Miya Black, Pirate Princess I: Adventure Dawns (7 page)

"So," said Penny, as they began walking up the street together, "what are you doing in town?"

Miya shrugged. "Nothing much."

"Because you looked like you were kind of on a mission."

"Just, you know, a princess walking amongst her people," said Miya, readjusting the bags she was carrying.

"Pffffft."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, thanks again for the charm, it's really cute," said Miya. "I didn't get to thank you properly yesterday but I really love it."

"I noticed you had it on your little wrist bangle thing before, I'm really happy you like it. I've got about a dozen wonky ones at home, getting that shape right is surprisingly difficult. I should've gone with just like a clover shape or something."

"But the horseshoe is so you, y'know?" said Miya. Penny stopped walking.

"I guess so. Well, here we are already. Seems barely worth getting your help, now that I think about it."

"Oh, you're staying with your Mum?" asked Miya, looking at the little cottage.

"Yeah ... well ... she kind of wants me close at the moment. You know."

Miya bit her lip. "Mm," she said.

"Hey, have you heard anything more about that pirate? Badger Pete?"

"No, I—"

"I heard he was heading here," said Penny.

"Well, that—"

"And that your dad was planning on sending most of our navy away to help the northern islanders—"

Miya turned and glared up at Penny.

"They're our neighbours and our friends," she said, her voice sharp. "We have a responsibility to help them out. Badger Pete's kidnapped their families, for hope's sake! He's forcing them to work for him—to fight for him, even! What are we supposed to do, just sit back and say 'Oh, that's okay, we'll just be over here not caring'?"

"But then what if Badger Pete comes here, attacks us? I think your Mum's right, we have to think about ourselves first."

"I can't believe you're even saying that, we have to help them!"

"Why?"

"B-because ... because they need it!"

"That's not very sound reasoning, Miya," said Penny. "Um, do you want to come in?"

"No, not right now. I'm kind of busy. Here." Miya thrust the bags she'd been carrying at Penny and stomped away.

"Miya—"

"See you later, okay?"

Penny watched Miya stomp off up the street and sighed, then started taking her groceries inside.

*

Miya stomped around the lower fields for a while, then she stomped up the path to her house, where she stomped around the upper fields for a while before throwing some heavy rocks off the cliff and into the ocean below. After that she felt a little better. She was just about to go find Penny to apologise (and present some new good arguments she'd thought of while calming down) when she noticed Sola, sitting on a bench beside the front door. He had on a nice new blue shirt and a pair of brown trousers, and looked very uncomfortable in them.

"Hello," Miya said, stopping beside him. He looked up at her.

"Hello Miya," he said.

"Why are you just sitting out here?"

Sola thought for a moment, then shrugged.

"Aren't you bored? Why don't you go into town or something, explore a bit?"

Sola shrugged again.

"What's the problem?" Miya asked, sitting beside him. "People around here are pretty friendly—well, usually they're better than they are now, I mean everyone's a bit on edge about, y'know, things. Oh, why don't you come with me and visit my friend Penny? She's really nice. Most of the time. Do you like horses?"

"I've never met one," said Sola.

"Penny LOVES horses, she—wait, was that a joke?"

Sola smiled a little.

"Wow, cool. Anyway, let's—wait, does that mean you do like horses or you don't like them?"

"I really haven't ever met one," said Sola.

"So ... so it wasn't a joke?"

Sola shrugged.

"What is up with you, why are you so grumpy today?"

"Grumpy?"

"Like, all down and kind of sad and whatever. Are you ... are you worried about your people?" Miya asked.

"Of course. But ..."

"But? Something else buggin' ya?"

Sola sighed. "In my village, there are ... there were seventy-four people. I know them all by name and face and voice, some better than others, but all of them familiar. The other villages around us, too, are familiar. Very rarely in my life have I met someone and not known who they are. And yet here there are hundreds of people, all new to me, whose faces are unfamiliar and whose names I do not know. Can you understand?"

Miya looked at Sola a moment, helplessly.

"Um," she said. "So you're upset because you don't know everyone?"

Sola shook his head. "Change."

"Pardon?"

