Amanderella Gottsnobbler and the Bangolin Tree Chapter 11

Chapter 11.

 

All at Sea.

 

The harbour was brighter than when she had left it, as though the sun had decided to take an interest in her plans. Amanderella walked along the quay with her case in one hand and her mother’s letter tucked safely in her pocket, the words avoid suspiciousness altogether still echoing faintly in her mind.

The Good Intentions waited exactly where she had left it, looking no more confident about the upcoming voyage than before. A rope creaked. A gull laughed. Something below deck made a noise that suggested either optimism or steam escaping.

Captain Nicoteenus Brimblewick appeared at the rail, coat flapping in a breeze that had not existed a moment earlier.

“You came back,” he said, sounding faintly surprised. “Good. The tide’s in a cooperative mood, and I’ve only misplaced two essential items.”

Amanderella set her case on the gangplank. “I am ready.”

Brimblewick nodded solemnly. “Then aboard you come. Once we cast off, we are at the mercy of wind, wave, and whatever else takes an interest.”

Amanderella stepped onto the deck with steady confidence.

“I shall take notes,” she said.

“Excellent,” Brimblewick replied. “Someone should.”

She picked up her luggage. Brimblewick led her below deck with the purposeful stride of a man who knew every inch of his vessel and trusted only half of it.

“The passenger cabin’s this way,” he said, ducking under a beam that had clearly been installed by someone with a grudge against tall people.

Amanderella followed, her case bumping lightly against the narrow walls. The air smelled of salt, rope, and something faintly singed.

Brimblewick pushed open a door.

“This is it. Mind the step. And the shelf. And the ceiling. And anything that looks like it might move.”

The cabin was small but tidy in a haphazard, Brimblewickian fashion. A narrow bunk ran along one wall, neatly made but at a slight angle, as though the boat had changed its mind halfway through construction. A round porthole let in a slice of bright sea‑light. A small table was bolted to the floor with more enthusiasm than precision.

Amanderella set her case down and took stock.

“It will do very well,” she said.

Brimblewick looked relieved. “Good. Some passengers complain it’s cramped, but I tell them it’s character‑building. They rarely agree.”

Amanderella opened her notebook.

“Cabin adequate. Slight list to starboard. Atmosphere: optimistic.”

Brimblewick peered over her shoulder. “You take notes. Excellent. If anything, unusual happens write it down. Helps with the insurance.”

He straightened, nearly hitting his head on the low beam.

“We cast off properly in a few minutes. If you need anything, shout. Preferably not the word ‘fire’. The crew gets jumpy.”

He left her to settle in, the door clicking shut behind him.

Amanderella sat on the bunk, feeling the first gentle sway of the sea beneath her. The harbour was already slipping away. The adventure, whatever shape it chose to take, had begun.

 

The gangplank was drawn in, the ropes untied, and the Good Intentions eased away from the quay with the cautious enthusiasm of a boat that had learned not to trust its own name.

Amanderella watched the harbour slip behind them, the town growing smaller, the sea widening ahead.

Once the Good Intentions was out of sight of land  and Amanderella had unpacked her things, she went up on deck to take her first proper look at the sea.

Amanderella approved of the sea in general, but she preferred it when it did not appear to have a mind of its own.

She wrote in her notebook, The sea is behaving as it should.

Captain Nicoteenus Brimblewick emerged from the wheelhouse holding a compass at arm’s length, as though it could bite him.

“It’s doing it again,” he announced.

Amanderella looked up from her notebook. “Pointing north?”

“I wish,” Brimblewick said darkly. “It’s pointing up.”

Amanderella inspected it. The needle was indeed indicating the sky with great determination.

“Perhaps,” she suggested, “it is enthusiastic.”

Brimblewick considered this. “Enthusiasm is all very well, but it’s no way to navigate.”

He tucked the compass into his pocket with the air of a man who intended to have stern words with it later.

Amanderella made a note:

“Compass unreliable. Captain unconcerned.”

          She took out her own trusty compass and checked that it was pointing north as it should. It was.

          She had barely put the compass away when something small, striped, and determined shot past her ankles.

A cat.

It paused halfway across the deck, glanced back at her with the cool appraisal of a creature who had seen many passengers come and go, and then continued its purposeful trot toward the bow.

Amanderella watched it leap onto a coil of rope, then onto a barrel, then onto the wheelhouse roof with the fluid confidence of someone who believed the entire ship existed for its personal convenience.

Captain Nicoteenus Brimblewick looked up from the wheel.

“Ah. You’ve met the cat.”

Amanderella considered this. “Does it have a name?”

Brimblewick sighed the sigh of a man who had answered this question too many times.

“Well,” he said, “that depends on who you ask.”

He pointed to the youngest crewman, who was coiling rope with the earnestness of someone hoping the rope wouldn’t coil back.

“He calls it Grog‑Nose. Claims the cat once fell into a barrel and came out smelling like a sailor on shore leave.”

The cat blinked slowly, as though neither confirming nor denying the allegation.

Brimblewick gestured toward another crewman, currently attempting to fix something that did not wish to be fixed.

“He insists the cat’s name is Tar‑Bucket, on account of the time it knocked over a pot of pitch and walked through it. Left little black pawprints all over the deck. Very artistic.”

The cat licked one paw with deliberate innocence.

“And the bosun,” Brimblewick continued, “calls it Splicer, because he says it looks like it was put together from bits of old rope.

Amanderella considered the cat, who was now watching a gull with the calm menace of a creature who had opinions about birds.

“Does the cat answer to any of these names?” she asked.

“Not once,” Brimblewick said. “But it answers to silence, disapproval, and the sound of a tin being opened.”

Amanderella wrote in her notebook:

“Ship’s cat: Grog Nose, Tar Bucket, Splicer. Identity fluid. Authority absolute.