The following few days were filled with more hustle and/or bustle than the town had ever seen before. People were running to and fro and sometimes just running to look busy, because everyone else was doing it, and when everyone is busy and you’re not, someone is bound to walk up to you and tell you to ‘make yourself useful’. While I, like many people, enjoy being useful to myself and the people I care about, I have also spent more than one birthday party of a relative trying to hide to from various grandmothers so as to avoid being made useful. In the town, there were small nooks and crevices where grown men would step into the shadows and find themselves awkwardly bumping into each other and pretending they were all making themselves useful by smoking a cigarette where their wives couldn’t see them.

Ace, however, did not need to be made useful, because Ace had discovered that they were useful. While to the town they may not have been, which is why they had been as popular with adults as they had been with the town’s younger populace, on a ship they had found their true calling, climbing up and down the large grid of rope that is known in nautical terminology as a Jacob’s Ladder or, for some reason, an unpunctuated Jacobs Ladder. You will find that, if you ever come across someone who is familiar with boating, shipping and sailing, that their vocabulary is as complicated as they and their ships are. But not to Ace. To Ace, all of this made sense, as they’d spent years watching ships come in and out of the harbor, and saw which ropes went just there, and which ropes had to be tied just like that so the whole thing didn’t come apart at a critical moment. They tried not to think too much about the kind of storm that would do the kind of damage that had been done to this ship, which wasn’t hard because they weren’t being given a lot of time to think. 

Someone threw them a rope and they tied it deftly to the right spot, but a sudden wind pulled a cable taut that they had not expected. It went bwoing and bumped them off their footholds. The one hand on the rope was not enough to keep them balanced, and they began to tumble down, the wooden deck seeming like an unpleasant place to land. However, just before they discovered the taste of freshly swabbed poop deck, an experience reserved only for the most clumsy and the most dastardly, two arms shot out and Ace found themselves in a sudden bridal carry. 

The man who had caught them was big, although that didn’t do him justice. He was big the same way a building is big when you have to crane your neck to look at the top. He looked like the kind of man other adult men looked at and subsequently wanted to be like when they grew up. He looked like picture books of princes who saved princesses and then bench-pressed dragons. He wore an eyepatch that only added to his handsomeness and charm, because sometimes life goes out of its way to create a perfect specimen, goes “I can do better,” and then actually does better. He was dreamy, dazzling, and he had almost all of his own teeth. When he smiled, you had to look away slightly, because the sun often caught his gold teeth in just the right way to get in your eyes. 

This, of course, meant nothing to Ace. For one thing, they were still recovering from the near if-not-death-then-at-least-a-lot-of-eating-soup-from-now-on. Additionally, they weren’t really interested in people this way. They were, however, very grateful, and would like to be put down now, very much. 

“Thank you, you can put me down now,” they said, just like I said they would. 

The man put them down with a grin and a wink and put a hand on their shoulder. “Every finger a fishhook, lad.”

While Ace understood the concept of metaphors, this one seemed particularly unpleasant, as well as unsanitary. They chose not to acknowledge it. The man didn’t acknowledge their lack of a response, and kept the impromptu and unexpected interaction going.

“What’s your name, lad?”

Ace looked up at him through tousled hair that always found itself in their face, no matter how much they or anyone else had ever tried. 

“Ace,” said Ace.

“Arr, Ace lad,” the big man said, and Ace simply stared at him until he coughed awkwardly and apologized. “Sorry, old habit. My name is Thomas Gold, though you can call me Tall Tom; everyone else here does.” 

“Do you work in the kitchen, perhaps?” Ace asked suspiciously. They were hesitant to stumble into stories that were too clichéd, an instinct I deeply respect and admire about them. However, Tall Tom shook his head with a dazzling grin of confusion. 

“No, I’m a deckhand, why do you ask?” 

“No reason. Thank you again.” Ace was getting a little uncomfortable. This was more talking than they’d done all year, and they weren’t sure where to go from here. Tom had no such issues and no idea Ace was uncomfortable, so he just soldiered on.

“I see the good Captain has hired you!” he said with all the enthusiasm of someone who has no idea their conversational partner has never encountered or had to participate in small talk. “How long will you be staying with us?”

Ace shrugged. They hoped this would convey the fact that they had no idea how long they’d be staying, because it depended on the Captain’s intention, which were probably informed by how useful Ace was going to be on the ship. There was also, of course, the possibility they’d be bored of maritime life in a very short amount of time, or that they’d die. In the latter case, the point was moot, of course, and they weren’t planning on dying anytime soon. In fact, they’d joined with the hope of maybe living for a change. While the attempt to communicate all this with a shrug was definitely admirable, it went completely over Tall Tom’s tall head, who simply smiled at them waiting for a response. Ace tried to smile back. Given their lack of experience with the action, it was not a pretty sight. Finally, they gave in to Tom’s unspoken demand for an answer.

“Just until the next port for now, I think. Captain Maria seems to like me, though.”

