Bob.

Bob.

Bob.

Bob.

Bob.

It was strange being on the boat, like being in another world. Everything had fallen away except the wind and the sea and the slapping of waves against wood, the constant rhythmic bobbing of the vessel.

Sannah sat with her arms folded and head rested on the bulwark, mesmerised by the foaming water. The waves were opaque, sucking the light from the fading sky. Sannah tried not to think of the interminable, lifeless depths beneath her. It scared her, and she looked away, fixing her attention on the solid (flimsy!) wood within.

Standing up uncertainly, she went to join Gaen and Deera in the wheelhouse. They were huddled by the steering wheel, their heads swaying with the boat's bob.

"Hey," Sannah greeted them.

"Hey." Gaen looked over to her and smiled. "I was thinking of showing you guys how to steer and navigate. Otherwise I won't be able to sleep until we get to Albia. It's gonna take us about four days, so...you'll need to drive. Just a little bit—a few odd hours. You can wake me if things get difficult."

"Of course." Sannah nodded quickly, joining them by the wheel. "Definitely. Is it hard?"

"Nope, not really." Gaen said. "You shouldn't have to change the speed or anything. The weather is smooth and waters are pretty clear out here. You just need to make sure we keep heading in this direction,"—he pointed to a compass sitting by the steering wheel—"and don't turn too sharply if we drift off course, keep it gradual. Then we'll go here."

He traced their journey across an expanse of blue map, flicking it over to reveal the yellow blob of Albia when he got to the bottom of the page. His finger trailed eastward around the green top of the island, then down the length of the coast.

He tapped the map. "We're heading for Marport. It's the closest to the south of the city and then to Birchwood. That's where we need to be, right?"

"Yep," Sannah agreed.

Deera frowned, looking at their route. "Is safe?" She said uncertainly. "What about border men?"

"Um, yeah." Gaen looked taken aback. "I suppose there might be border patrol. That makes sense. But we're citizens, right? And Deera has Judit's ID. I don't think they'll be interested in us, on a little boat like this. Me and Brock have been stopped before and it's never been a problem."

"If there border men there danger." Deera shook her head. "They catch us, they hurt us."

"She's right." Sannah looked at Gaen. "Maybe not for you and Brock. But us,"—she pointed to herself, then Deera—"They'll take us in for sure."

"You have ID, though," Gaen said. "You're a citizen. And Deera is Judit, as far as they know."

"I still don't think we should risk it," Sannah said doubtfully. "You don't know what it's like, ID or no."

"I don't know what else we can do." Gaen frowned. "Our only other option is..." His finger traced north along the map. "We go for Calside. Is that where you left from with Brock?"

Sannah nodded, the black lines on the map enlivened by the smell of diesel, the adrenalin of escape.

"But that's different to what I planned. Then we've somehow got to travel down the whole of Albia on land, and we don't have any money," Gaen pointed out.

"Train?" Sannah suggested. "We try to sell some chang, or maybe find somewhere for me and Deera to work, then pay for the tickets that way?"

"I suppose," he sounded doubtful. "It's really going to drag out the trip."

"We do not want to meet border men," Deera said assertively. "I give promise. It very bad."

"Okay." Gaen shook his head. "In that case Calside it is, then we try and make the money to get south." His tone was far from confident.

The three stood quietly for a moment, surveying the rippling waves through the misty window, and Sannah thought about the difficulty of the journey ahead.

"Well," Deera said eventually, forcefully cheerful. "You show me now to drive boat then?"

***

"Is she okay?" Gaen said hesitantly, gesturing to Deera through the wheelhouse window.

Sannah shrugged.

Deera  had been self-consciously cheery all through their driving lesson, but had excused herself as soon as they finished, moving to sit at the front of the boat. She'd been there ever since, her arms hugged around her, head dropped.

Sannah wondered if she was thinking about the border patrol, or her first boat trip to Albia, with the smugglers from Tvena. What was it like? Coming all that way? Had the boat been little, like this, or big?

It might even have been smaller than this one. You saw dinghys, sometimes, on the news, dragged behind police boats, packed tight with haunted looking brown-skinned people, knowing their dreams had been destroyed.

Sannah thought of her mum, on some boat with that uncle. Then in prison, alone, right now, and the pain cut through her like a knife. She couldn't bear it, tears stinging their way into her eyes.

"I'm...I'm sorry about earlier," Gaen said from his place at the wheel.

He'd been stiff and closed-off ever since their change of plans, and Sannah had assumed he was mad about it. Why was he apologising? She glanced sideways at him, his eyes still fixed on the horizon, hands clutching the smooth black wheel.

"I didn't...I didn't mean to upset you. I wasn't very sensitive. About the border thing. With you guys being..."

He hesitated, like it was rude to point it out or something, but Sannah knew he wanted to say Exotic. His blatant discomfort made her angry at him, and that anger made her angry at herself.

She'd barely thought about race at all on Hirta. It had seemed totally irrelevant that the members of their group happened to have differently pigmented skin. And now they weren't even back in Albia, yet already that familiar, lingering difference was starting to envelop her all over again.

