Free Some Fine Day by Kat Ross

nod. “Fine. But do it soon. I want to get this farce over with. Oi! Bob!”
    A huge figure lumbers into view from behind one of the masts. My heart sinks. It’s the giant from the beach.
    “Fancy a sparring match?” Banerjee asks.
    He looks at me and rubs his head thoughtfully. “With her?”
    I’m hoping he’ll find it beneath his dignity to fight a wee girl, but Bob doesn’t seem to care much either way. He’s like a wrecking ball, happy to demolish whatever’s placed in his path.
    “Yeah, OK,” he rumbles.
    “Excellent.” Banerjee turns to me, black eyes glittering. “I’m sure you’re anxious to dazzle us all with your strength and agility, but for now there’s work to be done.” She strides to the wheelhouse. “Set a port tack! We make land tomorrow.”
    And with that, it’s over. The crowd starts to disperse, everyone returning to their duties. Everyone except for Will, whose unreadable gaze follows me as I’m taken back below.

Chapter Eight
    The problem then became one of simple mathematics. How many lives can a closed system support?

    The next morning, I can tell something has changed. There’s a lot of activity on deck, feet pounding up and down. I look out the porthole and see flocks of birds, some small and brown, others hot pink with comically long legs. We’re running about a mile offshore of the biggest island I’ve seen yet. It pokes out of the sea like the top of a jungle-covered mountain.
    Maybe that’s what it was, once.
    A deep lagoon appears ahead and the ship turns toward it, muscling up a huge white-capped swell and rocketing down the back side. Then we’re in calmer waters, so clear I can see the sandy bottom far beneath. Faint shouts from above, they must be dropping the sails, and we coast for so long that I think we might run aground. The light dims and the water splashing against the sides of the ship takes on a strange echoing sound.  Rough rock walls glide past. We’re inside a cavern. Which makes perfect sense if you think about it.
    Because the last major problem is how to elude the satellites.
    They leave me waiting for a good hour, which feels like an eternity when your imagination keeps conjuring up scenarios of what’s about to happen, each worse than the last. What was I thinking? I’m in no condition to fight anybody, let alone Bob. I should be in a hospital bed.
    Finally, Will comes. I’m glad it’s him and not one of the others. He takes me to the same cabin as before and gives me a bowl of tasteless grey porridge, but also something unexpected: a hard-boiled egg.
    “Go on, you need your strength,” he says.
    His kindness is almost tougher to take than if he were openly antagonistic. I pick up the egg and peel off the speckled brown shell. My stomach is tied into knots, but I eat it because he’s right.
    “This was yours, wasn’t it?” I guess.
    “I’m not hungry,” he says with a smile that’s supposed to be reassuring but just looks funereal.
    “Thank you,” I say. “And don’t worry about me, I can take of myself.”
    He doesn’t say anything, but his expression conveys serious doubts about the truth of this claim. Doubts I share, but don’t care to admit.
    Will watches me bite into the egg and I am acutely conscious of my dirty legs and greasy fingers. I try not to eat so fast this time, but there’s not much food anyway and it’s gone in a minute or two.
    “I hear you knocked him out before,” he says, as we walk single-file down the passageway and ascend the stairs to the deck. “During the fight.”
    “The truth? I hit him from behind with a club,” I say. “Twice. And that only worked for about a minute.”
    He stops and turns to me. “What’s your name? Your first name, I mean.”
    This catches me off guard. “Jansin,” I say.
    “You don’t have to do this, Jansin,” he says, and my name sounds strange in that clipped, flat accent, like it belongs to someone else, although it also sounds like maybe that’s how