Hellen

Simon, Philip, Sarah, Charles, and I made our way toward the harbor, where we were lucky to find that a ship was just being boarded by a load of soldiers who would be making their way to the colonies for an attack. It was around thirty feet tall, built from wood, and along the side of the ship, the name USS Lynch was painted in big letters.

Simon, who had never seen a ship before, looked as if he’d seen His Majesty himself for the first time. “Woah...” he said, his awed look not leaving his face.

“It’s just a boat, Simon,” said Sarah, who, as I’ve mentioned, never fancied anything that could be dirty. “It’s not like it’s a real war field.”

“Well, we’ll see plenty of those when we get to the colonies, right?”

“Yes, but that ship is from the colonies. We can’t get too excited. It goes against every bit of loyalty that we’ve got toward the king, even though it’s probably the only ship that we can be sure will take us to the colonies.”

“If it isn’t, I don’t want to stay here long enough to find out,” I said. “Who knows when another ship will arrive?”

Charles looked up at the boat, then simply told us, “Well, we’d better board that boat.”

We carefully snuck onto the ship. Sarah and I had to take caution to avoid getting our dresses’ hems caught on the splintered wood. My brothers looked like they were a mixture of proud of themselves for boarding a boat belonging to the war and glum that they were leaving England for the first time in their lives.

I knew that Philip, who was seventeen, wanted longingly to join the war, but Mother wouldn’t let him, as Father becoming a soldier would be enough. That explained to me why he seemed proud, but six-year-old Simon and my twin brother, Charles, never desired any sort of battle, so I was confused as to why they seemed cheerful.

I, on the other hand, was still hurt that my father had been transferring information to the spy. He had always taught us to do otherwise. My siblings and I had always assumed that he had just done something that was the slightest bit Patriotic, such as saying a simple thing like, “Shouldn’t the colonies have a little bit of the authority that England’s got over them?”

We reached the deck of the boat, where we could see a dozen soldiers plotting against the king. We quietly snuck to the entrance that would lead us to the chambers below deck. I was surprised at how well Philip—who was leading the way—maneuvered his way through the ship. It was almost as if he had been on one before, which didn’t make sense because our parents never would’ve let us sail. Maybe he had read a lot of books about their structure.

I sped my pace a bit so I could catch up to him. “Philip,” I whispered. “How do you know the design of this ship so well?”

Philip looked my way with a grim look on his face that made him look fourteen years older than me rather than just four. He carefully pulls back his right sleeve to reveal a long scar across his forearm.

“You tried to join the war?!”