Chapter 30. Close to Home

As much as Will enjoyed being the captain of the Rose, sailing off on adventures. Working with the towns, taking crews off to mine for coal and ore, he also enjoyed simpler things. Standing over the galley sink cleaning the two fat fish, carefully filleting the long floaters into bone free thick pieces to fry up for dinner. A nice easy task, if you know what you’re doing. The guts went into their compost to be dumped after dinner along with any leftovers. As he thought that he had to laugh, those were not really a thing here, leftovers that is. Naomi was very skilled at preparing their meals, and it was always just enough. Second helpings for all most of the time, third helpings in some cases. They all had very healthy appetites. “Hey fish is ready.”, he called out. “About time.”, Minnie hollered back. He heard Naomi laugh, “We’ve got the chips cut and ready to go, could you load some more wood in the stove please?”. As he was doing this Naomi bustled in with a large bowl of thick cut chips to start frying. Minnie had a cutting board full of peelings and dumped them into the bin as well. Sometimes he marvelled at how little garbage they produced. Everything was organic in nature, no plastics of any kind which was wonderful.

Dinner was started and fifteen minutes later they sat down to eat. Will was trying to compare the floater they were eating to fish from his original world. Definitely not salmon, kind of a cross between halibut and cod. Very tasty and that’s what counted for him. Minnie too by the way her fish was disappearing along with the extra large portion of deep fried goodies. Thinking of deep frying and Christmas dredged up a memory, of a treat they used to have only at this time of year. “Hey Minnie, what’s the name of that dessert snack at Christmas parties, the one we used to have?”, he didn’t really expect her to know but sometimes she jogged his memory. “Arglebargle.”, was the answer, spoken through a heroic bite of fish. “Nope, that’s not it, it was some kind of dough, sweet, with apples or raisins, then cooked in oil.”, he said. Doodling in his book trying to remember, he wrote a description of it but still drew a blank on the name. “Have we had it here, onboard?”, she asked, mouth empty now. “No, but you never know what you know until you know that you know it.”, he replied absently, slicing off his next bite. Minnie just shook her head, “Righto.”.

Will was doing the dishes, storing the oil for next time, generally cleaning the kitchen when it struck him, the name, Oliebollen. “Aha.”, he yelled, Hearing Minnie jump down from her chair, footsteps running in, “What’s up? Burn yourself, broke a dish, saw a bug?”. He shook his head “None of those but I did remember that holiday dessert I told you about, you’ll love it. We’ll only have it at Christmas though.”. “Why’s that?”, Minnie asked. Will thought for a bit, why indeed. “Just cause, moms family only had it once a year so we did too.”. As they talked Will asked Minnie to write this down in his notebook, but not to snoop around there were secrets in there. “Ooh secrets, pressies for me hmmm, okay how do you spell this stuff.”, she asked. “Oliebollen, just spell it like it sounds, we’ll know what you mean.”, Will said, then stifled a yawn. Minnie gasped in horror, “Oh no, you started it this time,”, a huge yawn escaped a second later. Yawning back and forth for a a few minutes was entertaining but there were a few things to do before bed.

Will went up top, dumped the slops and checked that all was secure. Still crummy weather but not the bone numbing cold of the past weeks. The tiny harbour they were in was still protecting them and the boat and crew would be safe overnight. He headed back down. As he did he realized that he had just thrown a jacket on, a long one to be sure, but still just that. “Hooray.”, he muttered. Most of the lanterns were out, just a bit of light coming from his and Minnie’s cabin. She was waiting on their large bed , her quilts and blankets piled neatly on her side. “I dunno why I’m so tired, didn’t do much today, maybe that’s why.”, he said, closing the door and sitting on the side of the bed. “We should stay here a couple of days, me and Naomi think so, in this safe lil harbour, just have a couple of days rest, do not much, you’ve been so busy and you look tired, you never look tired and we’re worried.”, she blurted out. Looking at her sad little face, there wasn’t anything to do but agree. “Sounds good to me sweetie, let’s eat meatloaf for dinner and play cards and drink tea all day til we’re recharged.”. She cheered up immediately, hugged him and scampered to the head. He changed into night clothes and waited for his turn. Minnie had always been quick to finish up and she was out in a few minutes, hair brushed and teeth sparkling. A few minutes and they both settled into the bed, heads nearly together. “Night dad.”, she did, he mumbled in return as sleep carried him away. She dimmed the lantern and he was gone.

