✔THE STING (onc-19)

7. 'Song of the sea'

"Zar, you'd be hopeless taking care of children, you're far too impatient for a person." Gabby gave a soft chuckle, pampering and petting Tibby's hair. Chip and Bo had settled, crouching around Sheila and gawking at the book and it's mesmerising transparent pages.

"I don't condone it, Gabby. You have spoken the truth." Zaren agreed, pouting his lips.

"Thirteen!" Sheila raised her index, her eyes totally immersed in the book. "Uh...somebody please take a note of it. It's thirteen parts in the first turn of the first spiral."

"There's nothing there to take your notes, you dumb-head." Zaren poked her forehead, teasing her.

"Ouch, Zar!"

"No worries. Gimme your dagger, Zar." Kai pointed towards Kai's belt, where the dagger was tucked in a brown leather sheath.

"Did you just call me 'Zar'?" Zaren crossed his arms with an impish scowl.

"Umm...do I still need to call you 'Sir'?

"No, 'Captain' would work fine too." Zaren nodded and handed his dagger over to Kai.

"Aye. Aye. Captain." Kai shook his head with a shrug and started etching the number on the wooden bar that separated the boat into two halves.

"Okay. Five in the second turn and eighteen in the third. Done?" Sheila kept a constant check on the numbers that were being etched on the bar.

"Yeah. Done."

"Coming to the second spiral, it's sixteen, seven and eight." She ran her finger tip along the large radial spoke running from the centre to the periphery, which somewhat decided the beginning and ending of each turn of a conch like spiral. Each turn had several small lines deciding the number she counted.

"Okay." Kai nodded scratching the plank with the tip of the dagger.

"Fourteen. Nine. One. That's the end. Now, Let me see it." Sheila hastily rushed towards Kai, making the boat to shake up and down.

'13,5,18. 16,7,8. 14,9,1'.

"M. E. R. O. G. H. N. I. A." She clasped her waist and bit her lip, trying to analyse the meaning of the word she had spelled.

"What's the meaning?" Zaren urged, fidgeting his feet as his strong and experienced arms rowed the boat smoothly.

"I don't know. It doesn't make any sense. I have never heard that word before." Sheila mumbled, as her eyebrows knotted into each other in confusion.

"Maybe it's in a different language. We should try using alphabets of other languages as well." Kai added his opinion, while he was wondering at the word himself.

"Makes sense. But, I only know few languages." Sheila gave up as she threw her hands in the air and sat down cross legged, blowing a curl of hair out of her face.

"So, that's another fail in a row." Zaren impassively scanned all the tiny islands that littered along the length of the kelp clogged sea.

"The blue moon sings the song of the sea,
tell me my sailor, can you hear it?"

Sal started to hum a melody out of the blue. He covered his face from the direct sunlight, with his hat and leaned back on the gunwale of boat.

"Dad, would you please stop it?" Kai cried, "this might be our only chance to survive."

"Kai, do you remember the song your mum used to sing?" Sal reluctantly peeked through his ragged hat, "you never slept without that lullaby."