 
There is One of Everything in the World

A.T. MacDonnacha
Little Boy Blue Productions

Pro-Cathedral House

Abbey Gate Street

Galway

Ireland

978-0-9574294

Copyright © 2012 A.T. MacDonnacha

All rights reserved.

Little Boy Blue illustration – William Wallace Denslow

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organisations is entirely coincidental.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Little Boy Blue Productions. Published by Little Boy Blue Productions at Smashwords.

E-book ISBN 978-0-9574294-0-6
LITTLE

BOY

BLUE

PRODUCTIONS

Chapters

Prologue

One

A Jaunt in the Sea

Two

Home, Sweet Home

Three

The New World

Four

The Navigator

Five

Planning Maps and Mapping Plans

Six

A Moral Dilemma

Seven

Setting Sail

Eight

A Grand Adventure

Nine

Devil Dogs

Ten

Svalbard

Eleven

The Land of the Goms

Prologue

I

So many people had been lost to the swirling seas that in the few highlands that were still safe, people scrambled to build boats. They fought over the materials that remained – sheets of metal, plastic, wood and anything that would float. All the systems had been hit so nobody really knew the extent of the flooding, but there was no mention of peace or calm anywhere.

Many of the boats that were built leaked or took in water from the waves of the open seas. Others floated around filled with corpses as disease took hold caused by bacteria and poor diet. Poor diet was not an issue on some of the boats, where food and water had long since run out.

Most had tragically presumed that they were only a few days from land and supplies. Some found land and water but there was little food available in the highlands and they had to move on again. Their bodies weakened slowly and their minds opened to the slow realisation that they would not make it to land again. Those that were lucky died quickly with the smell of the sea in their nostrils and open blue skies in their eyes.

But some survived.

II

Everything was destroyed. Everything that held connections to the past was destroyed by the sea.

The people that survived the Great Floods were so traumatised by the events and so anxious to survive that all their energy went into ensuring they had food and water and very little time was spent on passing on the history of their lives. They did not see how stories of electricity and the like would help their children survive, especially when there was little chance of reproducing this knowledge into usable information.

When the floods receded, the systems were damaged beyond repair, even if they could find the people and the materials to get the systems working again.

If they had the people and the materials, there was no electricity in any case and that affected everything. Any available fossil fuels, such as gas, oil and coal, had been long used up in the years before the Great Floods. The last remaining source of energy, nuclear power, had been abandoned after a series of natural disasters had caused devastation on a vast scale through damage to nuclear power stations.

The people that survived the floods and the disease were ill-equipped for life after the floods. Many struggled with basic concepts of agriculture and housing in the few areas that were not flooded or rife with disease.

Many were unfit physically and lacked determination to do well or the spark to begin a new life in the mess they considered their lives to have become. Many were not ready for a physical life and some could not do the work needed to source food so they became hungry and less able and eventually starved and died.

Others expected everything they needed in life to come to them and they were more inclined to argue with others than look for food. Groups that argued were inefficient and did not collect enough food or water. They were not strong enough to compete with other groups and they became reduced in numbers.

The strong ones that fought for food did not always have other competences and abilities, such as the ability to locate a dry place to live, knowing to vary their diet or to cook certain foods to combat bacteria.

Many died from the diseases that spread from the corpses covering the countryside after the floods receded in the highlands.
"All changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born."

"Easter, 1916", by W.B. Yeats

One

A Jaunt in the Sea

"Pull the sail in, Baboogen! Pull it hard," shouted Haiyugen. "Okay, that's it. Now lean over here."

"Are we going back to the island?" shouted Baboogen across the wind.

"Of course we are, Baboogen," answered Haiyugen.

Haiyugen and Baboogen were lost at sea, at least three days from the island on which they lived. They were on a raft without any navigation instruments other than the stars in the sky, which were no longer in the positions Haiyugen expected. Haiyugen had tried reading the stars since he knew what the stars should look like from the island. He had never had any need for navigation, but he tried it anyway. He knew the constellation that looked like a man jumping with his arms and legs spread out should be facing him when he had his back to the island. Unfortunately, he had no idea where the island was and he could find at least five constellations that looked like men jumping.

Being lost at sea would not have worried them so much, except that as far as they were aware, the only people still living on the planet were living on the island they needed to get back to. They were, in fact, more than lost.

They were as lost as anyone can be because they thought their island was the only inhabitable place in the world.

Baboogen was less lost than his father, Haiyugen, because he trusted in his father's ability to find their home again. Haiyugen, however, was struggling to keep up with his son's opinion of him. He had long reached the stage where inner strength kicks in and his optimism was nearly spiritual at this stage. Whatever about being spiritual, Haiyugen's optimism about reaching his home again was definitely not realistic.

According to the history that Haiyugen and Baboogen had been taught on their island, rising water levels had wiped out all but the highest lying parts of the world in the Great Floods. Disease and starvation had wiped out large masses of population that huddled together to avoid the flooding. This had happened many, many years ago, but the story of the Great Floods was taught to the children of their island on a continuous basis. A code had evolved on the island among the first settlers and it governed everything they did, but in a way designed to make society work best for everyone involved. It was a code for survival.

The thoughts of Haiyugen and Baboogen were far from history and such matters at the moment. They had slept in turns for the last three days, but there was no sleep for either now. The swells and winds were rising in an imperfect union, and gusts were blowing them into the waves. They had tethered themselves onto the raft so that if either fell overboard, they would not be taken out to sea. Being lost at sea would bring about the kind of permanent loss that neither could countenance.

Baboogen smiled at Haiyugen and shouted above the crash of the waves, "Are we there yet?!"

Haiyugen laughed and replied, "We're on our adventures, Baboogen. When we've had our fill of adventure, we'll go home."

This had not been the plan to begin with, but Haiyugen felt stronger after announcing the forced change of plans as if it was the best plan for both of them. Maybe this would suit them more than hanging around in the jungle of the uninhabited side of the island, trying to reconcile their differences with the society that was everything to them. The other islanders had sent them off to sort themselves out, which was as close to jail as was possible in their society.

To break up the boredom of wandering aimlessly around the jungle, Haiyugen had decided that a trip out around the bay would be a good idea. It did not seem quite as good an idea after three days at sea.

"We're free now, Baboogen," said Haiyugen, smiling at the young, salt-encrusted face of his son.

Haiyugen felt an intense pride in Baboogen's belief in him. He was not sure if his heart was beating stronger because of that or because of the storm.

"Free from what, Dad?" asked Baboogen.

"Free from the island. Free to do what we want," answered Haiyugen, surprised at the question.

"I'd like to be on the island now," said Baboogen.

"Don't worry at all. We'll be there soon. Okay, you can let the sail out a bit now. That's it, nice and gently."

The pair got back to the work of sailing in the difficult conditions and so the night passed, with their work interspersed with fits of sleep, only to be woken by a wave crashing down on the raft. They were lucky that the water passed quickly through the logs of the raft, but it was a harsh night for both of them and not much more conversation passed between them.

The next morning, the two woke to a relatively calm sea and a rising sun, which seemed to be breathing life into their worn, hungry bodies.

"Baboogen, fetch the line!" shouted Haiyugen with the exuberance of a man who was happy to be alive.

Baboogen crawled into the small cabin and took the line, the jar of worms and the hooks down from a shelf. He brought them out to Haiyugen, who was standing beside the mast, checking the sail and its threading.

"Here it is," he said, holding out the line to Haiyugen.

"You thread the hooks and put the bait on them," said Haiyugen. "Just make sure the knots are good. We can't afford to lose any hooks."

Baboogen worked at threading the hooks, whistling while he worked. There was a certain natural euphoria between them, having survived the storm and woken to the paradise of a calm, almost transcendental ocean and a warming sun.

Haiyugen checked the line that Baboogen had made and tightened a few of the knots. Baboogen grumbled that they were already tight, but more out of habit than out of being upset.

"Okay, you're the fisherman today, Baboogen. I'm going to make some drinking water and get the fire ready for cooking the fish."

The islanders were adept at making drinking water since water supplies occasionally ran low on the island in times of drought. Every family had a distillation pot, which they filled with water carried from the sea to the house. The pot was placed over a fire and the resultant steam was captured and cooled with cold seawater being passed through a hose, which ran along the top of the pot. The result was a steady flow of drops of clean drinking water down a spout on the side of the pot.

Haiyugen had brought a portable version of one of these pots on their journey across the island. Realising the danger of being without drinking water out at sea, he had used more logs on the raft than they needed. He had not intended to travel far, but he took plenty of wood anyway. Once the initial firewood was used, Haiyugen chopped pieces off the spare logs and let them dry in the cabin. The wood was placed on some large, flat stones they had brought to prevent the raft from burning. Enough heat was retained in the stones to cook the fish they caught, while the drinking water was being prepared.

"I've got one," shouted Baboogen. "No, two... Wait, it's really heavy - can you help me?!"

Haiyugen moved over quickly to ensure the line was not lost and to ensure that Baboogen was not pulled off the raft. The line was tied around a piece of wood, which Haiyugen took carefully from Baboogen.

"It's okay, I have it now," he said.

"There are loads of fish on it or maybe it's a shark!"

Haiyugen laughed and continued reeling. The fish struggled less now and it was easier to reel them in.

"I have them!" he shouted to no one in particular.

Haiyugen slowly pulled four fish onto the raft. They were beautiful looking fish, a parrotfish, two cod and a fine sized lemon sole, which Haiyugen recognised by the orange patch behind the fin on the side of the body of the fish. Lemon sole was not a common fish on the island, but they caught some occasionally.

Parrotfish was a staple of the island diet, as were many other types of fish. The islanders found that a lot of the local fish was an excellent accompaniment to bread and potatoes. Since the local fish was so full of flavour and often did not even require any sauce, it was popular with fishermen and workers who could not get home for lunch. To ensure the fish served to workers was as fresh as it could be, a business had been developed at the island's port where a group of women cooked some of the daily catch in a small, wooden building. The building was completely open on the side of the sea, partly so that the women could see when the fishermen were coming, but mainly so that they would have a view of the sea as they chatted and prepared the fish and bread. When there was a big catch, they smoked some of the fish in a shed behind the wooden building. This smoked fish was used for lunch for the workers when storms prevented the fishermen from going out to sea or when the catch was not as bountiful.

Seeing the parrotfish reminded Haiyugen of the friendly banter that went on in the wooden shack. He was lost in thought for a minute, until he realised Baboogen was staring at him.

"We've got good eating here, Baboogen!" he said, getting to his feet.

Haiyugen lifted the line into the middle of the raft, with the fish still on it. He was making sure none were lost because it was not always so easy to catch fish. The fish flopped about on the raft as he laid them down, with ever lessening energy as the effort of trying to breathe through their gills wore them down. They managed a few more energetic flips before Haiyugen eased their suffering with a firm knock from a piece of wood.

"This is great!" said Baboogen. "I just put down the line and we have food a minute later, without any work at all!"

"You nearly fell in!" exclaimed Haiyugen.

"Ah, that was only a bit of work. There was no real work to it."

"Fair enough, Baboogen. I think you mean that there was no work you didn't enjoy in the job. That's the secret of making work easy. Roll up the line there so that we don't lose it."

Baboogen rolled up the line, whistling a tune without any obvious tune to it. He was happy enough that he didn't feel the need to bother making a song with his whistling, so he just whistled and smiled the easy smile of a boy who knew his father had everything under control.

"Hey, Dad!" shouted Baboogen in the direction of the hut.

"What?" answered Haiyugen.

"This is fun."

Haiyugen poked his head out the door to look at Baboogen. When he saw his relaxed, smiling face, he answered, "Yep, it sure is."

Haiyugen returned to gutting the fish, but he felt that something was changing in Baboogen and in Baboogen's relationship with him. As he worked, he got lost in thought about how Baboogen was developing and went to say something to him. Then he thought better of it and continued preparing the food.

Suddenly, a thought struck him in a more superficial way, like light drops of rain from a sun-shower falling onto warm skin – maybe the reason Baboogen was so relaxed was because his father was so relaxed.

Haiyugen paused for a long moment and thought that this was possible. It was difficult for him to process this new thought at first, since he always saw himself as being separate from anyone else. Baboogen looked quite different to Haiyugen, with brown eyes and brown hair whereas Haiyugen had fair hair and green eyes, but they were very similar in a lot of ways. They were both headstrong and athletic and they were not afraid of an adventure. Haiyugen did not always see the similarities and he had often said to his wife that his son must be from her side of the family. The times when Haiyugen thought he and his son were least similar were when they locked each other in a piercing gaze when they found something unimportant to argue about. Haiyugen did not realise that this was when they were most alike.

Since Haiyugen was often tired when he arrived home from work, it was too rare that he and Baboogen managed to find their more positive similarities.

Haiyugen did not really know what he was doing to become more relaxed, but he felt, for the first time, that this journey that he and Baboogen were on might lead to somewhere good. He was not even sure what would constitute somewhere good. However, he knew that this casual peace between him and his son was a gift from the heavens and he intended doing what he could to preserve it. Haiyugen knew that it was the natural order that life between parents and children would not run smoothly, but he felt that he had reached some level of understanding with his son that he could tap into, in times of crisis or celebration.

Haiyugen shouted out the door to tell Baboogen to put the pan on the fire. He had just gotten back to thinking that maybe a level of understanding in crisis or celebration was exactly what being a family was about, when Baboogen shouted back;

"The pan is dirty."

"You were supposed to wash it after we last used it, Baboogen."

"No, you were. I made the fire last!"

"Baboogen, wash the pan and put it on the fire."

Outside in the sun, Baboogen stretched lazily and thought about arguing. He stood up and went over to the cabin and poked his head in the door. Haiyugen was busy filleting the fish and glanced at him quickly.

"What?!"

"Okay, Dad," said Baboogen, getting the sea sponge from the ledge to wash the pan.

Two

Home, Sweet Home

The next morning on the raft, Haiyugen woke first to the glare of the sun piercing through the cracks in the wooden logs on the side he slept on. He turned to Baboogen, who was sleeping on the other side of the cabin, and thought about waking him. He reconsidered on the basis that young people need plenty of sleep, especially on long adventures.

Instead, Haiyugen got up quietly and opened the door of the cabin. He went outside and was happy to see the same calm ocean of the day before. There was a moderate breeze that was moving the raft along at a fair pace. Haiyugen guessed that the ocean current was as much responsible for the raft's movement as the breeze. Since Haiyugen had no real idea of how to navigate unless he was near the island, he thought the best plan was to hope that the winds and currents would bring him back towards the island in the same way that the currents had led his ancestors to the island. It was not the worst plan, all considered.

However, the one possible flaw in his plan was that if he had been brought by the currents away from the island, the currents would have to be circular to bring him back to the island. Haiyugen was not sure if he had sailed against the current or not, when they left the island. The storm had finished any hope of Haiyugen knowing where they were, but he knew they were very lucky to have made a raft capable of sailing in the ocean. He was also pretty pleased that he had thought to bring supplies.

He heard a groan from inside the cabin.

"Baboogen, are you awake?"

"How can I not be? It's so bright in here," moaned Baboogen.

"Come on out and help me tighten up the sail."

Baboogen put his head out the door and looked around.

"This is like déjà vu, Dad. I'm pretty sure we were here yesterday," said Baboogen, as he looked out at nothing but the open sea.

"That's very funny, Baboogen. Grab that rope and pull it tight. Have you got it?"

"Yes."

"Okay, tie it around the wooden peg. Come on, Baboogen, you know how to do this."

"I know, I know. I can hardly keep my eyes open."

Then Baboogen saw something that woke him up immediately.

"There's the island!"

Haiyugen turned around quickly, peering out at the ocean's edge and sure enough, there was a heavier line than usual on the horizon. Haiyugen's heart beat against his ribs like a drum. The stress of the unknown slowly gave way to an overwhelming relief as he began to trust his eyes.

"Where do you see the island, Baboogen?" he asked sharply.

"Over there, Dad!" said Baboogen, pointing in the direction that Haiyugen had been looking.

Haiyugen had needed Baboogen's confirmation after spending so long at sea. He continued staring in the direction of what seemed to be an island.

Haiyugen suddenly realised that he had forgotten about sailing the raft and set about directing it towards the island. He had no real need to do this since the currents were taking him in that direction anyway, but he felt the strong, human desire to reconnect with land and he was not going to let any current take him past it.

They sailed for fifteen minutes, both staring at the horizon, unwilling to comment on the sight until they were sure. Baboogen was first to break the silence.

"It's the island alright, Dad," he said in nearly a whisper.

"It seems to be, Baboogen," said Haiyugen with more than a trace of relief in his voice.

There were some peaks that Haiyugen did not instantly recognise, but that did not bother him.

Haiyugen looked over at his son for the first time since the land had been sighted and briefly caught his eye. The two looked back out towards the horizon.

"I knew we'd make it," said Baboogen, his face full of pride.

Baboogen sensed relief in his father and he realised that his father had put a lot of effort into making sure he did not feel lost.

"I knew you'd get us home," he continued quietly.

Haiyugen looked over at Baboogen silently. Then, he relaxed and smiled and said, "I just asked the sea to send us home, son."

He paused and continued, "You know, Baboogen, this could be another island near ours, but we will get home soon, don't worry."

The raft was drifting towards the island slowly, so they did not have to do anything other than tighten the sail and drift towards it.

The closer they got, the less like their island it seemed. There did not seem to be as many trees as there were on their island. They saw a few hills and not much else.

"Is that our island, Dad?" asked Baboogen.

"I don't think it is," answered Haiyugen with a note of seriousness in his voice. He was not sure what the significance of his statement was. He had not known that other big islands were still in existence, so a range of thoughts were flying through his mind all at the same time. He wondered how dangerous this island could be and if there were wild animals or diseases on the island, like he had heard in the myths.

"Are there dangerous people here...?" thought Haiyugen in a silent moment of panic. He had never known anywhere other than his island and the few small islands around it, so it was difficult for him to absorb everything that was happening.

"Are there people here?!" he thought again, and this time he was so caught up by the possibility of meeting new people that he relaxed somewhat.

The raft sailed gently into the dark side of a hill. Haiyugen pushed it through the rocks that protected the coastline until he was near enough to the island to be able to moor it. Then he jumped into the sea and tied the raft to a rock. He pulled the raft towards him and Baboogen also leapt onto the rocks. The pair walked on up to the grassy hill, Baboogen bouncing ahead, excited, while Haiyugen looked back anxiously at the raft, knowing that it was the only connection to their home.

There was no human habitation in sight, so they hiked to the top of the hill to get a better view. The ground was soft and bouncy. It was a mix of brown and green vegetation that grew no higher than a few inches off the ground. When they got to the top of the hill, they still could not see anything because there were more hills in the way. They walked through the grassy plateau and up a hundred yards to the top of the next hill.

"Yes!" said Baboogen, even more excited now. He pointed down to his left at what looked like a village. Wisps of smoke rose from some of the houses. Then, Baboogen started running down the hill towards the village, ignoring Haiyugen's shouted warnings.

Haiyugen ran down after him and grabbed Baboogen when he caught up with him.

"Wait, Baboogen! You don't know who these people are," he said. "Don't run off like that again! How can I mind you if I don't know where you are? You have to stay beside me until I think the situation is safe."

Haiyugen walked towards the village, stopping every so often to survey the scene. The houses were made of little stone blocks that were held together somehow. He could see some people walking around in the village. They seemed to be just going about their daily business so he decided to go down to the village to investigate further.

As they approached the village, two children, a boy and a girl, walked past. Haiyugen called them back and asked them where he was.

"You're in our town," the boy said. The girl giggled at this.

"Your clothes are very strange," she added, looking at Haiyugen's brown clothing made from plant fibres knitted together.

"What are your names?" asked Baboogen.

"Aon and Neamhnai," the boy answered. "I'm Aon, she's Neamhnai."

"I'm Baboogen," said Baboogen and he smiled at them with a clear, open face. Aon and Neamhnai smiled back in the same way and they bonded easily as children do.

"We've just come from the sea. We don't know where we are. My mother thinks we are in the jungle," Baboogen blurted out.

"That's enough, Baboogen," interrupted Haiyugen sharply.

Baboogen looked up at him with an anxious and confused face. Haiyugen knew he was just making friends and releasing the tension of the journey, but Haiyugen thought it could still be dangerous to tell anyone that they were from another island. He knew they would figure it out soon enough, but while he was coming to terms with there being other people in the world, he wanted as little information as possible being given to any outsiders.

He could not help thinking of the people here as outsiders because his island community was so small and tightly knit. Haiyugen knew that while children could become friends easily and honestly, adults could take a different view on the visitors.

"Are you staying in the hotel?" asked Aon.

"We're not staying anywhere yet," answered Haiyugen.

"You should stay in the hotel!" exclaimed Neamhnai.

"That sounds great!" agreed Baboogen, even though he had never heard of a hotel before.

"We're just having a look around, Neamhnai. We won't be staying here tonight," said Haiyugen.

"That's a pity," said Neamhnai with some genuine sorrow. She liked Baboogen's happy, smiling face and his funny clothes.

Haiyugen did not know if she thought it was a pity that they were not staying because the town was so nice or because she liked Baboogen. Examining the children more closely, he noticed that the youngsters were dressed in rags and that they were not the cleanest children the world had ever seen. Aon's outfit resembled a tunic, while Neamhnai was wearing a dress that had seen better days. Their clothes were the colour of sackcloth, which is not surprising since that is what they were made of. Sackcloth was one of the more hard-wearing materials available and it was in good supply since it was used to tie together anything that would float and had been well preserved in the nearby bogs.

They each had a simple cloth bag. Aon's bag was carried on a stick that he rested on his shoulder. Neamhnai's bag had two straps and she wore it like a rucksack.

"We're on our way home after playing in the park," declared Neamhnai.

"That's why we are so dirty," said Aon.

Haiyugen was impressed that Aon did not want the visitors to think badly of them. He knew that Baboogen's friends would not have cared at all if Haiyugen saw them covered in muck. Despite the mud, the children looked healthy. Aon was at an age where he was beginning to become a man, but he was still young. They both had strong, white teeth and broad smiles, which was how Haiyugen had seen their white teeth. They were tanned from being out in the sun. Neamhnai had light brown hair that fell straight down to the middle of her back. She had unusually light brown eyes that seemed to have flecks of green in them in the morning light. Aon had curly brown hair and greyish blue eyes that were the colour of the sea when it is between stormy and settled. Haiyugen and Baboogen were experts in the many colours of the sea after their long journey.

Haiyugen was trying to form an understanding of what these children were like, but he found that Aon's eyes were just as hard to read as the sea. Neamhnai returned his curious gaze with a more open, direct look.

"You really should stay in the hotel. The people there are very nice," she advised the pair.

"Thank you for your advice, Neamhnai," said Haiyugen. "We will go to find it now."

"What are you wearing under your clothes?" Baboogen said to Aon.

"Don't be so rude, Baboogen!" said Haiyugen.

"No, look!" said Baboogen, pointing at the end of Aon's tunic.

Aon laughed and said it was okay. He took off his sackcloth tunic and showed Baboogen what he was wearing and Neamhnai did the same.

Underneath the sackcloth, they wore the most wonderfully decorated silk clothes.

"These are our pyjamas," they laughed.

"But it's daytime!" said Baboogen, protesting at the fact that these children seemed to be allowed to wear pyjamas whenever they wanted.

"We wear our pyjamas during the day and the night," replied Neamhnai. "The grown-ups never notice because they're too high up."

"What have you got in the bag?" asked Baboogen.

It turned out that their bags contained only silk clothes and they told Haiyugen that they wore the sackcloth outer clothing so that they did not attract attention and they just exchanged it for newer sackcloth when it got too dirty to clean. Haiyugen did not know what to make of all this. He was intrigued by the young pair, as they were by him. They could not understand his innocence and lack of knowledge of the world.

Three

The New World

"We have to go home now," said Neamhnai. She ran off up the road, giggling as Aon chased after her. "Have a nice time here," she called back to the town's newest visitors.

Haiyugen and Baboogen wandered up the street slowly with the amble of two people not going anywhere in particular.

They began to take in their surroundings as they walked. The buildings were mostly three storeys high, some wider than others, with red roof tiles and a lot of wood in the frame of the buildings. Some of the houses and shops had colourful paintings on the outside walls, paintings of what looked like parties and festivals in the town. Some of the paintings were tranquil scenes and others were wilder scenes, but generally they were happy scenes, painted on a light base for emphasis.

Baboogen looked up at Haiyugen and said, "The paintings really brighten up the town. We should have them on our island."

Haiyugen smiled and said, "I like them as well."

The words that did not pass between them were more significant. For the first time since they were lost at sea, they felt like they were safe and they felt like they would survive. Of course, they were a long way from home and had no food and had not met any locals, but they were sure that something would work out in this beautiful town.

They saw a sign down the street that had a glass of beer and a plate of food painted on it. They walked towards it and saw an old, wooden door with large, black bolts fixed into the wood.

"Are you hungry?" asked Haiyugen.

"I'm starving," replied Baboogen.

"Come on, let's go in here."

Haiyugen opened the door and walked in, with Baboogen following close behind him. They walked into a large, dark room, with wooden beams and tables and chairs scattered about the room. There were some people sitting on stools at a counter, with drinks in front of them. There were no women in the room and it was not surprising since the men that occupied the room looked like they had long stopped caring about what women might think of them.

"Dad, I'm really thirsty," whispered Baboogen.

"We seem to be in the right place then," Haiyugen whispered back with a smile. "Take a seat at the table there."

Haiyugen walked up to the counter and asked the man behind it if he could have two drinks.

"Sure, what would you like?" replied the man.

"Could you give me two of those drinks? They look nice," asked Haiyugen, pointing at the nearest drink to him.

"I can give you one of them," replied the man. "Not for the boy."

"Why not?!" asked Haiyugen.

The man looked him up and down, taking in the strange clothes and unkempt look.

"Are you not from around here?"

"Oh, no! We're from far from here," replied Haiyugen with a friendly smile.

"Have you not been in many bars?"

"I've never been in a bar."

"Hmmm... well, ordinarily I wouldn't serve you for asking what you asked earlier, but I believe what you said because you just couldn't make up the clothes that you are wearing."

The men at the counter laughed out loud at this.

Haiyugen began to feel uncomfortable.

"I'm not sure we are in the right place. We just wanted something to eat and something to drink," he said.

"No, you're in the right place alright. Okay, relax and take a seat and I'll bring you over something to drink."

"And a drink for my son?"

"Yes, and a drink for your son."

"Can you bring us some food as well?"

"Two daily specials?" said the barman, unwilling to go through the menu.

"Two daily specials will be perfect."

The men at the bar were no longer interested in the pair and they got back to their conversation about nothing in particular, while Haiyugen stood nearby, trying to join in the proceedings.

"This beer is making me impervious to the cold," said one of the men to another.

"Seriously, I can't feel the cold at all," he continued, looking for a reaction from someone to his new magical power of beer-induced heat.

Nobody said anything, so he repeated himself, "Seriously, I..."

This time he was interrupted by the man sitting two stools down from him.

"It's not cold. You can't feel the cold because it's warm outside. You just haven't left here since the morning."

"Are you sure?"

"Your head is impervious to sense, I'm sure of that," said the barman to a chorus of guffaws.

"Ah, now... there's no need for that," said the original speaker, suddenly interested in the appearance of his drink.

Haiyugen could not understand what the men were talking about and he went over to the table where Baboogen was sitting.

"This is some adventure, son, isn't it?" he said.

"It is, Dad. What is he bringing us?"

"I haven't a clue," laughed Haiyugen.

"I bet it'll be something nice," said Baboogen.

They lapsed into silence as they realised how hungry they were. They had forgotten to eat in the excitement of the day's discoveries.

The barman brought over two plates of hot beef stew with carrots, onions and potatoes, a beer for Haiyugen and a pitcher of cool lemonade for both.

The father and son ate as if they had not eaten in a week, without a word being spoken.

The barman had been watching them occasionally while they ate.

"Were you hungry?" he asked with a guffaw, as he collected their plates.

"Starving!" answered Baboogen.

The barman was amused by his honesty.

"That's good. Hunger is a great sauce," he said, slapping his belly as he let out another loud guffaw.

"That will be seventy dollars," he continued.

Haiyugen smiled up at the barman vacantly.

"Thank you for the food and the drinks. You are most kind," he said.

"You're very welcome. That will be seventy dollars."

"Sorry, seventy what?"

"Dollars. You know, little bits of paper that we use around here to buy things... oh, you've got to be kidding!"

"What?!"

"You don't have any money..."

"I don't even know what it is," said Haiyugen with a broad smile.

The barman growled and went off through a door. Haiyugen looked over at Baboogen and shrugged his shoulders.

"This place is a bit strange," said Baboogen.

"It's fine, Baboogen. We just have to get to know how things work here."

Haiyugen turned around as the barman crashed through the door, through which he had exited just a moment ago.

"The manager wants to speak to you."

"Sure, I'd be delighted to speak to him," said Haiyugen.

He went to stand up, whispering to Baboogen as he got up, "The manager wants to speak to me. I guess they all want to meet us because we are new in the town."

"I bet he wants to welcome you and offer you a place to stay here."

"I bet he does, too."

Haiyugen walked over to the same door the barman had gone through and went into the manager's office.

A large, corpulent man was slouched behind a heavy desk in the office. There was nothing on the desk other than a pen and some notebooks.

"Hello, my name is Haiyugen."

"Sit," grunted the manager.

"I hear you cannot pay for the food you ate and the drinks you ordered in my establishment."

"Of course I will repay you for the favour you have bestowed on us," answered Haiyugen.

"With money?" said the manager, raising one eyebrow in a manner that said that was as much effort as he expected to have to expend on the rest of the discussions.

"With what?"

"Money."

Haiyugen smiled at the manager. Then he looked around the room and looked back at the manager.

"What is money?"

The manager did not look quite so relaxed at this stage. He had met plenty of customers who would try to wangle their way out of a bill, but this one confused him. He could not tell if Haiyugen was trying to play him or being serious, and he did not like doubting himself.

"Are you serious?" the manager growled loudly.

"Yes," said Haiyugen, wearing an expression that was between surprise and shock.

It was at this point that the manager noticed his unusual clothes.

"You aren't from around here, are you?" he asked.

"No," answered Haiyugen. "We're from-"

"I don't care where you're from. Do you not have any money?"

"I don't know," answered Haiyugen, looking at the pockets in his clothing as if some of this money might spring from them. "I don't think so."

"Enough."

The manager rubbed his temples with his fingers as he thought of a solution to this minor issue that was upsetting him more than it should. Finally, his face relaxed momentarily.

"Would you wash the dishes that are in the kitchen from earlier on?" asked the manager, his face clouding over in doubt again as he assessed Haiyugen's reaction to the question.

"Of course! We'd be delighted to help," replied Haiyugen.

The manager relaxed as he realised Haiyugen was not trying to take advantage of him.

"Okay, come with me," said the manager of the inn.

Haiyugen followed the manager back into the bar, calling out to Baboogen as he walked, "We're going to help out in the kitchen, Baboogen."

The men in the bar looked over and seemed puzzled for a moment as they tried to figure everything out, but the struggle to understand the pair of new arrivals proved too much and they got back to their more important conversation about anything that came into their heads.

The manager showed Haiyugen what he wanted them to do in lieu of paying for the food and left them to it. So much of the equipment was new to Haiyugen and Baboogen that the work seemed more like fun to them. They also felt relieved and more accepted by the people they had met after the stress of trying to understand what had happened after the meal.

The manager walked out to the bar and made himself a drink of water and ice with a slice of lime in it.

"I could have lost my temper over a bit of food," said the manager to the barman.

"I know," replied the barman, "they are a strange pair."

"It wasn't the food at all. I just thought he was trying to pull a fast one, do you know what I mean?"

"I do," replied the barman. "You know, it's so weird how we can pay so much in a nice restaurant for the same food you can buy in a shop for a few dollars, but when someone walks away without paying for a drink... even if they didn't mean it, we act like they robbed a bank."

"Yeah, well, you pay for the service and to use the nice building and all that," said the manager.

"That's true. Yeah, I know, I was just saying... I think that sometimes we get hooked on what we _think_ are the rules. We don't question who makes the rules or why the rules are there," said the barman, nodding in the direction of the kitchen.

"Well, the rule in this place is you give these guys drinks and they pay for them, _get it?_ " interrupted the manager loudly.

The men drinking in the bar chuckled.

"I get that, don't worry," replied the barman brusquely.

The manager walked back to his office as the barman worked on his theory with the customers.

After a while, Haiyugen and Baboogen emerged from the kitchen smiling.

"We're finished!" said Baboogen proudly.

"Well done," said the barman, still a little unnerved by the pair. "Do you want a glass of water?"

"That would be great," said Haiyugen.

The barman poured two glasses of water for them and left them at the bar counter.

"We were just discussing rules," said the barman to Haiyugen, leaning on the counter. "You don't seem to have the same rules as us."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you seem to think you don't have to pay for anything. Where are you from?" asked the barman.

"We're from an island that is like this one, but warmer and with more plants and trees."

"Like a forest?"

"Yes, like a forest."

"Okay... and what do you call it?"

"We call it the World," answered Haiyugen.

The men at the bar laughed out loud. They were slightly drunk and were getting towards a stage of united reaction. The next stage was usually singing together and then falling asleep in the afternoon one at a time, as if they were manning a post that somehow involved taking a nap.

"Why do you call it that?" asked the barman.

"Well, I never really thought about it until now..." Haiyugen looked up at the ceiling and then out he looked out the door, in search of inspiration. "It might be because the first settlers on the island thought it was the last remaining place in the world or maybe..."

"Maybe what?"

"Well, I don't really want to say it now," said Haiyugen, nodding in the direction of Baboogen. Then he looked over at Baboogen and decided that it would be okay if he heard what he was going to say. "Maybe the first settlers wanted the next generation to think it was the only place in the world, so they called it the World."

Baboogen looked anxious, knowing that saying these things was part of the reason they were sent to the other side of their home island.

"Why would they want us to think that?" asked Baboogen.

"I don't know, Baboogen. They might have thought it was just an easier way to preserve the code."

"What code is this?" interrupted the barman with a glance in the direction of the other villagers, who were sobering with the serious tone of the conversation.

"The code we live by. It governs a lot of what we do in life."

"So you have rules," said the barman, pointing in their direction to emphasize his point.

"Of course we do. I think they are a lot different to your rules though. They are probably a lot different to any set of rules because the early settlers on our island made a special set of rules to live by that would suit the people on the island."

"And you broke the rules... and that's why you're here?" continued the barman.

"I suppose so," answered Haiyugen after a moment.

"I knew it! We have another wild one, lads," said the barman to the room in general.

The men started a drinking song that carried over Haiyugen's objections to being called wild.

After the second verse, when Haiyugen realised they were not going to stop any time soon, he waved at them and made his way to the door with Baboogen close behind him. The men in the bar nodded as he left and let him on his way, knowing that they would not last too many more of these difficult concepts before feeling like taking a nap.

"Wow, that place was really strange," said Baboogen, as he emerged into the light of the day again with his father.

"I think they thought the same about us," said Haiyugen. "I don't know who is right. Probably neither... Come on, let's have a look around the town."

