Her uncle shouts at her something incomprehensible, but Anh gets the gist of it he wants her back down on deck immediately. She climbs the drenched, slippery mast, ignoring the commotion below. Anh delights in the challenge, her hands and feet finding their place on the swaying lacings. “I’ll get it, Bác Tu! Don’t worry!” Anh races forward, her hands trailing along the rail as she makes her way to the mast. A particularly fierce gust wrenches the line out of his hands, and the wind whips it up into the air before he seizes it again. “The halyard line is twisted! It won’t pass through the eye!” Bác Tu shouts.
“I can help, M?!” Anh calls out to her mother. “Anh! Get back below deck! This storm is no joke!” It’s like a dance-the moon trying to peek out behind the clouds, the rains making all the surfaces as slick as if they’ve been coated with oil, the ship’s deck approaching vertical as crew members desperately hang onto something, anything, to avoid being thrown into the sea. The ship heels perilously to one side, and she laughs when she almost falls, skidding to the right to keep her balance. She can hear her mother barking orders, something about avoiding the shoals and more complicated directions lost in the wind. The crew is shouting, barely audible over the roar of the wind and the rain. She climbs above deck, and immediately her hair whips behind her with the sheer force of the wind. She tumbles to the rough-hewn floor in a heap, but rights herself quickly, her bare feet plopping against the wet planks. A particularly ferocious wave crashes against the hull, knocking her grip loose and sending the hammock swinging. The girl is but eight years old, grinning wide enough to rival yesterday’s shining crescent moon. A chubby hand reaches for the edge of one of the two hammocks whose owners should be sleeping. The storm’s rough waves send all the empty hammocks swinging. The small fishing vessel is not built for this type of onslaught at all, and it tumbles in the rising waves like a child’s toy.Ī shrieking gale knocks open a loose hatch and sends a deluge of rain below deck. The wind howls, screeching as it cuts through the torrential rain, snapping at every item that had the misfortune to be left loose. The wild storm seems to have no end, the heavens above unleashing a relentless torrent as the sea rises and falls in response.
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