole gondola section of the ship was shivering from cold.

“Percy, what the devil?” It felt like they were nested inside the current – why was this one so different from the others?

“Almost in, captain.” Percy reached down and twisted something. The ship rose up an infinitesimal amount. The propeller whirred madly. The ship began to tilt sideways as though being pushed from the side. The main deck angled more than was comfortable. Anything not fastened down began to slide. Including Primrose, who looked resigned to the indignity.

Percy grabbed the tiller and wrenched it upright. “Come on, sweetness,” he growled, straining against invisible aether forces.

Rue dashed over and reached for the other side of the tiller, pushing at it with all her might to assist his pulling. She was tougher than she looked – Dama’s drones liked to arm-wrestle on occasion to keep themselves in shape for competitive whist. Together they managed to push the ship upright and facing the correct direction: due east.

The Spotted Custard stopped shuddering and settled into a bobbing motion.

Percy gave Rue a relieved nod.

Rue stepped back, shaking out arms trembling from effort. Then she bounced a little at their success. “Victory is ours, current!”

She remembered her duty as captain. “Decklings, mainsail up if you would.”

Spoo began to point and shout. The decklings hopped to it with no discussion – the sootie already had them better trained than whoever had previously been in charge. Rue began to suspect that Spoo’s black eye had something to do with her jump to head deckling.

The sail was raised in no time and Rue definitely approved of Spoo in her new position. As soon as it hooked the breeze, the Custard stopped shaking and smoothed out.

Rue relaxed but only for a moment, for her ship began to spin. The Spotted Custard was still floating upright with the current, east – the aetheric particles told them that much – but the sail had caused her to start rotating like a sedate top, slowly, clockwise, round and round. It was disconcerting.

Rue leapt to help Percy with the helm but her navigator shook his head.

Rue was incredulous. “This is it?”

“They don’t call it the Tripoli Twister for nothing.”

The sensation, while not unpleasant, did make Rue slightly dizzy. “And how long are we in this waltz?”

“Three days, I’m afraid. Best not to look out into the grey, they say.”

Rue could believe it – the sensation was perturbing, to say the least.

“Very good. I shall head below. If you’re well up here? I believe your sister would like her chance to lecture me now.”

Percy’s eyes twinkled. “Aye aye, captain. Although I think it’s jolly unfair I must miss the spectacle.”

“You have the deck, Professor Navigator, sir.” Rue made her way over to Primrose who seemed recovered from her deck-chair slide. “Things are tip-top up top – to the stateroom for a scolding?”

But Prim no longer looked like she wanted to lecture Rue – instead, she was wiggling the little pink book as though it were some strange new species of musical instrument worthy of further examination in order to make it toot.

“That can wait. First, Rue my darling, my sweet, my precious…”

“You sound like Quesnel – what has your bloomers in a twist?”

“Language,” said her friend without rancour.

“I await your pleasure.” Rue’s voice was laden with sarcasm.

“What are you doing with my mother’s book?”

Rue felt a tingle of shock. Instinctively, she looked around to see if Prim had been overheard. Apparently not, so she hissed: “Aunt Ivy wrote a book? Wait, wait. Aunt Ivy can write?”