"Change," he said, gesturing with his right hand. "Change to something else."

"Oh, um ... uh, I really like that shell you gave me. See?"

Miya held up her hand, showing Sola her copper wrist bangle, from which dangled Penny's horseshoe charm and the little shell he'd given her. He smiled.

"I'm glad. It's a very special kind of shell. We call it Ula Se."

"Ula Se," Miya repeated. "Neat."

"If you—"

"Hello, you two. What are you up to?"

Miya and Sola looked up at Lily, who'd just come out of the house.

"Just sitting around chatting," said Miya.

"That's nice. Have you seen your father, by any chance?"

Miya caught a well-disguised edge to her mother's voice.

"Is he in trouble?" she asked.

"No, nothing like that. I just need him for something."

"Um, I saw him in the study earlier," said Miya.

"Well he's not there now." Lily put her hands on her hips and tutted. "He has the worst habit of disappearing just when I need him."

"I saw him around an hour ago," said Sola, slowly. "He walked down that path."

"Over there? Thank you, Sola." Lily smiled at Sola then at Miya, then strode off towards the cliff path that led down to the family dock. Miya watched her go, then stood and tugged on Sola's sleeve. He stood, and Miya gestured for him to follow her.

"Come on," she said, "we've got to find Dad. Good work throwing Mum off the trail there, quick thinking."

"Pardon?"

"Saying that he went down the cliff path!"

"He did go down the cliff path," said Sola.

"What? So why did you tell Mum?"

"Because ... because she was looking for your—our—father?"

Miya gave a big, exasperated sigh.

"Come on, Sola, this is basic stuff! Okay, I guess you haven't been around long, you don't know how things work here ... I'll explain later, right now we have to go rescue Dad!"

"From your mother?"

"Exactly!"

Sola looked confused.

"Look. Sometimes ... oh, it's too complicated. Just ... if Mum's looking for Dad, don't tell her where he is. Okay?"

"Lie?"

"No! No no no no no no. Well yes. It's just ... sometimes Dad needs to do something because it's the right thing to do. And sometimes Mum needs to stop him from doing that because it's not the smart thing to do. Understand?"

"No," said Sola.

"Just ... just forget it. I hope Dad's okay."

"He's over there, should we ask him?"

Miya looked where Sola was looking and saw her father, walking quickly up the path from town. She jogged over to him.

"Mum's looking for you," she said. Tomas stopped and glanced at his daughter sideways.

"Where is she now?" he asked.

"Family dock."

"You send her there?"

"Sola did."

"Good lad. How long ago?"

"Not long. Where you been?"

"Arranging."

"Getting ready to go after a certain pirate menace?"

"Could be."

"Need a lieutenant?"

"You're not coming."

"First mate?"

"You are not coming, Miya."

"We can discuss that later."

"Can we?"

"We certainly can."

"Oh."

"Good luck with Mum."

"Thanks."

Father and daughter nodded at each other, then Tomas stole into the house and Miya returned to Sola.

"I think I sorted that one out. Honestly, nothing would ever go smoothly around here if it wasn't for my good influence. I don't know what they'd do without me."

"I imagine that they'd be very sad and lonely for a long time, should anything ever happen to you," said Sola. Miya shivered.

"Okay, well, thanks for bringing me down," she said. "Do you want to go and see my friend Penny with me now?"

Sola looked down at his feet.

"Come on, she's super nice. Look at it this way, if you don't start meeting people around here you'll never be any better off."

Sola raised his head to look at Miya. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, you said you knew everyone in your village, right? So, you'd better start getting to know people around here! You already know me, Miya Black, AKA the greatest girl on the island, and my Mum and our Dad, so you've got kind of a lot of people to get to know ... like a thousand, actually. To be honest even I don't know all of them, and I've lived here my whole life. But if you tried I'm sure you could meet at least five a day—I mean meet them good enough to learn their names and get to know them a little bit. So that's ... um ..."

"Two hundred days to meet everyone on the island," said Sola. He smiled, then shook his head. "I'm not sure."

"Oh, come on, don't be such a wuss! Come and meet Penny, anyway, and her mum, and I guess her little brother. If you're going to start with anyone, start with them. They're excellent."

