"Kailah!" Captain Jack called from his quarters.
Kailah made her way across deck quickly and met Jack at his door. "Yes, Pappa?" She said sweetly, her hands tucked behind her back.
Captain Jack looked sternly at the girl. She was obviously helping out on deck, today, because her hair was pulled into one long braid down her back, and she was barefoot, wearing trousers, rolled up with a short length of rope as a belt, and one of his own old shirts.
Captain Jack wasn't angry at her- noone could stay angry with the girl, and she knew it.
"Have ye been into me rum, girl?"
Kailah looked down guiltily. "Perhaps."
"Perhaps?" He lifted her chin with his finger.
She looked at him, widening her eyes innocently. "Well... yes, sir, I have, but not very much..."
Captain Jack sighed. "What would a mother say right now?" he asked himself aloud.
John, a fairly new recruit, looked up from where he was mopping. "If I may, Captain?"
"Go ahead, boy."
John leaned against his mop, cleared his throat, and began in a high-pitched voice. "Young lady, drinking is a very un-ladylike thing to. Drinking is a disgusting, evil habit reserved for grown men, heathens, and prostitutes-"
"Thank ye, John, that's well enough."
"Oh! I don't believe any of that, that's just what me mother told me sister." He resumed with his mopping.
"Kailah... I don't quite disagree with ye drinking me rum- if only ye ask, and make sure ye don't make yourself sick, savvy?"
"Yes sir."
He grinned at her. "Ye can go, now."
Kailah grinned back and ran across the deck.
"Oi, Kai!" Amy called down from the crow's nest. "C'mon up!"
Captain Jack watched as Kailah quickly and gracefully climbed up to Amy. Was this the right way to raise a young lady? He wasn't so sure, but as long as the girl was happy, he supposed he must be doing SOMETHING right.