They wandered off up the street past a variety of brightly coloured shop fronts, pausing to look in every window. Many of the shops had very little goods in them and a lot of the goods looked used or in some state of disrepair. Only the shops selling naturally recurring goods, such as foodstuffs, wool or flowers, were well stocked.

They were so engrossed in the items for sale that they hardly noticed people staring at them. Every so often, Haiyugen looked around when he heard passersby slow down. He shot everyone a big, friendly smile and they generally smiled back.

"Look at that place, Dad!" exclaimed Baboogen, as they made their way down the street.

Baboogen was pointing at a large building made of a variety of types of stone. Unusually for the village, the stone was also of a variety of shapes and sizes, which made the building stand out even more.

"It's like a sandcastle I would make," said Baboogen, proud that his sandcastle-making skills had been recognised by these builders. "What is it?"

"I don't know... it's huge," said Haiyugen, looking up at the building. The building was five stories tall, with some rooms that were brightly lit. Some buildings in Haiyugen's island were two stories tall, but they had never seen the need to build higher buildings. He wondered why they needed such a big building.

"Let's go in," said Baboogen.

"Okay, let's have a look inside."

They walked in more nonchalantly than when they had entered the village inn, trying to blend in. A number of people were milling about, more concerned with their own affairs than with the new visitors.

Baboogen walked towards a counter with his father on his heels.

"What is going on here?" Baboogen asked a young woman with dark hair and a welcoming face.

"What do you mean?" she replied.

"What's going on in this building?!" he asked again, more animated this time.

"Okay, Baboogen, take it easy," said Haiyugen, before explaining to the young woman, "He just wants to know what the building is used for."

"Oh, right, well, it's a hotel," answered the lady, somewhat mystified at the pair.

"And what is that?" asked Baboogen, with an inquisitive look.

"A hotel is a hotel," said the lady, laughing. "It's where people stay for the night if they are from another place."

She looked at Haiyugen strangely.

"Oh, yes," said Haiyugen, "that's what we thought it was. We're looking for a place to stay for tonight."

"Just one minute... hmmm... yes, we have a room available that will suit you. How would you like to pay?"

"We will repay you with kindness," said Haiyugen.

The lady behind the counter laughed even louder this time. When she saw that people nearby were looking over, she calmed down.

"Cash, I take it?"

"Cash?"

"That will be fine. You can pay tomorrow when you're checking out," she replied. She then gestured over to a worker dressed in a bright uniform and continued, "This man will take your luggage and show you to your room."

They followed the uniformed worker away from the counter.

"Where have you left your luggage?" he asked.

"We don't have any bags with us. We left everything on the-"

"That's enough, Baboogen," interrupted Haiyugen, before he turned to the man helping them and said, "We'll get our bags later."

"That suits me," answered the worker. He then showed the pair to their room.

"Look at the beds! They're amazing!" said Baboogen to Haiyugen, when they went into the room.

"They look good to me," said Haiyugen, as he lay down on the nearest one.

Baboogen went over to the window and looked out at the street.

"Can you close the curtains, Baboogen? I am really tired after the last few days."

"I'm pretty tired as well, Dad."

Baboogen closed the curtains and lay on the bed nearest the window. Moments later, both passed out and didn't move until sunlight shining through the curtains woke them from the deep sleep of near exhaustion.

In the morning, they went downstairs and ate a full breakfast with the other guests. They went back up to their room afterwards to tidy up and get ready for the day.

There was a loud knock on the door soon after they went in. Haiyugen went over to the door and opened it.

The manager of the hotel stood outside.

"Hello," said Haiyugen, not sure who the man was.

"Good morning," answered the man. "I am the manager of the hotel. I understand you stayed here last night?"

"We did, yes," answered Haiyugen.

"And I'm guessing that you have no money?"

"Money..." Haiyugen scratched the back of his head and turned around to Baboogen. "Is that what the man was talking about where we ate, son?"

"It was, I think," answered Baboogen.

"Okay, okay," said the manager. "Look, I was over in the bar and I was talking to Pat and he said to me to look out for you."

"Why do you need to look out for us?" asked Haiyugen. "We're doing fine."

"Hmmm... okay, this is how it is - I think you have no money and I think you can't pay for the room."

Haiyugen sensed that the man was somewhat anxious like the manager in the bar.

"I think you're probably right," confirmed Haiyugen, unsure what to say.

"But... I am willing to offer you a job here. Ehh, life should not be about money," said the hotel manager nervously. "I'm more than just a job, if you get me?"

"You are more than just a job?!"

"I mean I haven't forgotten that I'm a person and not just a hotel manager."

Haiyugen had not the slightest idea what the man was talking about, but he could see the man was more relaxed now so Haiyugen smiled at him and said, "That's great."

The manager realised there was some element of miscommunication taking place and moved on quickly.

"Would you like to work here?" he asked.

"Of course I would," replied Haiyugen.

"That's great," said the manager, relieved. "Yeah, Pat said you would work. This could have been an embarrassing situation if you had said no."

Haiyugen raised an eyebrow, unsure what the last comment meant.

"What would you like me to do?" he asked.

"Will you help the staff in the hotel bar to load up the bar with drinks and could you report to the kitchen afterwards?"

"I will help in any way I can," said Haiyugen with a dignity that the hotel manager could not help but notice.

Haiyugen went down to the reception counter and was given instructions as to what he could do to help. He asked if they would like Baboogen to help also, but the lady behind the counter said children could not work in the hotel, so he told Baboogen to explore the small town and not to stray too far or talk to strange people.

"But they are all strange people," Baboogen whispered to his father.

The lady behind the counter overheard and chuckled to herself.

"He will be fine," she reassured Haiyugen. "There are plenty of children his age in the village."

"Once you've had a look around the shops, go down to the playground, over by the mill. There will be lots of children there in an hour or two," said the lady to Baboogen.

"Okay, see you at lunchtime, Dad."

"See you then, son. You know where I am if you need me."

"I do. Don't worry, I'll be fine," said Baboogen, as he walked out into the sunny morning.

Haiyugen smiled at the lady and opened out his hands to ask what he was required to do.

"Right, Mister," she said, "let's get you started!"

Four

The Navigator

I

Baboogen wandered around the town for a while, exploring the shops that he felt comfortable in and walking quickly through shops where the owners stared at him in his unusual clothes.

He began wondering where the playground was and looked for the mill the lady had talked about. After a few minutes, he saw the tower of the mill behind a flower shop.

Baboogen followed a path down to the playground. There was nobody there when he arrived. He did not recognise a lot of the equipment, but he saw a swing in the corner of the playground. He went over to sit on the swing and was rocking back and forth slowly when a group of children came around the corner.

Some were loud and some just ran along quietly beside the others. Two of them were much bigger than the others and one of these pointed at Baboogen.

"Who is he?!" the tall boy asked. There was a pause as the children all looked over at Baboogen.

Then, a familiar voice said, "That's Baboogen!"

Baboogen got off the swing and went to see who had recognised him. Aon emerged from the group and went over to Baboogen, grabbing his arm.

"Come on the roundabout with us, it's great fun!"

Baboogen went along with Aon and got on the roundabout with some of the other children. Two of the boys pushed them around on it and soon Baboogen was joining in the screams and laughter of the group.

The children spent a few hours talking and using the playground equipment. Every so often, someone asked Baboogen where he was from, but they quickly lost interest when he started to describe it. Their world was the village and the surrounding area. Everywhere else might as well have been on another planet.

An old man, who was cleaning the playground, was more interested in where Baboogen was from than the children were. They did not care at all where Baboogen was from so long as he joined in the games. The old man had been trying to get the children to help with the cleaning of their playground when he overheard one of the children questioning Baboogen. The children were very reluctant to help out in the clean-up operation, but Baboogen had started putting leaves that had blown into a corner of the playground into the bin as soon as the old man asked for help.

"Are you not from here?" the old man asked. He had curly, silver hair that was about one full curl long all over his head. He also had a full, bristling, grey and silver beard and he wore a pair of round eyeglasses, made out of some type of metal. It looked as if he had made the glasses himself or at least, as if they had not been made by a skilled craftsman. The glasses looked sturdy and functional to anyone used to seeing people wearing glasses, but Baboogen had never seen anyone wearing glasses before in his life. He stood in front of the man, transfixed by the strange object perched on his nose.

"No, I'm from an island far from here," replied Baboogen.

"Well, you must be because you have much better manners than the children here."

"It's a playground for children so the children should clean it!" said Baboogen, surprised at the behaviour of the others. A few of the group of children were making a half-hearted effort to clean, embarrassed into doing some work by Baboogen's efforts.

"Have you never seen a pair of glasses before," asked the old man.

"No," said Baboogen. "I... I didn't mean to stare at it. Why is it called a pair?"

"I suppose it's because there are two glasses," answered the man. "Here, try them on."

The old man handed his glasses to Baboogen as one or two children came over to see what Baboogen would think of wearing the glasses.

Baboogen could see the twinkle in the old man's eyes, now that he was not wearing the glasses. Even though he was old, he seemed a lot younger when he took off his glasses.

Baboogen tried on the glasses and took them off straightaway.

"Wow! I couldn't see anything! All I could see was a blur. Why do you want to see a blur like that?" Baboogen blurted out.

"I don't. It's not a blur for me. It... eh... it fixes a blur for me," said the old man. "Can everyone where you are from see well?"

"Nobody on our island wears anything like that. I think one of the fishermen can't see very well. Maybe he should have something like that."

"Maybe," agreed the old man.

"You've met Glic!" said Aon, bouncing over to them.

"How are you, Aon?" said Glic. "You'll help out, won't you?"

"Of course I will, Glic! This is Baboogen. He is from far, far away from here," said Aon, pointing towards the sea.

"I heard that, Aon."

"I'm here with my dad," said Baboogen.

"I heard that as well," said Glic. "They said in the inn that we had visitors who had come here on a small raft. You are very brave to set out on a small raft like that."

"Well," laughed Baboogen, "we didn't mean to go far!"

"Oh, you were lucky so," said Glic, with a chuckle.

"My dad got us here," said Baboogen proudly.

"He sure did," said Glic. "I must meet up with him. Are you staying in the hotel?"

"We are."

"I'll ask at the desk for your father. I'm very interested to hear your story."

"I'll tell him you want to meet him."

"Thanks, that would be great," said Glic, wandering off up the street with the pole that he used to hook rubbish into the bag he carried.

"Glic was the headmaster in the school, until he got too old," said Aon to Baboogen, when Glic had gone around the corner.

"Was he a good teacher?" asked Baboogen.

"He was the best teacher ever," replied Aon. "He knows everything. Well, he knows more than anyone else in the town."

They went back to the group and joined in the activities until one smaller child said that she was hungry. The children all realised how hungry they were as soon as food was mentioned and they all disappeared to their homes for lunch. Baboogen went back to the hotel to join his father for lunch. He waited in the reception area for Haiyugen. When Haiyugen emerged from the restaurant, he was wearing a uniform of black pants and a black tunic. He smiled at Baboogen and motioned to him to join him in the hotel bar.

"I like your work clothes, Dad!" said Baboogen.

"They are really comfortable actually. How do I look?"

"You look great!"

Haiyugen smiled and said, "I've been working hard and I need food now. How was your morning?"

"It was great. I met loads of kids. I was on a roundabout and Dad, I met this guy who wants to meet you. His name is Glic!"

"Who is he?"

"He knows more than anyone in the town. Aon told me that."

"You met Aon as well?"

"Yes, and Neamhnai and loads more."

"What did this man, Glic, want?" asked Haiyugen, as he walked towards a table where two glasses of milk and two plates of bacon and potatoes and cabbage glistening with melted butter were ready for them. The bacon fat was charred and sizzling and Haiyugen wasted no time in getting started on his lunch. They continued chatting while they ate.

"I don't know. He said he was going to come here to the hotel to ask to speak with us."

"Okay, well, I'll talk to him then. What do you think of how the people live here?" asked Haiyugen, changing the subject.

"I don't know. It's very different to home. They don't seem to help each other much."

"Some people live by a different code, I guess," said Haiyugen. "They don't have the same rules."

"Do you think they have their own rules?" asked Baboogen.

"They might. It's hard to tell. Sometimes, they seem to have rules and sometimes they don't," said Haiyugen.

"They seem to have a good time, but they don't all seem to be happy," said Baboogen.

"I think they seem normal enough. People can pretend they are happy on our island, but they might not always be happy."

"Why would they do that?" asked Baboogen.

"Well, maybe because they want to fit in with everyone else," replied Haiyugen.

"Oh... why do they not do that here?"

"I think the rules here are that you can be happy or not and you will still fit in. It might be a healthier way to live. Maybe they do help each other, just in a different way," said Haiyugen.

"How?" asked Baboogen.

"I don't know, but I think that what happens on the surface is not always how things are."

"Like magic?!"

"Do I think they help each other like magic?!" said Haiyugen, laughing. "Hmmm... maybe they do. People can connect on different levels."

Haiyugen let his last statement hang in the air while he tackled his lunch.

"What do you mean?" asked Baboogen when he realised his father was not going to finish his explanation.

"I mean they can connect on a superficial level and on a less superficial level, so maybe there is some kind of magic or sense in play that we don't normally use. I didn't think I'd be agreeing with you about magic," said Haiyugen with a laugh.

Life was good when there was a plate of food and a drink in front of them. For a few minutes, they were able to forget that they were a long way from home. They felt like they were managing quite well on their adventure at that point.

"Magic...!" said Baboogen breathlessly.

"I don't know if it's like that, Baboogen!"

"But it might be..." said Baboogen in a whisper.

Haiyugen smiled and looked up at the sound of footsteps near the table they were sitting at. An old man walked towards him and said, "Haiyugen?"

"It's Glic!" said Baboogen to his father.

"Hi, I'm Glic. I was the headmaster of the school in the town here. Well, it's more of a village than a town, but we like to make ourselves feel important. Can I sit down?"

"Yes, sure," said Haiyugen.

"I have some questions I'd like to ask you," said Glic, before reassuring Haiyugen, "don't worry, it's not anything official. These are just my own questions; I have a curious mind."

Glic smiled at Haiyugen, who was awaiting his questions with some unease. "First of all, have you any questions for me?" he asked.

"I do!" said Baboogen, who was waving his hand in the air as if he was at school.

"Okay, go ahead," said Glic.

Haiyugen had no idea what Baboogen wanted to know, but he was happy to have the attention deflected from himself. Haiyugen was not naturally mistrustful, but he was struggling to go with his normal instincts, after spending his entire life on one island. Transported to this land where nothing seemed to be like home, he found himself much more wary than usual.

"What are the paintings about?" asked Baboogen.

"The paintings on the houses, do you mean? Yes? Okay, they are paintings of family events and the paintings on the shops are paintings of town events, like summer festivals and winter markets. They mainly just brighten up the place and show visitors how great a place it is to visit or live in!" replied Glic.

"I like them," said Baboogen. "I wish we had them in our village."

There was a pause as Baboogen's mind drifted towards thoughts of his friends and family at home. Haiyugen still said nothing, unsure what the man wanted.

"Where did you come from?" said Glic eventually.

"We came from an island far from here... we got lost out at sea," said Haiyugen, by way of apology to everyone and no one.

Glic stayed silent, waiting for Haiyugen to continue.

Haiyugen took a sip of water and continued, "We, em... we're from a different place. It's not like here at all."

"How is it different?"

"Well, we thought, or at least most of us, as it happens, thought that we were the only people on Earth."

"Yeah, that is pretty different to here," said Glic, with a chuckle.

"We aren't simpletons or anything like that."

"No, no, I didn't mean that. I just meant that we are very aware of other people and other settlements, or at least the ones that live around these parts. The way people think changed a lot after the Great Floods... we realised we would all die if we didn't share information and work together."

"Well, that's not too different to us!" said Haiyugen with relief in his voice.

"From what I heard, your folks went a step further," said Glic.

"How do you mean?" asked Haiyugen.

"It was something I heard in the pub. The barman said your elders wanted people to think the island was the only place in the world."

"They might have. One of the reasons we are here is because we were upsetting our people with comments like that," said Haiyugen, standing up and motioning to Baboogen to join him. "I don't mean to be rude, but we are much more interested in getting home than we are in discussing how our island is run."

"Wait, wait! I'm not here to talk about where you are from. Can you sit back down for a few minutes?"

Haiyugen stayed standing.

"I can help you get home," said Glic.

Baboogen looked up at his father, but said nothing since he knew Glic's last statement meant more than words to himself and his father.

"How?" asked Haiyugen, sticking his jaw out slightly, unwilling to allow this stranger to raise his hopes.

"I have a map," said Glic.

"But you don't even know where we are from!" said Baboogen.

"Look, I'm not promising anything. I'm not. I have a map and a story that follows the map. It is either just a story or it is actually a map."

"Do you have a book?" asked Baboogen, proud of his new knowledge.

"I do. I've salvaged a few over my lifetime. They are as rare as hens' teeth since the Floods. Most were ruined by the sea or burnt for heat and cooking," said Glic.

"Okay, show us this map. We had a map of our island in the village that we built from mud. We baked it in an oven to harden it and decorated it with some paints made from berries and plants and eggs. We used it a lot for planning the farming and who would work where and all that."

"And Mum used to use it to plan groups for baking," added Baboogen.

"Half the ingredients for her baking were in the map; it's surprising she had anything left to bake with! Well, the journey I'm looking at wouldn't involve much baking, that's for sure," said Glic. He was looking at Baboogen as he talked and saw his head drop a little.

"I think you'll be home to your mother's baking in no time at all," continued Glic more softly.

Baboogen looked up at Glic and then over at his father. "Really?" he said.

The two men, who hardly knew each other, replied in unison, "Really."

Baboogen smiled broadly and said, "I can't wait to see her."

Glic glanced over at Haiyugen and nodded towards the bar.

Haiyugen asked Baboogen if he would get his jacket in the room upstairs. He then followed Glic over to the corner of the bar, away from the other guests.

"I didn't mean for that to happen. I'm sorry for being insensitive. I just wasn't thinking; this is not a normal situation for us either," said Glic.

"It's okay. I know you didn't mean anything. What were you going to say anyway?" asked Haiyugen.

"I didn't mean to have to say the map would work. I don't know if it will, but..."

"But what?"

"But I think it is your best shot and maybe your only shot, or at least the only way that I know of possibly getting you back to your island."

"And what would you know?"

"I'm interested in people and in what is going on around the place. I talk more to drifters and people passing through here than anyone else and I know a fair bit about what is out there," said Glic, pointing outside. "I've never heard of better maps surviving the Floods than the one I have. I'm sure there are some, but I've never heard of anyone having such a map."

"That doesn't mean they don't exist," retorted Haiyugen, who was rapidly adapting to the new world in which he found himself.

"True, but even if we had a perfect map, how can we find your island on it and how can we sail to it?" said Glic.

Haiyugen stared at Glic and turned away to think for a long moment.

"Why do you think your map will be any different?" he said finally.

"My theory is based on logic, so you'll have to listen carefully to see if you think it could be right. My map has a story of sailors to go with it. The sailors made the map as they went from place to place. I can't see why they would have sailed against the wind for long, if they didn't have to. So, I think they must have sailed with the wind. Right?"

"Probably," said Haiyugen, going along with the theory for the moment.

"And most of the people in the Great Flood sailed or drifted to wherever they were going without any great sailing skills. So they, most likely, went with the wind, if they were sailing."

"I would say so. The history of our island tells of the first people sailing to the island by pure chance so I think they must have just been sailing to wherever the wind brought them," said Haiyugen.

"I agree," piped up Baboogen, who had rejoined the two men without them noticing.

The men laughed, breaking up the earlier tension somewhat.

"I think you might be able to do the same," said Glic.

"We will talk about this again," said Haiyugen, shaking Glic's hand with a strong grasp.

As they walked out, Glic said to Haiyugen, once Baboogen had run on ahead, "It would be a long and difficult journey, make no mistake about it."

"At the moment, Glic, it is my only option."

Glic said nothing in reply, realising the predicament of the visitors.

"Will you be here later on?" he asked.

"I will," replied Haiyugen.

"I'll call by after dinner so. Wear some good shoes."

"I only have one pair of shoes, Glic."

"Of course. Well, wear those shoes then!"

Haiyugen smiled and nodded to indicate he would. He then went back into the hotel to see what he could do to help.

"I see you've met Glic," said the barman, when Haiyugen approached to ask about the money. He still did not understand how money worked, but he knew he had to discuss it with people after they gave him food or drinks.

"Yes, he seems like a very nice man."

"Oh, he's one of the good guys alright. He is great for the town, even still. He taught me in the school here actually. Great teacher."

"Well, I'm glad he has taken an interest in us."

"I wonder what he is thinking of," said the barman.

"You think he is thinking of something?!"

"Oh, definitely. He is always up to some scheme. I suppose his brain is always working," answered the barman.

"I'd better find out more about his latest scheme then..." said Haiyugen, as he wandered off slowly, not entirely comforted by the hotel barman's words.

II

Later that day, Glic came back to the hotel. He asked for Haiyugen and found him in the bar entertaining a group of guests with tales of his travels.

Baboogen saw him approaching and said to his father, "Dad, it's Glic."

Haiyugen broke off his story-telling and looked over at the new arrival.

"Okay, one minute, Glic," he said, before turning to his audience. "I have to go, folks. A friend of mine has arrived and we have some work to do."

"Do you want us to mind Baboogen?" one lady asked.

"I don't need to be minded." said Baboogen.

Haiyugen laughed and said, "Baboogen, you don't know anything about this place. Stay here with these nice people, okay?"

"Okay, that is fair enough, I suppose."

"It's fair enough and it's how it is," replied Haiyugen. "I have enough to worry about without worrying about you as well."

"You don't have to worry about me."

"I know, Baboogen, but stay here anyway."

"We will take care of him," said one of the men in the group, realising that there was some serious element to Haiyugen's plans.

"Thanks," said Haiyugen.

Haiyugen walked out with Glic, taking a deep breath as he walked out the hotel door.

It was dark outside and raining gently. The moon lit up columns of rain where its light penetrated between the village's buildings.

Glic led the way in silence. He felt the weight of Haiyugen's world heavy upon him and could not cast it off sufficiently to strike up a conversation.

"This way," he managed, as they approached a wooded area.

Haiyugen had no thought of fear on entering the woods with a stranger. He himself was a stranger in a strange land. He also found it hard not to trust Glic.

They walked through the woods for a few minutes. Haiyugen had no idea how Glic knew where he was going, but Glic walked purposefully and Haiyugen followed.

"That's good that the rain has stopped," said Glic to break the silence.

"Why?" asked Haiyugen.

"We cannot open the book if it is raining."

Haiyugen nodded, but he did not understand why the book could not be opened in the rain.

Suddenly, Glic stopped at a clearing and looked around him.

"Here it is," said Glic, pointing at a pile of acorns.

"Why do you keep it under a pile of acorns?" asked Haiyugen.

"It's to confuse the squirrels," replied Glic.

"What?" said Haiyugen, not sure that he wanted to hear the answer.

"Did you know there's a bird that stores 30,000 pine nuts in a season over 100 square miles under stones and in the ground and remembers where 70% of them are over the Winter, even when they are buried deep under the snow?!" said Glic, throwing Haiyugen off-guard.

"Okay..." said Haiyugen, going along with it, but he was beginning to feel ill at the thought that he had put his faith in a madman.

"Ah, there are no squirrels around here. The acorns are just there to remind me of where I put them," said Glic.

"Are there not always squirrels where there are oak trees?" asked Haiyugen, anxious to restore sense to the conversation.

"I don't know, maybe there are, but they never touch these acorns. They probably know what's underneath them," replied Glic.

"Well, show me what's underneath them so," said Haiyugen.

Glic dug down into the ground with his hands. The ground was loose and he quickly found what he was looking for. Haiyugen heard a hollowish knock as Glic's knuckles hit something in the ground. Glic dug more earth out from around a dark object in the ground. He was very carefully making sure all the corners and sides of the object were clear of the sides of the hole he was digging.

"Why don't you just pull it out?" asked Haiyugen.

"It's very old," said Glic. "We have to be careful with it."

Eventually, Glic took the object out of the ground. It was a glass case, with a package wrapped in plastic inside the glass.

Glic opened the glass case and took the package out of it. He then unwrapped the plastic around the package and Haiyugen saw it was a large book. It was bound in leather and the pages were made of parchment. It looked like it was more than a thousand years old.

Even though Haiyugen had little understanding of the value books could have, he realised that what Glic was holding was not an ordinary book. He also understood at the same time why the older man had sounded mad, as he looked at his frail body taking such care of the book. He understood instinctively that Glic was acting like that to prevent Haiyugen from trying to steal or damage his most treasured possession.

"It's okay. I won't damage it," said Haiyugen, without thinking.

"What?!" said Glic, his hand flying around the book to protect it.

"No! What I was trying to say was that I will care for the book as you do. I can see how important it is to you."

Glic looked up at Haiyugen, wild-eyed, "Do you mean that?"

"Of course, Glic!" replied Haiyugen forcefully.

"Oh, okay... sorry, I just panicked there. It's just... I haven't shown this book to anyone for a long time. I guess I thought that since you aren't from here, and you seem to have different views on things, that you wouldn't try to take it to get money for it."

"You were right. I work for my money," said Haiyugen, with a broad smile, proud that he was catching on to this money concept.

Glic smiled back, happy with Haiyugen's answer.

"Come here and have a look at this."

The book did indeed have a lot of pictures of land and sea, enough that pieced together, the pictures could be used as a map. There was a boat in the pictures and it seemed to be following a route around the map, rather than just being placed in the pictures.

They couldn't figure out if there was a reason for the map, if it led somewhere, but Glic thought it might help Haiyugen find his way home because the journey ended at an island that seemed very green like Haiyugen's island or alternatively, any other green island.

"It's really beautiful, Glic."

"I agree, there's serious craft in it. It's handwritten and hand-painted and handmade."

"Hand everything then."

"Yep."

"What's on the cover?" asked Haiyugen, who could not read. He was pointing at some exquisite gold filigree lettering, which had been fastened to the cover of the book.

"It says... oh, I forgot that your island is so different to here. Can you not read it?" asked Glic.

"I know it means something, but I don't know what it means."

"There are two words on it. They are words from an old language. The first word is "Navigatio" and I think it is the same word as navigate. The second word is "Sanct". I think some part of the word is missing, but I don't know what the missing part is and I don't know what the word means. I think there was another word beneath the second word, but it's gone completely now," explained Glic.

"That's a pity," said Haiyugen. "The words look beautiful. It seems such a shame to lose any of them."

"I can't read a lot of what it says in the book, just some of the words that are like words we have," admitted Glic.

"Okay, well, the map is all that matters to us. You'll have to show me what you meant by this book being able to guide us home," said Haiyugen.

"I'll show you back in the hotel, Haiyugen."

"You want to take this out of its secret place here?" asked Haiyugen.

"Well, it's not secret now, is it?" replied Glic, laughing.

"I wouldn't tell anyone where it is, Glic."

"I know, I know. Look, I want to help you. Life has been dull around here and I like your story, so I want to help out."

Haiyugen said nothing so Glic continued, "There is no point in me leaving this book in my will to somebody who might not even bother to collect it. It sounds ridiculous that you happened to meet me and I happened to have this book to help get you home and it is, but this is not a map to where you live. It is a map for this ocean. It just so happens that it's one of the books that survived because it was kept in a sealed glass box."

"Why does nobody map out the ocean again?"

"You might not have noticed but we don't sail much here. There's not much out there, Haiyugen. It's mostly water, so we tend to stick to the land that we have. I think it's the same everywhere..."

Glic let the last sentence hang in the air, while Haiyugen grasped the significance of what he had said.

"So... so, you don't know what's out there either?"

"I know more about what's out there than you do. We get drifters coming by sometimes. There are some good sized islands near here as well so between them and us, we've built up a good knowledge of how things are. We didn't know you guys were on the map though."

"We didn't know anyone was on the map!" replied Haiyugen.

"From what I heard in the bar, some people on your island knew there were other survivors of the Floods."

Haiyugen thought for a moment and replied, "No, I don't think they knew that. They did keep knowledge from us, but I think it was done to ensure we survived. The Floods caused such a fear in the survivors that it was almost genetic after a few generations. They were probably just afraid of the outside world."

"They probably didn't want to know if anyone else had survived," added Glic.

"True. I hope I get to tell the elders that I understand what they were doing now. I was... actually, both myself and Baboogen were angry with them and we shouldn't have been."

"Come on, let's get back to the hotel," said Glic.

"Yes, it's time to focus on the journey. My wife will be wondering where I am."

Glic smiled wistfully in the darkness, not sure whether Haiyugen was being serious or not. The truth was Haiyugen wasn't sure himself if he was being serious or not. Neither said anything until they got back to the hotel and Haiyugen's last statement was left as a dose of positivity in the woods, in the place where the journey home had begun.

"I think I would like to go on the trip as well, if you are okay with that," said Glic, when they reached the hotel door. "You're going to need a crew for the journey and I could help with the map and with the sailing. You'll need people who are experienced sailors also."

"Are you an experienced sailor?" asked Haiyugen.

"No, I'm not, Haiyugen. I have some experience of sailing, but I am not a sailor."

"That's okay," said Haiyugen. "I'm not a sailor either and I made it to this island safely, probably with a lot of luck."

"I think it would be a good idea for you to bring a crew so you could sleep properly and all that. It will be a long journey."

"That's fair enough, Glic. I think you'd make a good navigator anyway."

Glic smiled in the dark of the night and replied, "It would be my immram."

"Your what?" asked Haiyugen.

"My... it would be an adventure for me, Haiyugen," rephrased Glic, rather than explaining the meaning of immram.

Haiyugen understood that the older man wanted to feel alive again and nodded to himself.

"I think you're right, Glic. We will need a crew of men like yourself."

The two men shook hands and Glic walked off up the street with the glow in his heart lighting the way home for him.

Five

Planning Maps and Mapping Plans

I

The next morning, Haiyugen woke up early and woke Baboogen immediately.

"Baboogen, wake up!"

"What is it?" said Baboogen sleepily.

"We are going on an adventure," said Haiyugen, stretching his arms out while he looked out of the window.

"Really?! What happened last night? I think I went to sleep before you came back."

"You did. One of the ladies downstairs made sure you got up to your room."

"Hmm... no, I don't remember that. I must have been half-asleep. Oh, I remember now, she was a nice lady!"

Haiyugen laughed and said, "She tucked you in well anyway."

"Tell me about the adventure!" said Baboogen, excited now.

"We are sorting out the details today. I think we will be building a boat," said Haiyugen.

"That's great!" interrupted Baboogen. "Will Glic help us make the boat?"

"We'll need help with it alright because it will not be like our raft. We were very lucky to get this far on the raft. Anyway, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"What?" asked Baboogen.

"Glic wants to come with us..."

Baboogen looked puzzled.

"To our island?" he asked.

"He wants to come on the adventure. He has no family here and he would like to see what is beyond the shores of this area here."

"I think he would be great to have with us. The children in the playground said he knows a lot of good stories," said Baboogen.

"I think the same. There is more..." said Haiyugen suspensefully.

Baboogen waited expectantly.

"Glic thinks we should bring a crew with us for safety," continued Haiyugen.

"That sounds like more fun. It was scary when it was just the two of us on the raft."

"I know, Baboogen. I agree with you," said Haiyugen. "We have a lot to do now, but I think we are moving in the right direction."

"Let me see..." said Baboogen. "So, number one, build a boat; number two, get a crew; number three, get lots of food and clothes."

"Good man, Baboogen! You're going to be the organiser, okay?"

"Great, Dad! This is going to be fun! Come on, you have to finish getting dressed to start building the boat and you have to help in the hotel."

"You're going to organise the trip, not organise me, okay?!" said Haiyugen in a mock-serious tone, pointing at Baboogen for emphasis.

Baboogen smiled and got out of bed. Haiyugen could see that his heart was much lighter this morning with the news of the adventure that might lead them home. He was going to say no more to allow Baboogen to relax, but he thought it would be best to set him straight from the start.

"One more thing, Baboogen."

"What?"

"I had a good look at the map last night. I am pretty sure that if we are to get home, the wind is going to take us to a lot of places before we make it back."

"We can't just sail home?" asked Baboogen.

"No. The best way to describe it is to think of the wind pattern in this ocean as being a circle. We are on the outside of the circle and we want to get somewhere that comes before here in the wind circle."

"So we have to go all the way around?"

"That's it, more or less," said Haiyugen.

"And what else is there in the circle? Only sea?"

"There is a lot in the map, but it's an old map and I don't know what will still be there. I think the parts of the map with mountains will be there."

"Then this really is an adventure!" said Baboogen.

Haiyugen's face relaxed and he put his hand on Baboogen's shoulder.

"It's going to be a big adventure, but we are going to make it home to your mother and your grandmother and your friends and everyone on the island."

"That's great," said Baboogen, with tears glistening in his eyes.

"Don't you worry," said Haiyugen. "We are going to make it."

Baboogen agreed to meet Haiyugen at lunchtime to discuss their plans for the adventure. Haiyugen told Baboogen that Glic would be there also since he was coming with them. Hazy ideas of what was to come were developing in their heads, but it would be fair to say that the thoughts of Glic, Haiyugen and Baboogen were far from perfectly aligned that morning. Of the three, Glic had the clearest idea of what was to come and what needed to be done to get them to the island. His knowledge was garnered from years of analysing the experiences of people arriving from faraway places and from any books he could lay his hands on.

Glic knew they would need a bigger boat than Haiyugen expected that they would need, to increase their chances of survival. He also knew that a bigger boat would require a bigger crew, not just to build it, but also to man the sails and share responsibilities and sleeping time.

He had not introduced these aspects of the adventure to Haiyugen the previous night, since he thought it would be best that Haiyugen became slowly accustomed to the idea of having one more crew member at first.

While Haiyugen went about his morning duties in the hotel, Glic was making lists with charcoal on pieces of bark and organising as much as he could before their lunchtime meeting. He wanted to have prepared well enough to be able to answer their questions quickly so that they would not have time to become concerned about any aspect of the trip.

Glic used three separate pieces of bark and wrote a heading on the top of them; "Crew", "Provisions" and "Boat".

The provisions list was the most straightforward for Glic and so, he started with this list. He knew what foods worked well on boats after years of conversations with the occasional passing sailors.

Under the heading of "Provisions", he wrote the following;

1. Water

2. Cheese

3. Cured ham

4. Honey

5. Ghee (for cooking, flavouring and for use as butter)

6. Salt

7. Dried fruit

8. Nuts

9. Lots of fishing line and lots of hooks

10. Dried grains

11. Yeast

12. Food that will keep for the first few days to get us on our way comfortably

Glic sat back and checked the list of provisions and decided that it would do for now. He then went on to fill in the "Crew" and "Boat" list. These took more time as he tried to figure out what would work best for their situation. When he was satisfied that he had done enough to be able to make a presentation at the lunchtime meeting, he stood up and made his way over to the hotel.

II

Glic heard the shouting and shrieks of children as he walked in the hotel door. Aon and Neamhnai were playing with Baboogen beside the hotel. They ran into the hotel after Glic when they saw him.

"What are you doing here, Glic?" they shouted at him as they ran.

"Quiet, children. People are having lunch now," said Glic, mindful of the hotel guests. "I am meeting Baboogen's father for lunch."

"What are you going to talk about?" asked Neamhnai.

