Made For Trouble

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 10th July 2014

Characters: Lihona, Rahona
Description: Lihona remembers her cousins and the trouble they got into
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 7, day 27 of Turn 7
Notes: Mentioned: Jezz, Linli, Nalin, Barr, Jestlin, Lineal; Mentor Approved

Lihona always enjoyed being aboard the Sungazer when it pulled away from the
dock at the waypoint. She liked her life on the riverboat and had only vague
memories of her life before, when she lived at River Bluff Weyr. But that wasn't
what had her at the rails watching the distance between the dock and the
riverboat widen and listening to the swoosh-swoosh of the paddlewheel.

Once, Turns ago, she and her cousins had snuck out early; gone ashore without
permission, knowing they were safe at the waypoint which served as a land-base
for her riverboat family. They had been collecting nuts, her and Jezz and Linli.
They had lost track of time and, unbelievably, the Sungazer had sailed without them.

It hadn't really been as bad as it had seemed - Lihona remembered having fun
with her huge extended family who lived at the waypoint while they waited the
two sevendays for the riverboat to return - but that feeling when they had
realised the Sungazer really was going without them had been awful. Maybe a bit
more awful for the other two who had always lived onboard, but Lihona had never
spent any time away from her mother before and that had made her miserable.

And they had been in trouble. No doubt about that.

But that was what made watching the waypoint disappear behind them such a nice
feeling. Just being _aboard_ was great. Not being in that much trouble was great.

Things were different now aboard the Sungazer. She had thought it would always
be the same, sailing up and down the Nettleweed River with her family. Her girl
cousins the same age as she was, her adult cousins and aunts and uncles. But it
wasn't. Families moved off and on the riverboat. Mostly they lived at the
waypoint when they weren't sailing so Lihona got to see them when the Sungazer
pulled in there on each down-river and up-river leg of their round trip.
Sometimes she stopped-over with her cousins, catching the Sungazer when it next
passed - and planned stop-overs were totally different from being abandoned!

But her brothers were still onboard. Nalin was learning how to be an engineer
from Uncle Barr but he sometimes talked of leaving the Sungazer to do become an
apprentice technician. Uncle Barr said _he_ hadn't needed any training to run
the Sungazer's engines, but Nalin liked to know everything about everything and
said he needed to go and learn that at the Technician Hall.

Jestlin was three Turns old and she was often the one who had to keep an eye on
him. He was nice, most of the time, though sometimes he was a bit of pest but
then usually her mother or the aunties would let her leave him with them in the
common room for a while.

Her father was still the captain and Lihona stood on the bottom rung of the rail
and leaned out to look forward but she couldn't see the pilothouse from where
she was. Lineal would be in there, though. Doing whatever the captain did while
the pilots navigated the Sungazer downriver.

"Are you really standing on the railing?"

Lihona dropped down at the first word and turned to face her mother's unsmiling
expression.

"Not _now_" she offered.

"Darling, it's not forbidden because of any great concern for the paintwork –
though having had to paint some of it myself I would prefer you didn't climb all
over it – but it's –"

"Dangerous. I know." And she did know. A girl couldn't live around the
paddlewheel and not worry about falling into the water in its vicinity. "I'm
sorry."

"Hmm. Being sorry doesn't make you remember, though," Rahona pointed out.
"Perhaps your father can come up with some way to make you remember."

Lihona sighed. "Should I go up and report to him now?" She didn't mind. Her
father would think up some chore for her to do which she wasn't very worried
about, and he'd lecture her, which she would mind but couldn't be helped. She'd
been caught fair and square.

"Maybe in a little while when they're a bit less busy up there. What were you
looking at, anyway?" Rahona joined her daughter at the rail, looking at the bank
as they sailed past it. It was pretty country but not particularly noteworthy.

"I was trying to see if I could see the pilothouse," Lihona admitted, already
with a grin back on her tanned features.

"And?"

"And I couldn't." She glanced up at her mother and added: "Perhaps from further
back -?"

Rahona rolled her eyes at her daughter's teasing. "You are just made for
trouble, you are." She ruffled her daughter's short brown hair and then hugged
her. "Should I be organising more lessons for you since you have so much time to
get into mischief?"

"Mischief? I hardly _ever_ get into _anything_ since Jezz and Linli left."

"Ahh. Is that what's got you hanging around the rails? You know you can stay at
the waypoint as often as you like, don't you? For as long as you like, or even
move there and be with your cousins all the time."

The girl nodded. "I know."

"But you don't want to go?"

"Not really. I like being on the Sungazer – with my family."

"Well, if being with your family is important then the Sungazer offers you that
in abundance." Rahona wasn't sure her eight Turn old daughter actually knew why
she wanted to stay onboard but as long as she knew the option was there for the
more settled life ashore then that was all the was necessary for the moment.
Perhaps some time in the future she and Lineal would have to make decisions for
their children about whether they should stay onboard or go on to another life
ashore, or perhaps the children would make the decision themselves. Whatever
happened, whenever it happened, they would deal with it when it arose.

"Might be the sailing," Lihona said, with another of her quick grins that
betrayed her sense of humour, "rather than the family."

"Might be, indeed. In which case there's some work for a young riverboat
crewmember in the galley and some study when she's finished that."

Lihona sighed. "I thought there might be." She turned away from the rail. The
waypoint and her memories of her early months on the riverboat with her cousins
were long gone. The riverboat Sungazer was paddling down the Nettleweed River
and memories weren't going to slow it down.

Last updated on the July 13th 2014

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Made For Trouble