Kensuke's kingdom 1c

We sat there completely dumbstruck. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” he went on. “You’re thinking, all we’ve ever done is reservoir sailing, dinghy sailing. You’re thinking, he’s gone crazy, loopy in the head. You’re thinking, it’s dangerous. You’re thinking, we’ll be flat broke. But I’ve thought it all out. I even thought of your gran – there’s a thing. We won’t be gone for ever, will we? She’ll be here when we get back, won’t she? She’s perfectly healthy.

“We’ve got the money. I’ve done my sums. We’re going to do six months’ training. We’ll be away a year, eighteen months maybe, just so long as the money lasts. We’re going to do it safe, do it properly. Mum, you’ll do your Yachtmaster’s certificate. Oh, didn’t I say? I didn’t did I? You’ll be the skipper, Mum. I’ll be first mate and handyman. Michael, you’ll be ship’s boy, and Stella – well Stella can be the ship’s cat.”“What about Michael’s school?” she went on.

“I’ve thought of that, too. I asked in the local school down here. It’s all arranged. We’ll take all the books he’ll need. I’ll teach him. You’ll teach him. He’ll teach himself. I’ll tell you something for nothing, he’ll learn more in a couple of years at sea, than he ever would in that monkey school of his. Promise.”

She took a sip of tea, and then nodded slowly. “All right,” she said, and I saw she was smiling. “Why not? Go ahead then. Buy her. Buy the boat.”

“I already have,” said my father.Everyone warned us against it. Gran came visiting and stayed on board. It was all quite ridiculous she said, reckless, irresponsible. She was full of doom and gloom. Icebergs, hurricanes, pirates, whales, supertankers, freak waves – she heaped up horror upon horror, thinking to frighten me and so frighten off my mother and father. She succeeded in terrifying me all right, but I never showed it. What she didn’t understand was that we three were already bound together now by a common lunacy. We were going, and nothing and no one could stop us. We were doing what people do in fairytales. We were going off to seek adventure.My mother, though, never showed even the faintest tremor of fear. It was her and the Peggy Sue between them that saw us through our worst moments. She was seasick from time to time, and we never were. So that was something.

We lived close, all of us, cheek by jowl, and I soon discovered parents were more than just parents. My father became my friend, my shipmate. We came to rely on each other. And as for my mother, the truth is – and I admit it – that I didn’t know she had it in her. I always known she was gritty, that she’d always keep on at a thing until she’d done it. But she worked night and day over her books and charts until she had mastered everything. She never stopped. True, she could be a bit of a tyrant if we didn’t keep the boat shipshape, but neither my father nor I minded that much, though we pretended to. She was the skipper.