"I don't know yet, Neamhnai," answered Glic.

"They are talking about an adventure!" blurted out Baboogen.

Glic looked at Baboogen sharply and said, "We're talking about... we're talking about how Haiyugen might be able to get home."

"Can we come on the adventure?" asked Aon, totally disregarding his old headmaster's evasive explanation.

"No, you cannot come."

"So there is an adventure!" said Neamhnai.

Glic's cheeks reddened at being caught out so easily. He thought he must be getting old to be tricked by the two children like that.

Haiyugen had heard the commotion in the hotel entrance and had joined them.

"Come on in to have some lunch, everyone," said Haiyugen.

Baboogen pulled at his father's sleeve and whispered to him, "Do we not need to ask in the restaurant first?"

"I asked if Aon and Neamhnai could join us when you were playing outside," said Haiyugen. "The restaurant manager said they can eat here anytime they want."

"Yes," said Aon, "we bring all the visitors to the hotel."

"Not all of them, Aon," said Neamhnai.

"Well, all of the ones we meet, and we help out with collecting firewood," said Aon proudly, as he strode ahead of everyone into the restaurant.

Glic smiled with pride as his former pupil passed him and he looked at Haiyugen.

"Shall we?"

"We shall," replied Haiyugen, recognising the older man's pride as being similar to how he felt when Baboogen matured in some way.

They made their way to a table by one of the restaurant's four windows. None of the windows in the village were large partly to conserve heat and partly because the building materials available locally would not facilitate large windows. There was plenty of wood, but the trees were generally young and could not provide the heavier planks needed to hold large amounts of daub. The smaller windows made the interiors somewhat dark, but cosy at the same time.

There were five places set at the table. As soon as they sat, the barman and two waiters busied themselves bringing drinks and trays of food to the table.

"What's for lunch?" asked Aon, with the authority of a businessman keen to see if the food is up to his high standards.

"Pork belly, potatoes and peas."

"What's porkbelly?" asked Baboogen.

"No, it's pork belly, not porkbelly," said Neamhnai, educating her new friend.

"What is pork?" asked Baboogen.

"What is pork?!" replied Neamhnai, ending on a high-pitched tone.

She looked incredulously at Baboogen and then she looked over at Glic, raising her eyebrows as if to wonder had Baboogen been educated at all.

Glic glanced at Haiyugen, who was looking at the ground, and realised he might not know what pork was either.

"Do you not have pigs on your island?" he asked Haiyugen.

"Eh... no, we have no pigs. Pigs are like... I have heard of pigs alright," hesitated Haiyugen. "Are they like sheep?"

"They are like sheep, but not really. They have a nose like this," said Aon, making the shape of a pig's nose where his own nose was.

"And they make a sound like this..." said Neamhnai, snorting and oinking as best she could. Aon laughed and joined her noise making until Baboogen shouted out, "A boar!"

"Yes! They are very much like boars," said Glic.

Haiyugen nodded and without another word, they all started filling their plates with pork belly and the juices that came with it, which made a delicious sauce for the pork and the potatoes. There was butter and salt for the potatoes and the peas and very little was said for the next ten minutes.

Once they had finished their meal, Haiyugen went to the bar to ask for two cups of the local tea. When he got back to the table, there was an air of expectancy as the children watched Glic preparing his lists for the meeting. They stayed as quiet as they could, knowing there was more chance they would be allowed to stay for the meeting if they were quiet.

"Is that your book for the journey?" asked Haiyugen.

"They are my notes for the journey," corrected Glic.

"Can you tell us what they say?"

"I can indeed, Haiyugen."

Glic read out the Provisions list first, standing up to emphasize the importance of the lists he had made.

"1. Water..." announced Glic.

"Why do we need to bring water?" asked Haiyugen.

Glic looked up, surprised at being interrupted as soon as he had started. He had only half-heard Haiyugen's question since his thoughts were caught between reading the list and wondering if Haiyugen would agree to the extended crew.

He looked down again at the list to see what he had read out and repeated, "Water?"

"We make drinking water from seawater," explained Haiyugen.

"Ah, okay," said Glic, with a note of relief in his voice now that sense had been restored to the proceedings. "How do you do that?"

Haiyugen explained how he distilled water in his water pot. The children were as quiet as mice, sensing the no-nonsense nature of the conversation.

Glic closed his eyes momentarily to think.

"Hmm... so if we are to have water for a long time or a lot of people, we would need a lot of firewood?"

"Yes, but why would we need water for a lot of people?" asked Haiyugen.

Glic realised he had not discussed the crew yet and diverted Haiyugen's attention, "If we needed a lot of water, we would need a lot of wood. Am I right in saying that?"

"Yes, but we could cook with the wood as well."

"Okay. Well, it seems there will be a weight trade-off between water and wood on the boat."

Haiyugen considered this for a while and agreed then, "Yes, I suppose we don't know how long we will be on the boat so we have to plan for everything."

"I'll start again," declared Glic.

Nobody interrupted him as he continued.

"Provisions... 1. Water... and Wood," he said, writing the additional words as he spoke.

Glic paused then and said, "If anyone can think of anything else that is missing, it's important that you tell me about it. The last thing we want is to set off with the wrong supplies just to make me feel good about my list."

Haiyugen nodded to acknowledge Glic's wisdom.

Glic continued on through the list of provisions. Aon and Neamhnai had a lot of ideas for the non-essential foods for the first few days. Glic took note of the first few, but when he realised they were just listing every food they liked, he merely pretended to write from that point.

When they had finally finished, Glic looked up and asked, "Is that all?"

Aon looked at Neamhnai and they answered together, "Hmmm.... emm... ahhh... " before looking at Glic with big, toothy smiles and saying, "Yeah, yeah, that's it."

Glic wondered how there could be such agreement between them on this topic that they could answer as one, including the "em" and "ah" noises.

Baboogen had sat silently through the discussion of provisions, not recognising a lot of the foodstuffs mentioned. He had begun to shuffle on his seat as Aon and Neamhnai dominated proceedings momentarily.

"Are they coming as well?" he whispered to his father, who was sitting beside him.

"No, they have to stay here with their mother and father," said Haiyugen to Baboogen.

Even though the comment was directed at Baboogen, Haiyugen had meant for Aon and Neamhnai to hear it so that they would not think they were going on the adventure as well.

Glic half-heard the comment as he was preparing his second list and looked at Aon and Neamhnai. When he saw their heads drop slightly, he realised what had been said.

"Their mother and father?" Glic whispered to Haiyugen, nodding at Aon and Neamhnai across the table, who were talking to each other.

Haiyugen saw a touch of anxiety on Glic's face and raised an eyebrow at the whispered tone.

Haiyugen nodded at Glic to confirm what he had said. Glic shook his head slowly.

"No...?" asked Haiyugen, leaving the remainder of the sentence silent.

"No," said Glic.

"Oh," said Haiyugen, as a look of sorrow passed across his face. Haiyugen was confused by the change in the dynamics of the situation. He suddenly realised that it was possible that Aon and Neamhnai actually wanted to go on the journey with them.

"Aon, will you tell Baboogen about the games you play here?" said Haiyugen. "I need to borrow Glic for a moment to discuss something with the hotel manager."

Aon was distracted and set about explaining the village's latest game to his new friend. Haiyugen gestured at Glic and motioned to follow him out of the restaurant.

Glic got up from his seat and followed Haiyugen. Haiyugen was looking for the hotel manager as a person he could trust. He found him over near the kitchen and asked to speak with him.

The hotel manager agreed to talk with the two men for a few minutes in his office.

"Come in, gentlemen," he said. "How can I be of assistance?"

"I want you to confirm something for me, Michael," said Haiyugen to the manager.

"What is that?" asked the manager.

"You employ two children here."

"Well, we don't employ children, Haiyugen. Do you mean Aon and Neamhnai?"

"I do," said Haiyugen.

"We help them out with food and accommodation when they need it and they do some chores for us. I suppose you could say it's much like a normal family relationship."

"Are you related to them?" asked Haiyugen.

"No, it was just a turn of phrase," said the manager. "We help them out as much as we can, as if we were related to them. A lot of people in the town would help them in a similar way."

Haiyugen said nothing so the manager continued, "When their mother died, we decided to help..."

"What was that?" interrupted Haiyugen.

"We decided to help them?" replied the manager.

"No, before that," said Haiyugen.

"Oh...okay..." said the manager in a more solemn tone. "Their mother died when they were young. It was such a tragedy. She was out on a boat fishing to get food for the children and there was a big storm and... yeah, it was such a shame. People felt bad about it because the men who fish here could have given her fish instead of her having to go out in the boat, but she was too proud to take food off other people. She was a lovely woman."

"And the father?" asked Haiyugen.

"The father was not so lovely," answered Glic. "He ran off when they were very young."

The manager nodded initially, but then said, "You never know what is in someone's head, Glic. I know it was a travesty that he left a young family, but you never know the motivations for anything."

"Okay," said Haiyugen. "I understand the situation more clearly now. Does anyone mind them at all?"

"They are minded by ourselves and the families of their friends, pretty much," said Michael.

"No family?"

"No, the parents drifted in on their boat before the children were born and decided to settle here," answered Glic.

"Okay," said Haiyugen, getting up to return to the restaurant. "Thanks for all your help, Michael."

As he walked back with Glic, he said to him, "I'm sorry about that, Glic. I could have asked you any of those questions, but we have only met and I just wanted independent answers."

"I know, Haiyugen," said Glic. "I guessed that. To be honest, I would have wanted you to confirm everything if you had any doubts."

"Well, there was another reason I needed independent answers to my questions," said Haiyugen, putting his hand on Glic's shoulder to stop him at the restaurant doorway. "What do you think of the idea of bringing Aon and Neamhnai with us?"

Glic looked shocked.

"I hadn't thought about it, Haiyugen," he said. "You knew I was only humouring them with the notes for provisions?"

"No, I did, Glic," answered Haiyugen. "But would it be possible? My wife would welcome them into our house. I know she would."

"But there is no guarantee we will ever see your island, Haiyugen," said Glic, alarmed at the thought that Haiyugen was relying so heavily on his plan. "And you've only just met these children!"

"I know there is no guarantee of anything, Glic, and I know I have only just met them, but what life have they here on the streets? I have seen how good you are to them. You would not be as good to them if you did not believe that they are worth the effort," said Haiyugen.

"They are worth every effort, as are all the children who passed through my school."

"We will just have to work out what is best for them," said Haiyugen.

"And what they want," said Glic.

"Are they finished their schooling?"

"They are, but they are still only children."

"But what will they do here?" asked Haiyugen.

"I know... it's not a good time of life for them. They are growing up and soon they will be caught between being young and learning to live as adults. They'll probably have to start working before their friends."

"It's not a good time for them to be living on the streets."

"That's true. They spend too much time on the streets and they are not yet fully able to take care of themselves," said Glic.

The two men walked back to the table and sat down with the children.

"Can we come on the adventure?" asked Neamhnai, perhaps sensing that this had been the reason the men had left the restaurant.

"I don't know if that would be the best thing for you," answered Glic.

"Aww... please," said Neamhnai.

"Yeah, please, please..." said Aon in the high-pitched tone of a dog left outside in the rain.

"I don't know if it would be a good idea either, children," said Haiyugen.

"Let them come," said Baboogen, "Please, Dad."

Haiyugen looked at Glic and said, "We'll have to think about it."

The children cheered, but Haiyugen calmed them down by saying, "This will be a long, dangerous trip and if we don't think that it will be safe, we cannot bring you."

Glic asked the children to play outside while he discussed the remainder of the work to be done with Haiyugen. Aon and Neamhnai wanted to have more input into the preparations, but they recognised the definite tone of their former schoolmaster and went outside without question, bringing Baboogen with them. The two men sat on opposite sides of the table. Glic was leaning forward towards the table, while Haiyugen was sprawled back in his seat, letting his lunch settle.

"Haiyugen, we need to talk," said Glic.

"We've been talking all through lunch!" said Haiyugen, with a relaxed smile.

"I know, but there is something I haven't mentioned to you yet," said Glic. "How did Baboogen take the news of my request to join your crew?"

"He was fine about it. What was it that you hadn't mentioned yet?"

"I think we need more crew than just yourself and myself, Haiyugen."

"Why is that?" asked Haiyugen.

"It's because the boat will need to be bigger than you expect to cope with the long journey. You were very lucky to make it here," declared Glic solemnly.

"And a bigger boat needs a bigger crew?"

"It does, yes, but there is also safety in numbers."

"What do you mean by safety in numbers?" asked Haiyugen.

"There could be other survivors along the route, Haiyugen."

"Survivors of the Great Flood?"

"Yes. We call anyone we haven't seen before "new survivors", even though the flooding happened so long ago. Of course, anybody that ever lived is a survivor of some epic event, but I suppose it's different this time with the survivors being so spread out and hard to contact."

"That's true. Nobody came into contact with us at all!" said Haiyugen, smiling broadly at the thought of his people living on their island oblivious to the world around them.

"Survivors now are like discoverers in the old books," said Glic.

"Like in your book."

"Exactly," said Glic. "Even though people have been everywhere in the past, wherever people landed after the Great Floods was like the first landing of a discoverer. They just set up camp and some stayed and some tried to go home, only to find that their home didn't exist anymore."

"Do you want a bigger crew in case we meet survivors who are not as friendly as people here?" asked Haiyugen.

"That is part of the reason I want a bigger crew. We do actually need more people to be able to work in shifts and get some sleep and eat."

"I understand, Glic."

"Understanding is the key to the universe, Haiyugen!" said Glic, getting to his feet. "Come on, let's see if we can recruit anyone!"

"Like who?!" asked Haiyugen, who did not move from his seat. He was only just getting used to Glic and the idea of meeting a group of strangers to see if they wanted to sail with him suddenly alarmed him.

"Don't worry, we won't be asking anyone to sail with us now," reassured Glic. "We are just going to chat with a few people and see what they have to say. Nobody will be told anything unless you agree with it. We are going to look for people who might give us advice about sailing and boats and maybe we will hear about some good crew members along the way."

"That sounds okay," said Haiyugen, standing to join Glic.

"Let's start in the pub," said Glic.

"Everything starts in the pub, it seems."

"That it does, Haiyugen," said Glic, chuckling. "But nobody ever remembers what was started, so it's not much good that way!"

They met the children outside the hotel and told them that they were going to do some jobs. Glic asked Aon to mind Baboogen.

Baboogen watched them walk down the street and then he shouted after them, "I can mind myself!"

"I know," his father shouted back in the crisp air of the afternoon.
Six

A Moral Dilemma

I

Haiyugen and Glic walked in the door of the village pub, lowering their heads to avoid the oak beam in the low doorway. The dark interior of the pub was such a stark contrast to the brightness of the afternoon that their eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness. They had heard music being played when they got near the pub and their heads turned when they entered to find the source of the music. A bearded man with long, grey hair was playing the fiddle in the corner and a younger man was playing the flute beside him. The tune they played was relatively slow and deliberate, which suited the time of day, allowing the customers of the pub to digest their lunch and plan out their day.

As they walked into the bar, a voice called out, "How are you, Glic?"

Glic answered, "Good!" before he managed to see who had greeted him.

"Ah, Gliondar, it's yourself!" said Glic to a tall, broad-shouldered man sitting at the bar.

"Would you like a drink?" asked Gliondar.

"I would," said Glic, before continuing in response to the raised eyebrows of his friend, "A pint of stout please, Gliondar."

"And your friend?"

"This is Haiyugen," said Glic, introducing the two men.

"How are you, Haiyugen?" said Gliondar, extending a long arm to Haiyugen. "What would you like?"

Haiyugen shook Gliondar's hand, noticing the effortless strength of his handshake. Gliondar had an unruly mop of orange hair, which combined with bright blue eyes, exceptionally white skin and lots of freckles, gave him a striking appearance.

"I'll have the same as Glic, Gliondar. Thanks very much."

Haiyugen was beginning to realise that offers of food and drinks meant more than on his island, where everyone worked to produce and everyone shared in the island's produce.

"Pull up some chairs, gentlemen. The topic of the afternoon is life," announced Gliondar grandly.

Glic got two stools from the other side of the bar and carried them over to where Gliondar was sitting with two other men. There were a few others sitting around the room playing a game with pieces of stone on a board.

"I'm going to have to change the topic, Gliondar," said Glic.

Haiyugen looked at Glic anxiously, hoping that he would not be casual about the journey.

"Boats, lads. What kind of boat would be best for a long sea journey?"

"You've come to the right place to talk about boats, Glic," said one of Gliondar's companions.

"These are seamen, Haiyugen," said Glic, by way of explanation.

Haiyugen relaxed visibly from a bolt upright position on the stool.

"What do you need to know?" asked Gliondar, glancing from Glic to Haiyugen.

"We need to know everything, Gliondar," said Glic.

"So you're not trying to solve a dispute between you?" asked the man to the right of Gliondar.

"No, nothing like that," answered Glic.

"That's a pity," said the man sadly. "We're great at disputing."

Gliondar asked Haiyugen, "Are you the man who arrived here a few days ago?"

Haiyugen looked at Glic, who nodded.

"Yes, I probably am that man," he replied.

"Ah, yes," said Gliondar. "I heard about you. But if you arrived here after a long sea journey, surely you don't need our help?"

"It was mostly fortune that brought us here, Gliondar," said Haiyugen.

"Luck?" asked Gliondar.

"Yes, luck."

"Well, the sea is luck. You just have to ride the waves well and hope for the best," said Gliondar.

"It helps to know what you are doing," added Glic.

"Fair enough, you need to be prepared," said Gliondar. "So that's what you want to know? How to prepare?"

"That's it, Gliondar, and what kind of boat would be best," reminded Glic. "Could you help us?"

Gliondar looked at his drinking companions and asked them, "What do you think, gentlemen?"

"I think we can help them," said one, while the other nodded his agreement.

"It might give us a few days' break from talking about all the great things we ever did," said Gliondar, grinning at the truth of his statement. "Okay, Glic, give it to us. What are your plans?"

Glic looked at Haiyugen, who hesitated and looked away momentarily. When Haiyugen looked back at the men sitting in front of him and saw that there was only a friendly curiosity in their faces, he realised that revealing the details of the journey would not cause any harm to it.

"That's fine, Glic," said Haiyugen.

Their drinking companions nodded to acknowledge that they were being given information that was sensitive to Haiyugen. Glic proceeded to explain the motivation for the journey, although he was vague on the details of the map. As Glic talked, Haiyugen realised that there was no way the journey could have been secret, given the amount of provisions needed and, of course, the fact that they needed to build a large boat somewhere. He also wondered why he wanted the journey to be kept secret. All he could work out was that it was important to him that their plan would come to fruition and he had been afraid that somebody would try to stop them somehow.

When Glic had finished, Gliondar looked at his companions with raised eyebrows. "Yeah?" he said. Both nodded.

"Okay, Glic," said Gliondar, "we can help you."

"More importantly, we'd like to help you," said the man to his right. "My name is Crow, Haiyugen."

"And I'm Fathach," said the other man. Both stood to shake Haiyugen's hand.

Crow was of medium height and build, with dark hair and clear, blue eyes. He was dressed in a tunic with wide trousers and he wore a band around his head to keep his hair from his eyes.

Fathach was a massive man, built like a tree-trunk, and a large tree-trunk at that. He was of similar height to Gliondar, but he was stockier than Gliondar. His long, brown hair and brown beard did not help him look less bear-like.

He extended a large paw to Haiyugen and gently squeezed his hand in such a way that did not feel quite so gentle to Haiyugen.

"We are seamen, like Glic said. We respect what you have come through and we will do everything we can to help you get home, Haiyugen," declared Fathach in a solemn proclamation of intent.

"Yeah, like he said, we're not proud of our current existence keeping the bar afloat. We'd much rather help you get your boat afloat," added Gliondar.

"You're like a poet, Gliondar!" said Glic, pleased that his friends had agreed to help Haiyugen on his quest.

"I'll leave the poetry to you, Glic," said Gliondar gruffly. There were chuckles from the men playing the board game. Gliondar looked at them sharply, unsure whether they were half-listening to the conversation or making their own merriment.

"Okay, you've given us a lot to think about, Glic. I take it you're only having the one if you have the children to mind?" continued Gliondar, nodding at Haiyugen's drink.

"Yes, we have to go now," said Haiyugen, getting off the stool to leave.

As Haiyugen walked out with Glic, he felt that he was not doing justice to the offer of assistance from three strangers and turned back to the three men at the bar, "Thanks very much for listening to my story. I'd greatly appreciate any assistance you can provide. It goes without saying, but I just wanted to say it anyway."

"We know that, Haiyugen," said Crow, "don't worry."

"Thanks anyway," said Haiyugen, turning to walk back out into the bright afternoon with Glic.

"I know they seem like they couldn't help themselves, but they are capable seamen," said Glic, as they strolled slowly back towards the hotel.

"People who are capable rarely advertise themselves as such," said Haiyugen.

"Neither do people who aren't capable!" added Glic.

"It's the ones in the middle you have to watch for," said Haiyugen.

The two men laughed for the first time in a while. The dangers of sailing out into the middle of an unknown ocean had been weighing on them and even though they had learned absolutely nothing, they felt that some of their worries had been eased.

"Do you think they will help us?" asked Haiyugen, as they approached the hotel.

"I think they want to help us. How much they want to help is open to question. Time will tell," replied Glic.

"I have to work for a few hours now, Glic. I'll talk to you this evening."

"That's fine. I have a few jobs to do and people to see," said Glic.

"I know it seemed like I was doubting you earlier, Glic, but everything is very new to me here. I can see that you are really going out of your way to help us and I really appreciate it."

"I know all that," said Glic, "don't worry. It's good for me as well. Life was getting a bit slow before you arrived!"

"I'll see you later then," said Haiyugen.

"Perfect," said Glic.

As Glic wandered off home to consult his notes and to work out the next step, a plan was taking shape in his mind in a hazy manner. He knew there was something he had heard earlier that was important, something that was just mentioned casually. He walked up the stony path to his house and went inside. As he sat by the window, he gathered his notes together and went through the day's events. He gazed out the window into the distance and tapped the notes made of bark off each other. He was enjoying the rough, natural feel of the bark on his hands and the noise the tapping made, when suddenly he stood up and scratched the back of his head. He looked down at the bark notes and said out loud, "That's it!"

Glic wrote another note in charcoal on the bark very quickly and ran out the door. He ran towards the village and continued straight down the street, turning off for the playground. The usual group of children was there and he quickly found Aon.

"Aon, come here!" he shouted.

Aon ran over to Glic.

"What's wrong?" he asked anxiously, having heard too much bad news from adults.

"The boat!" said Glic.

"What boat?" asked Aon.

"Your mother's boat. What happened to it?"

"Oh, you mean my boat," said Aon proudly.

"It's my boat, too!" said Neamhnai, who had trailed over after Aon to see what was going on.

"It's mainly my boat," said Aon, who by now had completely forgotten his momentary anxiety.

Glic interrupted their squabbling by putting up his hand.

"Where is the boat?" he asked.

"It's in the dry dock," said Aon, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that he would have a boat propped up in the dry dock.

"Yeah, it's down there," said Neamhnai, pointing in the direction of the dock. "It's not in the dry dock, Aon. They are repairing a boat there."

"That's right. We had to hoist it from there to store it on land for the winter."

"Okay," said Glic, stepping back to give himself a moment to think.

"Tell me," he continued, "were you serious about wanting to go on this trip?"

"Oh, can we go?!" asked Neamhnai with a shriek of delight.

"No, no, Neamhnai. I'm not saying anything. I am only asking a question," replied Glic.

Aon thought for a moment.

"Do you need my boat..?"

"Our boat," corrected Neamhnai.

"Do you need our boat to go on the journey?" he asked.

"I don't know, Aon. Maybe," replied Glic. "I have to be honest with you. The boat might suit, but even if it does, the village will have to decide as a group whether you can come on the trip or not. I am not your guardian and it is too big a decision for me to make on my own."

Aon had always seen the headmaster as having the answer to every question, and he usually did. Aon knew the doubt in his answer was genuine, rather than the beginning of an excuse.

"That's okay," said Aon, with the maturity of someone much older. "We can have a look at the boat and figure everything out later."

"We will build a boat if you can't come and you can help us with that, if you like," said Glic.

"Maybe I can lend you my boat," said Aon, "it's just sitting there."

"No," said Glic, firmly. "We will not take your boat if you can't come."

"Maybe we will be able to go with you, Glic," said Neamhnai, trying to resolve the matter.

"Maybe," answered Glic.

"Come on, it's this way," said Aon, striding towards the main street.

As he walked, Aon looked back at the children who were watching them and shouted, "Baboogen, come on! We have some work to do."

"It's not really work," said Neamhnai.

"If I said I was going to the boat, everyone would want to come, Neamhnai," said Aon.

"That's true," said Neamhnai, as a flushed-looking Baboogen caught up with them.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"To the boat," whispered Neamhnai theatrically.

"Is the boat made already?" asked Baboogen.

"Glic made it this morning," replied Neamhnai, laughing.

II

When they reached the dock, Aon turned towards an area where boats had been lifted far from the water to keep them dry. They were held up by wooden frames.

"This is my boat," he said, pointing at a large, wooden boat which was higher at either end than in the middle. It had a white cabin in the bow of the boat and a white cabin at the stern of the boat. Both cabins were covered in decks, which had wooden rails around them and which made excellent viewing platforms. On the top of the cabin at the stern, there was a deck with a varnished wooden wheel on it for steering the boat. There were two tall masts on it, one towards the middle of the boat and one towards the bow. The hull was painted dark red on the top half and navy on the bottom half. It was the finest looking boat in the dock.

"It's huge!" said Baboogen, laughing. "I thought your boat would be like the raft, Neamhnai."

"I know!" said Neamhnai, smiling. "It would take a long time to build a boat like this one. This was my parents' boat."

"It's a very big boat for two people," said Baboogen.

"My mother used to sail it just by herself," said Neamhnai proudly.

"That's true, Neamhnai," said Glic, "but I don't think she sailed too far out of the bay. She mainly fished in the bay area because the boat would have been too hard to handle in the open seas for just one person. She was an excellent sailor though. Most sailors wouldn't be able to manage sailing the boat in the bay."

"She just used the mainsail, I think, because it was too much work to use more sails. The sails are kept below deck," explained Aon.

"Can we see the inside of the boat?" asked Baboogen.

"Sure," said Aon, "there's a ladder on the frame on the other side of the boat."

While the children went around to climb up to the cabin, Glic was examining the hull carefully. He was looking for rot and damaged areas. The hull looked as if it had been painted in the last year. Glic knocked on the wood at various points, listening for the dead sound of rotten or waterlogged wood, but each knock was crisp and clear.

There was no doubt that the boat would be big enough to carry provisions for a few weeks at sea. Glic also knew that Aon and Neamhnai's parents had sailed for many months before they arrived in the village, which meant the boat would be able to handle ocean sailing.

Now that he knew the boat would suit their purposes, he felt that a moral hazard had been created. There was an advantage to bringing Aon and Neamhnai on the trip, but it had not yet been established whether it would be best for them to come or not. Glic's first thought was that he would not mention the boat to Haiyugen until the village had decided about Aon and Neamhnai, but he knew that there was no chance that Baboogen would not mention the boat. As he thought of Baboogen telling his father about the visit to the boat, he relaxed because he realised that Haiyugen was a good parent and would have absolutely no intention of bringing Aon and Neamhnai, unless the trip would benefit them.

"Come on up to the deck, Glic!" shouted Baboogen.

Glic climbed up the ladder and swung his body onto the boat. He was surprised to see that the deck looked nearly new.

"Hi Glic!" said Aon from the forward cabin, "do you like our boat?"

"It's a fantastic boat, Aon. You are very lucky to have a boat like this. I bet none of your friends has their own boat."

"No, they don't, Glic!" said Aon, laughing. "Do you like the deck? We varnished it six months ago."

"It looks great, Aon," said Glic. "What did you varnish it with?"

"We varnished it with... ehh... what was it again, Neamhnai?"

"It was called pine sap," said Neamhnai, proud of herself for remembering the name of the varnish.

"Yes, I've heard of it. It's like a resin," said Glic.

"I think it is a resin, but I'm not sure. Gliondar gets the varnish and paint from Markus' shop. Markus makes the varnishes and paint," said Aon, giving a full run-down of the events leading up to the varnishing.

Baboogen was amazed to hear Aon talking about things as if he was a grown-up. Looking around at Aon and Neamhnai's boat was not doing anything to change his opinion either. His friends suddenly seemed like some kind of super-children.

"Does Gliondar help you with the boat?" asked Glic, perking up at the new information.

"He helps me a lot, and Crow too," said Aon. "They've always helped me to mind the boat actually..."

Aon's voice had trailed off at the end of the sentence. He looked out at sea aimlessly for a moment, before turning back to focus on Glic.

Glic knew that the boat meant a lot more to Aon and Neamhnai than something to sail in and he said nothing while Aon gathered his thoughts.

"We paint it most years and we varnish it nearly every year," continued Aon. "They said I should be able to sail it in the bay in a few years by myself."

"In a good few years, Aon. That's what they said," interrupted Neamhnai.

"Do you sail with them in this boat?" asked Glic.

"Oh, we do!" replied Neamhnai. "Every summer we go sailing in the bay with them. It's great fun!"

"Very good," said Glic.

Glic's plan was taking shape more perfectly than he could have imagined, but he knew that he had to contain his excitement. If the villagers decided that Aon and Neamhnai were too young to go with them or that the trip was too dangerous for them, he would have to build a boat with Haiyugen. The thought of starting to build a new boat from trees did not appeal to him as he stood on a boat that would be perfect for their journey, but he put that thought from his mind.

"I have to go, children," said Glic abruptly.

"Why? We only just got here," asked Neamhnai.

"You should stay playing here. I just have some work to do, Neamhnai," he replied, climbing down the ladder.

"Okay, see you later," said Baboogen quickly, anxious that Glic would tell him to go back to the hotel.

Glic marched back to his house, planning the next steps along the way. There was a meeting to organise with the villagers, there were provisions to gather and he had to meet up with the three sailors again. Before the village meeting, he and Haiyugen would need to sit Aon and Neamhnai down and talk through the journey with them to see what they really wanted to do. Glic thought about telling Haiyugen about the boat, but decided against it, not least because if they had to build a new boat, their morale would be helped by one of them never having considered an easier option. He guessed that Haiyugen would discount a certain amount of what Baboogen would tell him about Aon and Neamhnai's boat as being exaggeration.

Glic paused as he turned into the path to his house and looked back down towards the village. He felt a tinge of regret at the thought of leaving his homeland, but the feeling was shortly followed by a sense of achievement in having put together a solid plan of action for Haiyugen. Glic knew he did not have to go on the trip himself, so the burden of leaving was not heavy on him. His final thought as he turned the handle of the door to his house was that it would be great to be turning the handle after returning home from a grand adventure.

III

Haiyugen met with Glic at dinner time to discuss developments in their plans. As soon as Glic arrived, Haiyugen told him that the hotel manager had said he could have time off to help Glic with getting a boat ready.

"That's great, Haiyugen. He is a good man."

"I think so, too. It's not his job to help us, but he is helping us all the same," said Haiyugen. "I can see that the system here is very different to how our island works. Everybody is not entitled to food and shelter like they are at home."

"That's true, Haiyugen, but we don't like to see people being hungry either," said Glic.

"I think it's a good system here as well," said Haiyugen.

"You'll have to tell me more about how your island works again, Haiyugen. We have work to do at the moment."

"The boat... of course," remembered Haiyugen.

"There have been some developments about the boat, but I want to leave them aside for now. The first thing we have to do is to call a town meeting to discuss whether Aon and Neamhnai will be allowed to come on the sailing adventure."

"They seem to want to come with us."

"They definitely want to come, Haiyugen," said Glic, "but we are adults and we have to figure out if it will be good for them or not."

"That's true, Glic. They might decide they would prefer to be here in the village soon after we set sail."

"So let's call a town meeting now and discuss all the issues."

"Ok, Glic, you know what to do. I will follow whatever you want to do."

"Come on, Haiyugen, let's go talk to some people," said Glic.

The pair set off down through the village, stopping in various shops and stalls to tell the village citizens about the proposed meeting that evening.

"We don't need to have everyone there, Haiyugen," said Glic to his companion as they walked between one shop and another. "We just need enough sensible people to be sure we are not making this decision alone. It's not perfect democracy, but it will do."

"Democracy?" said Haiyugen.

"The choice of the majority of the citizens. We may not have a majority of the citizens there, but we should have a good, representative sample of them."

"I hope so," said Haiyugen.

"Did you never hear of democracy?"

"No. On our island, everyone votes on every issue that was not voted on before or that was not voted on within the previous four years."

"That is democracy, Haiyugen. That is a fairly pure form of democracy. You don't have a town mayor or council who decide on issues then?"

"No, Glic," said Haiyugen, stopping outside a vegetable shop to finish the conversation. "How could you trust just a few people to do what is right?"

"Okay," said Glic. "I suppose you also reduce the chances of power being kept in the same families and all that."

"There is no power in any family over another family on our island, Glic."

"That's interesting," said Glic. "Okay, let's sort out the trip now, but it would be nice to hear more about your island when we are sailing."

The villagers passed on news of the visit of the pair to each other. Those that could go to the meeting made time to attend. Not much happened in the village usually, so they welcomed any additional event.

Later that day, a majority of the villagers wandered into the hotel restaurant, which doubled as a meeting place for village gatherings on occasion. A good crowd had gathered for the meeting and the foyer was also being used to make sure everyone was accommodated.

Glic led the meeting, opening with an introduction of Haiyugen and Baboogen and a brief description of how they had come to be in the village. Glic did not dwell on Haiyugen's island culture; partly because he did not know enough about it and partly because he knew it would cloud the main topic of the meeting.

Haiyugen stood up on a chair and thanked the village people for their kindness since he had landed ashore and explained that he would like to build a boat to bring him back to his island. He said that his main objective was to get back home, but that he knew the meeting had not been called for that purpose.

A murmur followed this statement as the villagers wondered what the purpose of the meeting could be. Glic took control of the proceedings again from his elevated position on the top of a table.

"This meeting has been called to debate whether Aon and Neamhnai should be allowed to accompany us on our trip," he declared. "I must state clearly the positions of all concerned."

"Aon and Neamhnai have stated that they would like to accompany Haiyugen and Baboogen on the journey. They have finished their schooling, but they are still children. They do not, as you all know, have any parents. As such, we, the villagers, are their collective guardians," continued Glic in a loud, direct voice, designed for all to hear without any possible misinterpretation.

"My own position is that I would like to accompany Haiyugen on his journey because I have retired from work and I think that the adventure would suit me well at this point. There are lives at stake, including our own. We will be doing everything we can to ensure the safety of all concerned and we are currently taking advice from the village's sailors in this regard."

"They are!" confirmed Fathach, who did not need to stand on a table to be heard by all.

"There is a further point, which needs to be made clear. After Aon and Neamhnai declared their desire to join the adventure, we have discovered that they own a boat, which would be suitable for the journey. There is, therefore, a conflict of interest in ourselves being involved in any part of this decision. You will see by the surprise on my companion's face that he had no idea of this fact," said Glic, gesturing at Haiyugen.

