Once upon a time...

There was a pile on pile of charts
A pile on pile of ropes
A pile on pile of canvas

And only one small cabin girl to make sense of it all.
To make it more only, there were very few cabin girls on the seas.
Sea life was too dangerous for fair damsels, promised the men.
Sea life was too shocking for young ladies, admonished the women.

So it was cabin boys who were forced to endured the kicks, bad weather, and foul language.
But it was also the cabin boys who were allowed to run free in the rigging, travel the world, and learn the language of the sea. The girls stayed home and learned their respectively useful trades of seamstress, cook, and washwoman, if they had need of employment at all. Noble families preferred to keep their children safely at home, though after a certain age a young man could go to sea. A young woman, next to never.

So this cabin girl was a double rarity, both in being a girl and in coming from a modestly wealthy family. Her father was a well to do trader from a good family.Her mother, now, came from abroad, and rumour had it, was less than dignified in her former life. Occasional delicious stories of freedom were told to the daughter at bedtime, usually prefaced with an innocuous, "Once upon a time there was a girl..." But from there the stories would diverge into tales of running barefoot down the streets of Marseille, riding riverboats down the Seine, or- gasp- going on small family voyages across to Marocq and other exotic places. Like many good tale weavers, the mother avoided identifying exact names of the characters, preferring 'the once-upon-a-time girl'. There was a certain sparkle in her eye during story time, but she occasionally threw in stories of Northumberland moors and Indian bazaars, so one could never be entirely sure.... The cabin girl's own name was an equally interesting concoction -Marjam Coulée Elsbet Giaconde de la Venta - but she was more affectionately known as Coucou. (How much of that came from the ungainliness of her full name and foreign pronunciations, and how much came from the 'cuckoo, I see you!' her French mother chirped in the monrnings, is unknown.)

All that said... Coucou was a very lucky girl. By birth, by family and heritage, naturally. Equally, and less conventionally, in tutoring from an early age in languages and geography. "I must make some use of you before you turn to pirating, my lass," her father would chuckle, and her mother would add, "How do you expect to keep up with the lads unless you show yourself capable?" With two languages spoken in the home, plus a scattering of others from various servants and governesses, Coucou was well ahead of her agemates in that regard, and geography came easy when 'The Thousand and One Nights' mingled in one's head along with 'Beowulf'. Mathematics were more troublesome, until one clever tutor brought in equatorial maps and had her calculate longitude and longitude. And visiting sailing mates of her father were more than happy to show the young lady how to shoot the stars with quadrants. Soon she was using a lead line on weekend trips and keeping a miniature logbook in uneven writing....

When her mother received word of an ailing mother in France, what could be more inviting than for the adventuresome three to travel there? And then perhaps back along what the mother, with a smile in the corner of her mouth, called 'the pretty way'? So it was settled, the house packed up for the present and bundles carried onto the sweetest sailing vessel in the harbour, L'hirondelle. "It means 'The Swallow', like the bird," explained Coucou gravely to her small friends, "and if we fly away on it and never return, I shall think of you when I see the stars." Her friends, knowing this was no light promise, nodded back and wished her well. "We know the post is uncertain," said one small demoiselle apologetically, "but do let us know what adventures you have? And the lands you see? We will write back and address our letters to L'Hirondelle, and they will find you." "And they will find me," replied Coucou, touched and grateful. They embraced, and waved her off one fine morning in March. After boarding, she went straightaway to see how much work was for her to do, down in the hold, but returned quickly to the rail to wave. And then, as they pulled away with the tide, she climbed to the next level of rigging, scolding away the tears and forcing her thoughts to the piles and piles to be dealt with. Farther and farther, and she gave up on plans and dry eyes and climbed to the crow's nest.

There would be time enough for life and adventures. Here she could see for miles, and blow kisses to what had been her home, as she stood near the top of her new one.

The End