Page 41 of A Yulean Sister’s Guide to Getting Kidnapped

Anne didn’t seem to sense anything wrong, continuing as if nothing happened.

“This is the laundry room,” she said after walking a couple of feet and cracking one of the doors.

It was a room similar size to mine, but had two large wash basins in it, and racks, I assumed to hang clothes in.

“Charming,” I said when she looked at me, as if she wanted me to say something. “So, what do I do?”

“I’ll show you.” She lifted a latch on the wall, and to my surprise, a spout fell and water poured into one of the buckets.

“Fill them both with water, then put a drop of soap in the first one, it’s in the cupboard back there.” She pointed. “The laundry pile is right there,” she said, pointing to a basket overflowing with linens.

When I looked at her, she shrugged. “It’s been a while.”

I tried to keep all the instructions straight in my head. “Then what?”

“Then,” she continued, “once you dunk them into the soapy water, and rinse in the clean, wring them out and hang them on the line. I always try to get stains out, but the soap can only do so much. Got it?”

“Sure,” I said, my face clearly a cry for help.

One that was silent to her apparently, because she just smiled at me. “Great! If you need anything, I’ll be up on the deck. I don’t want Connie to yell at me for being any later.”

“I—okay.”

She nodded, feeling good about her instructions, and left. I could have stopped her, but it was clear she was worried about getting on deck to a real job, and who was I to stop her?

“Just great,” I said out loud to myself, and the laundry.

I looked at the first bucket, obviously reaching its capacity. The handle was still down, so I pushed it up to stop the water, but it kept going.

Okay, maybe I was meant to just switch them out quickly. I moved to push the first one aside, then realized it was now too heavy to move, and the water was quickly rising.

It was the only way I could think, so I kept trying to push, until the ship moved particularly hard, and me and the bucket slid over and out of the way.

Guess that worked.

But now water was falling on the floor. I moved quickly, putting the second bucket under to start filling. Some water was on the floor, but I was sure I could clean that.

Now it needed soap. I opened the cupboard Anne was talking about and spotted the bottle pretty quickly. As I got on my toes to grab it, the ship rocked again and I slid forward, almost falling face first into the cupboard.

But I caught myself and grabbed it. How did anyone manage to live on this thing?

The second bucket was getting full, and I still didn’t know how to get it to stop.

Come on Sage, you can figure this out.

I pushed up the spout it came out of instead, and it folded back into the wall, the water stopping with it.

I was a genius.

Feeling good about it, I opened the soap and started pouring. She said just a drop, so I tried to be careful. But as soon as I started dumping, the waves hit again and made me drop the whole thing, smashing it to the floor and spilling it everywhere.

“Moons!” I cried, looking for something to clean it up.

As I ran around like a fool, I slipped on the soap, trying to find purchase on the ship wall.

Instead, I found it on the water lever, pulling it down again. Though it wasn’t strong enough to hold me and I crashed to the ground anyway, taking one of the buckets down with me.

Chapter 13