She suddenly felt utterly, totally disconnected to Gaen, like there was no way they could have anything in common at all, or even be from the same species. It made her feel uselessly vulnerable and desperately alone.

"It doesn't matter," she snapped, uncharacteristically harsh.

He flinched. Sannah stepped away slightly, mortified that she'd been such a bitch. But she couldn't bring herself to say sorry and draw more attention to the dagged-up topic.

"I'll go and see if Deera's alright," she finally said, just to get away from him.

The sky was close and low outside, as if reflecting her mood.

"Deera?"

Deera looked up as Sannah approached, her expression sad despite her smile.

"Are you okay?" Sannah asked gently, sitting beside her.

"I okay." Deera nodded. "Boat make me think of leaving Tvena. It make me think of home."

She hugged herself tighter, looked out over the sea.

"What's it like there?" Sannah asked, hugging herself too. The wind was rising, and it was cold.

"Is good and bad." Deera smiled sadly again. "Is very beautiful. The colours...the colours are better than here. Here, all colours so pale, so grey. There, the earth red, the plants green, the sky blue, you know? Real blue."

She smiled, properly this time, as if enlivened by the memory. "Nature there bigger, more powerful. Flowers, animals, all is bigger. Insect bigger. Bite can kill you."

She nipped Sannah's arm playfully between her fingers.

"But people is very poor. We have no medicine, no food."

"Like us, on Hirta," Sannah said.

"No. Is different. On Hirta, land is ours, food we grow is ours." Deera shook her head. "In Tvena, most land is use for..." she paused, struggling for the word.

"Ebini," she said, as if swearing at her inability to say what she wanted to in Albian. "Land is use for grow things to go....Akyiri." She lifted her fingers in an arc, as if they were flying.

"Export?" Sannah furrowed her brow. "It's flown away?"

"Yes." Deera nodded enthusiastically. "You say export? Export. So there not much land, best all for export farm. Then what we grow on land we have, half must give government, for feed people working..." She clicked her fingers, said "Ebini," again. "Sorry." She smiled at Sannah. "Is new thing we talk about. I not know words."

"It's okay," Sannah smiled. "I don't know any Tvu words either. Ebini," She mimicked Deera. "What's that?"

Deera put her hand to her mouth and giggled. "Is bad word," she said. "What we do in bucket."

"Dag?" Sannah asked, and laughed. "That's useful, for sure. Ebini. I'll remember that."

Deera grinned. "I try to say adwuma. Place where many people is working, many thing is made."

"Factory." Sannah nodded.

"Factory." Deera repeated. We have es...es...ebini! I forget." She screwed up her face. "Export. Export area. With many factory. My mum work in one."

"Yeah?" Sannah noticed Deera had an incongruous accent when she said mum—she sounded like Merle. The wind was strengthening, the sea-spray chilly through her coat.

"Yes. I very sad when she go there. She come back only little. I...I love my mum very much. But factory life hard, she no come home for many time. I no see her. But we need money, pay our land."

"That's horrible," Sannah said, pulling her coat around herself and shivering. "So did your dad look after you?"

"Yes, though he man, no cook or clean." Deera laugh. "I do it. I leave school. I like school, but it okay. I know my mum work very hard. She very tired when she come home, very...away." She moved her fingers in front of her eyes, as if to say distant.

"So I try to be good like I can, to help her. She spend all factory money for me come Albia, make better life." Deera's mouth curled in sadness, and she looked away again, the wind moving the fabric of her coat violently against her back.

Sannah looked away as well, thinking of her own mother. Of what a good, uncomplaining daughter Deera was, so understanding, sacrificing freely, and how ungrateful and selfish she'd been in comparison. She sniffed, her hair hitting her in the face. She felt like the wind was beating her, and that she deserved it.

"I love my mother," Deera repeated, raising her voice over the noise of the sea. "I miss her very much. I happy...I happy she not know what those men do to us. I want her think she give me better life."

Sannah nodded, reaching out to steady herself on the side of the boat. Their movements were getting more violent. Water was coming from above as well as below now, spears of rain hitting them on the diagonal.

"Weather is change," Deera said, looking about, the hood of her coat moving angrily around her face. She put her hands up to try and still it.

Both girls staggered as the boat lurched to the right.

"Let's go in," Sannah shouted over the gale, struggling to right herself in the water-slick wood. "Get out of the rain."

They took one another's arms for support and inched along the deck, Deera clinging all the while to the side as the boat wavered to and fro.

Sannah grabbed the corner of the wheelhouse when they arrived at it, thankful to have something other than Deera to hold onto.

Looking up, she caught Gaen's eye through the spray-peppered glass. The movement of the boat was making him stagger from side-to-side, struggling to keep control as his body lurched away from the wheel.

As soon as she saw him, all that prior distance was forgotten. Sannah clutched Deera's hand tighter. Skin colour didn't matter. Nothing mattered except the fact they were alive, together, and life was threateningly fragile.

Something was wrong. Gaen looked terrified.