Chapter 1
The sea swelled like a swarm. The small cabin cruiser swayed and rollled about as if in the middle of a giant rollercoaster. The four women on board, desperately tried to continue with their afternoon lunch.
This had become extremely difficult due to the circumstances they now found themselves in. All they could do was just watch with a mixture of consternation and confusion.
Karen gasped suddenly. The others craned to look at what had just happened. One of the deserts had slid off the table, flipped upside down and had landed in Karen's lap, splattering cream and chocolate all over her skirt.
Shirley and Adrienne both grinned at this but Audrey kept a close eye on a bottle of blackcurrent juice that appeared to be on its way towards the edge of the table.
Audrey got up and leaned over the table. She reached out to try the bottle in an attempt to try and save it. Unfortunately for her, she failed to notice the coffee cake right in front of her.
As soon as she saw this, Karen stopped frowing at the mess on herself and smiled a wry smile.
Adrienne couldn't contain herself. She giggled as she watched the waist of Audrey's skirt come into contact with the coffee cake. Audrey however, didn't seem to notice.
However, as Audrey managed to lift the bottle off the table, she also failed to notice that Shirley had raised a glass to her lips. As Shirley went to take a drink, Audrey's elbow hit her hand quite abruptly. Shirley gasped and frowned in horror as her drink spilled all over her top.
Adrienne couldn't stop laughing at this. But she didn't for long.
The boat suddenly lurched to the right. Just above Adrienne's head, four eggs suddenly went flying out of the cupboard in her general direction.
Adrienne closed her eyes and frowned as they landed on her left shoulder with a squelch.
Adrienne put her hand to her shoulder as yellow and white egg yolk ran down her top and onto her skirt.
When the sea had become a little bit calmer, Audrey and Shirley both got up. All four women began examing themselves. Adrienne and Karen also got up; Karen leaned over slightly. As she straightened herself up, she looked down and tried to straighten her skirt.
Audrey let out a few curses under her breath when she saw the large coffee cake stain on her skirt.
"Oh that's just great!" exclaimed Shirley. "Now what do we do?!"
"Well we need to get ashore first so we can then clean ourselves up." Audrey said firmly. co
"I think the weather's calming down a bit now so that shouldn't be a problem." Karen remarked.
"Right. Okay then. Adrienne you make sure everything's all sorted. Shirely you take the helm." Audrey instructed.
"What about me?" Karen asked as the other two began their own respective tasks.
"I need you to give me a hand with cleaning up the boat." Audrey said.
"Okay. Do you think we'll make it back to port, Audrey?"
"I don't know Karen." replied Audrey, She then lowered her voice so as not to be overheard.
"I didn't want to mention this in front of the others but I think we might have a problem."
"What kind of problem?" Karen asked a little concerned.
"Well....We might have a leak but so, far, I can't see anything amiss." Audrey told her..
Karen stared at Audrey.
"You mean that we might sink before we reach the shore?!" she exclaimed under her breath.
Audrey nodded.
"Don't panic! It might happene; then again, it might not. I just hope that you can swim!"
Karen hesitated for a minute. She looked at Audrey and slowly shook her head.
You see, this whole sailing trip had been entirely Audrey's idea. She'd organised it, charted the boat but various things had gone wrong almost from the start.
Firstly, they'd had problems in getting to the dock when their car had gotten a flat tyre. When they'd eventually got to the boat, they'd discovered that it had been a much smaller boat than they had expected. There was just barely enough room for them all to sit together (which had been one of the reasons their clothes had been ruined during the lunch) and now it seemed that something else was just about to go wrong for them.
Adrienne and Shirley didn't know this at the time but they were all going to find out just how right Audrey's guess was to prove.