Glic had consciously not mentioned the boat to Haiyugen to bring about a situation where the villagers could see his motives regarding the children were not related to the use of their boat.

"I, myself, had forgotten that they had a boat until this morning."

A few people snickered as if to imply that they did not believe this last statement.

"You may or may not believe what I said about myself. It is true, but it does not matter whether you believe me. I am only a bit player in this proposed journey. It only matters that you believe in the intentions of the main player here beside me, Haiyugen."

"I did not know anything about Aon and Neamhnai having a boat until now," affirmed Haiyugen, "and I'm not sure we should take their boat with us."

"That's fine, Haiyugen. We will discuss what is best at a later stage. For now, I would like to give the meeting over to the chairman of the town council, Michael. He will coordinate an open debate to decide what choices you, the citizens, think we should have. We will respectfully await your decision in Haiyugen's room upstairs."

Glic got down from the table and brought Haiyugen and Baboogen through the crowd to Haiyugen's room. They tried to make small talk, but they all knew the meeting downstairs would have a major impact on their plans and they could not think of much else.

After a while, a messenger was sent up to the room to ask them to come down to the restaurant.

The three arrived back into the restaurant, where they were the centre of attention.

"Come up here," said Michael, the hotel manager.

Glic, Haiyugen and Baboogen climbed up onto the long, wooden table with Michael.

"We have reached a decision, gentlemen," said Michael, before pausing to ensure everyone was listening. The room was silent.

"We have decided that you are too inexperienced as sailors to take Aon and Neamhnai on a long journey."

Glic cast a resigned look at Haiyugen. Haiyugen was less bothered, since he had not seen the children's boat and he knew the extra responsibility of the two additional children would be substantial.

"However..." continued Michael, pausing this time for dramatic effect, "there is a possible compromise that we have decided would be acceptable to us."

Glic looked up at Michael sharply, having no idea what the compromise could be.

"We have decided that Aon and Neamhnai will be allowed to travel with you in their boat, since that is what the boat is meant to be used for, if and only if, you agree to take Fathach, Gliondar and Crow with you."

This solution had not occurred to Haiyugen, so he struggled to take in the permutations of the proposal.

Glic, on the other hand, smiled broadly and put his hand up to quieten the crowd.

"Can I take it that Fathach, Gliondar and Crow have agreed to this proposal?"

"It was they that came up with it when your proposal to take the children was turned down," replied Michael.

"It has to be all three, Fathach?" asked Glic of the big sailor, who was standing by the bar.

"That's what we want, Glic."

"No, that's fine, Fathach. I just wanted to have all the facts clear," said Glic.

"Can I take a moment to discuss this with Haiyugen?" Glic asked the gathering.

"Absolutely," said Michael.

"Do you understand what they want us to do?" whispered Glic to Haiyugen.

"I think so," replied Haiyugen.

"I had hoped we could get one of the sailors to come with us, but I didn't want to say that to you until you were comfortable with the plan, in general. The sailors will be a big help to us."

"I know that," said Haiyugen. "I was slightly worried about managing a big boat in the open ocean."

"You should have been more than slightly worried!" said Glic. "Anyway, their proposal is that we bring the three sailors and Aon and Neamhnai and we can use the children's boat... what do you think of that?"

"Is their boat what we need?" asked Haiyugen.

"It's perfect for our needs," said Glic.

"I think the proposal is good," said Haiyugen simply.

"You are in agreement, then?"

"Yes."

Glic turned back to address the gathering.

"We would like to thank you all for taking the time to consider our proposal. We would also like to announce that we are more than happy to accept your amended proposal."

The crowd cheered for no particular reason, other than out of excitement at an adventure being created that would give them plenty to discuss over the next while.

Michael told Glic that many of the villagers had volunteered their time and spare provisions to help them out on their journey. Glic shouted his thanks for all the kind offers as the crowd dispersed.

Baboogen had run straight out of the hotel after the meeting to find his friends so that he could be the first to let them know the good news. He found them playing by the sea.

"Aon! Neamhnai!" he shouted. "You can come with us!"

Aon had been pretending to sail a boat with Neamhnai. It was their favourite game. Sometimes they played it on the boat and sometimes they played it on the seashore, looking out to sea. Their concentration was broken by Baboogen's shouting.

"What did you say?!" shouted Aon, turning to see Baboogen running wildly towards them.

"You can come with us. Everyone said you can come!"

"Everyone?" asked Neamhnai, looking over at Aon with her eyebrows raised.

"Everyone, Neamhnai. Glic asked the whole village and they said you could come with us."

"Why did he ask the whole village?" asked Neamhnai.

"I think he wanted to be sure it was the right thing to do," replied Baboogen, frowning momentarily.

"I understand what he was doing," said Aon.

Aon turned to Neamhnai and said, "Glic couldn't take us on a journey like that unless everyone else agreed that it would be okay."

"Okay," accepted Neamhnai. "That's good news alright. We do want to go on the adventure with you. Do you want to come on our boat, Baboogen?"

"Is it not too dark to climb onto the boat?"

"No, this boat here, Baboogen," she replied. "You're nearly on it now. Just climb over the rail."

Baboogen looked down at the empty, rocky beach and back up at Aon, who was smiling broadly.

"Okay," said Baboogen, understanding the game. "Just let me climb over the rail..."

"You have to work the mainsail, Baboogen," instructed Neamhnai.

"Will you teach me how to do that?"

"It's easy," replied Neamhnai. "Just take this rope here."

Neamhnai handed an imaginary rope to Baboogen and set about teaching him how to sail, while Aon looked out to sea from behind an imaginary wheel.

Back at the hotel, Haiyugen and Glic spent the rest of the evening discussing their plans with the sailors and the people who had volunteered to help.

They all went to sleep that night happy in the knowledge that a grand adventure had truly begun.
Seven

Setting Sail

I

The next morning, Baboogen woke Haiyugen by asking him about the sailors that would accompany them on the trip. Baboogen asked quietly who the sailors were at first. When there was no answer, he asked a little bit louder. There was still no answer, so he moved his head as close to Haiyugen's bed as he could get without falling out of his own.

"Who are the sailors who are coming with us, Dad?" he asked loudly, before darting his head back onto his pillow.

Haiyugen turned slowly in his bed and mumbled with his eyes still closed, "Hmmpphh?"

"Oh, you're awake!" said Baboogen. "Do you remember the sailors who volunteered to come on the journey?"

"Yeah," said Haiyugen, keeping his eyes closed and trying not to acknowledge the morning.

"Who are they?" asked Baboogen.

"I don't really know them, Baboogen. We met them in the bar, but I think they are well known around here. People seem to respect them well enough."

Haiyugen raised his arm slowly and pulled one side of the curtains open.

"Ohhh, it's very bright," he said.

Haiyugen lay still for a moment and then he sat bolt upright.

"We have a boat!" he said.

"That's right," said Baboogen.

"No, we have a new boat... we don't have to make a boat."

"I know," said Baboogen, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that they would arrive in the village and be presented with a fine boat. "Aon and Neamhnai's boat."

"Baboogen, do you know what that means?" asked Haiyugen.

"What?!" said Baboogen, somewhat anxious to see his father so excited at this early hour.

"We can go home."

"I know that," said Baboogen.

Haiyugen realised that Baboogen had never doubted that they would get back home and he quickly calmed himself.

"Yes... and it means we don't have to build a new boat and that's great as well."

"I was thinking the same, Dad," said Baboogen, smiling.

"I'd like to build a boat, but I think it's more important that we start making our way home. Your mother will know that we are not on the other side of the island eventually and we don't want her to be upset."

"She expected us to be gone for a few weeks, so she won't miss us until then," said Baboogen, who had spent many hours thinking about this fact.

"That's true, Baboogen. Hopefully, we'll be back long before then. Okay, onwards and upwards - let's go to see this famous boat," said Haiyugen, getting up from the bed. "Do you know, Baboogen, people are great here. I mean, the people on our island are great as well and it's so different here, but they've been really good to us..."

Haiyugen's voice trailed off as he went into the bathroom to wash.

Baboogen looked out the window, and thought to himself that there was no reason that the people here would be any less nice than the people at home.

After breakfast, the father and son went down to the dock to see the boat. Baboogen was excited and ran on ahead, stopping occasionally to turn to his father to shout, "Come on!"

Haiyugen had thought they would be the first down at the boat, but all of the new crew were already working on the boat when they got there.

"They must be even more excited about the trip than we are, Baboogen!" said Haiyugen. He felt a warmth inside him with this realisation. Haiyugen knew that the trip would work out well only if everyone was fully committed to it. Just like climbing a mountain, if one person did not pull their weight, the whole crew would be in danger.

"If we're all excited about the trip, we'll have a good team, isn't that right, Dad?" said Baboogen.

"That's right, Baboogen."

As they reached the boat, they heard a loud bellow from the deck.

"Haiyugen! What time do you call this? We've been here since dawn!"

Haiyugen looked up to see Fathach laughing with Crow and Gliondar. He climbed up onto the boat with Baboogen following him.

"Good morning, gentlemen!" greeted Haiyugen.

"Good morning, Haiyugen," the three men replied.

"We've just arrived," clarified Crow. "Don't mind Fathach."

"Well, I've just woken up and I'd say I'd have slept for longer if this young fella didn't wake me," said Haiyugen, stretching his arms out to help his body ease into the day.

"I didn't wake you, Dad," said Baboogen.

"Maybe I was woken by silence of the morning then," said Haiyugen, with a chuckle.

"This is a fine boat!" he continued, looking around at the polished decks and newly painted cabins.

"It is that," said Fathach. "We've kept a close eye on her through the years to make sure she stayed shipshape."

"Does she sail well?" asked Haiyugen.

"The finest," replied Gliondar. "We've run her in the bay every summer and out in the open ocean a few times and there's a nice clip to her. She's smooth through the water too."

"There's certainly room for all of us," said Haiyugen.

"There are berths for ten people below deck and there's a galley and a workstation and a fine-sized salon."

"I'm going to help Aon and Neamhnai," said Baboogen.

"They're working on the hull with Glic, Baboogen," said Crow. "Glic will tell you what to do."

Crow turned to Haiyugen and explained what they were doing.

"We're just taking a look around the boat at the moment to see what needs to be done. There isn't a huge amount of work to do, but we'll test everything very well while we are still on dry land."

"That makes perfect sense," said Haiyugen. "Let me know what I can do to help."

The sailors looked at each other in mutual agreement. They had discussed how the journey might work out. The reason they had volunteered to come on Haiyugen and Glic's adventure was that they thought the two men were reasonable enough to listen to their experience and knowledge.

"Okay, give me a hand with this rigging," said Gliondar, motioning at a pile of ropes.

Crow and Fathach continued making lists on pieces of bark, while Gliondar sat back in the morning sun as he showed Haiyugen what they needed to do.

"Did you ever hear of Amru bin al-'As?" bellowed Gliondar in a voice that was loud enough for all the crew to hear.

"I taught you about him," shouted Glic from the timber frame, where he was working on the hull.

"Indeed you did, Glic, and you taught me well," replied Gliondar.

"Tell me about him," said Haiyugen.

"Amru bin al-'As was an Arab conqueror of one of the ancient lands called Egypt," said Gliondar.

He paused a moment and shouted to Glic, "Wasn't it Egypt, Glic?"

"It was," replied Glic. "Keep going, I know you know this story. You didn't learn the other ones too well, but you learnt the stories about the sea off by heart."

Gliondar turned back to Haiyugen and rhythmically told the story like a poet reading out his own poetry, proud for all to hear.

"Amru wrote, 'The sea is a boundless expanse whereon great ships look like tiny specks; naught but the heavens above and the waters beneath; when calm, the sailor's heart is broken; when tempestuous, his senses reel. Trust it little. Fear it much. Man at sea is but a worm on a bit of wood (dud 'ala 'ud), now engulfed, now scared to death."

"Dud Ala Ud!" said Baboogen. "What a funny name! We should call our boat the Dud Ala Ud."

"I think it's enough to keep the thought that our boat is only a speck in the sea in our subconscious so that we respect the sea. I don't think we need to be consciously reminded of that fact too often," said Glic.

"Well, what will we call the boat?" asked Aon.

This was the first group conversation of the newly formed crew of the boat. The activity levels of the crew slowed as they tuned in to the conversation.

"We should call it The World after our island," said Baboogen.

"No, the world is the whole place, Baboogen. It's everywhere," explained Aon.

"What do you mean? It's here as well?" asked Baboogen.

"Yes, it is. The world is everywhere," said Glic. "I don't know why they called your island the world, but the world is the whole planet."

"Like the moon?" asked Haiyugen.

"Yes, like the moon. Well, mostly like the moon," said Glic.

"Mostly?" asked Baboogen.

"The moon is a little bit different. It orbits our planet, so it's a satellite of our planet or a moon. We orbit the Sun, which is a star, so that makes our world a planet," replied Glic. "There are lots of stars and lots of planets and lots of moons in the universe."

"What does orbit mean?"

"It means it goes around another object. It can't stop because of gravity," explained Glic. "I'm not going to explain what gravity is just now, Baboogen. We have a lot of work to do."

"One last question," said Baboogen defiantly, "Do the people on the other planets agree with what we think about how everything works?"

"We don't know if there any people on the other planets, Baboogen," said Glic, before deftly changing the subject, "what are we going to call the boat?"

"We should call it "Everything in the World"," said Neamhnai.

"Why?" asked Haiyugen with a confused look, still trying to get his head around the planet concept.

"Because maybe our boat will have the goodness of everything in the world and that will keep it safe," said Neamhnai, waving her arms around to emphasize that she meant everything in the world.

"I like that," said Glic. "A boat called Everything in the World..."

"No," said Baboogen. "What about things you don't like? You don't want them to be part of the boat."

"Like what?" asked Neamhnai, fully sure at that moment that there was nothing she did not like in the entire world.

"Like beetles," said Baboogen.

"I like beetles," said Aon. "They are beautiful with their shiny suits and I like the funny way they move."

"Okay, what about that drink in the pub? That is pretty horrible," said Baboogen.

"It was called ale," said Haiyugen.

"Ugghhh, I hate ale," said Neamhnai.

"Do you want the goodness of ale on the boat then?" asked Baboogen.

"Emm... no," said Neamhnai.

"I want the goodness of ale on the boat," said Fathach to Gliondar, laughing from his belly. "I'm only joking, Glic. We don't drink ale when we are sailing."

There was a deep silence as everyone tried to think of a name for the boat. The name of the boat was in ways part of the spirit of the whole adventure, so they thought long and hard about it. The silence went on for so long that Fathach forgot what they were supposed to be thinking about and called to Gliondar and Crow to come help him buy materials to repair the boat. The three men climbed down from the boat and wandered up to the village, discussing what they needed to buy for the boat.

The remainder of the crew watched them leave without commenting on their departure. They continued working at their various jobs, but Haiyugen and Glic felt the difference the three men made to the crew in their absence. Until that moment, they had taken for granted the comfort of travelling with experienced sailors and men who were capable of defending themselves and those around them.

With the silence that had fallen upon them for the last while, there was some surprise when Baboogen suddenly shouted out loud, "I have it!"

"What?!" exclaimed Haiyugen, who had also completely forgotten the earlier topic.

"I think we should call the boat "There is One of Everything in the World"," said Baboogen.

"You were still thinking about the name for the boat!" said Haiyugen, surprised.

"That would be the longest name of a boat in history," muttered Glic.

"Why do you like that name?" asked Haiyugen.

"Because there is one of you and there is one of me and there is one of all of us here. There is one of each animal and each animal has legs that are only his legs," blurted out Baboogen.

There was a pause as they digested the idea, including Baboogen, who was struggling to keep up with his own idea.

"We are all unique..." said Baboogen with a finality that nearly everyone there accepted without question. "Every part of us is unique and every part of everything is unique."

Haiyugen looked at Baboogen as if he had two heads.

"Baboogen's theory of uniqueness?" said Haiyugen, raising an eyebrow. "I never heard you use the word "unique" before."

"Of course I know what unique means!" said Baboogen indignantly.

"That's fine; I was just saying I never heard you using it."

Haiyugen thought that his son's newfound theory must have come from the time spent out on the boat because he had never heard him talk like that in his life.

"Our little boat is certainly unique," said Glic. "I'm sure there never has been such a hotchpotch boat in the world before!"

Glic caught Neamhnai looking sharply at him and added, "I meant the boat's crew is hotchpotch, Neamhnai, not the boat."

"I don't think the boat's crew is hotchpotch at all," said Neamhnai. "I think we are an excellent crew."

"I think our boat will like the name as well," said Aon, using the leverage of ownership of the boat to give extra weight to his opinion.

"Well, if our boat likes it, I think we will have to go with it," said Haiyugen, neatly giving the boat communal ownership for the purposes of the journey. This, he decided, was fair enough since each person's life was more important than the boat. "Are we all agreed?"

"We are," they answered in unison.

"We're going to need a lot of paint," said Glic, shaking his head, but he was still smiling begrudgingly at the boat's new name. "Come on, Baboogen, you're going to help me find the paint since you thought of such a long name. You look as if your theory has tired you out, by the way. Is that your first time thinking in your life?"

The contented group made their way back on the dusty road to the village, their preparation mostly finished. All that lay ahead of them before packing for their adventure was a long dinner and a night of celebration and goodbyes.

II

The next morning, Fathach came up to the boat just after the sun had risen. He found Glic starting to paint a name onto the boat.

"Oh, did you manage to think of a name for the boat without me?" he asked gruffly.

"We didn't need you to think of a name for the boat, Fathach," said Glic.

Crow and Gliondar followed close behind. Crow was holding his head as he walked and shielding the sun from his eyes.

"One too many?" asked Glic, guessing that the sailors had visited the pub the night before.

"More than one too many," said Gliondar, answering for Crow. "The poor fella is a shadow of his former self."

"What's the name of the boat?" asked Crow, keen to deflect attention from himself.

"There is One of Everything in the World!" announced Glic, as if he expected trumpeters to herald the new name after he spoke.

The three crewmen were distinctly underwhelmed.

"That's a dire name," said Fathach.

Crow turned away in pain. The announcement had clearly done nothing for his headache.

"Why did you call it that?!" asked Gliondar. "That's not a right name for a boat at all!"

"It's the right name for our boat," said Glic, suddenly defensive of the children's name. "It will be explained to you later."

"Explain it to us now, before you finish it," said Gliondar somewhat curtly.

Glic explained Baboogen's idea to the three sailors, who lost no time in voicing their objections.

"Look, Glic, that's no name for a boat. We don't want to be philosophising our way around the ocean," said Fathach.

"Sailing is not about thinking, Glic. Too much thinking on the ocean is dangerous," said Crow.

"They are right, Glic," added Gliondar. "You should be feeling the waves and the wind when you are sailing. Sailors are natural philosophers like farmers because we have a lot of time on our hands out in nature, but you don't want to force that by giving yourself something to think about when you are sailing."

"We need a nice, simple name for the boat that will help us sail around the ocean safely and come home safely," said Crow.

"Okay, okay," said Glic.

Glic knew the children would be upset if he changed the name of the boat, but he knew that the sailors' views on safety at sea were more important than having a name that the children wanted.

"What name were you thinking of?" he asked.

"Well, we hadn't really thought of any..." said Gliondar.

"We need a name that will inspire us or that will make us feel safe," said Crow.

"I've already painted "TH", so it has to start with that," said Glic, wondering what he had let himself in for.

"How about "The Village"?" asked Fathach without hesitation.

"Yes, that works," said Glic after a moment's pause, realising that the sailors had been right. A name like the Village would always remind them of the goodwill of their friends and family at home. It would also help to ensure they worked hard to get home to see the people who mattered most to them.

"How did you come up with the name that quickly?" asked Crow.

"I don't know," said Fathach, "it just came to me."

"The Village it is," concluded Gliondar, before turning back to pick up more supplies from his house.

When the children arrived, Glic slipped into headmaster mode and gave them a lesson on safety on the boat, which included the sailors' views on the original name of the boat. The children were caught between being upset at the change of name and being upset at being made to sit through a lecture on safety. They mutually agreed amongst themselves, after a brief cost-benefit analysis, that it would be easier to accept the new name rather than argue the point and listen to more lecturing about mental strength at sea and the like.

All the crew, including the children, worked hard throughout the morning loading up the boat. They had expected that it would take a week to gather supplies, but the other villagers were pitching in to help at such a rate with maintenance work and donations of supplies that they would be ready to sail in the afternoon. The villagers helped so much that Glic asked one of his neighbours if they were helping him leave so they could move into his house.

"Your neighbours have already moved into your house," quipped Fathach, to the loud laughter of Crow and Gliondar.

"You guys are clearly not working hard enough, if you have time to think of jokes," replied Glic.

"The joking helps us work," explained Gliondar, trying to relax Glic, who was struggling slightly with the concept of leaving the easy routine of life in the village.

"And it keeps our minds off the headache," added Crow.

"Come on now," said Glic, "you brought your headaches on yourselves. It's time to be men and get the boat ready for sea. Do you all remember what you are responsible for?"

"Am I responsible for the sails, lads?" asked Crow.

"You certainly are, Crow," said Glic. "Now, up you get there and start checking them thoroughly. We'll be in a lot of trouble if we set out without everything we need. Make sure you check the back-up equipment as well, lads."

There were a few groans, but the sailors were more than capable of getting their jobs done in any circumstance. They were also well aware of the dangers of the sea, so they lost little time in knuckling down to the task at hand.

"Check everything, lads, I'm not going down with this boat. She's coming home with us on her!" bellowed Fathach, in a sailing equivalent of a call to arms.

The morning flew by with the light, easy banter that passed between the crew and their helpers. Lunchtime came quickly and the crew sat in a circle to eat and discuss the remaining issues to be resolved. They worked through what supplies they had on board and what they had to pick up still. Everyone was given jobs to do in the afternoon. As Glic called out the job list, Fathach interrupted to disagree with the late afternoon's work.

"I need the two lads for a while before we set sail, Glic," he said.

"Why do you need them, Fathach?" asked Glic.

"We have a job to do," said Fathach unhelpfully.

"Okay, Fathach, we'll work around that," said Glic, realising he would not get anywhere with any further questioning.

The crew set to their tasks for the afternoon, scattering to and fro on their various errands as the excitement grew inside them.

A few hours after their meeting, the children, Glic and Haiyugen stood at the boat chatting with a gathering of villagers. They heard a loud noise coming from the direction of the village and when they looked down the road, they saw the three sailors walking towards them with a large box.

"I told you not to drop it!", they heard Fathach's voice bellowing out over the wind.

"I didn't mean to drop it!" shouted Crow in reply.

Haiyugen and some of the villagers ran to help them.

"Lift over there, lads," said Haiyugen to the villagers.

They all lifted together and carried the large wooden box on their shoulders. They walked in silence to the boat as the box weighed down on them.

"How did you carry this by yourselves?" asked Haiyugen.

"With serious difficulty," answered Gliondar, laughing. "I took the front and Fathach took the back and Crow danced around it."

"I did not!" said Crow. "My shoulders are ruined from it and it wasn't my idea to bring it."

Fathach grunted, but did not elaborate his thoughts.

"What is it?" asked Haiyugen.

"You'll see," said Fathach.

They brought the box up onto the boat, amid a great commotion of shouting and people's arms everywhere.

"Why are we bringing this box?" asked Aon.

"We're not allowed to ask," answered Haiyugen, smiling through the fierce effort involved in lifting the dead weight of the box up the ladder steps.

When the box was eventually on the boat, Aon climbed up the ladder to examine it. It was a square box about eight feet long and was made of wood. It had glass panels in the four walls so that someone inside the box could see out. One end was open and the other end had what looked like a little roof on it.

"I don't know why you didn't wait until the boat was in the water to lift it on," said Aon nonchalantly.

The men who had carried it on looked at each other and shook their heads.

Baboogen laughed out loud at Aon's comment until he saw his father glaring at him.

"Well, the exercise was good for them, Aon," said Glic. "Right, lads! One more big push and we're on our way. Take a minute to rest, that's okay. Our last job is to get this boat onto a frame with wheels and to wheel her down the slipway slowly and into the water."

The men got up from where they had been resting on the deck of the boat and made their way down the ladder to manoeuvre a narrower, strong, wooden frame with wheels on it into place between the sides of the frame that held the boat upright. Then, they took out the wedges that held the outer frame in place and removed the outer frame slowly.

"We're nearly there now!" said Glic, trying without success to keep the excitement out of his voice.

"We're going to need five men at the front and three at the back, lads. This job is all about balance," said Fathach, taking over the duties of the foreman. "If we mess up the balance, the boat can roll onto its side or towards the guys in front when we are carrying it down the jetty. I don't need to tell you how much we want to avoid either of those two possibilities. Slowly, slowly is how it will be done."

The men helping were kicking into the same gear that man has possessed since he first hunted in sync with his tribe.

"Okay, I need four at the front with me," shouted Gliondar.

When he had four men helping him, he explained their task. "We are pulling in the beginning to get the wheels moving, but as soon as we get near the jetty, our job switches to slowing the boat's movement by pushing up the hill and releasing step by step at the same time."

Gliondar paused to let the last line settle in. Understanding their confusion, he continued, "Gravity will bring her down, lads. We just want to make sure she doesn't go down too fast, so we have to hold the boat with our upper bodies and step down the jetty slowly with her."

"Are you listening to Gliondar?" Fathach asked his two helpers. "We are doing the same as they are, but pushing when they are pulling and pulling when they are pushing obviously. If we let the boat off on its own, the stern will bang against the jetty and it could crack."

"Are you ready?" called out Gliondar.

"We are!" answered the men.

"They seem to be doing a lot of talking," commented Baboogen from his vantage point as a spectator on the pier.

"I think they're just trying to make sure that they don't make any mistakes," said Aon, who was standing beside him.

With a great heave, the men got the boat moving slowly. A cacophony of grunts and groans accompanied the boat on its short journey from the dry dock to the jetty. As they straightened up for the jetty, Gliondar roared out orders.

"That was the easy part, lads! Full concentration now," he said. "Let's get this boat in the water, nice and easy does it. Fathach, start pulling her back, keep the ropes tight."

Fathach had four helpers now, two pushing slowly and two helping with the ropes they were using for when the boat started leaning into the jetty's slope.

"We're okay back here, Gliondar. Let's get her to the jetty," said Fathach.

A crowd had gathered nearby to watch the event. They would have got in the way if they tried to help, so they did what they could and kept the children well clear of the path.

There was a loud call of "Heave!!" from the bow and the boat edged forward. As they reached the jetty, Gliondar called out, "Watch it now!"

All five men at the stern were on the ropes now, pulling hard to keep the boat from rolling into the men at the bow. The boat leaned out over the top edge of the jetty as the men at the bow pulled the frame slowly forward until the front wheels touched down on the slope. Then, they leaned hard against the frame to slow the boat's movement down the jetty.

Every muscle strained in their bodies as they tried to release the boat into the ocean water as slowly as possible. As the boat and the frame dipped into the water, Gliondar had to make a decision.

"Hold her there a minute!" he called out, as he looked down into the sea-water.

"Okay, this is what we are going to do," he continued, loud enough for everyone to hear clearly. "On a count of three, everyone at the bow is going to move out of the way of the boat. If we continue into the sea, we might lose our footing and the boat could come straight into us. I want the men at the stern to pull as hard as you can during the count to allow us to start moving away and on three, repeat, on three, you let go of the ropes. Is that clear?"

"Loud and clear!" answered Fathach, looking at the men around him. They nodded back at him.

"Okay then," said Gliondar, before saying in an emphatic, urgent tone to the men at the bow with him, "I want you all to move slowly to where we can bear her weight and we are in a position to move out of the way quickly. I want the boat to have a clear run into the sea and I don't want anyone to be mown down by her. Nobody moves out of the way until I say so. Do you all understand that?"

"We do," they answered.

"On the count of one, we are ready to move; on two, we are moving and on three, we are clear. Do you understand that?!"

"We do," the men answered again.

"Okay, one is ready, two is moving, three is clear. Let's do it. Get into a position now where you have enough space behind you and you aren't tripping over the man beside you."

The men inched towards more advantageous positions under Gliondar's watchful eye. Gliondar was last to move from the centre of the frame.

"READY?" Fathach shouted.

"READY!" they answered.

"ONE!"

The men at the bow prepared themselves for movement.

"TWO!"

The men at the bow scattered left and right as far away from the boat as they could get. Gliondar was closest to the centre of the frame. In the split-second that he cleared the frame, he called out, "THREE!" and Fathach and his crew at the stern released the ropes.

The boat powered down the jetty, succumbing to gravity finally. It crashed into the water with an almighty splash. The crowd did not know whether to cheer or not since it was not clear if the launch had been a success, so they just generally made noises of appreciation for the spectacle.

The men on the jetty waved at the crowd to let them know they were okay and this drew a ripple of applause from the villagers, who had gathered to watch the launch.

Fathach, Gliondar and Crow marched into the sea to check on the boat, instructing the other men to grab hold of the ropes of the frame. When they reached the boat, they rocked it back and forth in the frame. It was floating inside in the frame, but it was stuck within its confines. The frame had been designed so that it did not have sharp corners that would cut into the boat, but they still checked the hull carefully where it might have connected with the frame on impact.

"She seems to have bounced on the water like she was supposed to," said Crow.

"Give us a hand, Haiyugen," called out Gliondar.

"What do you think?" asked Haiyugen, when he had reached the sailors.

"She seems to be fine, Haiyugen. Have a look yourself," said Fathach.

"The frame is designed for the jetty, to be fair," said Crow.

"We have to check the boats every time, men," said Gliondar.

"I think she's fine," declared Fathach authoritatively.

"Let's get her off the frame, lads," said Gliondar.

Together they lifted the bow over one corner of the frame and the boat slid out onto the surface of the ocean like a knife through soft butter.

"She's floating!" shouted Glic from the crowd of villagers. He was not sure if he had doubted that the boat would float, but he was sure that a very grand adventure was beginning and that was worth shouting about.

The villagers cheered as the past days' efforts finally came to fruition for their brave explorers.

The crowd that had gathered went down to the seashore to get more involved in the proceeding. All the heavy supplies had been assembled down at the dock. The villagers helped to load the boat that was by now safely tethered to the pier that continued on from the jetty.

They loaded the boat in the best communal fashion; they formed a line with each person facing the next person and passed the goods along to the boat in record time. It was not that anyone was keeping a record of the times spent loading boats, but the villagers felt that they were moving goods faster than usual in their excitement at the big adventure.

"Why did we leave the heavy materials here, but we carried the heaviest thing up the ladder in the dry dock?" asked Aon of anyone that was listening.

"What?" asked Baboogen.

"The big box," answered Aon.

"Oh, right, I don't know," said Baboogen. "They like to call us the children, but sometimes they are the children."

"I think the men were thinking about how big and strong they were when they were lifting the box up the ladder and they forgot that we were leaving the heavy things down here," said Neamhnai.

Glic was monitoring the loading of the boat near the children and laughed at Neamhnai's musings.

"We're going to have some fireworks on board with the pair of you commenting on how everyone works!" said Glic. "Come on now, start bringing over those sacks to me. If you did enough work, you wouldn't have time to be reflecting on everything. Besides, don't you think being an adult can be boring sometimes?"

"Why?" asked Neamhnai.

"Well, you always have to do the right thing and say the right thing," said Glic.

"Not always," corrected Aon.

"That's true, Aon," said Glic. "You can actually do whatever you want to do and you've more chance to do whatever you want to do as an adult. It's just that..."

Glic trailed off, unsure of how to finish his theory.

"It's just that not many adults do that," finished Aon.

"That's exactly right," said Glic somewhat sadly.

"Well, you're doing what you want to do, aren't you?" asked Baboogen.

"I am," said Glic, "and I was doing what I wanted to be doing when I was teaching in the school. I have no regrets. I was just feeling sad for people who don't get to do everything they wanted to do."

The provisions were loaded onto the boat before Glic managed to count everything, amid the chatter of everyone lending a hand. Within thirty minutes, Glic looked up from the lists off which he had been ticking provisions as being on the boat and called out, "We're all set, folks!"

There was another cheer, this time tinged with some sadness as people realised that the time to depart was nigh.

"Are we going now?!" said Neamhnai, suddenly not ready to leave.

"Yes," said Aon, looking straight into his sister's eyes. "It'll be fine, Neamhnai, we'll be back home soon."

"Don't worry, Neamhnai," said Baboogen. "You'll get to meet all my friends and my mum and then you can come back home."

Something in Baboogen's statement relaxed Neamhnai and she smiled nervously.

"I know, it'll be an adventure. I'm just going to miss my friends here."

"We all will miss our friends, Neamhnai," said Glic, "but we'll be back after our big adventure and we'll have great stories for them."

"And we'll make new friends on the journey hopefully," Crow pitched in.

The thought of meeting people that none of them knew distracted them all enough to allow Haiyugen to signal the departure.

"Last call for the Village, ladies and gentlemen! Everyone on board!" he called out.

There was a flurry of hugs and tears and goodbyes, as the crew bade farewell to their friends and families.

Once they were all safely on board, Gliondar untied the mooring ropes from posts on the pier. He threw them to Fathach and climbed onto the boat.

"Give us a push," said Crow to some of the younger villagers, who wanted to have some part in the action.

Fathach and Gliondar took hold of a long oar each on either side of the boat and started rowing slowly once they were clear of the pier. They were soon making headway as the currents brought the boat out to sea.

"You can put up the sails now, Crow," said Fathach, continuing to row while Crow and the remaining crew hoisted the sails as they had practiced.

Haiyugen called out from behind the wheel, "Straight out the middle of the bay, Fathach?"

"That's the one," said Fathach, surveying the scene around him.

"I think we have a tight enough crew, Gliondar," he said quietly to his rowing companion.

"I think the same, Fathach. If lady luck is on our side, we'll be fine."

They rowed peacefully for a few minutes more. Then, when the sails were hoisted, Gliondar told everyone to go to the stern of the boat for a final farewell.

The newly-formed crew of the Village went to the stern and were delighted to see the crowd had not moved at all.

"They must really like us," said Aon.

"Maybe they are just bored," said Fathach, laughing.

"Maybe they are just making sure we are going," said Crow with a broad smile.

Glic noticed Neamhnai was upset with the light-hearted banter and distracted her by calling out loudly, "Hands in the air, everyone, and give the loudest cheer you can!"

The crew roared out and waved to the villagers, who answered their call with a louder roar.

They knew the villagers would be proud to see the boat sailing off with her sails hoisted and a happy crew.

"Keep it going," shouted Glic, "see if we can cheer for longer than them!"

They laughed at the idea of a cheering competition, but they kept going anyway. Glic knew the cheering would increase the oxygen flow to their bodies and they would feel better. He also knew that it was vital for Aon and Neamhnai to have a strong, fun departure to help with the transition from village life to ocean life and to give them a good memory of home for when the journey was tough.

The villagers seemed to catch onto the idea of the cheering competition very quickly because they started cheering again as soon as the crew did. The villagers were, in fact, so determined to win that they continued cheering until the crew could no longer see the pier clearly. It was a send-off they would not forget, even on the darkest days of their adventures.
Eight

A Grand Adventure

I

Aon, Neamhnai and Baboogen could not stop exploring the boat in excitement. Their heads were flying around, trying to take in the countryside they passed, every detail of the boat and every movement of the ocean. They went from Haiyugen to Glic to each of the sailors pestering them with endless questions.