*

"Penny! Penny Buck! It's your bestest friend Miya here to see you! And I brought your favourite cinnamon buns! And my really, really big brother!"

Miya waited a few seconds, then frowned.

"Penny, I'm sorry about being rude this morning, I was kind of annoyed but I had a good stomp and thought about it and I'm okay now!"

She waited a little longer, then gave a melodramatic sigh.

"Guess they're not home. Goodness, how inconvenient of them. I wonder where they are?"

Sola shrugged and shook his head slightly. He hadn't said anything since leaving Miya's house, and the further they'd come into town the more he'd seemed to shrink into himself, his head lowering, his posture stooping, his gaze fixed firmly on the ground.

"Well, we're not doing any good standing around here. Hum hum hum. She's not at the stables because we would've seen her on the way down here. Are you okay?"

Sola shrugged.

"What's the problem?"

Sola shrugged again and made a little 'all of this' gesture.

"Oh help, I'm sorry, your townaphobia. Peopleaphobia? What is it that you're scared of, exactly? Is it the buildings?"

"No. I am not scared. I am uncomfortable."

"Would you feel better if we went back to the house?"

"Yes."

"Okay, let's go then. Maybe we can find something to do around the upper fields. Or the house. Oh hey, do you like books?"

Sola looked at Miya. "Yes. Do you have one?"

"One?"

*

"It's just in here. You should have said something earlier, I didn't even think—okay, here we are."

Miya opened the door and Sola stepped inside slowly, looking around at the tiny paradise he'd just been introduced to. It wasn't a large room, just a little nook that caught a lot of light really, with a couple of old overstuffed chairs and a small table in the middle, and a large bookshelf on each wall. Sola walked slowly to the closest bookshelf and stared at the books on it, the expression on his face somewhere between awe and disbelief.

"So many," he murmured.

"Yeah, it's pretty special, Dad's kind of a book nut, collects them from all over. Whenever he goes away he usually comes back with at least one. That shelf's stories and stuff, you know, adventures and mysteries and myths and legends and plays, and some, um, stupid romantic rubbish."

Sola nodded, not really listening to anything Miya said, reading each book's title carefully, stooping to look at the books on the lower shelves.

"So just, you know, read whatever you want, make sure you bring 'em back when you're finished, though, Dad gets really funny about that. He's usually pretty laid back but books are his, what do you call it, his weak point or something."

Sola slowly pulled a book from the shelf and opened it.

"Or you can just sit in here and read. It's pretty nice, means you don't have to worry about forgetting to return a book like ONCE and Dad giving one of his little speeches that start with 'I'm just a little bit disappointed in you, Miya'. Ugh. I hate those. Um."

Sola stood in front of the shelf, perfectly still, only moving to turn the page.

"I'll ... just leave you to it. I know what it's like when you really get into a book. Uh, maybe I'll go try to find Penny, apologise for this morning. Are you okay here? Do you want a cinnamon bun? Y'know ... to be going on with?"

Sola nodded slowly, still reading.

"Okay then."

Miya put a cinnamon bun on the little table between the two chairs, looked around the room, put her hands together, and then left, closing the door quietly behind herself. In the corridor outside, she allowed herself a brief triumphant smirk.

"Mission: Make Sola Happy ... huge success!"

*

"There you are! I've been looking EVERYWHERE for you, literally EVERYWHERE."

"Did you check the northern jungle? Inaccessible Bay? Did you travel to Paradise Island and the Highland and to Al-Rhal and Spirea?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Then you didn't look literally everywhere," said Penny, smiling at her friend.

"You and your fancy talking!"

"Do you want to come in now?"

" 'kay. I brought you some cinnamon buns. Some of them accidentally got eaten, though."

"Oh, thanks Miya. It's a bit close to dinner right now to have them, though. Maybe for afters."

"You're always so 'proper'!"

"Come in, anyway."

Miya followed Penny into the little cottage. It was small but densely furnished, shelves and cabinets and cupboards crammed into the hallway and kitchen, and almost every free bit of wall had something on it—paintings and carvings and decorative wall-hangings, mostly.