Sailing Away RPG

[Primrose Bolger]

As good as the bread and chicken looked and smelled, Sassy passed them up. She was not immune to the barely concealed disgust with which most of the others viewed her, and she figured that eating their food would simply make them all the madder. She did take an apple, for they seemed to have plenty of those.

The others gathered together in their little groups, and offered no invitation to sit with them. Oh, well . . . she said to herself, shrugging it off. I’m the odd Hobbit out as Gammer Brandybuck would say. She gathered her pack and moved as far away as the surface of the raft would allow. She hung her legs over the side of the raft, just far enough to let the water riffle against her feet. There were still a few cookies left in her pack, so she fished one out and ate it with her apple. Stashed in the side of one of the front pack pockets was a packet of dried, smoked coney strips, the sort her uncle took with him when he was venturing far upstream to fish and wouldn’t be home til next morning. She took out a whole one, then thinking better of it, broke it in two. Who knew how long this trip would be.

Light played prettily across the water as the sun headed off for bed. Sassy fixed the picture in her mind, intending to share it with her Gammer once she’d got back. With the encroaching darkness, the air grew a little chilly, and Sassy pulled her little wool cloak about her shoulders fastening it securely beneath her chin. Pulling her knees up to her chin, she clasped her arms about her legs and watched the banks of the river with their rushy edges and stands of cattails slide by. Here and there a duck paddled along, leaving a wide ‘V’ of water in its wake. And once, in a marshy little inlet pushed in against a bend in the channel, a heron poked along among the rushes in the muddy flat, looking to spear a tasty fat frog.

When it was almost dark, Sondo called for Reggie to cast out a rope and hook a tree. The throw was successful and soon the raft was brought up onto the river’s bank for the night. Sassy stood to the side as the others hauled their needed supplies off to a little campsite they’d picked. She trailed along, half hoping that someone would ask her to join in, but knowing they wouldn’t. She fetched her little fish from the stringer in the water, plucking a few stalks of the tall cattails as she did.

Sassy found a dry, cozy spot near the boys’ camp. At the base of a wide old willow. She spread leaned her pack against the trunk then looked about in the failing light for what she needed. There were plenty of small twigs and branches lying about, and she gathered them into a small depression she dug out in the soil a short ways away from the tree’s trunk. Fetching her flint from her pack, she got a little fire going. She didn’t need much, just enough to cook the fat trout she’d caught earlier. She gutted it carefully making sure not to slice her own fingers with the sharp knife, then spitted it like her uncle had showed her and cooked it over the fire. It was her Gammer who’d told her about the cattails – peel the stems and salt them a little and they tasted just like fresh, sweet cucumbers from her Ma’s garden. She picked every bit of the tasty meat from the fish once it was done, licking her fingers as the juice ran down them. A mug of cold water dipped from the river washed the feast down. And with another, she splashed her hands to clean them.

Her little fire had nearly burned down to ash by the time darkness fell fully. Sassy covered it with dirt to put it out, then sat listening under the cover of night to the sounds from the boys’ camp. ‘I wonder what they had for dinner?’ she thought sleepily, snuggling down after a bit near the willow’s trunk, her head resting on a low root and the rest of her wrapped warmly in her little cloak. It had been a long day and soon sleep found her, sending dreams of grand adventures to come dancing beneath her closed eyes.