"How fast are we going?"

"When will we get to Baboogen's island?"

"Will the boat keep moving when we are sleeping?"

"When are we having dinner?"

Haiyugen called out from the wheel, "Baboogen, will you leave them in peace?"

Baboogen looked at his father, unsure of what he was doing wrong.

"They're okay, Haiyugen," assured Glic, before distracting the younger crew, "Do you want to play a game, children?"

"What game?" asked Aon.

"Any game you want. I'll answer your questions, but you have to ask them one at a time," said Glic cleverly. He had learnt some simple methods of calming children in his years as a teacher and headmaster.

"Aon and Neamhnai know lots of games," said Baboogen, not falling for the ruse of Glic's polite question game.

They decided to play a game with stones on an area they drew on the deck with charcoal. Each player started with the same amount of stones and there were complicated rules that decided who would win more stones or other player's stones.

The game burned up enough mental energy to slow the questions down to a level that Glic could deal with them. He explained the map and how long it would take to get to each destination.

"Why can't we just sail to Baboogen's island?" asked Neamhnai.

"We would be sailing against the current and the wind, Neamhnai," answered Glic. "Apart from the fact that it would take a long time, we could easily end up off track and sailing around the middle of the ocean. We will be sailing close to the shore on some of the route we are on, so we can stop off to get fresh water or to stretch our legs."

"How do we know the map is right?" asked Aon.

"We don't, Aon," answered Glic. "We're going to see if it matches what we see as we are sailing and we will decide then if we can use it."

"What if it's not right?" asked Neamhnai.

"Then we'll sail back to the village and we'll work out another strategy. It would be a much more dangerous journey to sail out into the open ocean looking for an island without a map and endless provisions. We would have to leave yourself and Aon back to the village before that."

"Aw, no!" said Neamhnai. "You'd have to bring us."

Glic was glad to hear Neamhnai was comfortable enough on the boat that the idea of a more dangerous journey did not frighten her too much, but he knew that they could not bring the young siblings on such a journey. Even the sailors might not be willing to go on such a vague and dangerous trip.

"We'll see," said Glic to placate her.

Neamhnai beamed a smile, happy to have negotiated her place on the boat on any trip. Glic let the topic lie, knowing that if he explained what a journey into the unknown might mean, Neamhnai would most likely decide not to go.

"What is the box for?" asked Baboogen, pointing at the large box that the men had carried up onto the deck.

"That's right," said Fathach, "we forgot to set up the phone. Give me a hand, Crow."

Fathach and Crow went over to the box and stood it upright. Then, they moved it over beside the entrance to the forward cabin. Fathach had brought plenty of rope and he used some of this to tie the box to the outside rail. When he was happy that it was secure and safe, he sat back down.

"Oh, it's like a little house!" said Neamhnai.

"It's a phone booth," said Glic.

"What is it for?" repeated Baboogen, totally mystified by the addition to the boat.

"You use it to talk to people who aren't here," said Fathach.

"Really?" asked Baboogen. "Like who?"

"Like your mother," answered Fathach.

"Really?!"

"Yes, really," said Fathach, "try it out."

Baboogen stood up, feeling somewhat embarrassed without knowing why. As he walked towards the phone booth, Neamhnai stood up and skipped over to the booth excitedly. Baboogen stopped suddenly when he had his hand on the door and looked back at Aon.

"Do you want to go first, Aon?" he asked.

"To talk to who?" asked Aon.

"To talk to your mum or your dad," answered Baboogen.

"My mum and my..." Aon's voice trailed off as he looked down at the deck. "I don't need to talk to anyone."

Neamhnai had been jumping up and down beside Baboogen, but her eyes dropped when she saw Aon was upset and she went back to sit beside him.

Haiyugen caught Fathach's eye and nodded at Aon. Glic saw the nod and asked Crow to take the wheel for a moment. The three men went into the aft cabin silently. They talked for what seemed like a long time. Eventually, Haiyugen emerged and went over to where Aon was sitting.

"Tell me about yourself, Aon," asked Haiyugen gently.

"What do you mean?" replied Aon. "You know who I am."

"Well, where were you born?" asked Haiyugen.

"I was born in the mountains," the boy answered.

"And... do you know who your parents are?" asked Haiyugen.

"I...I...I don't know who my father is," answered Aon.

"I don't know who our father is," he corrected himself. "We met him once, when we were young, in a town near to ours, but he had to go to do work then. He was nice to us, but we never heard from him again. I think something must have happened to him."

Neamhnai looked at him silently.

"And your mother?" asked Haiyugen, allowing Aon to tell his own story.

"She... eh... she... she is not with us any more," muttered Aon, keeping his eyes locked on the deck flooring, as if it needed fixing.

"You know that you have a mother somewhere... maybe somewhere here," Haiyugen waved his arm out at the sea and the land, "or maybe up there," he said, pointing up to the sky.

"The most important thing for you to know, Aon, is that you have a mother and she loves you and she would be here with you, if she could, and so would your father," continued Haiyugen.

There was a long silence. Eventually, Aon lifted his head and looked at Neamhnai with reddening, slightly teary eyes. Then he looked at Haiyugen and finally over at Fathach and Glic.

"Do you think she could hear me if I talked to her in there?" he asked the men.

"Definitely," replied Fathach and the others nodded.

Aon smiled slowly and took Neamhnai's hand.

"Come on, Neamhnai," he said.

Baboogen had heard some of the conversation and held the door open for the siblings. Baboogen smiled at them as they passed and they smiled back with the same open warmth as when they first met, and then Baboogen left to give them privacy.

Aon and Neamhnai spent the rest of the day in the booth, swapping the phone over and back and laughing and giggling. A serene peace enveloped the boat that night as the crew of the Village reflected on the friends they had left behind and the new friends on the boat with them. Glic drew up a roster of shifts for the coming days. Those who were free for the night, which included all of the children, went to bed and slept soundly. The two crew left on duty, Crow and Fathach, were tired, but they were quite happy to sail through the night with the stars to guide them. They chatted easily about the journey they were on and about life on boats and very soon, it was morning.

II

Dawn met the replacement crew of Haiyugen and Gliondar gently. A soft glow came up over the horizon and soon, they began to feel the warmth of the sun take the bite out of the fresh morning air.

"Looks like it'll be a fine day, Gliondar," said Haiyugen.

"That it does," replied Gliondar. "It's not bad sailing weather either. We're covering good ground, I'd say seven or eight knots at least."

"Is that fast?" asked Haiyugen.

"It's fast compared to some of the boats you saw in the harbour. Aon and Neamhnai's parents loved sailing and they liked to sail fast when they were sailing. This boat can do ten or twelve knots when she is running with the wind."

"So we'll get to where we are going soon enough then?"

"That we will, Haiyugen, if it's there."

"Is it nearly time for breakfast?"

"Not far off. I'll get started on it if you can take over the wheel until they wake."

Haiyugen moved to the wheel to take control of the boat.

"Just keep her on the same heading," said Gliondar, "we're sailing nicely now."

"And in the right direction?" asked Haiyugen.

"More or less," answered Gliondar, with a chuckle. "We're going in the right direction, don't worry. Fathach and Crow made a good start on the navigation, according to the map. I've checked it and I'm happy that it's right, so that's the course we are on."

"That's great, Gliondar. I'm not sure how we could have done this without yourselves."

"Glic has a fair amount of knowledge in his head so it might have been possible."

"Knowledge without experience is dangerous," said Haiyugen.

"But it's better than no knowledge and no experience," replied Gliondar.

"That's true."

The door between the forward cabin and the galley opened.

"I smell food," growled a hungry-looking Fathach.

"Sit up on deck for a while and I'll bring some food up to you," said Gliondar.

Fathach arrived up onto the deck and greeted Haiyugen, "Good morning, captain!"

"Good morning, Fathach!" said Haiyugen, "I don't know if I'm the captain, I'm just one of the crew. I think we are all captains."

"I suppose we are, Haiyugen. The bigger boats have captains for discipline. We are all responsible for ourselves on this boat."

"And the children. We are responsible for ourselves and the children," corrected Haiyugen.

"Absolutely, I was taking that for granted. We all have different talents; when we learn how to get the best use out of all our talents, we will be a strong crew," said Fathach, looking out to sea. "The ocean is at its most beautiful in the morning when the water is calm. The surface is like something from another world when it's this calm."

"Here come the children. That calm may disappear soon!" said Haiyugen.

Like a little tornado, the forward cabin door flew open and the three children seemed to come through it all at the same time.

"What a day!" said Aon, looking out to sea.

"Woohoo!" squealed Neamhnai, who was clearly settling into life on the boat well.

Baboogen just laughed and ran around to his father; "Did you sail all night?" he asked.

"I was sailing for some of the night, Baboogen, but I slept like the dead for the rest of it! We're moving along nicely now anyway."

Glic arrived on deck and announced, "I have a job for Aon, Baboogen and Neamhnai."

The three children ran over to Glic.

"What is our job, Glic?" asked Baboogen.

"Okay, this is your mission, should you choose to accept it..." said Glic to the amusement of the children. "We need you to draw a map of the land as we pass it. We then have to compare it to the map that we have in the book. We are trying to match what we see with what is on the map."

"But we can't see any land!" exclaimed Neamhnai.

"We'll be able to see land later on in the day, hopefully, Neamhnai," said Gliondar from the galley as he struggled with cooking the morning's breakfast. "We're sailing out to sea to pick up the stronger winds, which should bring us to the coast more quickly."

"Okay, we'll keep a lookout for land later on," said Aon.

"I bet I'll see it first," said Baboogen, strutting around the boat as if he expected to see land any minute. "I saw land before my dad when we landed near your village."

The day passed quickly as the crew packed all the provisions more securely and everyone learnt where everything was. The packing involved a serious amount of debate as to what should go where and why it should be put there. Eventually, they settled on locations and set about cleaning the cabins and galley from top to bottom. Baboogen was told not to check the horizon until the helmsman of the day had sighted land. That did not stop him finding reasons to go up onto the bow deck and look about nonchalantly while he was there.

In the end, it was the helmsman on duty at the time, Crow, who first saw land again.

"Get your charcoal, kids! It's time to start drawing!" shouted Crow from the wheel.

There was a flurry of activity in the forward cabin as the children got caught between rushing out to the deck to see the land and running to get their materials. Glic followed them onto the deck and gave strict instructions as to how they should draw.

"We have limited supplies of dried bark and charcoal, so we can only have one person drawing. You need to nominate the best artist. One of the other two will examine the landscape and assist the artist in the drawing, making sure the drawing matches the landscape."

"Neamhnai is better than me at drawing," said Aon.

"And you, Baboogen?" asked Glic.

"I haven't done much drawing. I've done some, but not a lot."

"Okay, Neamhnai will be the artist. Do you think you could help her with the drawing, Aon?"

"I could," replied Aon.

"And no fighting between you?"

"No fighting," replied Aon and Neamhnai, giggling at the fact that Glic had noticed them arguing before. They liked to argue sometimes because it made them feel like they were deciding things like adults did. They didn't have parents to decide things for them and when the world felt like it was bigger than them, they usually argued until they felt like it all made sense again.

"That's settled so," said Glic.

"What about me?" asked Baboogen.

"You have the important job of helping me decide if Neamhnai's map matches our map!" replied Glic.

"Oh, that is an important job!" said Baboogen happily.

"Yes, it is. Let's get started then," said Glic.

"Why can you not just look at the land and look at your map to see if it matches?" asked Aon.

"We need to know if it matches generally, not just for one part. I could say a mountain on the land is the same as a mountain on the map and make everything else match, but if we don't have a record of what came before, we would have no idea if it really matched. If the two maps look more or less alike for a long period, we will know, first of all, that the map is real and, second of all, where we are on the map."

"I see," said Aon, still thinking. "Would the sailors not know if it was real?"

"They've had a look at it before, but they are really only used to the area around our bay and there are lots of bays like ours on the map, so we need to do more work to check it out. As well as that, the map was made long before the Great Floods, so it's very difficult to match the coast we are looking at with the coast on the map," said Glic. "Come on, you won't talk your way out of this work, Aon."

"I wasn't trying to; I was just trying to see what we are doing."

"That's good then," said Glic. "It's important to know why you are doing something because there is a better chance that you will actually do it right."

Aon and Neamhnai busied themselves in sorting out positions on the deck and good lookout points.

"Are you going to be sailing this way for a while?" asked Neamhnai.

"What way?" asked Crow.

"Facing the land like this?"

"Stay on the starboard side and you'll have the best view," answered Crow.

Aon found a place up near the bow of the boat looking through the rails on the starboard side. Neamhnai set the dried, golden bark leaves down on the deck.

"Will our map get wet?" she shouted back at Crow.

"You mean from the spray off the waves?"

"Yeah," shouted Neamhnai against the wind.

"The water's calm, but Aon should go in front of you and he should use this coat to shield you from any spray," said Crow, holding up his coat.

"It's amazing what a difference it makes to have the wind behind you when you are talking. We have to shout for him to hear us," commented Neamhnai to Aon beside her.

"I'd like to know how that works," concurred Aon. "Someday, we'll find out."

Aon went back to get Crow's coat. While he was back with him, he stood a moment and asked Crow if he was hungry.

"I'm not that hungry," said Crow, amused that Aon was taking the time to worry about him.

"You look a bit hungry," replied Aon.

Aon went back over to Neamhnai, but stopped at the cabin door to tell the men, "Crow is hungry and he's wondering what is for lunch."

Crow heard Aon's question and laughed, knowing now that Aon was more concerned about his own stomach than Crow's.

"You only just ate breakfast," said Glic, seeing straight through Aon's tactics after years as a headmaster.

"I was just wondering!" said Aon.

"Lunch will be in an hour or two," said Gliondar. "Go on and help Neamhnai now."

As Aon went back about his duties, Haiyugen commented, "That boy is growing up."

"That he is," said Fathach. "He'll be a man soon. It's only natural that he's hungry now. We'll have to remember to keep him well fed or he'll be turning into a monster every few hours!"

"He's as hungry as a wolf," said Gliondar.

"He's as hungry as a fox," said Fathach.

Fathach's companions laughed, including Baboogen, who was not entirely sure what the joke was.

Baboogen looked around at the men who were sprawled in various positions of relaxation around the forward cabin.

"You know what the best thing about sailing is?" he announced.

Gliondar looked over his stomach lazily from where he lay on a couch, "What?"

"You don't have to do anything, but you're still doing something," said Baboogen, answering his own question. "You actually can't do anything."

"You can peel the potatoes for dinner," said Glic.

Gliondar laughed and added, "You mightn't be doing much now, Baboogen, but if the sea is wild or if we're sailing into a strong wind, you'll be kept busy."

"You are supposed to be doing a job, Baboogen," said Haiyugen.

"That's right!" said Glic. "Here you are chatting about how you have nothing to do when you are supposed to be working. I'm an old man, Baboogen. You have to remind me of what we are supposed to be doing."

"I forgot that job," said Baboogen. "Come on, let's go out to see Neamhnai's drawing and we can compare it to your book."

"We can split the work," said Glic. "You look at Neamhnai's drawings and compare them to the drawings in the book and I'll look at the drawings in the book and I'll compare them to Neamhnai's drawings."

"That's good thinking, Glic," said Gliondar. "You are looking at the problem from two different angles rather than both looking at it from the same angle."

A few hours passed with light conversation and reminding each other to compare the drawings. Neamhnai and Aon were totally engrossed in their task. They were used to playing games by themselves, since they usually stayed out playing when other children had to go home to their families. They felt like this new game was something they could do well and they felt part of the crew for the first time. Even though it was their boat, they could not sail it by themselves, so the boat was about as useful to them as a pair of shoes that were too big.

Glic and Baboogen wandered in and out occasionally to look at Neamhnai's drawings, but she hardly noticed them, such was her concentration. Glic did not discuss his comparisons with Baboogen simply because he was too busy trying to work out if the map was real or good enough to use. He felt some sense of responsibility for it being correct, since the entire theory behind their journey was based on his belief that the map was good.

Baboogen, on the other hand, did not discuss his thoughts on the map with Glic because he did not want to give Glic any advantage in becoming the first to make a positive match between the landscape map and the map in the book.

Glic, of course, did not care in the least who was first to make a match; he just wanted a match to be made and soon. He did not want to be the grandmaster of a journey that only proved he should not believe everything he read in his books.

While Glic and Baboogen were taking a rest from comparing the maps, they heard Neamhnai's voice cry out, "It matches!" Glic jumped up from having a light nap on one of the galley seats.

"Did she say it matches?!" he asked excitedly.

Glic looked at Baboogen, who was sitting nearby in the cabin, and realised that Baboogen had not left there since they last checked the maps.

"Oh..." muttered Glic, "I must have misheard her."

Glic was just about to return to his seat to continue napping when Neamhnai's head popped through the cabin door.

"I think it matches!" she said.

"What do you mean it matches?" asked Glic, somewhat bad-tempered between being woken up and the disappointment of realising that a match must not have been found.

"Show me your map," demanded Neamhnai.

Neamhnai followed a more trusting Baboogen over to the book. She turned a number of pages, examining each carefully, until she found what she had been looking for.

"This one," she said. "This matches the map I've been drawing for the last hour."

"How do you know that?" asked Glic, wanting to believe her, but still unable to trust her judgement, especially since Neamhnai had not looked at his book all morning.

"Wait a minute," she said.

Neamhnai ran up on deck, as the crew in the cabin waited without saying a word. She came back with her drawing and brought it over to the book.

"Look!" she said.

The whole crew, except for Aon and Crow, huddled around the book. Crow was manning the wheel, while Aon trusted his sister's judgement enough to wait until the rest of the crew confirmed what she thought.

After a few minutes of repositioning the map and the book and looking at them from different angles, Haiyugen hissed breathlessly, "I see it!"

He told Glic to come to where he was standing to see the two maps from the same angle.

"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Glic, running upstairs to the deck to confirm that Neamhnai's map was, in fact copied from the landscape and not from his book.

"The mountains are the same!" he called out.

Glic went back into the cabin and asked Neamhnai how she had known they matched.

"I don't know," she said. "I was drawing the mountains and I just felt like I was drawing a map from the book. I like the pictures in the book, so that probably helped."

"That's amazing," said Glic. "Here we were with our solid, logical system that we thought couldn't fail, and we could see nothing."

"What was your system?" asked Neamhnai.

"I was comparing the drawings in the book to your map and Baboogen was doing the opposite and we just worked from page to page."

"Oh, that was very clever," agreed Neamhnai.

"Apparently not!" said Glic. "I think what we didn't understand was that an artist can compare pictures better than any logical system. We tried to compare the high points, but we were looking at pictures, not points, so we got confused a lot."

"I think an artist can just process the full picture much faster," mused Fathach.

"I couldn't even remember the pictures between going from here to where Neamhnai was!" said Baboogen.

"That's probably one of the differences alright!" laughed Haiyugen.

"You have the head of an artist, Neamhnai," said Gliondar, proud of their diminutive crew member.

Neamhnai looked at the floor and blushed slightly, embarrassed at being praised by the adult crew.

"Everyone is an artist in some way," she said. "Some people are artists in sport or in things like that."

"That's true, Neamhnai," said Glic. "Everyone creates in their own way."

"Everyone should create in their own way," added Haiyugen.

"It's a good way to feel like you've achieved something, I think," said Neamhnai, who had become philosophical in her desire to remove herself from being the centre of attention.

"What kind of artist am I?" asked Baboogen.

"You are a con-artist, Baboogen," said Fathach, smiling. When he explained what that was, Baboogen laughed and said he would make a great con-artist, but that he thought Fathach would make a better con-artist. Fathach laughed and agreed with the youngster.

Neamhnai went back up to the bow to practice being a real artist.

"They said I have the head of an artist," she told Aon.

"And you have the arms of an orang-utan," said Aon.

"What is that?" asked Neamhnai, bracing her face against the rising wind and the spray that came with it.

"One of the monkeys from Glic's books. Do you remember the big, green and blue nature book?"

"Yes, I do remember it now. It was an ape, I think, and it had a beautiful orange coat. They were supposed to be very intelligent," said Neamhnai.

"Well, they must be very intelligent if they can make coats!" said Aon.

Neamhnai laughed, "That's not what I said!"

"Yes, it was," chuckled Aon.

"What did you say about me again?" asked Neamhnai.

"I said you have the arms of an orangutan," replied Aon.

"You have the arms of an orangutan!" shouted Neamhnai, giggling at the same time, "and you're always climbing like the orangutans!"

"Well, that's true, I suppose," said Aon, smiling. He was proud of the praise his sister had received from the crew. Neamhnai knew he was proud of her even though he never said it. They spent so much time together that they often knew what the other was thinking without any words being spoken.

"Do you think there are orangutans that are still alive?" asked Neamhnai.

"I hope so, Neamhnai. You were right, they were beautiful animals."

III

The afternoon passed quickly into evening and the first big dinner of the voyage. Now that their sailing trip was officially a voyage, the crew felt like they belonged on the boat and they began to discuss sailing times and distances as they prepared the meal.

"At least we know we're going somewhere," said Crow, looking out to sea. "The wind is up and we're making better headway as well."

"That'll make the journey seem shorter," commented Glic.

"The wind?" said Crow. "It'll not only make the journey seem shorter, it'll make it shorter!"

"I meant that knowing where we are going will make the journey seem shorter. The wind will do no harm either though!" clarified Glic.

"That's true too. There's nothing like wandering to double a journey," said Crow.

"And there's nothing like wandering to pass time," added Fathach.

"Why would you want to pass time?" asked Neamhnai.

"If you were in a different town and you were waiting around or something like that," replied Fathach.

"If you want to pass time quickly, you should work in a barbershop," said Crow.

"Why?" asked Neamhnai.

"Everyone just chats about stuff all day and somebody might be playing music outside the shop to brighten up the atmosphere. The customers change all the time, so you hear different news each time they change. Cutting hair helps time to go faster as well because the barber has something to do while he is talking and the customer watches the barber to see how it is going," explained Crow.

"There aren't many barbershops around here to pass the time," said Fathach.

"Yeah, but this boat is our own barbershop," said Glic. "We are sailing instead of cutting hair and that's more fun for a start. And we have better stories than you get in the barbershop. We don't have local news, but our stories are new to each other and you don't get that in many barbershops."

"That's true," said Crow. "You would probably spend a lot of time discussing the same news with different people, unless they had something to add to the topic."

"It's because shops are stuck in the same place, with the same people," said Glic. "They can only add what happened locally in the week to the stories and anything that happened in their own lives. Life on a boat is on a different level to the routine of a working life."

"Unless your job is fishing!" said Gliondar.

"People can add their own opinions to news, which are as valid as anyone's opinion or they can invent something new and talk about that," added Haiyugen.

"Yeah, you can change the world from anywhere if you have the right people there," said Fathach. "You can get a spark of an idea from a conversation in a barbershop as easily as from a lesson in school.

"I suppose that's true," said Glic, reconsidering his opinion of barbershops.

"Those mountains are beautiful," said Neamhnai, changing the subject.

The crew turned to look at a low-lying crop of mountains, purple and dark green in the setting sun.

"They look a lot like the mountains near the village," said Aon.

"They certainly do," said Glic, before poking his head in the cabin door. "We have everything prepared now, Haiyugen. Will we bring it down to you?"

"Well, I can't bring the kitchen up to you!" said Haiyugen.

A very careful crew proceeded down the stairs to Haiyugen. They had preferred to prepare the food on the deck, watching the sun set slowly.

"We are a bit late with the dinner, but it will be a good meal," said Haiyugen, taking prepared vegetables off each person.

"I wouldn't make any promises until it's cooked!" said Gliondar.

"At this stage, I can promise that the food we are using is some of the finest food we have. I hope I can do it justice," declared Haiyugen.

"What are you making?" asked Baboogen.

"I'm using some of the lamb to make a casserole to celebrate the fact that this is officially an expedition into the unknown!"

"To celebrate the map working?"

"That's what I meant, but it's still a journey into the unknown. I'm pretty sure that the places on the map have changed since that book was made."

"The book is probably over a thousand years old," said Glic, "so I'd say you're right about that."

"What do you think the places will be like now?" asked Baboogen.

"That's very hard to know," replied Glic, "we'll just have to wait until we arrive at them."

"And when do we arrive at the first place?" asked Aon.

Glic went over to the navigation table and spent a few minutes making calculations. Everyone in the cabin waited patiently, except for Haiyugen, who was concentrating on his casserole.

"I'd say we'll be there tomorrow in the early afternoon," announced Glic.

"Where?" asked Haiyugen, absent-mindedly.

"At the first island on the map."

Haiyugen stopped and looked over at Glic, "Really?"

"Yes, I think so."

The warm wooden cabin felt a little cooler as they wondered what they would find on the island.

"In the book, the monks find an island with a dog and some food laid out for them and an Ethiopian devil on the first island," said Glic.

The cabin exploded with chatter as everyone gave their opinion on the idea of landing on such an island. The noise level increased so much that Fathach bellowed toward the cabin from the wheel, wanting to know what was going on.

Having explained the reason for the noise to Fathach, who seemed not especially bothered by any part of the story in the book, Glic took hold of proceedings in the cabin.

"I don't think we'll be meeting any devils on the island and I'd imagine the dog is not still alive after a thousand years."

"It might be if it's a devil dog," contributed Neamhnai.

Gliondar laughed, but then he reassured the children, "I'd say any dog that might have lived on the island died a long time ago."

"It would be nice if there was a dog there," said Aon.

"That's true," said Gliondar.

"But not if it was a devil dog," said Neamhnai.

"There'll be no devil dogs anyway, Neamhnai," said Gliondar. "Don't you worry about that."

"It's only a story," said Glic.

"Oh," said Neamhnai, visibly relaxing, "I forgot about that."

"But isn't it a true story?" asked Aon. "Why are we following the map if it's not a true story?"

"Good point," laughed Glic. "Don't worry, Neamhnai. Aon is only partly right. I think, or I hope, the basic story outlined in the map is what happened, but whoever told the story would have added more to it to make it more interesting. That's how storytelling works."

"Like that game we used to play in the classroom where someone started a story and whispered it to someone else and they whispered the story to someone else and in the end, it was a completely different story?" asked Neamhnai.

"Yes, it would have been like that. Also, the first storyteller would not have told the story exactly as it happened, so by the time someone decided to write the stories down, anything could be true or not."

"Somebody must have valued the story since it was kept in the glass box like you said and it must have taken whoever wrote that book ten years to write it, with all its paintings. I think this story was more important than some of your other books," added Fathach.

"I agree with that, Fathach. It's also much older than any other book I have," said Glic. "We will see what is true and what is not true."

"I think we can be fairly sure that whatever was true in that book will be very different now as well," added Haiyugen. "Everywhere is different now."

"That's very true," agreed Gliondar thoughtfully.

They sat silently for a few minutes listening to the sound of the waves slapping against the hull of the boat as they cut through the ocean.

"It's strange how we know so little about the world around us," said Crow, eventually breaking the silence.

"I think it's just because there has been a culture of survival since the Great Floods," said Haiyugen. "There was such carnage that people lost their appetite for adventure."

"It's not something you would think people would ever lose," said Crow.

"Unless you don't know what's out there," said Aon, "like Haiyugen and Baboogen. They never left where they were because they thought that nowhere else still existed."

"That's true," said Haiyugen, "but there were still some adventurers, like Aon and Neamhnai's parents."

"There were," said Glic, "but not many. Maybe there was just a massive change in the mindset of people from trying to travel and own lots of things and have nice houses to trying to stay alive, like you were saying. I think Aon is also correct in saying that people have ventured out less because they don't know what's out there. Both mentalities could be in our bones now, like the way you stay cold for a good while in a warm place if you've been outside for a long time."

"Or like the animals remember how to do things their parents did even though they were never shown how to do it," added Gliondar.

"Maybe the animals' parents just tell them how to do those things," said Neamhnai.

The others laughed, except for Baboogen, who nodded in agreement, and the sombre mood was broken.

"You must have been a good teacher, Glic," said Baboogen.

"Why do you say that?" asked Glic.

"Aon and Neamhnai seem to know a lot," replied Baboogen.

"Thank you very much," said Glic, "I tried my best alright."

"That's all you can do," said Haiyugen. "Come on over to the table now, this food is ready. Baboogen, can you call Fathach and tell him the food is ready."

"Who'll sail the boat then?" asked Aon.

"That's a fair point, Aon! I forgot we were sailing for a minute," said Haiyugen. "Okay, I'll go out to sail the boat while Fathach eats and I'll eat after him."

"New rule – whoever is ending a shift eats with everyone else. Anyone starting a shift eats quickly before everyone else and swaps with the person ending a shift," said Gliondar.

"And shifts should end and start at a mealtime," added Crow.

"That way the person who needs the most energy eats first and anyone finishing a shift has time to relax and chat with the rest of the crew," explained Gliondar.

"Are they sailing rules?" asked Neamhnai.

"They're more common sense rules," explained Crow. "You want to look forward to a meal with others at the end of a shift and you would want to feel like your energy level is important at the start of the shift so everyone lets you eat first."

"They're good rules," said Baboogen.

The evening passed quickly between the big meal and playing games to pass the time. Haiyugen and Crow took up the evening shift at the wheel and chatted quietly about the island they hoped to land on the next day.

The children spent some time lying with their backs on the deck as the night fell, examining the stars in the sky. There were thousands of stars of all sizes and shapes and levels of brightness lighting up the sky as they sailed through the ink-like night ocean. Baboogen liked finding the stars that were hard to see because they were not as bright as the stars around them. Aon explained to him that the brighter stars were nearer to them. Baboogen had never learned anything about the stars, so Aon and Neamhnai tried to pass on what Glic had taught them.

Once Aon and Neamhnai had exhausted their knowledge of astronomy, they showed Baboogen some games they liked to play. The first game was to find pattern in the stars, but they found so many that they decided to play a more difficult game.

This next game involved looking for shooting stars. Every time they saw a shooting star, they were allowed to pinch the person next to them. However, this game also quickly descended into chaos due to disputes over the amount of pinching versus the amount of shooting stars they were seeing. Baboogen had only seen one shooting star since the game started, but he had been pinched many times by the siblings. They insisted Baboogen kept just missing the shooting stars and he believed them for about twenty minutes until their giggling started to give them away. After a few minutes of friendly banter among the children, Haiyugen decided it was time for them to go to bed.

The rest of the crew had gone to bed once night fell, exhausted after the long day.
Nine

Devil Dogs

I

As soon as it was light, Crow went down to wake the relief shift of Glic and Gliondar. He then went to brew some strong tea for them. He put plenty of spices and sugar in the tea and plenty of fresh milk as well. He brewed the tea to near boiling and let it simmer for a few minutes. Soon, two weary heads came up the stairs into the galley and greeted Crow for a second time, apparently having forgotten they had already wished him a mumbled good morning in a dozy state.

"That smells like fresh tea," declared Glic.

"That it is," said Crow. "Freshly made for you two gentlemen."

"How is she sailing?" asked Gliondar.

"I'd say she's doing 10 knots or more, Gliondar, and I think we'll pick up a bit more wind soon. We should be hitting the first island around midday, going by the map."

"I hope we don't hit it too hard," said Glic, rubbing his tired eyes.

"Don't worry at all about it, Glic. We'll slide into the island as gently as a breeze," reassured Gliondar.

Haiyugen and Crow ate a light breakfast on the deck with Gliondar and Glic before going to sleep off the exhaustion brought on by doing two shifts straight. They had not bothered to wake their relief shift because they did not feel tired enough to sleep at that point and because they felt that Glic and Gliondar would benefit from a full night's sleep. They had chatted through the night about the different lives they had led and the time had passed quickly. It was only when the sun started to rise that they realised that they had done two full shifts. The sailing had been relatively easy and they could sleep easier in the knowledge that the older crew members had managed to get a full night's sleep.

"Don't let the children wake me!" warned Haiyugen as he went to his bed.

"I won't," promised Glic.

"Thanks for letting us sleep through the night, lads," said Gliondar.

"Were we supposed to be on duty earlier than this?" asked Glic.

"You were, but don't worry about it," replied Crow. "We're only tired now anyway."

Crow continued muttering as he almost swayed down to the cabin out of tiredness, "I'm definitely tired now though. I hope this fella isn't going to be snoring."

Crow wandered down towards the cabin he shared with Fathach. He found it difficult to share a cabin with such a large man, but there was no alternative. It was clearly not possible for Fathach and Gliondar to share a cabin, since they were both giants of men. Glic shared a cabin with the other giant.

"It still feels pretty early," said Glic, looking every day of his age.

"Ah, you'll be fine once the breakfast settles in your stomach, Glic," replied Gliondar.

"I will of course. I think I just overslept actually. I normally only sleep five hours."

"People seem to sleep less as they get older," said Gliondar.

"There's a cycle alright. Not much sleep as babies, then more sleep as children, but still less than their parents. As teenagers, we sleep the most and from there on, we sleep less and less until we are back to the baby amount of sleep of five or six hours a night."

"And that's where you're at?"

"It is, Gliondar, but it helps me to get more done," replied Glic.

"That's not too bad so."

The men continued chatting until the children woke. Glic went to prepare breakfast for them and for Fathach. Unusually, Fathach decided he would be in charge of organising the morning's entertainment. He brought out a game that involved throwing hoops around a wooden pole and counted scores in charcoal on the deck of the boat. The smaller the hoop that the player managed to throw over the pole from a set distance, the higher the score they got. The children figured out that Fathach thought he was good at the game by his annoyance when he missed a hoop. They laughed every time he missed, knowing it was upsetting his game. Fathach took the teasing well and started to cough and talk loudly just when someone was about to throw a hoop.

Glic had warned the children and Fathach not to wake Crow and Haiyugen, so they kept the door to the galley and the cabins closed while they played. The morning passed quickly and before long, Gliondar called the children to tell them to keep an eye out for land.

They scanned the horizon for a long while, calmer after the excitement of the game.

"I think I see something," said Fathach eventually.

"Where?" asked Aon.

"Over there," he replied, pointing to the north-west.

"I can see it," said Baboogen, squinting. "It doesn't seem like a big island."

"I didn't think it would be a big island, especially after the flooding," said Glic.

They stared out at the strip of land as they sailed towards it. It looked like no more than a thin line on the horizon and sometimes it looked like part of the horizon. Then, they were close enough to see it better.

"You'd better go wake your father and Crow," said Fathach to Baboogen.

A few minutes later, they could see that it was definitely an island. It looked to be no more than two miles across. When they were nearer the island, they could see it was covered in plants and trees.

"There could be people living on that island," said Haiyugen, who had joined them. "it looks like it has good soil."

"Maybe we could live on it for a while!" exclaimed Aon.

"We're on a mission, Aon..." reminded Haiyugen gently, "but we're not in any rush. We'll take some time away from the boat to walk around on solid ground."

"Terra firma..." muttered Glic, before adding by way of explanation, "it means solid ground."

Baboogen looked at Glic blankly, not sure what he was talking about.

"All hands on deck!" shouted Fathach, who was helmsman on the shift. "Gliondar, can you man the mainsail? You'll need to drop it in a hurry, so be ready. Crow, can you take down the headsails now, please? Haiyugen, Glic and Baboogen, your job is to look for rocks. Make sure you roar out if there are rocks ahead and in good time! Aon and Neamhnai, your job is to look for a place to land the boat with Crow, once he has taken down the headsails."

