This chapter starts off introducing Bella Rose, the runaway pirate wannabe. (yet another short chapter just to introduce the character background.) Please review

An Endless tide

CHAPTER 2: THE RUNAWAY

(Bella's point of View)

I had had enough of it all, of all the pink bows, hoops skirts and powdered noses. Everyone wanted me to be something they knew I'd never become. So why did they still bother? Why did they still try to dress me up when they knew I'd only tare out of their ridiculous clothing anyway?

The women were all so prim in proper. They carried with them dainty little fans that they didn't even use to cool their faces. They only hid behind them and giggled when men passed. How pointless. I never understand the way they all acted.

They weren't like me at all and I knew why. This wasn't really my home. The truth was my mother had only been a maid here years ago. The mistress's hand maiden told me once, that my mother often ran off in the middle of the night to rendezvous with a mysterious lover. No one had met him before but they all knew my mother was in love. Of course, those secret meetings lead to little old me but my mother died in child birth and I was never able to meet her... or my father for that matter. I didn't even know if he was alive or dead but I'd find out the truth someday.

The owners of this great house, the Gasper family, had taken me in and raised me as their daughter… or at least they tried to. I was always running away from home, especially when they had their parties. Every time they'd try to fit one of those torture devices they called a corsets on me, I'd run for the hills.

I would often wonder down the streets and out to the docks where I'd sit for hours, watching the ships come in and out. I'd always wanted to be the captain of my own crew and it wasn't till I'd ventured those very docks that I got what I was looking for. I was surprised to find on my travels, how many kids there were like me, either orphans or runaways. So, I simply gathered them up and made them an offer, stay in this dull town, or join my crew. Of course they chose the latter.

I had gathered fourteen of them, all of them being boys. Five were between the ages of twelve and fourteen, two were ten, five were fifteen, one was sixteen, like me, and finally one was eighteen. My favorite of my crew had to be the brothers Twig and Mute, sixteen and eighteen. They had come from a wealthy family like me and according to Twig, they left because of an experience he had involving red candy and "sprinkley things." I never bother to ask for the full story.

Twig was a skinny looking boy, tall and lanky. His name pretty much described him perfectly well. But he was however frightened by loud noises; a flaw I thought would need fixing if he was to become a pirate. Mute on the other hand was the opposite. He too was tall but more robust and muscular. He wasn't very responsive, and like his name, he preferred to sit quietly. Twig told me once that it wasn't that he didn't know how to talk; it was just that he never had anything to say.

I also had a deep love for Teddy, the ten year old orphan who had become some what of a little brother to me. He tried to act so brave when he was just a little kid and still didn't know what it meant to be brave. But I admired his strength and made him my cabin boy.

Together, the fifteen of us had many adventures in the town. We were like the legendary Robin Hood and his merry men, robbing from the rich to giving to the poor. Twig, Mute and I each took from our former houses and gave the money to the poor families who lived on the streets. It always made us feel more like heroes rather then pirates. I told the boys that we would have to be tough, more rigid but helping those people was an addiction that was hard to break. I had even developed the alias of "the Raven" among them because I traveled under the cover of night and ran with a speed that made me seem like I were flying.

When we finally decided to "truly" run away and get out of this town, we snuck quietly into the docks, making sure the guards were asleep (as always).Mute and Twig's father owned several ships, and we had planned to steal the smallest one. We thought we'd have the best luck stirring it out of the harbor quietly.

Like ants, we crawled around the ship, the younger ones like monkeys hanging from the sails. Mute immediately took hold of the stirring as Twig climbed up the bird's nest and I helped any where I could. As captain of the crew, most of the time I could only watch in amazement at how far they'd all come. Years ago they were frightened children, now they'd learned so much. They knew how to man a ship.

In no time we were actually able to stir the boat out the harbor; the wind was with us. I smiled at my crew and then turned to face the harbor. In some strange way, I'd miss it. I'd miss the Gasper Family and their odd ways. I'd miss the people of the town we'd helped. But I needed to leave. Out there, somewhere was my father, just waiting to be found.