Maud & Addie by Maureen Buchanan Jones

Author:Maureen Buchanan Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

You Can’t Do Things Like That

It was not the Spanish galleon of her fantasies, but for Maud, the fishing boat held more promise and excitement than a vessel filled with gold doubloons. There was nothing on the deck but shreds of old rope and the broken stump of the mast. The boards of the deck held her, so she inched across, knelt, and looked down into the hold. Light flickered from cracks between the boards, now that wind and salt had eaten the caulking.

Maud saw the boat’s bottom and the loose grid of a rotting net. She put a foot on a ladder rung to test its strength. Holding the edge of the square opening, she reached for the next rung. It held. She looked down, then up out of the hole. The distance from top to bottom was about twice her height.

With her mouth set straight, she stepped down one more rung, one more, one…but there wasn’t one more. Her foot dangled to find a perch, but the rung was gone. Maud stretched her full length, groping until her right foot found the next rung. She loosened her grip and put her weight on the rung. It snapped and gave way. As her body slid, she grabbed for the ladder, but her balance was gone and she crashed, landing in the belly of the boat. The light from above was like a weak spotlight, showing a net, tangled and frayed. Shapes extended into the dark as her eyes adjusted.

Maud peered around, then groped along the sides of the boat, touching stacked lobster traps, crates, and coiled rope. A rusted metal bin sat to one side where fish were dumped when the net was dragged in. The dark made her more nervous than she wanted to admit. She stumbled. A pole lay across her path. A gaff hook. “Good work!” she said and held onto it. Continuing around the hold, she looked back to the small square of light. It looked very far away. A tern crossed the opening. She jumped for the bottom rung, but it might as well have been the tern she was trying to reach. A coil of fear wound in her stomach.

Maud lifted the empty crates to the hatchway and arranged them in a pyramid. Holding the gaff hook as a staff, she steadied herself. The boxes creaked and cracked as she put her weight on them. At this height, she could just reach the bottom rung of the ladder, but it meant letting go of the hook. The hook was a great tool and the boxes were perfect firewood, but she couldn’t manage all of it alone.

Sweat dotted her face and arms. She hung the hook on the highest rung she could reach. It stayed. She stood on tiptoe, balancing as the boxes swayed. She jumped. Her right hand caught the rung, but her left hand scrambled at air. She let her body sway, her left arm reached, and this time she gripped the rung with both hands.

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