They sailed on until they were two hundred yards from the shore and moving more slowly with the headsails down.

"I'm going to sail around to the north of the island, Gliondar. If the currents start bringing us into the rocks, be ready to let the sail out fully and we'll try to tack out of there."

Fathach sailed a wide course around the island to avoid any rocks or reefs. He was the first to spot a possible landing place, which was not surprising since he was the most alert of the crew as helmsman.

"What about over on the left of those brown rocks, Crow? Is that a cove behind them?"

Crow screwed his eyes up and shouted back, "That looks good, Fathach. Bring her in closer and we'll see what it's like."

Fathach let the boat bounce in gently on the waves, while Gliondar slowly let out the sail to reduce speed.

"That's looking good alright," said Crow. "Let's get this done!"

"Haiyugen, how is it looking up there?" shouted Fathach.

"You can see the rocks to our right and there are rocks fifty yards to our left, but it looks fairly clean between them," answered Haiyugen as loudly as he could without shouting. "Sail straight into the beach now."

"I can't hear what he said, Crow."

"Straight ahead, Fathach!" replied Crow, waving his arm in the direction of the beach.

"Why did you not shout back to Fathach, Dad? I don't think he heard you," asked Baboogen up in the bow of the boat.

"I hoped he'd hear me like that, son. We don't know who or what is on this island."

Glic understood and waved his arms up and down at the crew behind them to let them know they had to be quiet. He saw by the looks on their faces that they thought he had seen something. On balance, he thought that it was better that they worried for a short while if it kept them quiet. Glic then crouched and motioned at the others to do the same.

Fathach let the boat drift gently into the beach. Of course, it occurred to most of them that it was unlikely anyone watching from onshore would believe that a boat would sail itself around the island and safely into the beach, but they knew it was safer to sprinkle some doubt into the minds of a would-be attacking party. They also knew that they would be taking away the element of surprise from any attacking party by expecting an attack.

Crow looked at Neamhnai beside him and saw that she was quivering.

"Neamhnai!" he whispered to her.

She did not look up at him, but replied very quietly, "What?"

"Neamhnai!" said Crow again, waiting until Neamhnai looked up and fixed her eyes on him. Crow saw that her eyes were wide with fright.

"There's nothing to worry about at all, we're just staying quiet to be safe."

"What about the devil dogs?!"

"Oh, don't mind the devil dogs, Neamhnai! That was just a story," said Crow reassuringly.

Aon put his arm around his sister to give her a hug and, eventually, her shoulders relaxed.

"Okay, I'm going up to the bow now to help Haiyugen bring in the boat," whispered Crow.

"That's fine," said Neamhnai, with a wan smile.

Crow crept forward towards the bow.

"How is it?" he asked Glic, who was surveying the island through a gap in the railing.

"Quiet as a mouse," answered Glic.

Thirty seconds later, there was a dull thud as the boat ran aground.

Glic grinned from ear to ear at Crow and whispered excitedly, "This is what I came for!"

"The adventure..." said Baboogen, understanding the old man easily after his own epic adventure to new lands. Baboogen felt more experienced than his friends at that moment as the soon-to-be veteran of two sea journeys. "Will I jump out now?"

"You'll stay where you are," instructed Haiyugen sharply. "Come on, Crow, let's dock her safely."

Haiyugen and Crow climbed off the boat quickly and made their way onto the beach, keeping their eyes peeled for rogues who might want to steal their boat. They stood on the beach for a few minutes to see if anything would happen. There was not a sound other than the rustling of leaves in the breeze and some birds' chirping.

"I think we can dock her," said Crow in a near whisper. "If we were going to be attacked on the beach, they would have done it by now."

"True enough, I think there are so many hills on the island that anyone that lives here would surely have seen us by now."

"If we're attacked later, so be it. We have to dock in some islands to get food, so we have no choice but to take a chance," added Crow.

"Throw down the rope to us, Glic!" said Haiyugen loudly, now that they had decided to abandon the silent approach.

The rest of the crew took this as a signal that they could move about and talk again.

"It's a beautiful island," said Neamhnai, looking up at the dense growth of plants that covered the hills that led down to the beach.

Haiyugen and Glic tethered the boat to a large rock and went to help the younger crew members off the boat.

"Do you want a hand, Glic?" asked Crow.

"I do not! I'm fitter than you are!"

The others laughed and the atmosphere became more relaxed.

"How about you, Fathach?"

"If I fell on you, we'd have to dig you out of the sand."

The children laughed at the thought of Fathach landing on Crow, who was half his size.

"Can we explore the island?" asked Aon.

"You cannot," answered Fathach. "We are sticking together."

"That's right," added Gliondar. "The youngest and the oldest go in the middle of the group when we are walking, as well."

Gliondar handed out provisions for the journey, even though the island was not large.

"Off we go," said Haiyugen, marching up the sandy hill.

They marched in a line up the nearest sand dune. When they got to the top, Haiyugen stopped and looked around. He consulted Gliondar behind him and they agreed that it would be best to go to the highest point to work out the lie of the land.

On they went through ferns and strong-smelling, flowering plants towards a brown hill about one hundred yards high. The land became more barren as they approached the hill. The trees were bent back with very little leaves on them in this more exposed area.

"I think the wind must come from over there usually," said Aon.

"That would be right. That's the same wind that brought us here," said Gliondar.

Haiyugen could see what looked like caves in the rocks that covered the top of the hill. He told Crow to tell the others to be quiet until he knew if anyone lived in them.

They continued on slowly, constantly scanning for any unusual movements or sounds now. Haiyugen motioned to the others to wait and went on ahead with Crow. A few minutes later, they were close enough to the top of the hill to get a better perspective of what they were looking at.

"I think those caves are too small to live in," whispered Haiyugen to Crow.

"Yeah, I think so too, but let's see what's on the other side of the hill first," replied Crow.

They moved forward as quietly as possible and discovered as they passed the top of the hill that the caves were no more than five feet high and too small for people to live in comfortably.

They walked up towards the top of the hill until they got a clear view of the surrounding area.

"All clear?" asked Haiyugen, looking for confirmation from Crow.

"All clear," agreed Crow, waving at the others to come to join them.

The children ran up the hill towards them, followed by the rest of the adult crew.

"Can we go into the caves?" asked Baboogen.

"I suppose so," said Haiyugen, "why not?"

Baboogen ran towards the caves at the top of the hill, with Aon and Neamhnai in hot pursuit of him.

Haiyugen followed them over to the caves at a walking pace.

Baboogen ran into the first cave, slowing when he got to the dark part. He waited there for Aon and Neamhnai to follow him in.

"Come on!" he said, not quite as brave now.

The children walked into the darkness slowly; Baboogen with his hands in front of him to prevent bumping into a wall, Aon holding onto him and Neamhnai holding onto Aon. The cave was maybe thirty feet deep, which Baboogen discovered when his hands touched a cold, slimy rock at the end of the cave. He saw some dim light to his right and made his way towards that.

"I think this cave is connected to the one next to it," he whispered to his friends. "Follow me."

They passed into another cave, which was lit at the end by daylight. Baboogen stepped over some small rocks and told Aon and Neamhnai to watch for them.

"What?" asked Neamhnai, as she reached the rocks.

She fell slightly and stood on another rock. As she tripped, she heard a yelp.

"What's wrong, Neamhnai?" asked Baboogen.

"She's ok, Baboogen. She's still holding onto me."

Neamhnai had righted herself and they made their way out of the cave. They walked over to the adults, proud of their own personal adventure.

"We explored the caves," Baboogen told them, even though he knew they saw him go in. He waited patiently for their questions.

"What did you see in there?" asked Glic, knowing they would be told anyway if he didn't ask the question.

"Nothing," declared Baboogen. "There are only rocks in there. Neamhnai was afraid though."

"I was not!" said Neamhnai.

"You were, I heard you yelp," said Baboogen.

"I didn't yelp," said Neamhnai.

"She tripped, Baboogen," said Aon, supporting his sister.

"I didn't yelp," said Neamhnai more emphatically this time.

"Well, who yelped then?" laughed Baboogen.

"I think it's time to check out the island. We need to find food supplies," said Haiyugen.

"There are a lot of trees in the far corner of the island, Haiyugen," said Fathach, who had been scouting the island while the children were exploring the caves. "Maybe there's fruit on them."

"Let's try that," said Haiyugen.

They wandered down the hill towards the trees, in no rush now that the island seemed to be free of human inhabitants.

"It's a good thing the island is not too big; we can't get lost here!" said Neamhnai.

"We nearly got lost in the little caves!" said Baboogen.

"What are those little houses?" asked Aon, pointing at a collection of rocks and grasses a few hundred yards away that seemed to be arranged unnaturally.

"I don't think they are houses," said Baboogen. "They look more like little piles of rocks."

"Can we go over to have a look at them, Glic?" asked Aon.

Glic looked over at the rocks and weeds and said, "No, Aon. Stay with us in case we need help collecting and carrying food. I don't want to leave here without a boat full of food, if possible. We'll be eating a lot of fish otherwise because I want to keep some of the food we have stored for an emergency."

The thought of eating fish morning, noon and night was enough to spur Aon on ahead of the group without even giving another thought to the rocks.

"I'm going to get there first!" he shouted.

Baboogen ran after him, laughing, with Neamhnai close behind, her hair flying around her head in the wind.

After running for five minutes, they were sweating and out of breath, but they kept going, eager to discover something on the first island in their adventure. When they got to the trees, Baboogen lay on the ground to rest.

"I'm exhausted," he said.

"Stand up like me, Baboogen," instructed Aon, who was facing the wind with his arms folded behind his head. "You can let the air into your lungs like this."

"I can't get up," said Baboogen, but a few seconds later, he jumped up to his feet.

"Don't jump up like that if you're lying down after a run, Baboogen, you'll get really dizzy," warned Neamhnai.

"I am feeling dizzy, Neamhnai, but look up there!"

Neamhnai and Aon looked up at the tree and saw what Baboogen was pointing at.

"Fruit!" they shouted.

There were pear trees and apple trees and tree with fruit on it that they had never seen before and on the ground, rhubarb was growing everywhere.

"I didn't even see the fruit until you said it, and it's all around us!" said Aon.

"It's like my eyes didn't focus on the fruit for a while and then, I could see it everywhere. I just saw green everywhere when I lay down first."

They ran back towards the adults to tell them about their discovery.

Glic was more delighted than anyone. As the organiser of provisions, he knew how important it was that they kept stocked up with fresh food to keep morale high.

"Eat as much as you can and then take off your shirts, men. We are going to fill the shirts with as much as we can carry. We might even make two runs."

They set to work stripping the trees of the fruit they held, whistling and singing.

"Some of it isn't ripe, Glic," said Fathach.

"Even better, that'll ripen on the boat," replied Glic. "Take some of the plants near the rhubarb as well. Those are herbs, I think."

"It's like a wild garden!" said Neamhnai.

"It's like our wild garden!" said Crow.

Just then, Crow jumped as he felt a sting on his leg.

"Did one of you hit me with something?" he asked.

"No," replied Fathach, who was standing next to him.

Then Fathach shouted as he felt a sting on his neck.

"I told you I didn't hit you with anything!" he said.

Next, it was Baboogen's turn. He felt a little nip on his heel and wheeled around to see a tiny little dog behind him.

"Look at the dog!" he exclaimed.

"Is it a devil dog?!" shouted Neamhnai, running away towards Haiyugen.

"No, look at it! It's tiny!" said Baboogen, lifting it up into his arms.

Neamhnai peeped out from behind Haiyugen to look at the dog.

"I can't see it," she said.

"Look!" said Aon, pointing at Baboogen's arms.

"Oh, I see it now," said Neamhnai, trying to pretend she had not been hiding behind Haiyugen. "How is it so small?"

The dog fitted on Baboogen's hand quite easily. It had curly white hair all over its body and a black patch around its left eye. It was sniffing its way around Baboogen's hand with its little black nose, while he and Aon peered at it.

"It's like a toy dog," said Aon.

The men came over quickly to see the animal.

"I don't know what to make of it," said Glic. "It looks clean and healthy, but it might just be a wild dog."

"A very small wild dog," contributed Gliondar.

"Indeed... I don't know what to make of it at all."

Haiyugen told Baboogen to put the dog down, in case it carried any disease.

"That's good thinking, Haiyugen," said Gliondar.

Just as Baboogen went to put the little dog back on the ground, the smallest boy he had ever seen came running out of the trees.

"I think there must have been some kind of poison on the fruit," muttered Crow.

The boy looked like he was the same age as Baboogen, but much, much smaller. And he looked angry, very angry.

"Give me back my dog!" he shouted.

"I wasn't taking your dog," said Baboogen, who had gotten over the unusual size of the boy and the dog much quicker than the adults. "He just ran over to me and I picked him up. Here you go."

Baboogen put the dog back on the ground and the dog ran straight over to the boy, who picked him up in his arms.

"And that's our fruit you're stealing!"

The adults were still reeling from the shock of the size of the boy, so Aon replied for them.

"We didn't know it was your fruit. Do you live here alone?"

Aon and Neamhnai knew what it was like to be children in a big world and they felt this boy needed to be minded.

"He lives with us," said a deeper voice from the trees.

Suddenly, between twenty and thirty small men burst out from the trees. They were armed with bows and arrows and spears. The tallest was no more than a foot tall.

"Don't move or we'll shoot you!" said one of them, who was wearing a red cloth tied loosely around his neck.

None of the crew had moved in the least, mostly because of the shock of being surrounded by a group of small men on an island they thought was deserted. The men wore clothing made of plant fibres knitted together tightly. The clothes were designed to serve the purpose of keeping them warm and dry, rather than be fashionable. At least, this is what the crew assumed because the clothing looked outlandish. Some wore headpieces, also made from plant fibres, that looked like wild, green helmets. Their trousers were tucked into long socks just below their knees, presumably to keep their trousers clean when they were walking in the muddier parts of the island.

Fathach was the first to lose control. He broke down in peals of laughter, holding his stomach from the pain of his laughing. He was followed closely by Gliondar and Crow. Glic and Haiyugen could not hold back a few giggles either, generated in part by the sound of Fathach's infectious laughter.

Baboogen, Aon and Neamhnai were not laughing, however. The men were closer to them in height and they could see the angry expressions on their faces, combined with weapons pointed directly at them.

"Why are you laughing?!" shouted the same man with the red cloth around his neck, upset at this latest development.

"We're not laughing, we're just surprised," said Glic diplomatically.

"Well, you seem to be laughing."

Fathach recovered himself enough to ask a question, "Why are you pointing weapons at us and did you shoot something at us a while ago?"

There was some muttering among the men, before the man who seemed to be the leader replied, "We are pointing weapons at you because you are stealing our food. We may have shot something at you a while ago."

"You may have," said Fathach sarcastically. He could still feel a sting on his neck from whatever was shot at him.

"We aren't trying to steal anyone's food," declared Haiyugen, "we didn't know anyone lived here."

"How could you not see this is a garden?"

"It looked wild to us," answered Haiyugen.

There was more muttering among the men, which seemed to include weighing up the size of the men, judging by the gestures being used.

"Are you certain you were not trying to steal our food?" asked the leader of the islanders.

"We were not trying to steal your food. Why would we do that? There is plenty of fish in the sea. We just wanted variety in our food," said Haiyugen.

There was more discussion among the men, in slightly lighter tones this time.

"And you have fresh fish on your boat?"

Haiyugen turned to Glic, who nodded vigorously.

"Yes, plenty."

"Okay, we will trade with you. We can only catch fish that come near the island. You may have some fish that we rarely see here. Bring the fruit that you have collected down to your boat and we will see what you can offer us for it."

"Thank you for your kind offer," said Haiyugen.

The leader of the islanders gave a command to the other men and they lowered their weapons.

The curious group marched back up the hill and down towards the boat. Everyone had lots of questions for the other group, but very little was said before the trade.

Glic went in and selected ten large fish of different varieties. He and Gliondar carried them out to the men. Some of the fish were bigger than any of the island men. They laid them out on rocks at the back of the beach to form an impromptu fish stall.

The island men became very excited at the fish stall. The hullabaloo may have been partly caused by relief that the much larger men had not simply taken their fruit and sailed away. The sight of all these fish they rarely caught, laid out so casually on their beach, was causing a great deal of commotion regardless.

The leader shouted at his group to quieten themselves.

"We accept your offer," he said solemnly.

Glic laughed and replied, "No, no, you are only meant to select five of the fish."

The island leader looked up at him, visibly annoyed that his negotiating tactics had not worked, "But you have taken five shirts full of fruit from our trees!"

"Five shirts of fruit for five large fish, that seems fair to me," said Glic with a twinkle in his eye.

There was a pause as the island men looked from the fish to their negotiator.

"Well, I think..."

"I'm only joking, you can have the ten fish. We can always catch more. I would have given you more, but we have only one left on board for ourselves."

The island leader beamed a smile at the other islanders.

"Then you shall stay on the island tonight and we will have a feast down here on the beach with you."

"That sounds great," said Glic, accepting the islanders' offer on behalf of the crew, who were grateful for the chance of a good night's rest on dry land.

After much toing and froing, a feast was organised for the evening. The island men carried eight of the fish back to their village with the help of Fathach and Gliondar. The two remaining fish were prepared for a barbeque on the beach by Glic and Crow. Once the island women were reassured that the crew of the Village meant no harm, they set to work in a frenzy of excitement at the thought of having guests for dinner.

They very rarely had visitors to the island and rarer still were friendly visitors, so the island women set about preparing all manner of dishes to accompany the fish and they also prepared some apple-based desserts.

The island men brought a cask of a fruity punch, which was kept for celebrations, to the beach. Soon, tongues were loosened and stories were told as the fish and vegetables began to cook in mounds of seaweed they had placed on stones that were partly covering the open fire.

One of the island men, who they had not seen that morning, told them the history of the island once he got everyone to quieten down for dramatic effect. It was obvious that this man liked to tell stories as he acted out the scenes he was describing. He walked around the fire, while he acted out the island's history, to ensure people's attention was not distracted from him to the fire or the food. His eyes lit up as he spoke and his wrinkled, weathered face animated the story. Every pause in his storytelling was filled with murmurings of agreement as the other island men sounded out their approval of his version of events.

The telling of the island history answered a question that the crew of the Village had been too polite to ask. Much the same as the survivors that landed on Haiyugen's island after the Great Floods, the early settlers of this island were isolated from other civilisations and lacked the means or the know-how to find other survivors. The occasional contact they had with passing survivors, who were looking for a place to live, often ended in trouble. They tried to sail against the winds and currents in small boats, but they were beaten back and they lost some boats on the rocks of their own island. Eventually, they ran out of resources to venture out into the sea at all. As the years passed, there were fewer and fewer visitors to the island and they resolved to create their own society there.

"After a while, new families were created. This brought its own problems," said the storyteller. "As you can see, this is a small island with little resources. Each new child would grow into a boy or a girl who needed food and who would eventually need a home of their own. The early settlers counted everyone on the island and worked out what they would need to survive and they soon realised that almost nobody could have children, if they were to survive on what was available to them on the island. They couldn't plant trees fast enough to make wood for canoes for everyone. They couldn't sow enough food on the land they had. There was a problem."

The storyteller paused to let the visitors digest this information.

"What did they do?" asked Baboogen.

"Well, they argued long and hard about it. The only solution they could come up with, which would allow any of the early settlers to have children and would mean everyone would still have enough to live on, was if those children were not big children and would not, therefore, use up a lot of resources."

"What do you mean?" asked Aon. "They wanted the children to be small so that they wouldn't eat much food?"

"That's exactly it," said the storyteller. "Only the smallest people on the island were allowed to have children."

"Ahhh..." said Glic, beginning to understand. Then he coughed to cover up the sound he had made because he did not want the island men to think he had thought it was strange that they were only one foot tall.

The storyteller looked at him, expecting a question. When none came, he continued, "The early settlers had quite long lives, probably because of how healthy life is out here, so the problems with having a next generation reoccurred when the first children to be born on the island were of marrying age. It was a very difficult rule to enforce and there was a lot of pain and tears involved, but again, only the smallest of the second generation were allowed to have children. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it really was just about survival. Strange things happen when survival is threatened."

"I can understand that," said Haiyugen, who was beginning to see the problems of his own island from a new angle.

"Right. Well, the couples that were allowed to have children then had to have enough children to ensure the older people were taken care of when they could not take care of themselves. Some of those couples had more children than they should have had, so the next generation still could only allow the smaller people to have children. Eventually, we had a whole island of very small people and a tradition of only the smaller islanders marrying."

"The whole island is made for small people now, so it works perfectly," said Aon.

"That's true. It's only when visitors arrive that our island seems out of kilter."

"We only get visitors every few years," contributed the leader, "and they usually want to steal our food, so we do not care much for strangers."

"That's understandable," said Gliondar softly.

The night passed with more stories and feasting and singing and dancing by the fire, although the adult crew of the Village took care to jig about some distance from their island brethren in case they stood on them by accident.

The highlight of the night was a showcase of trumpeting by three of the island men. It turned out that many of the diminutive folk were highly skilled in playing the trumpet. The trumpet players explained that the passion for playing the trumpet on the island had come from one of the early settlers, who had played the trumpet in something called an orchestra. He had made trumpets from metals that had floated in on pieces of wood over the years to pass the time and he had passed his skills onto the next generation of settlers. Haiyugen and Baboogen had never a trumpet being played before. After the concert, Haiyugen told the trumpet players that he had never heard such majestic music.

In between the music and the dancing, there was a constant flurry of conversation between the two groups in the effort to find out what was out there in the big, blue ocean.

Late into the pitch darkness of the night, the villagers slipped away to their homes, guided by the light of the moon. The crew bedded down on the soft sand with blankets from the boat. They slept instantly, tired out from the big meal and the partying. Only Glic woke during the night. He had been dreaming about the boat being in trouble and he woke when his dream progressed to a point where their boat was motionless at the bottom of the sea. He sat bolt upright, gasping for air until his eyes focussed on the trail of moonlight on the bay and the stars lighting the night sky like distant, flickering candles. The stars relaxed him more quickly than the moonlight for some reason. Once calm, Glic looked around the impromptu campsite with his companions scattered randomly around the beach fire. He quietly put some wood on the fire, which was not far from him, and closed his eyes again, smiling with wonder at how much the crew had achieved and awe at how the world had somehow brought him to this beautiful beach with such good people. Just before he drifted off, he heard a loud noise, which he concluded must have been Fathach releasing some gas from the previous night's excesses. Glic chuckled and looked up at the twinkling of the stars again. The last sound he heard was of a log crackling in the campfire before he fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, the crew woke up on the beach around the embers of a dying fire as the sun rose.

"That was a great night..." moaned Crow with his eyes still closed.

"I slept like a log," muttered Glic.

"Are we leaving this morning?" asked a bright-eyed Aon, fresh from a full night's sleep.

"Yes," said Haiyugen, getting up slowly. "We're going to the Island of Birds."

"What's on that island?" asked Baboogen, still half-asleep.

"Birds," answered Aon.

"Hmmph," said Baboogen, "that's what I thought."

He drifted back to sleep as Aon laughed and started tidying the beach to get ready to leave. He was happy to leave in search of more adventure. The rest of the crew knew there was no possibility of staying on the island they were on, but as the sun warmed their bodies and the sand around them, they were not inclined to rush back to the open sea.

Haiyugen helped Aon to tidy the beach. Neamhnai joined them and they chatted about the previous night. When the beach was clean, they went back to wake up the rest of the crew.

"Everybody up! Upwards and onwards, folks! We have to say goodbye to the people here and then we're on our way," said Haiyugen. "We're going to have an early lunch, so we can get moving straightaway. I think we will make the next island while it's still light."

"I don't want to sleep on the Island of Birds," moaned Neamhnai.

"We might not be sleeping on it," said Glic. "It's mostly a marker for our journey, like it is in the book. Don't forget it was an Island of Birds many, many years ago, so we don't know what it will be like now."

"Or if it will be there," added Baboogen.

"Maybe it'll be like this island," said Neamhnai.

"At least there were no devil dogs here, isn't that right, Neamhnai?" said Glic, with a warm chuckle.

"That's right, Glic," she replied, smiling.

At that point, the island people came running around the corner in an unorganised manner. At the front of the group were children and teenagers tripping over each other in their haste, like tiny bundles of excitement.

The boy they had met first was ahead of the others marginally and his dog ran along beside him.

When the islanders caught up with Haiyugen's crew, they were all talking at once.

"We heard you were getting ready to go?"

"Why don't you stay?"

"Did you have breakfast?"

The island leader cut through the cacophony of voices, "Okay, okay, give them a chance!"

When everyone had calmed down, he continued, "We wanted to say we had a great time with you last night."

There was a loud murmur of agreement in the crowd.

"And we wanted to say how happy we were to meet foreigners who were kind-hearted and fun and not like the other foreigners we have seen here."

The leader looked up at the adult crew of the Village and they saw a strong nobility and decency in his face. At that moment, he seemed to them to be the same height as they were, which was some feat for a man who was a foot tall.

"Chao would like to say something to your children now."

Nobody bothered to correct him about the fact that Aon and Neamhnai were not their children.

The little boy they had met at the fruit trees came forward with the dog they had found in his arms.

"I want you to have this dog," he said to Aon, Baboogen and Neamhnai.

"Oh, we couldn't take your dog!" said Baboogen.

"No, it's ok. I have other dogs. This dog's mother had four pups, which is too many for me. I just thought you were stealing this one and that maybe you wouldn't have been kind to him."

"We are always kind to dogs," said Aon.

"To nice dogs," clarified Neamhnai. "We are kind to all dogs, but we only like nice dogs. We don't like mean dogs."

"This dog isn't mean!" exclaimed Chao.

"I know that!" said Neamhnai apologetically. "I was just talking about dogs in general..."

"Are you sure you want to give us your dog?" asked Baboogen.

"Yes, I'm sure."

"What's his name?" asked Aon.

"He doesn't have a name yet. I didn't get time to name them."

"We'll call him Chao," said Neamhnai, beaming a smile at the boy.

"That would be a good name," agreed the boy, smiling.

Neamhnai hugged their new friend, as did Aon and Baboogen. It was not easy for them to hug him because of his size, but they managed to reach down and form some sort of warm embrace. None of them had ever gotten a present of a dog before.

"That's a very kind and noble thing to do, Chao," said Haiyugen. "They will take great care of him."

"Right!" bellowed Fathach. "Time to go!"

The crew gathered up the last of their belongings and made their way onto the boat. The little dog followed Baboogen onto the boat, mostly because Baboogen was holding out some food in front of him. When they were nearly on the boat, the dog looked back at Chao, who had taken good care of him and started to run back to him. Chao had to run over to stop his dog from running back onto the island. Baboogen and Aon let the dog run to Chao, understanding that they could not force the dog to come on the boat. Chao coaxed his dog back up onto the gangway plank, whispering to him as he handed him over to Baboogen.

"Give him some food now," advised Chao.

The little dog settled once Baboogen and Aon had made a comfortable place for him on the deck with food and water and a warm blanket to lie on.

"We will miss you!" shouted some of the islanders as Crow hoisted the anchor and the boat began to drift out to sea.

"We'll miss you too!" shouted the children of the Village. The sailors saluted the diminutive islanders.

Glic shouted that he hoped he would be able to come back to see them again, after he had made his way home.

"It would be great to see you again and to hear all about your adventures. We are starved of adventure here," said the leader of the islanders as loudly as he could without shouting. As the leader of the island, he did not think it would be dignified of him to shout after the boat.

Glic didn't catch all of what the man had said as the sails were being raised on the boat while he spoke, but he got the general sentiment of it and waved in reply. He settled down to row with the three sailors until they were clear of the small inlet, thinking that this was why he had decided to come on the voyage.

"This is going great!" he said to Fathach, who did not entirely understand where Glic was coming from as he heaved his massive shoulders to push the boat through the water slowly. The current was working in their favour and soon, the islanders were barely visible against the backdrop of plant life on the edge of the beach.

"We're back on the road!" called out Crow.

"We're on the sea," corrected Neamhnai.

"We're back on the road to nowhere," laughed Gliondar without putting much thought into what he was saying.

Baboogen looked out at the open sea anxiously.

"What do you mean?" he asked sharply.

"He doesn't mean anything," said Aon. "It's just a phrase."

"We're on the road to somewhere, Baboogen, don't worry about that," added Crow. "None of us would be on the boat unless we thought that."

"We've already been somewhere!" exclaimed Neamhnai.

"And the journey has only just started," concluded Glic, who had acquired a contented air after their first successful visit to an island from his book's map.

Just then, the boat ground to a halt in the middle of the bay with a mighty shudder.

"What was that?!" asked Baboogen.

"We've hit something," said Gliondar. "Crow, will you go down for a look? Fathach, can you check if there are any leaks?"

Crow was already stripping down to his underclothing. He dived off the side and spent thirty seconds swimming under the boat before he popped up out of the ocean.

"It's a sandbank. I think the boat is fine. I can't see any rocks down there," said Crow, wiping sea-water from his face as he spoke.

"I don't see any leaks," added Fathach, emerging from the forward cabin.

"That agrees with what Crow was saying, Fathach. Okay, lads, let's get her off the sandbank and see how she is then," directed Gliondar.

"I'll bring some ropes back to the beach and we can try to pull the boat back towards the beach from there," volunteered Fathach.

"We'll go with you," said Crow, motioning to Haiyugen to join them.

Crow, Haiyugen and Fathach swam back to the shore with two ropes that Glic was tying to the stern of the ship. The islanders had been watching the boat leave and some went out in canoes to help with the ropes.

"That sandbank doesn't affect our boats," explained one of the canoeists. "We didn't think to mention it to you, sorry about that."

"That's okay, we forgot to ask as well. It is only sand, isn't it? Are there any rocks out there?" asked Crow.

"No, there are no rocks in this bay, or at least none near the surface. We would probably have thought to tell you if there were rocks out there. The bay is so safe for boats that it didn't occur to us, I think," explained another canoeist.

"That's fine," said Fathach, wading out of the sea onto the beach. "We're going to try something now. The three of us will take the rope for the port side and maybe you could take the starboard rope and we'll try to pull the boat out together."

"We'll do that," said the island leader authoritatively. "Men, you heard what Fathach said. I want everyone in on the rope and we pull on his count."

Fathach waited until the island men were settled in on the rope and said he would give a count of three.

"One... two... three... HEAVE!" roared Fathach.

The ropes strained tight instantly and the boat jerked back.

"You're pulling too hard on the starboard side," shouted Gliondar from the boat. Sure enough, the boat was listing dangerously on the starboard side with the port side still stuck up on the sandbank.

Fathach was embarrassed to tell the diminutive islanders to ease up a little on their rope, but he knew the safety of the boat and its crew came before his pride.

"Woah! Woah! Hold up, lads!" Fathach instructed the island men, "We'll pull our side for a few seconds and then you pull with us on my call."

After a few more attempts, the men dragged the boat from its perch in the sandbank and fell back on the beach amidst cheering from the bystanders. The crewmen thanked the islanders and made their way back into the sea to swim back to the boat.

"We'll see you again!" said Crow.

"Hopefully not too soon!" shouted the island leader, chuckling.

Crow chuckled and dived into the azure water.

The boat was tested fully by Gliondar, even after Crow told him what the islanders had said about there being no rocks in the bay.

"I don't want to find water coming in when we're out in the middle of the ocean," said Gliondar, ignoring the information.

Once Gliondar was satisfied that the boat was sound, the crew began to row slowly out of the bay with Glic keeping a lookout for obstacles in the bow of the boat. The sails were raised once they were out of the mouth of the small bay and the Village was on its way again.

With peace and focus now restored, the crew settled down to their daily tasks, according to the rota of cleaning, cooking, navigating and sailing. The morning passed into afternoon with the friendly island drifting far out of sight.

"It's great to have all this fresh fruit and vegetables to add to our food stocks," commented Crow to Fathach. They were on cooking duty and were preparing lunch.

"It's great for morale," agreed Fathach.

Crow looked over at Fathach, surprised that he would have bothered to notice crew morale.

"You know what I'm saying," blurted out Fathach in response to the quizzical look. "It's good that we have different things to eat. Nobody wants to eat fish morning, noon and night."

Crow nodded his agreement and continued preparing vegetables.

"And the water," he added.

"What?"

"The fresh water," clarified Crow.

"Oh, yeah, that's right. The water they gave us tastes really sweet."

Crow was surprised to see Fathach in such union with the rest of the crew. Fathach could seem distant at times, which people who didn't know him well often mistook for coldness. Crow realised that there was something about this journey into the unknown that was having a galvanising effect on the whole crew. He did not dwell on it because as a sailor he knew all too well that the opposite could happen just as easily. Crow's last thought on the matter left him at ease - he wondered if it was the unusual combination of people on the boat that was causing the synergy in the crew and he decided that it must be that.

II

The wind pushed them on at a rate of knots, which was convenient. They sailed noticeably faster than the first leg of the trip as the wind had picked up and they were close to the path of one of the principal ocean currents.

Glic and Gliondar were busy navigating for Haiyugen and Fathach. They had to constantly readjust their workings in the first while because all of their previous workings were based on a much slower speed.

After twenty minutes, Gliondar went up to Haiyugen and Fathach and told them quietly that he expected an early morning arrival at the Island of Birds. Haiyugen warned him not to mention that to the children because he knew they would not sleep through the night with the excitement of an early arrival at their next destination.

The difficulty of coping with the boat as it bounced along on the swells of the ocean at speed meant that meals were not a communal event that day. All hands were needed on deck, with the exception of Neamhnai, who was given the job of minding their new pet. Aon and Baboogen were allowed to help the men, but they were not allowed to move out of the lower deck area between the aft cabin and the forward cabin. This middle area moved less than the bow or the stern, so the boys were allowed the privilege of running errands for Crow, who was working the forward sails, and the helm crew. They tired of their privilege after a while, especially since the men could not think of enough errands to occupy them, and they joined Neamhnai to play with Chao for the afternoon.

As darkness fell, the three younger members of the crew were ready for bed. The movement of the boat was taking its toll on them and the comfort and safety of their beds appealed to them for once.

"We'd need to be careful that we don't run aground in the night, lads!" shouted Gliondar at the helm crew.

They nodded their agreement and said they would look at reducing speed in a few hours time.

"That would be no harm," said Glic on his way back to the cabin for a rest before his own helm shift.

The night passed in a haze of bangs and crashes and half-sleep for the children as the boat lurched from one wave to another. It was not so much the size of the waves and swells that were causing difficulty; it was the speed at which the boat was hitting them.

The adult crew took turns relieving their exhaustion with brief naps in the stern cabin. The time allocated to each man was designed to allow him time to relax and time to get maybe twenty minutes of deep sleep before a rude awakening by the next man. Nobody was wakening anyone up rudely, but being woken after only twenty minutes of deep sleep was a rude awakening, no matter how it was done. They did not want any less than four men on watch, in case they had difficulty with the sails or someone went overboard.

The night passed without drama, mostly due to the efficient crewing arrangement that the sailors had set up. The sailors were not the kind of men to appreciate drama on a boat. They knew that slack crewing and lazy sailing could have fast and fatal results and they never took the sea for granted. Glic had to be educated into their regime since his background as a teacher meant that he rarely dealt with the instant finalities that the sailors were accustomed to avoiding.

