All torment trouble wonder and amazement inhabits here The Tempest Act V Scene 1 for Robin Lily and Ariel
1 Seabird WE NEED a better boat said Becca Gull was slow She was cracked and she clanged in the waves because she was made of aluminum Even with a clumsy boat sailing was good but what would it be like to sail in a ship really made to fly One in which she and Jane could sail away have adventures and come home when they were good and ready Shift to port she told Jane The sail flapped as if it hadn’t quite woken up yet and Becca sailed Gull out of Gran’s bay But it was more like crawling than flying What’s wrong with Gull Jane asked Uncle Martin and Auntie Meg say she sails like a gumboot Like a gumboot chiton Jane laughed because gumboot chitons were sea creatures that stuck onto rocks and never went anywhere much Just a regular gumboot Becca said A wellie A rubber boot That’s what Auntie Meg said And for a moment she remembered last summer and Auntie Meg singing sea shanties and rowing through mountainous seas Where should we go asked Jane How about Seal Rock Yes Seal Rock said Becca The tide’s on the ebb We’ll see if there are any seals there today We learned about sailing in school Jane said We did a play
about a shipwreck It was called The Tempest Becca thought it was joyless of Jane to mention shipwreck when it was the first voyage of summer and the first time she and Jane were allowed to go to sea without an adult Shipwreck would wreck not just Gull but everything all their plans for sailing around the island if only they could get permission I phoned Dugald this morning Uncle Mac corrected Jane Her great-uncle Dugald Macallan was a local weatherman and it was often his voice that they heard on the recorded weather announcement And it must have been a substitute Dugald she added because Uncle Mac’s here He’s talking to Merlin about waterworks Becca said It was Gran who called it waterworks But it was just plumbing which is what Merlin did when he wasn’t in a boat or fighting fires or arguing with Aunt Fifi if she happened to be visiting Gran Well said Jane What did substitute Dugald say Boring Northwest winds ten to fifteen knots Diminishing to five to ten knots Dugald had added That was hardly any wind at all They’d be lucky to get anywhere Why don’t you let me have a go asked Jane Maybe something interesting will happen Something interesting is just what Gran had told Becca she didn’t want to happen when she gave Becca permission to sail Gull out of the bay Gran was remembering something Mum and Auntie Clare had done a long time ago and said she wasn’t going to go through that again and neither were the neighbors You’re the skipper Gran had said You have to take responsibility for all decisions or you’ll lose your job So put that in your pipe and smoke it
But Becca couldn’t see what could go wrong on a day as quiet as this Jane was fine at sailing if you could call it that with the sail hanging so limp Gull slowed to a pace so listless that Becca almost fell asleep Far in the hot sunny distance she could see someone trudging across the seaweedy beach to Seal Rock Look she said Someone’s going to beat us there You could only walk to Seal Rock at the lowest of low tides Humans didn’t go there usually but today the tide was almost as far out as it ever got The seals would be bothered and swim away Becca thought with a human poking around Gull isn’t even a gumboot said Jane More like a geographical feature said Becca remembering certain books she had read Like a lump or a boulder or an ancient Viking ship fossilized with the remains of a noble warrior because Vikings loved to fight and then get buried in their ships in a hill Gull crept onwards A geological pace said Becca That’s what Aunt Fifi would say She’d hate this She likes to move fast But they were getting there Now Becca could see Seal Rock’s special boulder the one that looked like a tortoise from some angles And there was a bump on it so maybe there were still seals there The tide’s turned she said She could feel the change in the sea’s flow Such as it was She hung over the gunwales She saw red and purple sea urchins
