[Primrose Bolger]

Sassy accepted the piece of fruit and a strip of the dried meat in silence. She nodded her head at the boy who handed them to her, keeping her hood pulled well forward so that he could not see her face. Despite the chill of the day, her cheeks were blazing . . . and not from the briskness of the wind and rain. She was embarrassed; mortified that she’d gotten them into such a pickle! They were being hurtled down the river, and who knew when they would be able to maneuver toward the shore. Sassy hoped fervently both the raft and all of them wouldn’t be too banged up in the process.

‘You little wormbrain,’ she chided herself. ‘Maybe they should have left you to slip under the waves!’ Sassy chewed angrily on her meat stick as she sat huddled with the others in the middle of the raft. One hand held the raggedy, bitten piece of meat while the other held on for dear life to the rope. And that was another thing . . . Sassy loved the water, and was really quite a good swimmer. But, the fierceness of the river’s current really had frightened her when she’d almost slid into it. It had dragged at her toes, like some old boggart her Gammer had told stories about . . .the kind that liked to pull little children who wouldn’t stay in their beds into the darkness beneath and eat them boiled and mashed.

Sassy shuddered for a moment beneath her cloak, then clamped down on those sort of thoughts. She looked slyly about hoping no one had seen her acting scared. She couldn’t show she was frightened . . . boys didn’t, and well . . . she didn’t want to be laughed at. She had to be just as tough as they were.

She’d just wanted to help Bingo who had been nice to her and let her go along on the turtle hunt. She scooted carefully near him, pulling her pack off her shoulders as she reached the boy. Sassy fished in her pack, way down to the bottom, til she found the little tin she’d brought. Cook would skin her when she figured out who’d filched the candies from the cupboard.

‘Umm . . . Bingo?’ she said hesitatingly, trying to catch his attention. She opened the little tin. The candies were a little stuck together from being out in the wet weather, but she held them out toward him. ‘My Gammer makes these peppermint drops for us for sweets. She says they’re good for tummies, too. Settles ‘em right down. You want one?’ She made a little gesture as if offering them about for general use.

A little ways away from her sat that boy, Falco - the one that had cornered her brother when they first found her stowed away on the raft. From the corner of her eye she thought she saw a brief look of guilt cross his face. Wonder what he's thinking! she thought to herself, eyeing him for a moment, her forehead wrinkling briefly.

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Child of the 7th Age's post for Bingo

Bingo warily eyed the small tin of peppermints that Sassy was holding out in her hand. He could feel the hot stares of several of the lads, who peered at him in an offhand way, not saying a word but watching surreptitiously to see what he would do. The raft had settled down a little, and his stomach was feeling considerably better. A peppermint would be just the thing to set things back to rights again. Bingo had a bit of a sweet tooth, which he rarely had the chance to indulge. The peppermints looked awfully tempting, and Sassy somehow seemed less of a nuisance than she had done before.

Leaning over to the lass, he grinned, "Don't mind if I do....", and then reached his hand inside the box being careful to fish out only one. For one minute, he thought he heard a snicker from the back of the raft. But when Bingo shot his head around and glared, the sound immediately died. And within a few minutes, the raft had encountered a much wilder stretch of the river, and all thoughts of further investigation immediately died. Bingo hung onto the mast for dear life, hoping that the worst of the journey was behind them.