Glic was casual at times and, as a former headmaster, he was not the best student of the master sailors. Haiyugen absorbed everything the sailors said, having being at the mercy of the sea for a few days before arriving at the village.

As the dawn arrived, the swells calmed slightly and they could see an island in the distance. They did not bother to wake the children on Haiyugen's advice. He wanted them to get a full night's sleep as often as possible so that they would cope well with the long journey. The adult crew obviously needed sleep as much as the children, but it was enough to have two of the crew well-rested at any point in time.

Haiyugen knew that the sailors could cope with a lack of sleep, but he did not think they would easily cope with upset children. With this in mind, he asked if he could be relieved from duty to sleep until the children woke, so that he could keep them out of the way of the tired adult crew that morning. There was no argument from any of the crew, who understood his motivation.

"We'll anchor for a few hours near the island regardless of what it's like, Haiyugen. At least that way, we will all get a few hours' sleep," said Fathach.

A few hours later, a rocky island loomed large in front of the boat. They dropped anchor and surveyed the island from the sea. The children had woken before they reached the island and they were camped at the front of the boat, pointing out everything they saw to Glic.

The island was covered with birds, more birds than anyone could imagine would fit on such an island. The noise level was phenomenal as they fought over food and nesting places and anything else they could think to squawk about. Sea-gulls, razorbills and puffins competed with terns and gannets in the cacophony. This was not the birdsong the crew knew from the forests on their islands. It was more about survival of the fittest on a limited space of land.

"I can't see anywhere we can dock!" shouted Crow from the bow. He was confident that people could not live on such an island and he did not feel the need to keep quiet as he had on the previous landing.

Haiyugen had been woken by Gliondar, so that he would see the island. It was a struggle for Haiyugen to get up, but the excitement of arriving at a new place helped him to get out of his bed.

"I can't either," said Gliondar. "The coastline is just rocks, as far as I can see. I wouldn't want to risk bringing the boat too close to the island."

The island consisted mainly of a dark-brown rock that looked like somebody had taken a hammer and chisel and slowly hacked the entire island into lots of small, sharp edges. The edges suited the birds as perches, but any of them could have cut the boat or injured a climbing crew member.

"The rocks look too slippy for climbing," continued Gliondar. "I wouldn't even be comfortable swimming into them. It looks like there's nothing on the island other than rocks and birds' droppings."

"There are lots of birds on the island!" said Baboogen.

"There are, but we can see them from here!" said Gliondar, who was not altogether keen on the Island of Birds.

"Is that a rock over there or what is it?" asked Haiyugen, pointing towards some cliffs on the island.

"That looks like a lighthouse," replied Gliondar.

"A what?" asked Haiyugen.

"A light... oh, you probably don't have them on your island. They're not used too much now because nobody would man them. They're used to warn boats away from dangerous rocks."

"Well, it's a good thing we stopped here then," said Aon, laughing.

"It certainly is," agreed Glic.

The lighthouse was on top of the most southerly cliff, southwest of their position.

"I don't know how anyone could have lived here," mused Aon.

"I don't think anyone would have lived here," said Glic. "I think the lighthouse would have been run with electricity."

"Oh, like back in the old days," said Aon.

"That's right."

They stayed in a group at the bow, allowing the boat to drift as they squinted at the island, looking for signs of human habitation.

"There's nothing on the island for us," declared Haiyugen. "There's nothing but birds on it and there are too many birds to make it an enjoyable visit."

"We'll be covered in birds' droppings if we dock there," added Crow.

"But we could catch some of them for food," said Baboogen.

Neamhnai glanced at Baboogen, partly impressed that he was thinking of hunting food like an adult and partly disgusted that he was thinking of hunting birds.

"We caught a lot of fish in our net last night. I don't think we need any more food," said Glic.

"Did you throw out the net last night?" asked Aon.

"We trawled for an hour and caught ten fish. It was tough going with the movement of the boat, but it was worth it. I was awake anyway, so it gave me something to do."

"What are our plans then?" asked Crow.

"I think we should skip this island and head on to the island of Fire and Ice," said Haiyugen.

"Is that a sign over there?" asked Gliondar, looking at the lighthouse.

"I think it is," said Haiyugen tentatively.

"Bring the boat around to it, not too close though," directed Fathach.

Crow was on helmsman shift and he went to the wheel to steer the boat nearer to the lighthouse.

When they got closer, the Village crew could see a sign that read "Svalbard". Haiyugen and Baboogen had to be told what it said. They were not yet comfortable with the concept of printed words and reading was definitely a step too far for now. The sign had an arrow pointing off to the northeast.

"Well, that's the same direction we're headed," declared Glic, after a moment's pause.

"It looks like we're going to Svalbard then!" said Aon.

The sailors were less excited about the prospect of Svalbard.

"What do you think it is?" asked Gliondar.

"I've no idea," answered Glic. "I don't remember any Svalbard on the map."

"It could be one of the islands like the island of birds," said Baboogen. "Maybe they just didn't know the name of it when they were making the map."

"It probably didn't have a name until after the map. Wouldn't that be right, Glic?" asked Fathach.

"I suppose it would," answered Glic. "As far as I know, the sailors in my book were the first people to visit these islands, so the islands wouldn't have had names."

"Not unless the birds called the island after themselves!" laughed Fathach.

"That's true," said Glic, smiling wryly.

"What could be on Svalbard now?" wondered Haiyugen.

"Well, there must be something on it because someone put up a sign directing people to it," concluded Fathach.

"Let's see what's on Svalbard," ventured Aon.

"Okay, let's see," said Haiyugen, and so it was decided.

The sails were hoisted and the Village was pointed in the direction that the sign advised.

"I hope the wind hasn't moved that sign much," said Aon.

Neamhnai giggled as Fathach and Haiyugen looked back at the sign again.

"I don't think it could have moved," said Fathach, staring at the steel sign. "It's stuck well to the rock and it's not moving in the breeze."

"You'd cause trouble in paradise, Aon," said Haiyugen. "On we go, Fathach."

"I was only trying to help!" said Aon.

Neamhnai giggled again. Fathach ignored the last remarks as he swung the boat out to sea to pick up some wind. Once the sails filled, he set the boat in line with the sign's arrow, checked the compass and made a note in the ship's log.
Ten

Svalbard

In the cold mist of dawn the following morning, just as Crow was finishing his shift at the helm of the boat with Haiyugen, dark hills poked out of the sea near the horizon. Crow woke everyone with a loud shout of "Land ahoy", once he had blinked a few times and rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes to confirm the sighting.

The shout easily broke the total peace of the calm seas that the rest of the crew had been enjoying in their sleep. The rhythm of the waves and swells in a relatively calm sea always brought on a deep sleep in the off-duty crew. This was not the case in stormier waters, but nearly all of the crew enjoyed both the excitement of the rough seas and the tranquility of the calm seas. Baboogen, Neamhnai and Haiyugen were not yet entirely comfortable in rougher waters, while the three sailors sometimes found the calm seas too quiet. The spirit of the adventure drove them all on.

In slower, calm seas, they thought of little more than the next place to land and the next adventure. And so, a cry of "Land ahoy" brought them to the deck in thirty seconds flat, each tumbling over the next. They had not expected to see land for quite a while, so this was an unexpected boon.

"It seems like every morning we are arriving somewhere new," observed Baboogen.

"We've been very lucky like that alright. We had no idea when we would arrive at Svalbard," said Crow.

"How do you know this is Svalbard?" asked Aon.

"There is a sign on the rocks over there that I am guessing says "Svalbard" on it."

As they approached the island, Neamhnai called out, "Do you see that rock?"

It was indeed a strange rock. It lay dead flat, forming a right angle between the space in front of it and the mountain behind it.

"It looks too straight," said Aon.

"That's what I thought!" said Neamhnai, leaning out over the wooden railing to get a closer look at the island.

"Are we bringing Chao onto the island with us?" asked Aon.

"I think we should leave him on the boat for now. There doesn't seem to be much on the island, so we might not stay long. If we bring Chao, we could spend a few days looking for him if we were to lose him in the rocks," replied Haiyugen.

"It would be pretty easy to lose him," said Baboogen. "I think we will make a leash for him so that he can come to the next island if there is more to see on it."

"That's a good idea, Baboogen," said Haiyugen. "I'll put you in charge of that project."

When they docked, Neamhnai ran straight over to the rock to explore it with Aon and Baboogen. They slowed down to a walk when Haiyugen shouted at them to wait and they tried to pretend that they were not walking or at least they tried to give the impression that they were not walking quickly.

"I can see you're still walking!" shouted Haiyugen. He was used to the independent streak in all three children, but he knew better than they did what dangers were in the world. He ran after them, knowing that their curiosity would drive them to the rock before him even if he kept shouting.

When the children got near enough to the rock, they could see writing on the stone.

"Come quickly!" shouted Aon to the adult crew.

The men ran up to the children to see what the commotion was about.

"People must have lived here," said Crow.

"Or people still live here..." said Fathach.

Baboogen had been investigating the surrounding area to the north of the stone as the crew tried to work out what was the purpose of the stone and what life on the barren island would have been like.

"There's a door over here!" shouted Baboogen to the crew.

Baboogen stood in front of a huge metal door, which was locked. There was a handle and a keyhole in the door.

"There must be a key somewhere," said Haiyugen.

"I'm sure there was at some point," said Crow.

The crew were too curious to walk away, so they decided to look around for a key.

"I think we should look for a key under a rock near the door," said Glic. "People always leaves keys under rocks near the door. I don't know why they do that, but they do."

"There's another door here!" Neamhnai called out from twenty yards further on.

She was pointing at a smaller wooden door behind some large rocks. The door had been painted sky blue, but it looked like it had not been painted for a long time.

"Will I knock on it?" she asked.

The men laughed, sure that there could be no-one on the desolate island.

"Do," said Glic.

Neamhnai knocked on the door hard, but nothing happened. The men began to wander away to continue searching for a key or some way to open either door.

Neamhnai put her ear to the door and heard nothing. She was disappointed that the men were right, but she still thought it would be better to knock, just in case someone lived there.

Suddenly, the door swung open and Neamhnai fell in through the door, since she had been leaning hard against it to listen for any noise inside.

She looked up from the ground to see a man dressed in canvas, rather like her old sackcloth clothes, except his clothes were covered in colourful paint.

"I'm sorry, do you live here?" she said.

"No, I live on an island about a day's sail from here, but I work here a lot of the time," answered the man in an unusually specific response.

"We aren't robbers," said Neamhnai, as the crew arrived.

"I know that, little girl," answered the man. "I've been listening to you all since you arrived. You are welcome to the island."

"I'm sorry that we were looking for a key to your house," said Haiyugen. "We didn't think anybody lived here."

"I know that," said the man. "It definitely doesn't look like there is life on this island. It's not a house though, it's a museum."

"Do you keep a key under a rock?" asked Aon, curious at Glic's theory.

"No," answered the man, laughing. "Well, not a rock near the door anyway. There are lots of rocks on the island as you can see. Maybe there is a key under one of them."

The floor of the tunnel behind the man was covered with paintings on canvas, brightly coloured splashes of paint that made a marvellous floor covering. The paintings had been stitched together with a rough thread.

"What a wonderful carpet!" exclaimed Neamhnai.

"Don't walk on it in your bare feet, you need canvas shoes like mine or the paint will stick to you," advised the curator.

The paintings had various names on them, but one name was more frequent than the others where Neamhnai was standing.

"Who is Jack B. Yeats?" asked Neamhnai.

"I don't know," answered the curator. "They are all painted by famous artists. This painting behind me is called "The Emperor's New Clothes". Well, we think that is what it's called; it could have been called something else originally."

"And where did all the paintings come from?" asked Glic.

"Well, at the time of the Great Floods, the scientists that worked here got every country to give us their most valuable paintings, but they didn't all fit into the vault. The vault was built to store them at a constant temperature and airflow, using the best technology available from man and nature, at the time. It worked well actually. We had to take a lot of them out of their frames so they would fit in, but even still there were too many, so some were used to decorate the entrance and some were used for clothes throughout the years."

"How did they decide which ones were good enough for the vault?" asked Aon.

"Well, the way they figured it, if the artist wasn't bothered making his painting look like something, the engineers weren't bothered using their craft to mind it. They saved all the paintings that had taken time and craft and talent, and left the others. It was maybe unfortunate for some artists to have the fate of their paintings left to scientists and engineers, but that's how things go sometimes. There are some paintings in the vault that are like the ones you see here in the entrance and there are some paintings in the vault that are painted by these artists, whose work you see here on the floor."

"Time, craft and talent... well, at least they had a system. I hope they were able to recognise talent!" commented Crow.

"If they weren't sure, they put them on a separate pile and these were mostly kept. The final decision on these paintings was made on majority preference. Some paintings that you wouldn't expect scientists and engineers to keep were kept just because they thought they were generally nice paintings."

"I wouldn't like to have had to make those decisions," said Glic.

"No, and I don't think they did either!" answered the curator. "Do you want to see some of the paintings?"

"Yes!" the crew replied, nearly in unison. Fathach just nodded.

"Will opening the door not affect the paintings?" asked Glic, thinking of his book in its sealed glass box.

"No, we have to go in through a separate chamber and seal off that chamber first. It's very well built actually. They used the natural surroundings and a system of vents to create optimal temperatures for each room. It had to be well-built to protect all this art that will never be re-created."

"Why will it never be re-created?" asked Aon.

"Well, partly because some of the artists had a unique talent and partly because we have lost the skills and patience to create the paintings they created," explained the curator.

The crew followed him into a dark room. The curator told them not to move while he opened a blind that blocked light from entering the room. The crew looked at the source of the light as it was revealed. It was the end of a tunnel made from some sort of reflective material that brought natural light from outside into the room.

"Look around you now," instructed the curator gently.

They looked around them and a chorus of oohs and aahs erupted.

The children continued to make noises of amazement at every new picture they saw, while Fathach and Crow swore softly under their breath.

"Wow!" said Haiyugen. "I wasn't expecting this."

Glic could not stop smiling, as if he had just walked through the pearly gates of Heaven and was happy about how it looked inside.

Gliondar kept pointing out new paintings to everyone.

"Have you seen this one? And look at this one!" he exclaimed.

The curator grinned from ear to ear and said, "I hoped you would like the place as much as I do. I rarely get to show the paintings to other people. Even when people come, we have to be sure they can be brought in here without risk to the safety of the masterpieces."

"We?" asked Glic. "There are more people here?"

"There are," replied the curator guardedly. "There's more to see, but don't mind that for now."

"Okay," said Glic, who had already forgotten what he had asked as he looked at a painting by one of the Renaissance Masters.

Haiyugen looked over at the curator and asked, "Does it get lonely being here in this building minding all this art?"

"I'm never really lonely when I'm surrounded by the art, but I can't let light in here too often because it can ruin the some of the paintings over time."

"So it can be lonely when you are not surrounded by the art?" asked Haiyugen, trying to understand the curator's motivations.

"Like I said, I'm not here alone, but yes, it can get lonely. It's strange though; I feel a connection to the artists through their work and that is such a privilege. I still look forward to seeing these paintings every day."

"You have part of the artists' lives in this room," agreed Gliondar.

Neamhnai stopped and looked up at Gliondar and giggled nervously.

"Do you think the artists' ghosts are here?" she asked, trying to be casual about the question.

"Not at all, Neamhnai," said Gliondar. "It's just that if you put a lot of time into something, like building a boat, that thing becomes a symbol of your time on Earth."

"My parents built a boat!" said Neamhnai proudly.

"There you go!" said Gliondar. "You can connect to your parents through the boat in the same way that this man can connect to the artists."

"I get it now," she answered softly.

"What's your favourite painting in this room?" asked the curator.

"Is there another room?!" asked Aon.

"There are a few more rooms!" replied the curator, smiling.

"Yesss!!!" said Baboogen, "I can't wait. What do you think is in them, Aon?"

"I'll give you a hint," said the curator. "It's more art, but different types of art."

"Is it like when you make something out of wood or something softer?" asked Neamhnai shyly.

"Like when we made plates out of clay in school?" volunteered Aon.

"Yeah, like that," said Neamhnai.

"One of the rooms has a lot of art that is very like that," confirmed the curator.

"I like that painting the most," said Crow, bringing the conversation back to the original question.

"That painting is called Woman at the Window. It's by Salvador Dalí," said the curator.

"That's a great name for it!" guffawed Fathach. "He didn't tire himself out thinking of a name for it!"

"He didn't, that's true," said the curator. "But it's a beautiful painting. Simple, but beautiful."

They spent some time discussing their favourite paintings. Each chose a different painting, which surprised them. The curator explained that what is beautiful to one person is not necessarily beautiful to everyone. The crew managed to agree that they liked all the paintings, but each liked some more than others and each selection of favourites was different.

"That's what makes art great," said the curator, trying to resolve the debating that was continuing into the next room. "Everybody hush now, the artists wouldn't be happy if they thought they were creating a cause for argument."

The crew quietened to murmurs and the embarrassed giggling of students caught making noise by the teacher.

"This room is completely different, so I want everyone to take a moment to clear your minds of the last room and why the paintings you liked were better than the paintings someone else liked and all that," said the curator in a calm, even voice.

When the crew were gathered at the next door, the curator walked over to the light tunnel and covered it so that there was complete darkness. He walked back to where the crew were gathered and found his way around them to the door.

"How can he see in the dark?" whispered Neamhnai to Aon.

"I can't see in the dark. I just know the route well. I could do it blindfolded," answered the curator, laughing to himself.

"He might as well be blindfolded," muttered Neamhnai, who was experiencing the unusual sensation of not being able to see her own hand in front of her face.

This time, the curator went into the next room alone and left the crew at the door. They could hear him moving around and a few moments later, the door opened enough that they could see light streaming through the crack in the door.

"We can allow more light in this room, so I wanted to give you the full effect. Are you all ready?" asked the curator.

"We are," the crew replied.

"Then come from the darkness into the light!" said the curator dramatically.

The crew of the Village walked into a bright, cavernous room that was filled with sculptures of every kind. There were gleaming, marble statues in a host of colours – whites, grays, green and black. There were sandstone face-masks, granite tribal heads and delicate soapstone portraits. There were battle scenes and countryside idylls immortalised in stone and wood on the walls. An ancient figure sat astride a horse in the middle of the room and beside it was a Pharaoh's sarcophagus made out of limestone.

"We keep most of the bigger statues outside because they take up too much room. We have Easter Island moai, ancient Egyptian sphinxes, massive Buddha statues, you name it, they're here."

"We can't name any of them," laughed Baboogen.

"We have no books on our island, so we don't know much about history," apologised Haiyugen.

"We don't know too much either, Haiyugen, other than what this man taught us," said Crow, nodding at Glic.

"He taught us a lot," declared Aon proudly. "I have heard of Buddha and sphinxes!"

"You'll have to teach us about them so," chuckled Glic.

Aon grinned broadly and said he would try to remember what he had learned.

The curator continued the tour, leading the crew from statue to statue, explaining their origins, the tools used, the material used and who the artist was. It was clear to the crew that this was his favourite room, but they preferred not to say it since he was the curator for all of the art.

"Come here!" the curator said anxiously, as if he was worried that the crew might suddenly disappear.

They huddled closer to him, which was difficult since they were only a few feet from him at the time. Glic and Haiyugen stood in front of the curator, eager-eyed and bobbing about with the movement of the crew behind them. They wanted Aon and Neamhnai and Baboogen to be at the front, but they could not move for fear of knocking a statue.

The curator walked around past some statues and the crew followed in his wake like ducklings following their mother.

The curator did not need to explain anything about this sculpture or how difficult it had been to create with the tools available or why it meant so much. This one spoke for itself.

Despite this, the curator introduced it anyway.

"This is Michelangelo's Pieta."

The crew were as silent in their appreciation of the statue as they had been loud in their appreciation of the paintings.

"It's beautiful," whispered Glic reverently.

A few minutes later, when the crew finally found their voice, they had a hundred questions for the curator about the sculpture. He put his hands up and laughed, telling them they had to ask one question at a time so that he could answer them all.

"What other sculptures did he do?" asked Aon.

"Well, there's another one right behind you," answered the curator. "It's called the David."

The crew turned to see an enormous sculpture of a young man in white marble.

After answering a host of questions about the two statues and many of the other statues, the curator told them he would have to start bringing them through the other rooms so they would be able to catch the tide if they wanted to continue on sailing on the same day.

"I can see why they built all this to keep this art safe," said Baboogen.

"Well, the original use of the island was to store samples of all kinds of seeds," explained the curator. "I'll take you down to the scientific storage area later on."

"Great!" said Aon, who had liked science at school.

"The reason Svalbard was chosen was because it is isolated and it had coal which was used to power a cooling system for the seeds or a heating system, if it was needed. After the Great Floods, the scientists who were based here continued to use coal to power the cooling system, but they put the coal to better use when it was running low."

"What did they do with the coal then?" asked Baboogen.

"They decided to use the coal mining equipment to dig deeper up into the mountain, where the temperature was cooler. In the deep caves, they didn't need any cooling system at all. The scientific storage area is partly built in the same way and partly built into the ground to keep some areas warmer than the air temperature here."

"Oh, that was a good idea," said Baboogen. "I should think of some plan like that for washing dishes when my mum makes me wash them."

"I think you'll always have to work at your chores, Baboogen. There would be no point in asking you to do something that didn't need any work," said Haiyugen.

"That's true," chuckled Baboogen.

The curator escorted them slowly through several more rooms of artworks, including a room of exquisitely made clothing, rooms of master-crafted furniture and intricate jewelry and every sort of handmade art that had ever existed, giving an expert presentation on every aspect of the artworks as they passed through. The crew had never seen anything like what was stored at Svalbard and they had a lot of questions for the curator. A few more entertaining hours passed quickly in the caverns before they emerged into the sunshine again.

"I forgot that it's still daytime," said Baboogen.

"Do you want to go up to the scientific vault?" asked the curator.

"I forgot about that as well!" said Baboogen.

"We do," said Aon, answering for everyone, although, in truth, some of the crew were more keen to see the large statues that had survived the Great Floods.

They marched up a hill and continued on for a few hundred yards until they reached another doorway on the side of a mountain. This doorway was nearly hidden from view and seemed to be part of the mountain.

"It's like a secret door," said Baboogen.

"This is it," said the curator. "I just have to see if Tom is here."

"Who is Tom?" asked Neamhnai.

"Let him look for his friend in peace," chided Aon.

"What did I say?" asked Neamhnai accusingly.

"Just give him a minute to find his friend without having to answer more questions," replied Aon.

"I think they're a bit tired after all the education," said Glic, nodding at the two children.

"They're grand," said the curator. "It was a lot to take in."

He then climbed a few steps to the side of the door and reached inside a gap, where he seemed to be pulling a rope. Suddenly, a bell rang loudly inside the door in a rhythm of three rings, a pause, two rings, another pause and then, a final ring.

The crew stared at the wooden door, not sure what to expect.

"The door is meant to be hard to find, in case you were wondering. We use this cave to escape from people who come to steal."

"But who could break into your cave with the metal doors?" asked Fathach.

"Nobody could, but they could possibly hear me moving inside and they might stay outside until I have to leave to get food."

"But you stayed when we arrived!" said Gliondar, who was looking confused.

"There's an exit at the back of all these caves that can be used for escape and to prevent having to walk all the way around a hill to get into the place. I could have used that, if I was worried. People who come to steal usually carry sticks or something like that and they never bring children with them, so I thought your group was probably safe enough. Gangs that bring children with them always have women with them and they always leave the women and children in the boats."

"Do gangs come here often?" asked Neamhnai, wide-eyed.

"No, not at all," answered the curator. "Maybe once every two years or so. They are never too bad either. They don't stay long. All they want is to survive and if they can find anything that will help them survive, they will take it. If not, they move on."

Just then, there was movement inside the cave. They heard the sound of a metal door opening and then they heard a bolt opening. Then, the wooden door opened to reveal a stocky man with a beard and wild-looking brown hair that was going grey.

The man had piercing green eyes that seemed to look through the crew members, one by one.

"Hello, Tom!" said the curator.

Tom did not reply, but made a gesture to allow the crew to enter.

When the crew had gone into the entrance of the cave, Tom closed the wooden door and opened a metal door to bring the group into the storage area. He walked silently in front of them, holding a wooden pole out in front of him, which had a flame burning at the end of it in a metal bowl. The light from the flame danced around the cave and the younger members of the crew did their best to keep up with it.

When they reached the first room, Tom walked into it and motioned at the group to follow. There was a vast array of green plants growing in the room, each labeled with the type of plant and the necessary climate for growth.

Tom pointed at the labels and wrote in the dust on the ground with a stick that was leaning against a wall.

"We produce seeds here."

Glic read the note for the crew. Then, Tom waved at the group to follow him into a second room.

This room was bigger than the first and was filled with boxes, which were also marked with labels.

Tom lifted the lid off one of the boxes to show the crew what was inside. The box was filled with seeds. Tom wrote on the ground again.

"We store seeds here."

The children were looking at him strangely, trying to figure out why the scientist was writing on the ground instead of talking.

"I don't think he can talk," whispered Neamhnai.

"Oh," said Baboogen, mystified.

The curator of the art vault decided to expand on Tom's explanations slightly.

"The seed vault is meant to be used to store as many different species of plants as it can. Sometimes, the seeds start to dry out, so the scientists have to grow plants to keep fresh seeds. They are usually happy to do that because the plants can be quite beautiful."

The curator looked at Tom, who nodded back. Tom walked out and the crew had no choice but to follow the light of his torch. About fifty yards further on, the air felt warmer.

The curator explained, "The reason it's warmer here is that we are getting nearer to a hot spring. The hot spring comes up through the mountain from deep in the earth and it surfaces on the opposite side of the hill to where we entered. We use the pool at the surface for bathing. It's really relaxing to wash yourself in it. If you have time, you should all swim there."

There were oohs and aahs from the crew, who had never heard of such a thing.

Just then, Tom led them into a large room that was filled with the most colourful flowers and plants that they had ever seen. Even the hardened sailors were in awe of the display of colour that nature had produced.

"This is the tropical flower room," wrote Tom on the floor.

"The temperature here is perfect for the tropical plants," said the curator. "We have all kinds of plants. There are some colder rooms for plants that prefer cold weather and we even have wet rooms for plants that need a lot of water."

"Did the scientists keep animals from all over the world?" asked Aon.

"That's a very good question," muttered Glic, slightly miffed not to have thought of it himself.

The scientist looked at the curator. The curator looked at the ground and raised his head a few seconds later to address the crew.

"Okay, this is the story," he said, taking a deep breath and letting it out again. "We are the knights of Svalbard. I know the name sounds silly, but it helps us to keep up the honour of our job. We are the guardians of plant life and art and we have been the guardians of these since the Great Flood."

"Your organisation sounds secret," said Glic. "Why are you telling us about it? Why have you shown us what you do?"

"There are three reasons for that. The first is that you seem like a good group of people. I know we've only just met you, but that is part of the second reason. We are running out of curators and scientists to protect the vaults. Our last female knight died two years ago and sadly, we don't have a new generation to educate."

"What is the third reason?" asked Gliondar.

"We think that the sea level might be dropping," replied the curator. "Ice is forming north of here. We've had a decrease in the sea level of four inches in the last five years."

"That's amazing!" exclaimed Glic. "We never noticed it on our island."

"Aye, we noticed some changes when we were sailing around the coast," said Gliondar casually. "We thought we were just having strange tides. It didn't really affect our island because it's so mountainous."

"What does it mean?" asked Fathach, unwilling to work out the significance of the curator's statement.

"It means that some land that has been covered by the sea may now be above sea level. Plants could be re-sown in these lands and it is our job to see to it that these lands are planted."

"But what difference would a small drop in the sea level make?" asked Gliondar.

"It wouldn't make much difference to a mountainous island, but it could make a lot of difference if the level dropped below that of a highland plateau. Think about it; if the sea covered a plateau of ten thousand acres by one foot, the land would be useless."

"But if the sea level dropped by one foot, there would be ten thousand acres for people to live on," interrupted Haiyugen, as the logic dawned on him.

"That's it. Ten thousand acres to farm and to grow the correct plants and populate with animal life."

"Where are the animals?" asked Aon, keen to move onto more important issues.

"They aren't here, but I'm guessing you knew that," said the curator.

"Awww..." said Neamhnai, disappointed to hear the news.

"I'll give you directions to the island where the animals are. I want you to give the scientists who work there a message from us."

"Where is this island?" asked Haiyugen, suddenly concerned that their mission was being hijacked.

"It should be on your way, if you intend to continue sailing with the trade winds."

"We will be sailing with the trade winds alright," concurred Glic. He understood the importance of the scientists' mission, but he also understood the importance of Haiyugen's mission to be reunited with his wife.

"We just need to make contact with them to tell them we need manpower and to let them know we would like to start exploratory missions as soon as possible."

"I understand that. We'll get to the other island, if it's at all possible," said Glic.

Haiyugen nodded his consent and the curator thanked them. After a brief tour of the rest of the vault, the group emerged into the sunshine. Now that they were back to the reality of their voyage, Fathach and Crow mentioned to Haiyugen that they would prefer to leave while the tide was high. As they walked down towards the boat, the curator enquired how much they knew of the past.

"Do you mean before the Great Floods?" asked Crow.

"Yes," said the curator.

"We don't know much about that time," said Gliondar.

"We don't know anything about it on our island," added Haiyugen. "We learnt everything we know about that time from Glic!"

"They should go to where the memories are kept," said Tom, who was standing behind Crow and Neamhnai.

"Agghhh!" shrieked Neamhnai and Crow together. They had assumed, like the rest of the crew, that Tom could not speak.

"You can talk!" exclaimed Baboogen.

"Of course I can talk," said Tom.

"Why do you not talk usually?" asked Neamhnai.

"I find that you can do a lot of talking for very little communication."

"But talking is fun!" said Neamhnai.

"Chatting is fun; explaining is not so much fun," said Tom. "I prefer to explain in a way that means I won't have to spend too long on the topic. I bet you can remember what we do in the first two rooms of our vault."

"Yes, we can," agreed the crew.

"And I bet you can't remember half of what he said to you," chuckled Tom, nodding in the direction of the curator.

The crew were embarrassed to discover that Tom was right.

"What do your names mean?" asked Tom, looking at the children in the crew.

"My name means One," said Aon.

"My name means Nought," said Neamhnai.

"My name doesn't mean anything," said Baboogen, looking at the ground.

"It must mean something," said Neamhnai, putting her arm around Baboogen.

"It means you," said Glic. "It means who you are."

Baboogen smiled broadly at his father and pushed his belly out, saying, "That's right. That's what my name means."

"I thought that was what your names meant, Aon and Neamhnai," said Tom, after allowing a moment to respect Baboogen's name. "Do you know why you were given those names?"

"No, we don't," replied Aon, answering for the two of them. "We were young when our parents died."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Tom, pausing.

"Why were you asking about our names?" asked Neamhnai. She was used to changing the subject when her parents were mentioned and she was also curious about the man's interest in their names.

"It's just that I've seen them before."

"Really?!" asked Neamhnai. "We've never heard of anyone with the same names."

"There could be a reason for that, although I might be wrong. Wait here a moment."

Tom disappeared inside the cave and re-emerged a few minutes later with a large, old, hardback book in his hand.

"This book was used for fixing computers," said Tom.

The crew of the Village looked at him blankly. Glic made a noise as if he recognised the word, but did not say any more.

"A computer is something that was used for communication over distances and to do calculations and other things like that. This book explains how to fix the code of a computer or how to build new code to make it send or receive information. It was used by the early scientists here. I read it sometimes because there is not much on the island to read."

"At least you can read," said Haiyugen.

"Each generation of the knights of Svalbard - a community of scientists living on an island east of here and working on this island – taught the next generation as much as they could. Sometimes, we lost knowledge because we didn't have working models to teach with."

"What about our names?" asked Neamhnai, partly tired of the history of the scientists and partly excited to hear about her name.

"I'm getting to that," said Tom. "Okay, so this book is written in a lot of different languages for all the nationalities of the area a long time ago."

"And..." said Baboogen, who was not sure if Tom's story would ever end.

"Don't be rude, Baboogen," said Haiyugen. "Sorry about that, please continue."

"One of those languages has words that sound just the same as your names," continued Tom.

"Really?" asked Neamhnai again.

"Really," replied Tom with certainty. "There are phonetic pronunciations under the words, which I can read. How do you spell your names?"

Neamhnai and Aon looked at Glic, who nodded.

"Glic taught us how to spell our names," said Aon. "He got our mother to show him how the names were written when we were being registered for the school."

"That's true," said Glic. "The names were new to me and I didn't know how to spell them."

"A-O-N," said Aon.

"N-E-A-M-H-N-A-I," said Neamhnai.

Tom smiled and showed them the page he had opened.

Neamhnai gasped as she saw her name. Aon was equally surprised, but tried not to show it.

"My name is spelt with two As," said Neamhnai.

"I know that, but you have to say, there must be some connection with the two words beside each other here," said Tom.

"That's true," said Aon.

"What do their names mean?" asked Baboogen.

"They mean one and nought or one and zero."

"Why are their names in that book?" asked Crow. "Does it just give numbers in all the old languages?"

"No, the book was written to teach people how to type code into the machine so that it would do the things I was telling you about. It isn't just translating numbers and words. It's a guide that was printed in a few different languages, maybe because it was easier to do that for schools with people from different places."

"And why does it have one and zero in it?" asked Glic.

"It has one and zero in it because all the computer code is written in ones and zeros," replied Tom.

There was a pause as the group tried to work out the significance of this, while simultaneously grappling with the concept of the computer machine.

"I think we can accept that they were meant to be called Aon and Neamhnai meaning one and zero in that old language," mused Glic. "It's too much of a coincidence that the names are unknown to us all from any other place and are nearly identical to the words in your book."

"I think that's fair," said Haiyugen.

Aon and Neamhnai looked at each person speaking as they spoke, but said nothing themselves. They felt the conversation weighing down on them like as if the air was suddenly heavier. The origin of their names was strongly linked to their parents and also to their understanding of who they were. This was quite a lot to take on in a casual conversation, so they remained silent and listened to the various opinions.

"But maybe they were called one and zero because they are the first two numbers," said Fathach.

"Well, Aon was born first and he is called the second number, so that doesn't make sense," said Glic.

"Is zero a number?" asked Crow.

"Of course it is," replied Fathach.

"What about minus one?" asked Gliondar. "Isn't that a number?"

"That's true," said Glic, "it is."

"Are one and zero the only numbers used in writing computer code?" asked Haiyugen, who was unimpressed with his fellow crewmen's theories.

"Yes," replied Tom.

"I think there is something in that," said Haiyugen. "Why do you think two children would be called after the two numbers used to write this computer code?"

"I don't know," said Tom.

"Are you happy with the discovery about your names, assuming it is right?" Haiyugen asked the pair that mattered.

"It's interesting," said Aon. "We've never heard anything about our names before."

"I don't know what it all means," said Neamhnai.

"I don't know either, Neamhnai," said her older brother.

"You might figure it out in time," said Tom.

"I think it was-" said Crow.

