Chapter 19. Okay whatever if you do not want to review…I do not like it but I can deal with that. So I guess I am going to give up trying to get you to do it because it has no effect what so ever. Anyway. Hope you enjoy this chapter.
Spoilers: It is AU
Disclaimer: I don't own Kate or Abby. I do own Vitesse.
"Are you sure that this is a good idea?" Abby asked nervously as they rode out towards Vitesse. Kate had decided that it was time Abby learn to sail and no amount of protests could put an end to this belief.
"Well the short answer is no," Kate replied. In truth she could play out a dozen different scenarios in her mind and most of them ended badly. "But I am not going to change my mind about this either so don't go there."
"Why not?" Abby asked, "I mean we are going back to Louisiana in less than a week."
"Are you scared?" Kate questioned her friend. She had discovered that the number one way to get Abby to do something was to accuse her of being too scared to do it. It was elementary but it had always worked.
"No," Abby replied as predicted and raised no more complaint. They reach the boat a few minutes later and the remnants of a smirk were still visible on Kate's face. The two girls climbed onto the boat and Andrew followed them. He had come along so he could steer and Kate could teach.
"Abby here is the really quick version," Kate told the other girl, "That is the main sail, the jib, the main halyard, the jib halyard, the jib sheets, and the main sheet." Kate pointed to each other the objects in turn.
"They all look like a bunch of cloth and rope," Abby admitted looking at the deck of the boat. She could no more distinguish between the jib halyard and the main halyard then she could fly.
Kate was at this point up on the front deck unclipping some gizmo or another. "Can you uncleat the Main halyard?" Kate asked Abby.
"I don't know which one," Abby started looking around at all the lines.
"The red and white sting," Kate said slowly and carefully, "take it off the large metal pointy thing."
"Now that," Abby replied as she completed her appointed task, "Is something that I can do."
"Great," Kate replied, "Can you free the jib sheets?" She was now crouching on the front deck and working with the smaller of the two sails.
"Sure," Abby said proudly. Kate was working with one of the sails, which meant that the other one had to be the jib sheet. She began pulling the ties when Kate caught her.
"What are you doing?" Kate asked.
"I am freeing the jib sheets," Abby told her confidently.
"No," Kate replied slowly, "no you are taking the sail ties off the main sail. I wanted you to do this." Kate reached forward and popped a line out of another cleat.
"But you said the jib sheets," Abby told her stressing the word sheets, "That implied sail."
"That also implied plural," Kate pointed out, "Of the things I showed you there are only two identical objects."
"Yea well why on earth would you call ropes sheets?" Abby demanded of Kate.
"I don't actually know," Kate replied after a moment of thought, "but they needed to call them something. Do you have a better suggestion?"
"Yea," Abby told her, "Elliptical strands of fiber held together with fairy dust." There was a pause and Kate looked at Abby.
"Did I really just say that?" Abby asked horrified.
"Yea," Kate replied, "Yea you did."
"Oh my gosh," Abby whispered, "I'm becoming one of them."
"A loony?" Kate question, "because I wouldn't really phrase that as becoming more as you are."
"A fairy believer," Abby replied still horrified.
"What exactly did you drink for breakfast today?" Kate asked her friend.
Abby shook her head. "I don't know," Abby replied, "Do you think I've been drugged?"
"By who?" Kate asked sarcastically, "Me? I am the only one with access to your breakfast."
"You drugged me?" Abby accused.
"Look if I was going to drug you I would give you a tranquilizer," Kate reminded her, "Not loony drugs."
"Now that sentence has a certain credibility," Abby replied.
"Moving away from the concept of fairy dust at a frightening speed," Kate suggested, "We now return to our scheduled conversation."
"We had a scheduled conversation?" Abby asked.
"Yea," Kate replied, "We were going to teach you how to sail." She was untying the two bands that wrapped around the jib. "Take these," she told Abby once she had succeeded in removing them. Abby obliged without sarcastic comment and handed them back to Kate's dad.
Kate did a few more things on deck and suddenly they were ready to raise the sails. Andrew grabbed the red and white rope, which Abby was pretty sure was called the main halyard. Of course at the moment there was nothing about the boat that she would swear she knew.
"Abby," Kate said as she and her dad worked on raising the main sail, "Suggestion: duck."
"Why?" Abby questioned looking around.
"Because in a moment the sail is going up another few inches and the huge wooden thing by your head is going to go where ever it wants to," Kate told her, "If it comes down to boom verses head. You are going to get a very pretty bruise."
Abby ducked as Kate gave the sail one last pull and the boom swung free to where Abby's head had been. Abby continued to crouch on the floor as the other sail rose to the sky. Anyone who said sailing required no skill had clearly not sailed because there was a whole lot of stuff going on at once. Faster than Abby could have imagined the boat was sailing away from it's mooring and across the harbor.
Kate slipped back into the cockpit and began pulling in the main sheet. Both hands were wrapped around it because pulling the sail in while the wind was blowing as hard as it was could be very tricky.
Looking over her shoulder at Abby she asked her friend, "Could you possibly pull the elliptical strands of fiber held together with fairy dust that attach to the jib?" Abby glared.
Hope you enjoyed. Hope you review. Hope you have a Happy Fourth of July. (That chapter will be up tomarrow.)