To the far north, in the new burrows, the busy day was winding down. Villagers sitting around fires, talking and visiting. The little ones were all asleep, bundled in furs on pine bough mattress’s. Cutting new caves was hard work but the new iron tools ate through the rock easily. The hard part was lugging buckets of rock out, but their town walls were growing higher and safer each day. As Katya poured a last cup of herb tea before bed there was a rumbling through the walls of their home. “Another earth shake! Therd wake up, get the little ones outside!”, she called out. Her husband went from dead asleep to wide awake and moving in seconds, no time to waste. The burrows were built by experienced cavers, leaving supports everywhere. Ceilings were thick with no cracks, these people knew how to dig. In the previous earthshakes no caves had collapsed, but she still worried, so outside they all went to wait things out. Which didn’t take long thank goodness as it was cold and snow was falling. “It’s clear now Katya, no more shakes, let’s go back down”, Therd said after a few minutes. She agreed and they went back down the spirals and were home. Laying Uma and Oona back down on the soft pallets, they dropped back to sleep easily enough, but before she did Uma asked “will the shakes hurt Minnie and Naomi and the captain?”. Therd laughed and comforted his little girl, “Nah little one, an earthshake in the water can’t hurt anyone.”.

The crew was quite used to the ship moving in the night, they didn’t really notice it anymore. Being anchored safely in this harbour the Rose was bobbing gently at her anchor chains, the lake was calm tonight. Still snowing but hardly any wind to start drifts, just a steady accumulation of abound an inch per hour. It would be something for the crew to do tomorrow, a snowball war, building snowmen or just shovelling over side. Inside mostly everyone was asleep, Will snoring, Naomi slumbering with a book on her face, safety candle guttered out finally but Minnie was awake and fighting with her quilts. The plan to stay here for a couple of days had taken a load off of Minnie’s mind, the old guy was looking drawn out and beat up. The last weeks had been busy for all of them but hardest on dad, he was responsible for everyone and everything. She just wished they had some fresh beef, he loved ribs and steaks so much. Making a note to check out the island tomorrow, it was pretty small but there might be game of some kind, birds maybe. “Yum, chicken.”, she murmured. Thinking of chicken wings, deep fried battered chicken, roast chicken she too slipped off to dreamland.

The site of the first earthshake, the big one that had started this leg of the crew’s adventure was quiet now. A crack in the earth now reached from lakeside to hundreds of miles inland, all the way to the far mountains. Deep and wide, nearly impossible to cross and now that it was filling with water it was even worse. The bottom was at least one hundred feet down, easily half a mile across even at the narrowest point, the coast had changed forever. The first to swim through and investigate was a herd of harbour seals. Fish were plentiful in this new inlet and as they travelled on more sea life appeared and joined them. Whales mostly, too cold for dolphins here, no octopus or sharps either. A young sea serpent had investigated for a while, her coils easily a hundred feet long. Fearsome as she looked the only food she enjoyed was the deep squid, finding none the serpent left this inhospitable area. So it was seals and whales, travelling the long miles to the end of the channel, high rock walls rising thirty feet above the water. At this far end the channel had cut through a mighty forest, two and three hundred foot trees had been felled by the earthshaking. The king of this forest was the tree that Naomi had sighted a few weeks ago. It stood fifty yards from the end of the channel, undisturbed by all the kerfuffle that had taken place over the last few months. This tree had roots deep and strong, more than enough to keep it secure through almost anything, the only thing it couldn’t survive would be an axe.

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The crew had slept long and deep, slumber filled with dreams that none of them could remember after waking. But it was a much refreshed Will that opened his eyes this morning, there was nothing wearing at him, no arduous task just waiting to be remembered. The usual, checking anchors, filling the boiler, easy stuff. He had a list, surprisingly long, that he scheduled daily. Today and for the next couple of days it was the bare minimum. After months and months of voyaging and adventures it was time to sit and smell the roses. Low on supplies or not. Will kind of regretted giving away so much of their emergency rations, but only a little bit. The people had needed it badly and the crew had access to the entire lake for gathering. There was still one barrel left too, oatmeal and salt pork and beef. Canned fruit and vegetables, jam, flour and bread makings. Biscuits and tea as well. In fact, he decided, they were going to open up the last one today to supplement what they had. A few days wasn’t going to make a difference.

Things were clearing, going from sleep to awake usually took a couple of minutes. Stretching and deciding to get up, noting that Minnie was up and out already was a little concerning. But he could smell something cooking, and coffee, so that was just fine. Yawning took a minute then up to the head and getting dressed, leisure today, no work clothes. When he went on deck it was easy enough to put his coveralls on. So flip flops and shorts, light shirt it was. Opening the cabin door he was greeted with laughter and music coming from the open door of the mess. Naomi’s violin and Minnie’s tin whistle then bouts of giggling. Ah, family he thought.