"That's enough, guys," interrupted Haiyugen. "If you feel you know the reason, tell someone else and see what they think. I don't think it's fair that everyone spouts out their theory on the reasoning behind Aon and Neamhnai's names. I don't want them to believe a false theory about their names."

"That's a fair point," agreed Crow. "Only their parents can say why they have these names."

"You might figure it out yourselves," said Glic, smiling. He knew the children would spend many hours trying to work out the mystery of their names, now that they had found another key connecting them to their parents.

"Why did people stop using computers?" asked Aon.

"It was because of electricity really," answered Tom. "Some people blamed the communication net for causing a lot of problems in the world, but in the end, people saw that the communication net brought a lot of peace once everything settled down."

"What kind of problems were there with this communication net?" asked Neamhnai.

"That's a question you should ask the scientists on the other island. It's not that I don't want to answer you, Neamhnai, but they can answer that question better than I can," replied Tom.

"What do they do?" asked Neamhnai.

"They have lots of animals there, but they also have a place where memories are kept."

"Where memories are kept..." cooed Neamhnai, mystified by the description.

"I don't know what that means exactly," said Tom. "It's a story we've heard from the knights who have left us now. I think they have some things from history that we don't have here as well. I can't think of what they might be."

Tom's solemn tone as he mentioned his ancestors did not invite further questioning and so, the subject was dropped.

"I'm just going to write out that message for you to bring to the other island. If you can make it over there, that would be great. If not, don't worry. We'll try to get there ourselves in a year or two if a boat that could cross the ocean lands with space on it for us and our provisions and plant samples," said the curator. He jogged up to the cave museum to get writing materials.

"That would need to be a pretty big boat," muttered Fathach.

"Do you want us to take you to see the other scientists?" asked Haiyugen. "I don't know if it would be possible with the level of provisions we are carrying, but our sailors can check it out if you want?"

"No, that's fine," replied Tom. "We have more work to do here and our testing of sea levels is fairly recent, so we couldn't leave at this stage."

"That's no problem at all," said Haiyugen.

"Where are you going to next?" asked Tom.

"Well, we're not sure, Tom," answered Glic. "We have a map, but with all the discoveries on this island, we forgot to ask you about the places nearby."

"From here, it's a straight run up to the Island of the Goms. You can't miss it. In fact, it will be hard to avoid. It's quite a big island."

"Is it much bigger than this one?"

"Oh yeah, much bigger. There are at least two towns on it."

"How many people live there?" asked Fathach.

"Quite a lot compared to other places we've heard about. It's definitely in the thousands. They are... I don't know quite how to say it... They're not the greatest people you'll ever meet."

"What's wrong with them?" asked Crow.

"Ah, plenty of them are fine, but it's a fairly corrupt place. We visited it a long time ago and we figured out pretty soon that it would not be a good idea to tell anyone where we had come from."

"What would they have done?" asked Crow.

"I don't know, but we didn't want to find out, that's for sure! It's not that it's a dangerous place. At least, where we were was okay, but I think parts of it are not as safe," replied Tom. "I think you should still go there because it's a long way to the next island if you skip the Island of the Goms. You'll probably need to pick up some supplies and fresh water there."

"Do you want to take some plants with you on the boat? If you don't want to keep them, you could always just give them as presents to people when you arrive in a place," continued Tom in an effort to change the subject, since he realised he was worrying the crew with his description of the Island of the Goms.

"So long as they don't need too much watering!" laughed Glic.

"That's true!" said Haiyugen. "We harvest some of the rainwater for our own use, Tom."

"I knew there wouldn't be much spare water," said Tom. "Don't worry, I will only be giving you plants that don't need much water. These plants won't spread easily either, so there's no danger of them colonising any area."

"I have no doubt there will be heavy theory behind your selection," laughed Haiyugen. "So long as they look nice and smell nice, we'll be happy."

"They'll just look and smell like regular green plants because they generally haven't flowered yet. I can't give you some of the ones that are flowering now because-"

"Go on and get them!" said Gliondar in a slightly forceful, but still friendly manner. "We'll miss the tide if you start explaining that."

The curator returned as Tom left to get some plant samples and he began writing a long note for the visitors to bring to their sister island, which included detailed directions to that island.

The crew stayed chatting and garnering information for as long as they could with the two men, before setting off eventually with a message for the other scientists, written in squid ink on dried bark from driftwood, and a host of plants to decorate the deck of the ship. The message had lots of scientific data in it, but it still drew plenty of smiles from the crew of the Village when Glic read it out to them that evening. Even though the knights of Svalbard were analytical to the core, the message to their scientific cousins was filled with the same humanity, joy and appreciation for being alive that blood cousins seem to share easily. The breeze that blew them on to their next destination felt a bit warmer as the letter was read out and discussed and then read out again for clarification and further discussion. The crew concluded after all the discussion that they liked the knights of Svalbard.

They also decided they would do what they could to pass on their message, if they could get to the other knights safely.
Eleven

The Land of the Goms

"That must be the land of the Goms!" exclaimed Baboogen, who had been hanging onto the railings at the bow for quite some time, eager to be the crew's discoverer.

"I think it must be," said Gliondar, who was tightening the sails. "We've been sailing north to nor'-nor'-east since we left Svalbard for about a day now, just like the curator said."

"What is a Gom?" asked Neamhnai.

"I have no idea," replied Gliondar. "I think it's the name of the tribe on this island. The knights of Svalbard seemed to spit out the name a bit when they said it."

"Are we in a tribe?" asked Aon.

"No, we're not really," answered Gliondar. "We're a group of people from the same place. I don't think the people on this island will be a real tribe, but they might have formed a type of tribe from what the knights were saying."

"What's a real tribe?" asked Aon.

"A real tribe is a group of people who are linked together by blood and marriage over a long period of time. They often wear similar clothes and talk in their own language and things like that."

"Like a gang?" asked Neamhnai.

"No, a gang is just a collection of people who want to do the same bad things. Tribes can stay together to defend each other as well as to attack others."

Neamhnai stared blankly at Gliondar, so he explained the difference more simply.

"Tribes can be good or bad or good and bad. They can act just like the people in our village, sometimes nice and sometimes not. They can be made up of only a few people or many, many people. Gangs are generally small groups and they're formed by people who are looking for others who are as bad as them. The main unwritten agreement in a gang is that the members will protect each other, no matter what they do. Gangs only work if the members protect each other, but usually they do because they are afraid not to."

"So gangs aren't good?" asked Baboogen. The concept of gangs was new to him. There were none on his island.

"No, they're not. Ah, some are worse than others. Some only affect other people when they are stopped from doing something that they want to do," explained Gliondar. "You don't have to worry about anything like that anyway. There are five strong men on this boat, who will protect you."

"So, are we a gang?" asked Neamhnai.

"We're a good gang," said Gliondar emphatically.

"We should give our gang a name!" said Aon.

"And Chao should be in our gang!" said Neamhnai, picking up the little dog, which was running around her legs in figures of eight.

Gliondar laughed and said he would let them think of a name for the crew, while he sorted out the rigging of the mainsail. Gliondar then forgot that he was supposed to go back to the children to hear the name they had chosen after he had sorted out the rigging and went to join the helm watch on the poop deck.

"We need to be on our guard here," he said to Fathach and Haiyugen.

"Aye, we do that," said Fathach. "We won't make too much noise; we'll just float in, get the supplies we need without making a fuss and we'll be on our way then."

"That sounds like a plan," said Haiyugen. "I'll keep a close eye on the children until we know the lie of the land."

As they drew closer to the island, a light fog blew over from the west. It made landing more difficult, but the crew welcomed the anonymity of the fog. They did not want a welcoming party when they docked, based on what the knights of Svalbard had told them.

The coast of the island was relatively free of rocks and they had no difficulty navigating a path towards what seemed to be a man-made pier. Crow jumped out of the boat as soon as the boat bounced slowly off the pier, which was indeed man-made from rocks and planks of timber. Gliondar and Haiyugen were working hard to make sure the boat did not hit the pier too hard and by and large, they were successful in their task.

Aon threw a mooring rope to Crow, who put it around a post and then used the leverage of the post to pull the boat in along the pier. When Crow was satisfied that the Village was neatly docked behind the boat in front of it, he tied the rope around the post and went towards the back of the boat, where Baboogen was waiting to throw a second mooring rope to him. Baboogen had to throw the rope with an almighty heave because the stern had drifted out while Crow was tying the front end. Normally, two of the men would moor the boat from the dock, but Crow thought they would attract less attention if he moored the boat alone.

After a few minutes, the crew assembled on the deck, ready to see the Island of the Goms. Neamhnai was not happy at being told that they had to leave Chao in the hold, but she accepted that the diminutive dog was likely to attract unwanted attention from islanders. She left food and water out for him and made a bed from a blanket, so that he would be comfortable while they were gone.

"Poor Chao," she commiserated, stroking him. "You never get to come on adventures with us."

"Come on, Neamhnai!" called Aon from the entrance to the hold. "He'd be exhausted if he had to walk all the way into the town. He'll be happy here – the boat is huge to him."

"We'll bring him with us the next time," added Baboogen.

The children joined the men up on the pier and the crew made their way along a path that led out from the pier until they reached a road made of stone and hardened mud, which had been mixed with sand and straw.

After walking for a mile, they had still not met anybody on the path, which seemed unusual for the time of day. In the distance, they could see a town and they made their way towards that. The crew chatted quietly as they walked. They were excited to be off the boat and walking around a luscious, green island, but they were not comfortable enough in their new surroundings to talk as they normally would.

Glic pointed out some people on ahead, who had joined the road they were on from tributary paths. The people they saw were going towards the town also, so they did not pass by them. After another ten minutes walking, they reached the edge of the town and started to meet locals as they walked towards the centre. They were generally dressed in bright clothes and some wore hats of a variety of shapes made of straw. The crew passed a shop selling these hats, which seemed to be a native industry.

Fathach took the bull by the horns and stopped one of the locals to tell him that they were new to the town and they wanted to know who could help them to get the supplies they needed. The local lad grinned and bounced about as he spoke. He told them they should go to see the Town Mayor and pointed out his house at the end of the road.

The Town Mayor's house was indeed an impressive house, maybe twice the size of the average house on the road. It was made mostly of wood, with large verandas surrounding the two sides that were visible from the road. The verandas and the garden were filled with plants and flowers, which added to the exotic style of the house. It was painted light blue with white window frames and a white door.

The crew walked up to the arched, wooden entrance to the house and saw a sign over the arch, which was just about visible through vines that were wrapped around it. It read "El Mayor de los Goms".

"What does it mean?" asked Baboogen.

"It must mean the Mayor of the Goms in some other language," answered Glic, "but you never know with languages. I think you would have to ask someone who speaks that language."

Haiyugen walked up to the front door and knocked on it with the carved stone knocker that was in the middle of the wide door, while the rest waited at the end of the garden path.

A man answered the door dressed in clothing that did not seem appropriate to Haiyugen for doing a good day's work. He was wearing a black waistcoat and black trousers and a white shirt. He also wore clean, white gloves, which was mainly what seemed unusual to Haiyugen.

"Are you the Town Mayor?" asked Haiyugen.

"Oh, no!" replied the man.

Haiyugen was relieved to hear this. He was sure that the Town Mayor would be too hard-working to keep his gloves so clean.

The strangely-dressed man went into the house and called through a doorway, "Master, there is a man here to see you."

The sailors heard the conversation and shook their heads in dismay. They did not like to see a man call another "master" for any reason.

A sweaty, corpulent man appeared at the doorway with an expression that did not invite friendliness.

"Yeessss?" he asked stentoriously.

"I... eh... we are here to buy supplies and we were wondering if... eh..." stumbled Haiyugen, slightly put off by the man's appearance and demeanour.

"Spit it out, man!" spat out the Town Mayor.

"We were wondering if you could help us to buy supplies."

The Town Mayor looked at Haiyugen deeply, trying to work out how he could benefit from this arrangement. If Haiyugen had realised the deep look was so shallow, he might not have stayed to listen to the answer.

"I can't help you because I cannot be seen to favour one shop over another," replied the Town Mayor, thankful that he had thought of an escape route. "However, a good friend of mine, Potrick, may be able to help you. You will usually find him at the crossroads on the road towards the pier in the afternoon, near the park."

As the Town Mayor spoke, Haiyugen realised that he did not care if he could help them or not; what was more important was that the Mayor did not seem to be aggressive towards them. They exchanged a few further pleasantries and Haiyugen introduced his crew. It was plain to the crew that the Town Mayor had very little interest in meeting them as he waved at them when they started to approach to shake hands. While slightly insulted, they understood this lack of interest to mean that their presence was not an issue on the island.

Haiyugen waved goodbye to the Town Mayor and went out to the street with the crew.

"I don't think he has the remotest interest in us," Haiyugen said to the crew.

"We thought the same," agreed Fathach.

"He wasn't helpful, but I don't think he's unhappy that we are here," added Crow.

"Or happy that we are here," added Gliondar ruefully.

"Yes, it's a shame that someone can have such a lack of curiosity, but the most important thing we've learned is that this town does not seem to be as dangerous as we might have thought," concluded Glic.

"I'll agree with that once we have walked around the town for a while longer," said Haiyugen.

The crew wandered around the town, looking at the various wares for sale and enquiring as to what they might be able to exchange for certain goods. They had fish and plants to offer in return for sailing equipment and provisions that they preferred to stock in case they were out at sea for longer than they expected.

After spending some time looking around the town and talking with the local people, Haiyugen told the children that they could explore the town for one hour by the town clock. He gave strict instructions that they were not to stray off the main streets and told them to meet him on the road back to the boat when the hour was up. Aon, Baboogen and Neamhnai did not need to be asked twice and they made off in the opposite direction as fast as they could without running.

Haiyugen called Glic aside and muttered to him that the sailors might want some time to themselves. Glic nodded and turned to the sailors, "Lads, myself and Haiyugen have some jobs to do. Would you mind waiting for us in one of the pubs? I can give you some goods to trade for ale."

"Aye, we can do that," said Fathach.

"We have plenty to trade ourselves," added Gliondar.

"No fear of that," said Crow.

With that, the sailors turned on their heels and headed for a bar with wooden casks outside it and sounds of raucous laughter within.

"We'll see you here in fifty minutes, lads!" called Haiyugen in their wake.

"Grand job!" answered Fathach, giving Haiyugen the thumbs-up as he continued towards the pub.

Haiyugen and Glic decided to continue the hunt for sailing equipment, since they had not found any good suppliers yet.

On a nearby street, the children had made a controversial decision that they did not spend much time debating. They went straight back to the Mayor of the Goms to ask him if there were any treats for sale anywhere and how might they buy them, if there were.

The Mayor was more receptive this time, presumably having been disturbed from feeding during the previous visit. However, he was far more interested in his own opinion of what would interest visitors than in the children's request.

"Have you seen the cavemen?" asked the Mayor of the Goms, ignoring the question entirely.

"No, we haven't," replied Baboogen, curious as to what they might be like.

"Well, they are some of our finest citizens! You simply must meet them," replied the Town Mayor. "They are just around the corner over there."

The children followed the Mayor's directions over to where he had pointed. An old lady standing at the corner asked them to come into her house. They were a little frightened by her, but they stood at the doorway and stuck their heads in to appease her.

"I've just washed the house and now it smells like perfume," she cackled. "Doesn't it smell like perfume?"

Aon and Baboogen had their heads furthest in the door and they sniffed the air competitively, keen to outdo the other. They were not well-advised to do so, since the house smelt like it had been washed with rotten eggs.

"Eewwww!!" they exclaimed, reeling back from the door.

As they moved back, Neamhnai got a blast of the foul-smelling air and she also took evasive action. When they were halfway across the street, Aon shouted at the old lady that they had to go.

"Why do you have to go so quickly?" she asked. "Come in and have a bun. I've just baked them."

"We have to go," repeated Aon, dragging Baboogen and Neamhnai with him. Baboogen's eyes were wide with fright at the thought of what the old lady's baking would be like if that was what she called washing. He was not as good as Aon at dealing with adults and he had thought for a moment that he would have had to eat one of the old lady's buns.

The children ran around the corner and there they saw a strange sight indeed. The houses gave way to an open square with some trees in it. There were houses facing onto the opposite side of the square. On the side where they were, there was a large cave adjoining the houses around the corner.

The cave was poorly lit and in it, they saw a relatively young man, dressed all in black with a white patch painted around his right eye. He was sitting on a tree trunk counting black beans in a tray on his lap. Another man, dressed in grey, was standing near the seated man, observing him. Behind the grey man stood another man towards the rear of the cave, observing both men.

"Whatever are they doing?" whispered Neamhnai to Aon.

"I have no idea," he replied, looking straight at the men as if they were wild animals, in case they made a sudden movement.

They watched the seated man count the beans and put a few in his pockets as he counted. The beans that he put in his pockets were not all put into the same pocket. Some went in the pockets on his shirt and some went in the pockets in his trousers. He even put one in his mouth.

The man standing near the seated man asked him how many he had counted.

"Thirty-five, Ernest," said the man with the white patch.

The grey man called Ernest turned to the man behind him, who the children could not see clearly, and said, "Thirty-five."

The last man wrote the number on a board in bold writing.

Then, the man with the white patch poured the beans into a bag and tied it. He gave the bag to the man called Ernest, who in turn gave it to the man behind him. That man threw the bag onto a pile of other similar bags at the back of the cave.

The seated man with the white patch put his hand down to the side of his chair and picked up another bag of beans. He held it up in the air to show the others that he was starting on a new bag.

He spilled the beans onto the tray and started counting them. The same rigmarole happened a few times, with the only variation being the number of beans announced. Once, the man with the white patch took so many beans, there were none in the bag that he handed to the man beside him. That fact did not prevent him from claiming there were forty-nine beans in the bag.

"Forty-nine!" called out Ernest, handing the empty bag to the man at the back of the cave.

"Ah, now, gentlemen! There couldn't be forty-nine beans in this bag!" said the man in the shadows. He walked forward to the man with the white patch and handed him the bag.

"Can you count this one again?" he asked.

"Oh, certainly," said the man with the white patch.

As the man from the shadows went back to the board, he threw a few beans into the bag and called out, "Forty-three!"

"I thought there couldn't have been forty-nine beans in that bag!" said the man at the board, proud of himself.

The children stayed watching the men for a few minutes to figure out what they were doing. After a while, the man with the white patch got up and walked slowly over to a thatched house. When he came back to the cave, his pockets seemed to be empty.

"Let's go over to see what's in that house," said Baboogen.

"Good idea," said Aon.

They walked over to the thatched house indirectly, stopping to look at a few other houses along the way. As they passed the thatched house, Baboogen looked in the first window and Aon and Neamhnai looked in the second window. They did not plan how they would investigate the house; it just seemed to be a natural way to avoid getting caught.

The children were not even sure if the men in the cave were doing anything wrong. The whole town was so strange that they just could not figure anything out.

After they passed the house, they continued walking for about twenty yards.

"Did you see that?!" exclaimed Baboogen.

"I've never seen so many beans!" said Neamhnai.

"Why would he fill his house with sacks of beans?" asked Aon.

"It was definitely a house," said Neamhnai. "I saw tables and chairs and plates."

Just then, they were startled by the booming voice of the Town Mayor.

"Hello, children!" he said loudly.

Neamhnai shrieked and the Mayor jumped back slightly.

With a raised eyebrow, the Mayor of the Goms continued, "Did you see the cavemen working?"

"We did," said Aon.

Baboogen looked at Aon to see if he thought it would be a good idea to quiz the Town Mayor. Aon shrugged and Baboogen decided to start with some easy questions.

"Ehh... we were wondering if... if you could tell us what they are doing?" he asked.

"They're counting the town's beans, of course!" said the Mayor. "It's a very important job. Beans are a staple of our diet here and we use them to pay for other goods."

"How does the man with the white patch have so many beans?" blurted out Neamhnai.

"Well, he's a very important man," answered the Mayor, "but he doesn't have many more beans than anyone else."

"But his house is full of beans!" said Neamhnai.

"I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason for that," said the Mayor, "and you know, you shouldn't go around looking in people's houses."

"Does he have any more beans than other people?" asked Aon, somewhat bluntly for his age, considering the Mayor's sniping criticism of Neamhnai. It may have been the reply to Neamhnai that caused him to speak more bluntly, on the other hand. Aon was used to defending his sister and himself against adults, when they were being unfair.

"He's a very important man and he is extremely generous as well," replied the Town Mayor, avoiding the question.

"How is he generous?" asked Baboogen.

"He gives some of the beans he has earned himself, as a citizen of the Island of the Goms, to other people, without looking for a single thing in return."

The children were perplexed at this answer. Aon looked back at the cave and had a moment of clarity.

"Who does he give the beans to?" he asked.

"I've personally seen him giving a pot of his own beans to the gentleman who works beside him and I've seen him make bean pies for the marker and quite a few other people."

"Who is the marker?" asked Baboogen.

"The man who marks down the number of beans in each bag," replied the Mayor. "He's over there at the back."

"What are the workmen called?" asked Neamhnai.

"The man sitting down is the head bean counter and the man standing beside him is the town's auditor general."

"Did the head bean counter ever give you any bean pies?" asked Aon.

"Oh, yes! All the time!" replied the Mayor excitedly. "We call him The Beanmaster."

The children fell silent, realising that this town was not like their home villages. They suddenly felt less comfortable on the Island of the Goms.

"I wonder where the crew are..." said Baboogen to Aon.

"Yes," said Aon, understanding instantly. "I think we should find out where they are. Come on, Neamhnai."

They walked off with a quick wave in the direction of the Mayor, who stood looking after them.

"See you soon!" said Aon.

The three youngsters walked to where they thought they might meet the adult crew. They went back towards the port, but they took the high road to get a better vantage point. They still could not see the adults, so they just continued on down the road.

Along the route back to the port, they came across a man at the crossroads of the high road and the main road. He was sitting there, not looking like he was going anywhere in particular.

"Where are you children off to?" the man asked.

"We are going to meet our crew," said Aon.

"You're with the boat that just arrived?"

"We are," replied Aon.

The children continued walking past the man on the main road towards the port. After they had walked twenty yards past the man, Neamhnai sneaked a look back at him.

"Are you looking for the rest of the crew?" asked the man nonchalantly.

"Yes," said Aon, turning around.

"I thought you might be," said the man smugly. "You're going the wrong way."

"Where are they then?" asked Baboogen.

"I met two of them, Glic and... I can't remember the other man's name. They're still in the town, but they should be coming past any minute now. They said they would just be gone for ten minutes, in case you passed by without seeing them."

"Let's walk towards the town," said Baboogen to Aon.

"Okay," agreed Aon.

They backtracked to the crossroads and walked past the man, nodding at him as they walked past.

"I don't know why he had to wait until we walked past before telling us where the men are," whispered Neamhnai, when they were past the crossroads.

"I suppose it made him feel like he knew something we didn't," muttered Aon.

"It made us look silly," she said.

"Maybe he just wasn't sure where we were going," said Baboogen.

"That's true, I suppose," said Neamhnai.

Before they even got to the next corner, they saw Haiyugen running around the corner.

"I saw you up on the high road," he shouted down the road breathlessly.

The children smiled, happy that their plan of taking the high road had worked.

Baboogen sprinted towards his father, happy to see him after their encounters in the strange town. He was followed shortly by Aon and Neamhnai, who were trying to catch up with Baboogen.

The trio met Haiyugen in a giggling heap. They saw Glic and the sailors coming towards them and told Haiyugen about the man at the crossroads.

"We met him as well," said Haiyugen. "He said he was going to give us some information about the town."

When Glic and the sailors caught up with Haiyugen, they made their way back to the crossroads to see what information they could get about the town.

The man was still sitting there, seemingly glued to the stone wall.

"How are you all, folks?" he said in a loud, sing-song manner.

Haiyugen walked over to him and went to shake his hand.

The man peeled himself off the wall and shook Haiyugen's hand.

"Potrick, pleased to meet you," he said.

"Nice to meet you again, Potrick. I'm Haiyugen and this is the crew of the Village."

The crew cheered as their boat was mentioned. They were in high spirits, having landed successfully at yet another island.

"What was the information you had for us?" asked Gliondar.

"Well, let me see now," said their new acquaintance, rubbing his chin.

Potrick was a rotund, red-faced man. He was wearing a thin red jacket that went down to his waist and had two coattails at the back. His white shirt was much too small for him and he wore his pair of brown trousers with vertical dark brown lines tucked into his socks. It looked like he had cut his jacket himself or at least, it looked like no tailor had been involved in the process of making it.

It looked like the inside of his body thought it was so important that it was trying to burst out of his skin to greet the world. It was not likely that the world wanted to see the inside of his body, but that did not seem to be stopping it from trying to burst out.

"I heard that you are looking for supplies and that you have fish to trade. I would like to offer my services as a man of the finest character to help you with your business, my friends."

"How is he our friend?" whispered Neamhnai to Aon. "We've only just met him."

"If you proceed down the road there, you will find two butcher's shops. The first is owned by a man you cannot trust. The second one is owned by a good friend of mine, who will be sure to give you the very best deal he can. For fruit and vegetables, be sure to go to Hargrave's. What else do you need?"

"We need supplies of timber and canvas, in case we need to replace the sails. We do not seem to have brought enough spare materials."

"That is important indeed. Let me see now... I think Raford's would be best for me. You will find them in amongst the hardware stores before you get to the town centre."

"Do you not mean Raford's would be good for us?" asked Baboogen.

"Of course! What did I say?"

"You said it would be good for you," said Baboogen.

"Well, I certainly meant it would be best for you. What's good for you is good for me!" said Potrick, with a gleaming smile that showed off his yellowing teeth. "I can wait here to mind the children while you are gone, to make things a little easier for you. It would do me good to rest my weary feet, in any case."

Haiyugen turned to Gliondar and muttered a few words.

"You don't have to wait with the children, Potrick, but if you want to rest your feet, by all means, take your time. Glic, can you mind the children while we get supplies?"

"No problem," said Glic.

Potrick waited with the children and Glic, while Haiyugen went with the three sailors to trade supplies. Nobody wanted to initiate conversation, so they sat in silence for a few minutes on the grass near the dusty road.

"We were going to call our boat "There is One of Everything in the World". It was Baboogen's idea," blurted Neamhnai out of the blue. She had not been comfortable with the silence of the small group.

"Why were you going to call it that? It's the longest name for a boat that I ever heard," said Potrick.

"Baboogen said that everyone is different."

"I didn't say everyone is different, I said everyone is unique."

"That's true," said Potrick.

"But why is everybody different?" asked Neamhnai, ignoring Baboogen's input.

"Sure, if we were all the same, we would only need one person in the world. Do you know what I mean?" asked Potrick.

"Oh, I see!" said Neamhnai. "We wouldn't need lots of the same person!"

"That's right. So you should always appreciate people who are different than you. If everyone was the same as you, you'd never need to leave your house. You could just look in a mirror and talk to yourself," explained Potrick gruffly.

"What is a mirror?" asked Baboogen.

"It's something you use to look at yourself," replied Aon.

"Okay, I saw them in your village. We don't have them on our island; we just ask people if we are looking good or we look in the pond."

"And what do the people say to you?" asked Neamhnai.

"We always say the person is looking good, but we tell them if they have some food on their face or something like that."

"That sounds better than using mirrors," said Glic.

The group chatted about nothing much in particular for an hour or so. Haiyugen and the sailors appeared into view, laden down with canvas, lengths of timber and various other supplies.

The children and Glic ran to help them carry the supplies. Potrick walked with the crew, but did not offer to help. Instead, he mopped his brow profusely with a cloth handkerchief, as if he was worried it would fall off, and mumbled about the heat and his sore back. He had a slow walk that swayed to the right as he went along. Everyone gave him a wide berth in case he swayed too far. If he did topple, there was no doubt that he would hit the ground pretty hard, so people generally avoided walking on his right side. The crew brought everything back to the boat and tidied up their supplies before heading back towards the town.

"Did you go to the shops I was telling you about?" asked Potrick, as they made their way along the dusty track.

Fathach answered before the others could, "We went to the hardware shop you told us about and they tried to sell us canvas that you could put your finger through."

"Oh, that was probably Johnny. Ronald would have given you a better deal."

"A better deal?" said Fathach angrily. "Do you know how dangerous it is to give a bad sail to someone?"

"He mightn't have known you were sailing far."

"He knew, but that shouldn't have mattered!" said Gliondar. "We went to the next shop and they gave us excellent new canvas."

"Did you go to the butcher I told you about?"

"We looked in the window, Potrick," said Fathach. "I wouldn't feed some of the meat in there to a dog, to be honest with you."

"That's a shame now, lads. Sorry about that. Those shops are usually very good to deal with," said Potrick, smoothing things over. He did not bother asking about the fruit and vegetable shop, sensing enough damage had been done with his first two recommendations.

"Do you see that man over there?" said Potrick, changing the subject. He was pointing across the road at a man walking in a park on the edge of the town.

"I do," replied Glic.

"He is one hundred and eighty years old."

"What?! He couldn't be!"

"He is. Ask him."

"He doesn't look it," said Fathach. "I'm beginning to doubt your word, Potrick."

"You can always trust Potrick," said Potrick, thrusting his belly out and hitching his thumbs into the waist of his pants.

"Let's talk to the man at least," said Haiyugen, partly out of curiosity and partly from wanting to leave Potrick's company.

The others mumbled about the age not being possible, but out of curiosity they joined Haiyugen as he walked over towards the man.

"Hello!" said Haiyugen. "Potrick said we should ask you what age you are."

"Ah, you've met the bould Mr. Snollygoster," said the man.

"Potrick?"

"Mr. Potrick Snollygoster, one and the same."

"We heard you are one hundred and eighty years old," said Haiyugen to the man, who didn't look a day over sixty. The rest of the crew looked embarrassed at being associated with the question.

"I am," said the man.

The crew examined him very closely after his statement.

"How could you be?" said Fathach quickly. "You look like you're around fifty."

"Well, I've been alive for one hundred and eighty years, but I haven't been fully alive for all that time," replied the man.

"What are you talking about?!" asked Fathach, annoyed at the cryptic statement.

"I hibernate in the winter, didn't Potrick tell you?"

"No, he did not. What do you mean by that?" asked Fathach.

"By what?"

"You hibernate?"

"Well, just that. I hibernate in the winter. Haven't you heard of this where you are from?"

"No, we certainly haven't," replied Fathach.

"Okay, there mustn't have been many people involved in the experiments then," said the man, more to himself than to the crew, before continuing, "well, just like the animals hibernate, I can hibernate, except I hibernate better than some animals."

Noting the completely blank faces of the crew, the man explained further.

"Have you ever heard of woolly bears and water bears?"

"I've heard of woolly bears," said Glic, as the crew looked at him, "the caterpillars?"

"That's right," said the man. "My grandfather was involved in a lot of research with them before the Great Floods. The research was mainly centred on trying to find a way to extract the genetic code that allowed them to freeze in the winter and come back to life in the summer."

The crew's faces were now a mixture of blankness and confusion.

"What has that got to do with anything?" asked Fathach.

"My grandfather and his team managed to extract the genetic code and they successfully developed it for use with mice," said the man, pausing to allow the crew to digest this information. "When flooding and disease began to take hold in the area my grandfather lived in, they made a decision to try to create humans with the same capabilities as the caterpillars with the DNA they had extracted. Some of the wives of the scientists must have volunteered to have their fertilised eggs genetically altered. I suppose they thought they were giving their children a better chance that they would have otherwise had. I don't think there was any desire to have superhuman children. I think it was just the will to survive that made them try genetic modification in humans."

"So, you're saying..." said Crow, as the wheels of understanding slowly began to turn in his mind.

"I'm saying that my grandfather and his team altered the genetic code of their descendants."

"What exactly are you saying?" said Haiyugen, who had no idea what genetic code was.

"I can hibernate," said the man.

"What?! You can freeze your body and just wake up after winter the same as you were before?"

"Well, more or less, yeah."

"What do you mean "more or less"?!" asked Crow.

"It didn't go exactly as planned..."

"What didn't? The experiment?"

"Yes... they... emm... the scientists thought that the animals controlled when they wanted to hibernate by just lying still in the snow and letting themselves freeze, but it turns out that... emm... it's the tail that wags the dog."

"What? The dog wags the tail?" asked Crow.

"No, it's a saying. What I'm trying to say is that it's the temperature that sets off the chemical process and not a conscious decision of the animal to hibernate."

"And that means what?" asked Crow.

"They thought their descendants would be able to decide when they wanted to freeze and in some ways, we can," replied the man. "They thought we would be able to wear warm clothes and take them off and lay in the snow to freeze for the winter when we want, but..."

"I'm sensing that is a pretty big but," said Gliondar, laughing.

"It is," replied the man. "Our bodies sometimes start to shut down when it gets cold, so if we are sitting out on a cold day, we might not notice our body temperature dropping. Then, our bodies start to slow and it gets more difficult to notice the cold and more difficult to do anything and before you know it, you are frozen solid in the park."

Fathach and Gliondar laughed so hard that tears rolled down their cheeks.

"It's not funny!" said the man. "You can have something important to do that day and the next time you wake up could be a week later when somebody finds you and carries you to a warm room."

With this last statement, Crow and Haiyugen could not help laughing also. Eventually, the man relaxed and laughed as well.

"I suppose it's bizarre enough if you've never heard of it before," he conceded. "How did you get on with Potrick?"

"I'm not sure if he was trying to con us or not, but he certainly was no help to us. He nearly caused us a lot of harm," replied Fathach angrily.

"He used to be the best person you could meet if you needed help with something..." the man's voice trailed off.

"And now?" asked Fathach, looking back towards Potrick.

"Now... I'm not so sure what he's like now. He seems to have changed," said the man, following Fathach's gaze towards Potrick, "changed utterly."

Potrick sat uneasily on the wall in the distance, sullenly returning their gaze.

"I don't think he's happy and I don't think he is himself," said their new acquaintance. "I think he would rather be helping people, but greed has a hold of him in the same way that beer can have a hold of a man."

"Remember that, Fathach," said Glic.

Gliondar and Crow chuckled.

"And you too, lads!" added Glic.

"It's like greed has twisted his soul in the way that beer can twist a man's face," said the man.

"I think his face has been twisted a bit too," said Neamhnai solemnly. "It looks like his eyes can't see happiness."

The men looked at Neamhnai from a new perspective, surprised at the depth of the comment from someone so small.

"Were there any other people that were changed like you?" asked Aon, deflecting attention from his sister.

Glic looked at Aon sharply, suddenly realising that there was a myriad of possibilities in the science the man was explaining to them.

"There were some others alright..." said the man. "Did you not hear about them?"

There was something slightly chilling in his voice that caused everyone in the crew to fall completely silent.

"We didn't," said Haiyugen, more fearless than the others from coping with the dangers of a wild forest regularly, "tell us about them."

The man looked at the crew for a while.

"I think you need to sit down," he said quietly.
YOU HAVE FINISHED THE FIRST BOOK IN THE SERIES.

CONGRATULATIONS!

PLEASE GO TO LEVEL 2.

LEVEL 2 IS CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION, SO YOU MAY HAVE TO AMUSE YOURSELF IN THE MEANTIME!

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE INCLUDED IN A MAILING LIST FOR THE RELEASE DATE OF THE NEXT BOOK IN THE SERIES, PLEASE GO TO: www.thereisoneofeverythingintheworld.com

