The Ship in the Bathtub
Ruby liked a long bath. She liked it so long that the bubbles went flat, and the water went from hot to warm to no particular temperature at all, and her toes went wrinkly and then wrinklier. Her book of knots lived on the soap dish, and she knew every knot in it: the bowline, the clove hitch, the monkey’s fist. Ruby had always wanted to go to sea. So far she had been as far as the bath.
One night, when her toes were very wrinkly indeed, the plug began to knock. Ruby pulled it out by its chain, and up out of the drain, the way a cork comes up, came a ship.
It was a real ship, about the size of a shoe. It had three white sails and a lantern at the back, and BISCUIT painted along its side in careful gold. Ruby put the plug straight back in, because you do not let the sea out from under a ship.
The ship also had a captain. She stood on the deck, about as tall as a teaspoon, and looked at the bubbles as if they had been put there to annoy her.
“What,” said the captain, in a voice far too big for her, “is this?”
“It’s the bath,” said Ruby.
The captain took out her chart. It was drawn on the back of a postage stamp, with a lighthouse on it, all in very small ink. Then she dropped a button on a long thread over the side.
“Four inches and soap,” she said. “The Lather Sea. It isn’t on my chart at all.”
She was Captain Brindle of the Biscuit, and she was badly off course. She had taken the left-hand fork at the big pipe under the lane. “Never take the left-hand fork,” she said. “I have been going up pipes for three hours, and every pipe ends in a sink.”
Her cargo was one sack of letters, each smaller than Ruby’s fingernail, for the keeper of the lighthouse on the stamp. The keeper waited on the step for the post every morning, and the Biscuit had never once been late.
“Can’t you go back down the drain?” said Ruby.
Captain Brindle shook her head. “The bath is a dead end,” she said. “The only way to the sea is out of the house, through the garden and down the stream. And the Biscuit can’t sail on carpet.”
Ruby sat up so fast that the Lather Sea slopped over the side. The stream ran along the bottom of the garden, all the way down the hill to the sea.
“I’ll get you there,” she said.
Captain Brindle looked at her hard. “Name me a knot for tying a line to a ring.”
“Round turn and two half hitches,” said Ruby.
“First mate,” said Captain Brindle. “Steady as she goes.”
That was when Dad knocked. “Five more minutes,” he said, and put his head round the door.
He looked at Ruby. He looked at the ship. He looked at the captain, who looked straight back.
“Is he crew?” said Captain Brindle.
Now, a dad at that hour of the night might be expected to say it was very late and pull the plug. This one sat down on the edge of the bath and said, “What does crew do?”
Ruby was first mate, so Ruby had the plan, and it needed three things: Mom’s big gravy boat, the roasting tin, and the watering can from the back step. Dad fetched the gravy boat, which had a gold rim and only came out at Christmas.
Ruby filled it from the bath. Dad lifted the Biscuit across in both hands, very slowly, like a man carrying a birthday cake. Captain Brindle threw Ruby a line, and Ruby made it fast to the handle with a round turn and two half hitches. The button went over the side.
“Two inches,” said the captain, “and a smell of Sunday dinner. Steady as she goes.”
Ruby put on her dressing gown and carried the gravy boat down the stairs. Dad walked backwards in front of her with his arms out, just in case. Not one drop went over the gold rim.
In the kitchen, Dad filled the roasting tin and put it on the floor, and Ruby slid the Biscuit in. But there is no wind in a kitchen, and the Biscuit sat there and did nothing at all.
“Current,” said Captain Brindle. “I need current.”
So Dad knelt and tipped the tin, gently, and the Biscuit sailed with the water. Then he slid the whole tin along the floor to the sink, a little at a time, tipping as he went. The captain called out orders, Ruby called them out again, louder, the way a first mate should, and Dad did every one of them.
The button went over the side. “One inch and a half,” said Captain Brindle, “and very clean.”
“I scrubbed it on Sunday,” said Dad, who was pleased.
The rain barrel stood right under the kitchen window. Dad lifted the roasting tin up onto the draining board, very level. Ruby climbed up beside it and opened the window. Dad held on to her dressing gown. She leaned out and tipped the Biscuit out of the roasting tin and into the barrel.
The button went down, and down, and down, until the thread ran out.
“Deep water,” said Captain Brindle happily. “At last. Steady as she goes.”
Dad kept a good hold of Ruby’s dressing gown, and the captain said that every first mate ought to steer once. The wheel was the size of a shirt button. Ruby took it between her finger and thumb.
“Pick a star,” said the captain.
Ruby found one bright star just above the hill.
“Put it on the end of the bowsprit,” said Captain Brindle, “and keep it there.”
Ruby did. The Biscuit crossed the barrel as straight as a ruler, and the lantern made a little gold wobble on the water.
“That,” said Captain Brindle, “is sailing.”
Then Dad found the boots. Ruby’s went on over her pyjamas, and Dad’s went on the wrong feet first and had to be done again. Out they went into the blue night.
Dad dipped the watering can into the barrel, and the Biscuit sailed in on the water, sails and all. The captain looked up from the bottom of the can.
“It smells of tomatoes in here,” she said.
They carried it down the garden to the stone gutter that ran into the stream. Dad tipped the can. Not out of the spout, which would never have done, but over the top, slowly, the way you pour gravy. Out came the water, and out came the Biscuit, into the gutter.
The water took the Biscuit. The sails filled. And before the captain could open her mouth, Ruby said, “Steady as she goes.”
Captain Brindle turned round at her wheel and saluted. “Do you know, first mate,” she said, “I’m glad I took the left-hand fork.”
Ruby watched the Biscuit’s lantern go bobbing away down the stream.
“Take the right-hand one home!” Ruby called after it.
“Aye, aye!” came the big voice, from a long way down.
“Five more minutes,” said Dad, and they stood there for all five of them, until the lantern was a gold speck and then went round the bend.
Dad washed the gravy boat. Ruby went to bed with her toes still wrinkly, and was asleep before the gravy boat was dry.
At her next bath, just as her toes went wrinkly and the water reached no particular temperature at all, something small and flat came floating up the drain.
It was a postcard the size of a stamp. On the front was a lighthouse. On the back, in very small ink, it said:
Letters delivered. Good steering. B.
Ruby read it twice and propped it on the soap dish, next to her book of knots. She had still only been as far as the bath. But she had steered a ship by a star and got the post to the lighthouse on time, and now she had it in writing.
When Dad came up to say five more minutes, she showed him the postcard. He read it twice too. Then he sat down on the edge of the bath, as proud as any captain, and said, “Ten.”