Heather stepped back to take all five of them in with one glare, then she moved along the line, handing each of them a pencil and a pad of paper. 'You will each report to me first thing in the morning, with an essay on the meaning of team spirit. Until then, I do not want to see any of you. So, you will not, repeat not, watch tonight's film and you will not eat dinner in the mess with the rest of the crew. Just – keep out of my way!'
Heather began to walk away. Just before she left the deck, she turned back to give them all one last glare. 'Understand this,' she said. A-Watch is going to be a team by the end of this voyage.'
As soon as Heather had disappeared, Amber tossed her head and threw her pad and pencil to the deck. She stalked over to the stern rail and leaned over it with her back to the rest of them. Hex also threw down his pad and, out of habit, reached into the pouch at his belt for his palmtop. An expression of pain crossed his face as he remembered he no longer had it. He slumped down onto the deck, suddenly at a loss for something to do. Paulo and Li sat down together with their pads and started playing an X-rated game of Hangman. Alex stared at his blank sheet of paper and wished with all his heart that he was back home in Northumberland.
'I am hungry,' announced Paulo, a few minutes later. 'I cannot go without food. I will grow faint and pale. See?' He pushed the dark curls back from his forehead to give them all a good view of him wasting away.
'You know, Paulo, you're absolutely right,' said Amber slowly, staring down into the water.
Paulo blinked in surprise. Amber never agreed with anyone. He grinned with pleasure, showing all his even, white teeth. 'I am?'
Amber turned to face the rest of them. 'Yeah. We shouldn't have to go without food. So, here's what we'll do. We're going on a raid, OK?'
'Yay! At last, a bit of action!' said Li, bouncing to her feet.
'Collect up any food or drink you have in your lockers,' continued Amber. 'Grab some bunk blankets, then meet me back here in ten minutes.'
'Where are you going, Amber?' asked Paulo.
'I'm gonna see what I can lift from the galley store-room,' grinned Amber.
'You're going to steal food?' said Alex.
Amber frowned, thinking about it. 'Nah. It's not stealing,' she said finally. 'How can it be? I mean, this whole boat sorta belongs to me. So that must include the galley supplies.'
'I'd like to hear you say that to Heather,' sneered Hex.
'Oh, yeah? You planning on telling her?'
'No.'
'Then how's she gonna find out?'
'On a boat this size?' said Hex. 'She'll find out. Do you think you won't be spotted having a picnic with stolen galley supplies out in full view on the aft-deck?'
'But we're not going to be on the aft-deck,' said Amber, smiling sweetly. She pointed over the stern rail to the water below. They all hurried to look over the rail. There, bobbing along in the wake of the Phoenix, was the little wooden boat they used to get from ship to shore on island stops.
'We'll be hidden down there, in the tender,' said Amber. 'That's a boat, to you,' she added, giving Hex a withering glance.
'Are you stupid or something?' asked Hex. 'One glance over the rail and she'd see us!'
'Yeah, but the Phoenix has a counter-stern. That means the deck level sticks out over the water like a shelf-'
'I know what it means,' said Hex absent-mindedly, studying the little tender.
'So,' said Amber. 'We could-'
'- haul the boat in with that tow rope,' interrupted Hex.
'You mean the painter,' retorted Amber.
'- then bring the rope round to the side there,' continued Hex.
'- which would tuck the tender right in under the stern!' crowed Li. 'We'd be completely hidden from anyone on deck.'
'I don't know,' said Alex. Aren't we in enough trouble?'
'Come on!' yelled Amber. 'We'll be doing exactly what Heather said. Keeping out of her sight-'
'- and working as a team,' finished Paulo.
Alex hesitated, looking at the four faces staring back at him.
'Or was Heather right? Are you too good for us, Alex?' said Li, slyly.
Still, Alex hesitated. It felt wrong to him, but perhaps this was what A-Watch needed to finally bring them together. 'All right,' he said, reluctantly. 'Let's do it.'
THREE
Ten minutes later, they were back. All the food and drink they had managed to collect was piled up in the middle of the aft-deck and Amber was busy packing it into two rucksacks. Paulo was acting as a look-out. When he nodded the all-clear, Hex and Alex grabbed the painter and began to haul it in, hand over hand. Li finished unclipping the rope-ladder and stood watching as the little tender moved steadily closer to the stern of the Phoenix.
'That's it,' said Li softly, as soon as the boat was tucked out of sight under the counter-stern. 'That's far enough. I'll go down first. I should be able to swing the rope-ladder in under the counter-stern and then jump off into the tender. You lower the rucksacks and bunk blankets down to me, then I can anchor the bottom of the ladder for the rest of you to climb down.'
Nobody argued. They all knew Li was an expert free-climber who could scale a sheer cliff without using lines. She was an Anglo-Chinese girl, born and brought up in London, but her parents were zoologists and they had been taking her on field trips with them since she was little. Li had come across a friendly group of free-climbers on one of these trips and discovered that she was a natural. The sport suited her wiry strength, perfect balance and sense of adventure. She loved climbing. A swinging rope-ladder would be nothing to her.
Amber tightened the straps on the rucksacks while Paulo left his look-out post to collect a spare length of rope from the deck locker. Quickly he looped one end of the rope through the straps of the two rucksacks and secured them with an expert knot, then stuffed the rolled blankets through the straps, threw the rest of the coiled rope over his shoulder and carried the whole lot over to the stern rail.
The gate in the stern rail had been padlocked shut, so Li pushed the rope-ladder under the bottom rail and let it uncoil. Boosting herself over the top of the rail, she balanced casually on the very edge of the deck and waited for the movement of the ladder to settle down.
Alex left Hex to finish tying the painter while he hurried over to try and hold the ladder steady. Li swung down onto the first rung and Alex grunted with effort as the ladder tried to twist itself out of his hands.
'Be careful, Li!' hissed Paulo. Li stuck out her tongue at him, then quickly made her way down the spinning ladder, stepping from rung to rung with sure-footed grace until she reached the bottom. There, she began to swing on the ladder until it was moving like a pendulum, each swing taking her further and further in under the counter-stern. On the final swing, just before she jumped out of sight to land lightly in the hidden tender, Li lifted her head and grinned up at them, her eyes alight with excitement.
'Five go on an adventure!' she laughed and they all laughed back, caught up in the thrill of a shared rebellion. Not one of them guessed how accurate her words would prove to be.
The Phoenix was holding a steady course and moving at a low rate of knots, so the little tender bobbed along gently enough under the counter-stern and they all managed the rope-ladder without any problems. Li had already spread the bunk blankets out to make the seating more comfortable. She and Paulo settled down side by side in the stern, Alex and Amber faced one another across the rucksacks, and Hex sprawled out in the bows with one arm hanging over the side.