“Oh?” Tom looked at them with surprise, and then put his hands on his hips and laughed out loud. Even Ace had to admit it was a truly wonderful laugh. It made you feel like you were sitting on the lap of some mystical demigod about to give you presents. It was a truly jolly laugh, filled with air and good cheer. Ace had no idea where those feelings came from, because they hadn’t experienced any of these before, but they were pleasant regardless. 

“Well, if the Captain likes you,” Tom said with a grin, “then you’ll fit right in, Ace.” They winked, which made Ace hesitate. If you’ve never been winked at by someone who thinks you know something you don’t, there are few ways to respond properly. A wink back might indicate that you are, indeed, ‘in on it’, which is an impression you don’t want to give to someone when you are definitely not ‘in’ and have no idea what ‘it’ is. But asking what ‘it’ is would prove to them that you are not ‘in’ and they might try to retract their wink, which makes everyone uncomfortable. The only solution is to grimace awkwardly and wait for the wink to be over, like Ace did.

Tom was almost going to extend the awkward pause by saying more things but someone called him away. Before he went, his smile disappeared for a moment and he looked Ace in the eye, an expression on his face that seemed more thoughtful than he appeared to be capable of, before he ran off. Ace couldn’t tell if he genuinely went “hut, hut, hut”, or if it would have just been so in character for him that they were imagining it. 

Ace was a little sore. That is to say that they weren’t so much sore from the fall, because Tall Tom had been surprisingly gentle in catching them, but from losing their grip. They were a little scared that they weren’t going to be allowed to stay on the ship for much longer if they continued to fail in similar ways, and made a small determined decision to do better. But perhaps, for a little bit, not that high up. They found someone who could give them work, and they went right back at it. It took them only fifteen minutes to get comfortable enough to go back to climbing.

Time went by fast for Ace when they did things they enjoyed. Of course, they weren’t aware of this, because Ace hadn’t really been in a position to do things they’d enjoyed, other than swimming. Working on a larger ship like this was not something they’d ever had the chance to try, and the small fishing boats on the island had never seemed appealing. They had never felt the urge to get onto a piece of floating wood to hang out a few miles away from town and then wait for… they didn’t actually know what fishing entailed, but they were certain it consisted largely of waiting and drinking with burly, grumpy, bearded men, with occasional backbreaking labour. 

Now, it has to be said that Ace was not opposed to labour, backbreaking or otherwise. It was the working hard to get nowhere fast that bothered them so much. If one got on a boat, Ace felt, it was to go somewhere. Being on top of water was in no way as appealing to them as being under it was, and being on top of it only to drag other things to their own level just felt needlessly cruel and complicated to the fish, who were only there out of curiosity, looking for something to eat and possibly try to have children with. None of them were there for nets, and Ace could relate. This ship was their first chance at getting out and away, and they weren’t planning on squandering it. 

The sun set, and Ace felt satisfied, an entirely new experience for them. They made their way down to the main deck, where Captain Maria once again shook their hand and thanked them for the day’s labour, and actually paid them as much as he’d said he would. While it might be entirely appropriate for me to tell you that he paid Ace a certain amount of shillings, dollars or pounds, none of that would mean anything to a reader who is not currently living in the same time as Ace, which is incredibly unlikely, and I am not looking to put anyone through the trouble of looking up conversion rates and inflation tables, so you’ll have to take my word for it that Ace was paid as much as a nice but frugal person might pay a nineteen year old. 

In this case, I use the word ‘frugal’ to keep from using the words ‘cheap’, ‘miserly’ and ‘greedy’, because Maria was not really any of those things, and I like to believe I’m a better person than making you, dear reader, look up the meaning of ‘parsimonious’. So let it simply be said that Maria did not like spending money, but did so on worthy causes, with only a little hesitation. 

Regardless, it was more money that Ace had ever owned, and they were happily surprised, so glad that they managed to squeeze out several more words before the day was over.

“Thank you very much, Captain,” Ace said with uncharacteristic eloquence, to which Maria smiled and patted them on the shoulder again with that strange look in his eyes. 

“Don’t thank me, Ace, you’re going to be a fine addition to my crew.”

Ace really wanted to believe him, but sometimes niggling fears are hard to overcome. Ace went home, a small attic with only a bed and a small table they had been allowed to live in after their parents had died. It wasn’t much, but Ace didn’t want much, and they’d been perfectly content up there, developing a mutually beneficial relationship with its resident bats. Without words needed, the bats didn’t try to nest in Ace’s hair when they went to bed, and in return, Ace didn’t slap them out of the air when they tried. It was an agreement everyone could live with, though some of the younger bats whose control over their claws had not developed as strongly yet usually ended up trying to sleep above Ace’s bed to ensure a soft landing in case of emergencies. 

Ace removed a few bats from their pillow and hooked them on the beam above their bed and, very quickly, they fell asleep, sore but satisfied. For what might perhaps have been the first time in their life, Ace was genuinely content, proud of a long day’s work, and they felt good.

Now, it’s very important to note this, because happiness had been so rare in Ace’s life, and while the next few days they would continue to enjoy similar cases of satisfaction and contentment, they would also lead up to the terrible events that would follow not long after. I find it important to mention this here, because I want you and myself, dear reader, to enjoy this moment with Ace, because it was so rare, and it immediately preceded their untimely death.