Free Privateer's Apprentice by Susan Verrico Page A

flaxen color of your hair screams out that you are the Queen’s subject.”
    â€œAnd I think I have nothing to fear.” I roll the barrel toward the hatch. “Your head is so ugly the enemy will surely die of fright when they look at you.”
    â€œYou’d best ask Cook if he can find some squid ink to blacken your hair,” Ferdie calls after me. “Ain’t that right, Gunther?”
    Gunther leans against the largest of four cannons that sit on a raised platform near the bow of the ship. His job is tomaintain the ship’s weapons. Barely a day passes that I do not see him polishing the ship’s cannons or laying the muskets out on deck for inspection. He has spent the last two days melting silver blocks and pouring the steaming metal into a mold for making musket balls. Since my first day on board, Gunther has ignored me, other than to order me out of the way. Now, he glares at me and scratches his belly. His white breeches appear too small for his girth; the material strains from waist to ankle. His belt has been replaced with a piece of frayed rope. “Have you brought the devil’s luck upon us, brat?” he says. “’Tis a bad sign to have spotted gulls out this far.”
    â€œIf the devil’s luck is upon us, it is no doing of mine.”
    â€œâ€™Twould be no one else’s,” Gunther replies. “Mayhap be best if you left this ship.”
    â€œWe are weeks from port,” I say, “so that is not likely.”
    Gunther looks at Ferdie, and they both laugh. “Cain’t you swim?” Gunther asks.
    I lift my chin. Gunther’s meaning is clear. “I have no fear of you,” I say. “The Captain will see to my safety.”
    â€œâ€™Twould be a pity if you have an accident,” Gunther says, pressing his lips into a thin smile. “An experienced sailor such as yourself would be a real loss.”
    My heart pounds. I know if I try to speak, my voice will betray me, and so I let him have the last word. The sound of the hatch banging shut is my only reply.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    T hough my bones ache from the day’s work, I remember my vow to clean the storage room floor. It takes several trips to fill my bucket and I’m grateful that the deck is full and Gunther and Ferdie do not look my way.
    When the floor is clean and the animals bedded for the night, I unroll my pallet and pull it near the porthole so that the moon’s light is just above my head. I close my eyes and try to sleep, for tomorrow will bring chores from sunup to sundown. Gunther’s threats fill my head, and no matter which way I turn, sleep will not come.
    My father would tell me to make note of what Gunther and Ferdie said, to pull their words from my thoughts and put them onto parchment; perhaps then I might sleep in peace. But I have no desire to record hateful words from those who would harm me. Instead, I imagine that I am penning a letter to my parents. I raise my hand into the darkness and bend my fingers just so, as if a quill were between them. Then I let my hand swoop above my pallet as I form the words that fill my heart. Closing my eyes, I envision my letters sprinkled amongst the stars, splatters of silver ink against a black sky. I write of my new life aboard this sailing vessel, a two-masted brigantine named
Destiny
, placed under the Captain’s command by King William, God rest his soul. In my letter, I share only the goodthings that have happened since leaving Charles Towne, how I learned to coil ropes, row, and net fish. I tell them about Solitaire Peep’s firepots, but I leave out the part about him losing his eye from one, for I don’t want them to worry about me. I write about how I take good care of the animals, and how they sometimes curl up near me when I sleep. I imagine the surprise on my mother’s face when I explain to her that one can make a sewing needle from the snout of a fish. When my eyes grow