The full grown oak 7/9

When the watch on deck changed a few hours later, Jennifer Jane made sure that she wasn’t wanted for any particular task and climbed as high up the foremast as she possibly could. She kept a sharp lookout for signs of land dead ahead and sure enough, it didn’t seem too long before she excitedly shouted out, “Land, almost dead ahead.”

She was getting quite used to running up and down the rigging by now and went back down to the deck in a most professional sailorly manner.

Within the hour the schooner entered port and began tying up alongside the quay before unloading her cargo. The captain and mate were congratulating each other on their navigational skills as she ran past them to help with the mooring ropes.

“Don’t forget about the next travel fog,” she muttered quietly, as she went by.

The Swan visited several more ports during the next two weeks, Jennifer Jane’s cabin door was never locked but there was no sign of any travel fog. Eventually she had to remind the captain of the terms for the gift of her watch.

“That’s just your bad luck,” he said, “it’s my clock now and trade is looking up very nicely because of our accurate navigation. But it’s more than my job’s worth to let you go, I tell you what, I’ll make you up to able seaman. You deserve it and it means your wages go up from thirty shillings to two pounds ten a month.”

She was just about to start arguing when she suddenly remembered something about the watch. She smiled and said ‘thank you’, then turned and ran off to continue with her tasks.

She wasn’t too worried about her parents, after all she’d been away for nearly as long before and they must know she wasn’t in any danger, since her safety spell hadn’t been used.

She just carried on as usual and bided her time. It took another month before the watch battery finally ran out.