He crept down the corridor, avoiding the creaky board, then sprang into the mess hall with a yell. “Good morning!”. Naomi almost dropped her violin and Minnie overbalanced with a squeak, almost tipping out of her chair. Will steadied her, grasping her small shoulder until she found her footing. “Oh hey dad, have a good sleep? We made oatmeal and ham, yucky raisins too for your oatmeal, and tea, always tea. Naomi likes coffee best and said your dumb for liking tea.”, Minnie said happily. Naomi clapped her hand over Minnie’s mouth “I did not say he was dumb, you’re just making that up now, I said I like both, you said I was dumb cause they’re both yucky.”, she pulled her now wet hand away. “Well it was something like that, but you’re okay now, not tired right?”, Minnie asked anxiously. He sat and poured a cuppa from the waiting pot, took a sip and answered, “I had a great night, I feel good but let’s take it easy still. Been pushing hard the last little while.”. The tea was really good, and so was the oatmeal. Nice and thick with just a tiny bit of honey added, just the way he liked it. Minnie had a small portion, but mostly she tried forming it into a castle. Her breakfast was mostly fried ham. “Why would someone want to live in a castle, seems a lot of work to me.”, Naomi said, eating her own porridge. “You gotta have a castle if your a bad guy, just the way it is.”, Minnie told her. As his girls chatted and argued, laughed and ate together Will was writing in his notebook.

He was trying to figure out just when they should celebrate Christmas, and that depended on what day today actually was. It was definitely November, in the old world calendar, but the date was murky. Second week, third week, near the end? He guessed a date could just arbitrarily be picked and go from there. There was thirty days in November and thirty one in December, then same with January…how did that old rhyme go again?

Thirty days hath September,

April, June, and November;

All the rest have thirty-one,

Excepting February alone,

And that has twenty-eight days clear

And twenty-nine in each leap year.

Right, it’ll be hard to keep track of leap years so that might just be ignored until it really matters. Kinda like daylight saving time, he thought, no one but scientists really cared about it. “Hey guys, I’ve been working out the date, months and so on. But we need to pick a day and date and go on from there.”. Minnie perked up, her oatmeal long cold and congealed. Naomi had made her some toast which she like better, especially with strawberry jam. “Just choose a date, I got some napping to do.”, she said. “Hey Naomi.”: Will called. She stuck her head out of the galley, “Just making toast, you want some too dad?”, she asked. “Ooh, yes please sweety, Minnie ate all the ham. He got a crust thrown at him, “Did not.”. When Naomi brought a stack of fresh toast in a few minutes later, he asked her what her thoughts were on the date. Shrugging it didn’t seem she cared too much either. “Like Minnie said, just choose a date for us to start with. We’ll draw up a few…what did you call them again?”. “Calendars.”, he responded. “Yeah those, we’ll draw up a few today and post them around so we get used to it, but what day are you going to start with?”.

Now that was what he had been wrestling with. “There is a special day, in late November. I could never forget that one and it’s pretty close to this time. It was always a cold and snowy day.”, he said with a smile. “Well, what is it then, start us off dad.”, Minnie said. She had her notebook open, ready to write down the first day. “Today is Friday November 22, the reason I’ll always remember is because it’s our wedding anniversary. Today should have been, well still is, our sixtieth year together.”, he said with a smile. Minnie diligently wrote this down. “So it goes how again, what comes after Friday, and I know Christmas is on December 25, but what’s after that again?”, she asked. Will lead her through the whole thing, January to December, with a poem from his school days.

January brings the snow,

Makes our feet and fingers glow.

February brings the rain,

Thaws the frozen lake again.

March brings breezes, loud and shrill,

To stir the dancing daffodil.

April brings the primrose sweet,

Scatters daisies at our feet.

May brings flocks of pretty lambs,

Skipping by their fleecy dams.

June brings tulips, lilies, roses,

Fills the children's hands with posies.

Hot July brings cooling showers,

Apricots, and gillyflowers.

August brings the sheaves of corn,

Then the harvest home is borne.

Warm September brings the fruit;

Sportsmen then begin to shoot.

Fresh October brings the pheasant;

Then to gather nuts is pleasant.

Dull November brings the blast;

Then the leaves are whirling fast.

Chill December brings the sleet,

Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.

“Thats a nice poem dad, you had to memorize that for school?”, Minnie said, she had him repeat it a couple of times while she wrote it down. “Yeah we had to do stuff like that, junior high. The English teacher was Mr Tobb. Nice guy but a real bear for memorizing stuff.”, Will laughed. “So tomorrow is Saturday, then Sunday right?”, Naomi asked, looking up from her own workbook.”. He nodded. “Is there a poem for that too?”, she continued. “Yup, but it’s a bit silly, goes like this.”, he said.

Monday's child is fair of face,

Tuesday's child is full of grace,

Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has far to go.

Friday's child is loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

And the child that is born on the Sabbath Day,

Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

“After we get a few calendars made we’ll have to remember to make a big one for on the lounge. We can mark all special dates on there, like birthdays.” Will said. Minnie looked at Naomi, who shrugged, “What’s a birthday.”.