“Oh, don’t muddle her any more,” said Dinah. “Let’s go and show Mother the ship in the bottle.”
They went up on deck and found Mrs. Mannering. Her deck-chair was next to Lucian’s aunt’s chair, which she found rather trying sometimes, as she didn’t very much like the uncle.
“Look, Mother — see what Lucy-Ann’s given me for my birthday — something I’ve always wanted,” said Philip.
It was admired, and then passed on to Lucian’s aunt and uncle to see. Mr. Eppy looked at it carefully. He seemed puzzled.
“The ship is very old — really old,” he said. “But the bottle is modern. The idea of a ship in a bottle, is a comparatively recent one, of course. But the ship inside is far older — almost an antique! Very interesting.”
“It’s got a name carved on it, very small,” said Lucy-Ann. “I can’t read it. Can you, Mr. Eppy?”
He peered at it and spelt it out. “Yes — A-N-D-R-A — queer name for a ship! Never heard of one called that in Greek.”
“I’ve heard the name before,” said Lucy-Ann, and she tried to remember. “Oh yes — wasn’t it the name of the girl in that lovely treasure story of Lucian’s — the girl who didn’t want to marry a one-eyed man? Well, we often call our ships by the names of girls or women — look at our big liners, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. I don’t see why a Greek ship shouldn’t be called after a princess too.”
Mr. Eppy wasn’t listening. He wasn’t at all interested in any of the children, not even in Lucian, his own nephew. He yawned and settled himself to sleep. Mrs. Mannering nodded to the children to go. Micky and Kiki were rather tiresome when anyone wanted to sleep. Kiki’s squawks and Micky’s chatter and tricks didn’t appeal to the grown-ups as much as they did to the children.
They took the ship and bottle back to the cabin — this time to the boys’ cabin. Philip decided to put it on the shelf opposite his bed, where he could see it. He was very pleased with it indeed. It was quaint and queer, and beautiful, and he had always wanted it. Now he had it.
“Be careful that monkey of yours doesn’t tamper with it,” Jack warned him. “He’s very curious about the ship inside — keeps trying to touch it through the glass, and he gets quite annoyed when he can’t.”
The Viking Star cruised from island to island. Time didn’t seem to exist, and not one of the children had any idea of the days. It was all like a pleasant dream, where, fortunately, the food tasted very real and very nice. In fact, as Jack said, if the food hadn’t tasted jolly real he might honestly have thought that he was dreaming.
And then a squabble blew up between Micky and Kiki that broke up the dream in a strange way, and made things very real and earnest indeed from that time onwards.
It happened one evening. The boys had gone up to play deck-tennis with the girls, and for once had left Micky and Kiki down below in their cabin. Micky was such a nuisance when they played deck-tennis because he would fling himself after the rubber ring, and, if he got it, tear up to the top of the nearest pole and sit there, chattering in glee.
So he had been relegated to the cabin that sunny evening, with Kiki as company. Kiki was cross. She didn’t like being left behind. She sat on the porthole-sill and sulked, making a horrible moaning noise that distressed Micky very much.
The monkey went to sit beside her, looking at her enquiringly, and putting out a sympathetic paw to stroke Kiki’s feathers. Kiki growled like a dog and Micky retreated to the shelf, where he sat looking puzzled and sad.
He tried once more to comfort Kiki, by taking Jack’s tooth-brush over to her, and trying to brush her feathers with it, chuckling with delight. Kiki turned her back on him, and finally put her head under her wing, which always puzzled and frightened Micky. He didn’t like her to have no head. He began to look for it cautiously, parting the parrot’s feathers carefully and gently. Where had the head gone?
Kiki spoke from the depth of her feathers. “Nit-wit, nit-wit, nit-wit, oh, I say! Grrrrrrr! Wipe the door and shut your feet! God save the King.”
Micky left her in despair. He would wait till she grew her head again, and became the jolly parrot he knew. He put the tooth-brush back into its mug and considered the sponge near by. He picked it up and sucked some moisture out of it. He sponged his little face with it as he had seen Philip do. Then he got tired of that and darted back to the shelf again.
What could he do? He looked down at the shelf. On it was the ship in the bottle. Micky cautiously put his hand down to the bottle. Why couldn’t he get that little thing inside? Why couldn’t he get it and play with it? He put his head on one side and considered the ship inside.
He picked up the bottle and nursed it like a doll, crooning in his monkey language. Kiki took her head out of her wing and looked round at him. When she saw him nursing the bottle, she was jealous and cross.
“Shut the door, shut the door, naughty boy,” she scolded. “Where’s your hanky, pop goes the weasel!”
Micky didn’t understand a word and it wouldn’t have made any difference if he had. He shook the bottle hard. Kiki raised her crest and scolded again.
“Naughty, naughty! Bad boy! Pop-pop-pop!”
Micky chattered at her, and wouldn’t put the bottle down. Kiki flew across to the shelf and gave the surprised monkey a hard peck. He gave an anguished howl and flung the bottle away from him, nursing his bleeding arm.
The bottle fell to the floor with a crash, and broke in half. The little ship inside was shaken loose from its base and fell over on its side. Micky saw it and leapt down to it. Here was that thing inside the bottle at last! He picked it up and retired under the bed in silence.
Kiki was shocked by the noise of the bottle falling and breaking. She knew it was a bad thing to happen, She made a noise like a motor-mower, and then relapsed into silence. What would Philip say?
Five minutes later the two boys came clattering into the cabin to wash and put on clean things for dinner. The first thing they saw was the broken bottle on the floor. Philip looked at it in horror.
“Look! It’s smashed! Either Kiki or Micky must have done it!”
“Where’s the ship?” said Jack, looking all round. It was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t till they hauled Micky out from underneath the bed that they got the ship. He hadn’t harmed it at all. He got three hard smacks, and Kiki got three hard taps on her beak.
“My beautiful present!” groaned Philip, looking at the little carved ship. “Look, isn’t it a beauty, Jack? You can see it better out of the bottle.”
Jack looked at it and pulled at a tiny knob in one side. “What’s this?” he said. To his great surprise the knob came out and he could look inside the ship.
“It’s hollow inside,” he said. “And there’s something there, Philip — looks like paper or parchment. I say — what can it be?”
Philip suddenly felt excited. “Parchment? Then it must be an old document! And why should it be hidden inside the ship? Only because it contains a secret! I say, this is super. Goodness knows what the document is!”
“Let’s probe it out and see,” said Jack. “Look — this little section of the ship can be moved, now we’ve taken that knob out — and we’ll just about have room to get out the parchment.”
“Be careful! It may fall to pieces if it’s very old,” Philip warned him. Jack removed the loose section of the ship and put it beside the knob. Then, very carefully, he began to try and probe out the parchment. But he was excited and his hands trembled too much.
Then the gong went to say that dinner was ready. “We can’t go, we can’t go,” groaned Jack. “We must find out what this is!”
“Look out — you’re tearing it,” said Philip. “Let’s wait till after dinner, Jack. We won’t have time now. And I think the girls ought to be here to see all this.”
“Yes. You’re right. We’ll wait till after dinner,” said Jack, with a sigh. “Lock the whole thing up, Philip. We can’t risk anything happening to the ship and its secret!”
So they locked the little ship up in a cupboard, and then, hot with excitement, went up to have their dinner. What a thrill! They could hardly wait to tell the girls!