Thanks to Cazarupt for his ship Merlin and a very, very specials ‘thanks’ to Fredbrenny for having created her ship that I called ‘Frederique I’. Thank you very much for creating it for my story (((Fred))).

*****

Jane and Valdemar Hunter had arrived at the last train station and needed to continue by ship. Jane left the train and walked to the ship to buy their tickets while Val still was with Daisy but he would come afterwards. The ship wouldn’t be leaving until 5.00 p.m.

It was a big and luxury ship. That couldn’t be otherwise because it was from the Cazarupt Shipping Line. Jane was thinking that they had to find a job because all this travelling had reduced their finances.

She saw other people boarding the ship as well and the captain looked… well…. very special. He was not much of a talker, at least not during the first hours.

Jane went to her cabin. It was very big and Valdemar surely would like it. She began to feel nervous thinking that her brother still hadn’t arrived and she considered taking a taxi to the train and drag him to the ship. But it wasn’t necessary because he was coming on board already.

He had a dreamy look on his face and didn’t say very much. Later that day he discovered the radio on one of the decks and he started dancing alone. That’s what everybody thought but in his imagination he was dancing with Daisy. He couldn’t stop thinking of her.

The ship had already set off and it didn’t take long before they only could see water. During dinner they had made acquaintance with the Ford Family. They had two children: a girl of about 8 years old and a boy of about 14 or 15. The girl looked very unhappy and the boy didn’t bother about anything but playing with the computer. Their parents had only eyes for each other and spent practically all of the time in their cabin, leaving the children alone.

When Val saw that there was only water all around he started feeling sick. Several times he had to run to the toilet to throw up. Then he found out that the best place to be was in bed, so he spent the next day sleeping.

Jane had a very good stomach and she sat on one of the decks to enjoy the sun. The captain saw her and approached her. “Miss Jane, be careful with the sun, you could get burnt” and he took place on a deckchair. They talked a while and then she remarked: “It’s strange but I lose my orientation capacity; I could swear that we’re heading back from where we came”.

The captain was surprised. “Well…, I must say that you are very clever and there’s nothing wrong with your orientation. You don’t see that very often”.
“So we are going back?!” she exclaimed. “But why?”

“Because there’s a technical problem and I don’t want to take any risks. So we’ll go back, not exactly to the same place where we came from, but not very far away. I’ve already ordered to prepare one of my older boats which is not as big and luxury as this one but I do hope that it will be no problem for you”.
“Have you told the Fords about this?”

“No, not yet…. I don’t want to make them upset by knocking on their cabin’s door, they seem to be… playing all of the time” and he glanced at Jane with a humorous look in his eyes. Jane didn’t know whether she should laugh or not and she started to blush. She was very much aware of the captain’s presence and she wondered how old he would be. It was very difficult to know. He had many wrinkles around his eyes but that could be due to his job; always in the open air and she saw that he never wore sunglasses. She felt attracted to him but “it’s most probably the uniform” she thought.

The captain stood up and said: “Look, there are many seagulls; within an hour or so we will see land, so I’m going to tell the other passengers that they should prepare their luggage; I think you better wake up your brother and prepare your belongings” and with a polite greeting by touching his cap, he went to announce the news through the speakers.

Mister Ford was angry and due to that, his wife got nervous and looked impatiently if the new boat would come. The captain tranquilized her and said that they wouldn’t have to wait a long time.

There it was: an older boat from the “Brenny Lines”. When Mister Ford started to complain about the looks of the boat, the captain told him that, in spite of being older, it wouldn’t have the same technical problems as the other one. Besides, he stated that he liked this one better because he found it more reliable.

They all went on board. Mr Ford was so angry that his daughter had to pay for his bad humour. He shouted at her and the girl began to cry.

Mrs. Ford, who usually only paid attention to her husband’s likes and figured herself away, showed for once her mother’s instinct and shouted at her husband to leave the girl alone.

When the captain heard all this shouting, he quickly came down from his office and said: “Mr. Ford, I can see that you’re not very happy with all this; neither am I but I really don’t accept violence on board. I’ll give you all of your money back and invite you to leave the ship”.

Ford knew that he had done wrong but didn’t want to admit it. He ordered his wife “Prepare everything; I don’t want to stay one minute longer on this…. this…. rubbish!” His wife quickly went for the luggage again and they left the ship, leaving Val and Jane as the only passengers.

The captain made some arrangements to make the cabins more comfortable for the passengers and in the evening they set off to New Simland.

That same evening Val had to throw up and he started to think that it would have been better to travel by plane. He just went to bed and tried to stay there. Although he was hungry, he didn’t want to eat fearing that he would throw up again.

The captain, Jeremy invited Jane for a drink and he told her, that he didn’t expect to use this ship again for passengers. He is modernizing it little by little and made his excuses that the bathroom doors still were the old ones.

Jane said that she didn’t mind and she accepted it when he invited her to dance. She asked him why he had changed into his official uniform. He smiled and answered: “Well… I just wanted to give this dear, old boat of mine a bit more of importance”. That was the beginning of their conversations.

Later Jane told him about the tragedy that had struck her family and how she found out that her real mother lives somewhere in New Simland and that they had spent practically all of their money in the journey. Once in New Simsland, they would have to find a job to start gathering money for their journey back.

Jeremy was very sorry for them and told her a bit of his life as well. How he had worked hard to be able to buy the ship Sims’ Delight but now he would have to spend lots of money for the reparation and he asked himself if it would be worthwhile. Perhaps he could better sell that big expensive ship. Fortunately he had this one that could be used to live on.

During the next days Jane noticed that Jeremy was very pleasant company and he taught her many things about navigation. He had a very good sense of humour as well.

When he said that they would arrive soon at New Simland, she asked him if he would return right away but he said that he was planning to stay a few months there. He knew the town, Sunset Valley; he had been there before.

He said: “Look Jane, we are approaching and I’m quite sure that we will see land tomorrow; look how beautiful this is.”
Both looked at this view and felt a special bond had formed between the two of them. They had shared their life stories and some jokes as well. They had become very good friends.

To be continued….