“School. You must know what school is.”
“Beatings and tedium. You’ll not get me back to that.”
John sighed. It was going to be difficult, building a bridge between two different worlds.
*
The breakfast had been horrible. The bacon was thickly sliced from a heavily-salted lump that was greener in colour than Yifan thought bacon ought to be. There were things moving in it, and in the hard biscuit that was served with it. She saw her companions knocking that on the hatch cover they were sitting on, and the wriggling insects that fell out. Then they dipped the biscuit into their rum and water to soften it up; and then they ate it.
They did not seem to be enjoying it either.
Yifan was hungry, and by thinking to herself that this was not her body she managed to eat some of the meat and a corner of a biscuit, washing it down with the grog.
It was foul.
“If you don’t want that, give it to your brother,” said the older man. Yifan looked at the younger with astonishment. She had always wanted a brother or a sister, just not one that looked as if birds had nested in his hair and who smelt like a dead sea-lion.
There was a sort of family resemblance, though.
And then she remembered where she had seen the older man before.
He was her father.
*
“When you came here, you talked about Ji Ye being dead. What did you mean?”
“That’s something I don’t understand,” Teal admitted. He and John were in the large back garden. Teal was stroking Bart, who had initially been surprised that Yifan seemed so gentle, and who was now making the most of the situation. “My mom is dead. She died eight years ago. All we have to remember her is a picture that was painted before I was born.
“She’s beautiful. A patient smile, but such life in her eyes. Dad tells me she was all mischief, and I am like her. But I’m not mischievous. I’m much more sensible than Kale.”
“Kale?”
“My brother. He’s fifteen. He’s brave, but rushes into things. We’re on our way to Hargara so he can get married. My father is Regent of Pegu.” He looked into Yifan’s memories for a second. “We don’t have kings. The Regent has a council of ministers who help to govern. Kale and I are Princes, but we don’t have any power, unless the council elects one of us to replace Dad.”
“What’s your father’s name?”
“Hansolo,” Teal said, and was amazed when John fell on the ground, rolling around and laughing. He looked around into Yifan’s memories, found Han Solo and all of its associations. Teal’s eyebrows rose slightly, then he started to grin. “That’s my dad,” he crowed, and then, laughing, he joined John on the grass.
*
Hansolo Shen was not a happy man.
“Come on, Teal; you’re acting like a girl. It’s embarrassing.”
Yifan, who was a girl and did not know how to act like something else, blushed for the umpteenth time. She had made a big mistake on her arrival, telling her – Teal’s – father that she had to wash. Now he expected her to go ahead and bathe.
“Sea water might kill the fleas,” he said, helpfully. “We’ll put a bit of fresh on after to wash off the salt. It’ll stop you getting a crust!” The watch – the crew who were on deck at the time – were highly amused by this.
They need a good joke book, thought Yifan. She was standing on the deck in the scuppers, which was a sort of gutter between the deck and the bulwarks, dressed in her vest and long shorts. Her brother was standing by with a bucket of cold seawater.
“Get a move on,” he grumbled. “It’s my turn next.”
“Off with the clobber,” Hansolo shouted.
“I’ll wash the clothes along with myself,” protested Yifan.
“Are you an idiot? They’ll get stiff with salt. And then you’ll be itching all right. Come on, off with it.”
There was nothing else she could do. She gripped the hem of the vest and peeled it off, and then dropped the shorts. Immediately Kale dumped the bucket of water over her head. It was freezing. Another bucket was ready, and that got dumped over her as the first was dropped over the side to fill again.
“Go on, rub! Get that grime off. You can’t appear at a wedding looking like a tramp!”
Bucket after bucket, with Yifan rubbing her armpits and back with a sponge on a stick. Her hair felt scummy with salt. Eventually a bucket of fresh water, warm from the galley boiler, was poured slowly over her and she scrubbed like mad to get the salt out of her hair and squeegeed from her skin. She was still cold, and she could hardly see her new willy, which had decided to impersonate a very small prawn. She did, however, appreciate that Teal had a very good body, with muscles and everything even though he was slim. She reckoned that Teal must be the same age as her.
She dried off on some clean cotton waste and dressed in a cleaner vest and pants and then had to pour water over Kale, standing on a small keg to do it. Kale’s body was much more muscly, and he seemed to relish the chance to flaunt it in front of the crew.
I wonder which one of us is getting married, thought Yifan. I don’t think either of us is particularly suitable.
The thing that worried her most about this adventure was that, although she had all her own memories with her, she had none of Teal’s. She only knew her brother’s name because someone had used it. And the Captain of the ship, a short quiet man dressed in black, had addressed her father as Regent Hansolo (which had amused her, although she took care not to show it), which gave her his title as well as his name.
Now she knew they were going to a wedding. It seemed like a long and difficult journey just to get a buffet lunch and a bunch of boring speeches. So it was probable that one of them was going to be wed, and she hoped it was not her.
She was gazing out to sea while she was thinking these thoughts, and suddenly someone slapped her hard on the back. She slammed against the rail, hurting her chest.
It was Hansolo.
“Well, Teal. Clean and sweet. We’ll be putting on a display for the crew tonight. I hope your sword arm is limber.”
Sword arm? Oh Em Gee.
She really had to get into Teal’s memories, and fast.
About the Author
If you have not already guessed, this book was written by John, under the secret direction of Bart the cat. John enjoys writing stories – he’s written quite a few during his life; but until he met Yifan and Ji Ye he had not thought to publish anything, and he had never attempted a novel.
If you want to know more about the author, just read the book again. Better still, go get the next book – now that he has started chronicling the adventures of Yifan in the multitude of Universes, he’s not going to stop any time soon.
Princess Yifan Page 12