Portland, Maine
In which breakfast is provided...
Dawn was spreading pale gold across Portland Harbour when @Chickadeeinme climbed onto the roof of the Observatory and raised the Union flag beside herself with considerable satisfaction. Her suffragette-coloured mohawk was already glowing violently in the sunrise.
Through her telescope she could see the harbour was waking up in the purposefully semi-chaotic manner unique to coastal cities preparing simultaneously for revelry, debauchery and poor decisions.
Market stalls were opening along the waterfront beneath strings of festival bunting while somewhere further inland somebody had begun playing banjo music with alarming enthusiasm.
High above the noise, Chickadee tracked the outer waters through her telescope. Far out beyond the harbour traffic, the Dreadnork was arriving beneath reduced sail.
She folded the brass tubes shut with a definitive click. “Aye,” she muttered. “That’ll be them.”
Out on the water, the weathered black hull moved slowly between lobster boats and festival ferries. Exhausted figures leaned against the rails staring at civilisation with the hollow expressions of people who had crossed an ocean entirely by accident.
At the helm, @Swashbuckled narrowed one eye toward the harbour entrance. “Well,” she said, “this appears to be America.”
From the crow’s nest, several gerbils cheered weakly. One immediately fell asleep in a coil of rope.
By the time the crew reached Becky’s Diner, Portland had become fully operational.
Festival banners snapped overhead along the waterfront streets while tourists, sailors, dockworkers and musicians all attempted to occupy the same pavements. Simultaneously, a brass band was losing a fight with a sea shanty group.
Becky’s itself appeared entirely untroubled by any of this. While half the diner was a teeming warzone of staff and waiting customers, the other half was a vacuum of empty, pushed-together tables, fiercely guarded by Chickadee.
The moment the Dreadnork crew entered, the dam broke.
Coffee arrived almost instantly. So did pancakes. And waffles. And eggs. And something involving maple syrup that caused several gerbils to become briefly emotional.
At the head of the table MyrtleLion sat with effortless composure despite the chaos surrounding her. She had somehow acquired a dark green blanket around her shoulders which gave her the appearance of a queen temporarily tolerating pancakes among commoners.
@ErrolTheDragon attempted to roost on the table, aborted, and feigned a sudden interest in the joinery.
Near the window, @Magpiecomplex caught a sudden flash of bright white. Leaning forward at the prospect of a discarded silver coin, Magpie slumped back on the sight of a harbour cat.
Octavia Briefcase removed her coat and stared thoughtfully into coffee with the distant air of a barrister realising there is a point where an Atlantic pursuit actually affects billable hours.
At the centre of the table, Chickadee was talking rapidly while @RandomHypatia took notes. “Cargo manifests all over the place this week,” Chickadee said. “Crates arriving labelled agricultural supplies then leaving marked marine antiques. Paintings unloaded at three in the morning. Seed shipments nobody can trace properly. Half the dockworkers think customs has given up entirely.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” muttered @Thehorticulturalhussie around a mouthful of waffle.
“And somebody’s been using partial markings.” Chickadee drew a rough circle on a napkin and crossed it with three lines. “Like that.”
Gosie went still. “It’s not random smuggling,” she said quietly. “It’s organised movement.”
An hour later, Becky herself appeared carrying a handwritten bill roughly the size of a bedsheet.
Swashbuckled examined it solemnly, reached into her coat, and placed a heavy gold doubloon into Becky’s hand. Becky bit the coin once. “Seems fair,” she said.
Then she tucked it calmly into the till and shouted toward the kitchen, “More chowder for table seven!”
By lunchtime the streets had become almost impossible to navigate.
Festival crowds surged between food stalls and musicians while the Dreadnork crew kept to the water’s edge scanning the pontoons like a particularly dangerous field trip.
The target yacht was definitely here, moored somewhere in this chaotic mess, but it was like looking for a stolen bicycle in the bike rack at Oxford station. If the fire had taken the rigging, the ruined mast was likely down, leaving the boat decapitated and utterly hidden beneath a glittering forest of hundreds of pristine, celebratory sails. It was a needle in a haystack, and the haystack was throwing a party.
The serious Scandinavians moved together through crowds which unconsciously parted before them. @AuntieMsDamsonCrumble paused more than twice to examine harbour rigging. Hussie disappeared briefly and returned carrying pastries under circumstances nobody investigated too closely. Several gerbils acquired tiny festival ribbons and became extremely proud of themselves.
The joy of the festival eased the sting of the missed yacht slightly. If they couldn't find the boat, they might as well find a drink, leading them, almost inevitably, to a tavern.
Three Dollar Deweys was already deafening.
Music thundered from somewhere near the ceiling while sailors and festival drinkers crowded every available inch of floor space beneath hanging fishing nets and ancient ship lanterns. The arrival of the Dreadnork crew produced a silence lasting almost three entire seconds.
Then the shouting resumed louder than before.
“Oi!” yelled a broad man in a college jersey. “You lot the pirate ship?”
“We are,” said Swashbuckled.
“The Dreadnork!” another man shouted delightedly. “Still can’t believe somebody named a ship after a pair of—”
He stopped.
Three gerbils had drawn cutlasses simultaneously.
Not theatrically. Professionally. Tiny polished blades pointed upward in absolute silence. Gunwale climbed onto the table without breaking eye contact.
The tavern atmosphere altered slightly.
Swashbuckled laid her hand on the hilt of her sabre. “I would respectfully caution against disparagement of the vessel.”
The man blinked. “Right,” he said carefully. “Fair enough.” Beside him, another drinker lowered his pint very slowly.
Swashbuckled nodded once. “Much appreciated.”
The man cleared his throat, eyeing the steel on the table with newfound deference. “A round of the local pale for the … gerbils … on the table, then? And whatever your crew is drinking.” He looked nervously at Gunwale, then pushed a bowl of complimentary bar snacks forward. Gunwale gave a single, curt nod. The blades were sheathed with identical, metallic clicks, then the gerbils turned on their heels, and lunged into the bowl of peanuts.
A collective breath was released. The music resumed. Within minutes everyone was drinking together. Nobody acknowledged the cutlasses again.
By afternoon the waterfront had quietened slightly.
The festival still roared elsewhere through the city, but along the marina the noise had softened into distant music, clinking rigging and water against pilings. Long shadows stretched between rows of yachts. Canvas covers shifted gently in the wind. Somewhere nearby a radio was playing yacht rock.
The Dreadnork crew wandered more slowly now, tiredness finally beginning to settle properly into their bones, still aimlessly searching for the Rustler.
Ahead of them, a tortoiseshell cat emerged lightly from beneath a parked trailer.
Nobody reacted immediately. Then Magpie frowned. “Hang on.”
The cat was carrying something. A slipper. Small. Fluffy. In the shape of a Highland cow.
The cat stopped beside a bollard and dropped the slipper in front of them.
@EdithStourton stared. “Oh,” she said.
The cat watched them steadily.
“Kitty,” whispered Gosie.
The cat blinked once. Then picked up the slipper again and began walking away through the marina.
“Boiledbeetle’s slipper,” said RandomHypatia.
“Kitty must have joined the smugglers on the yacht,” said Gosie.
Swashbuckled’s expression changed instantly. “Follow the cat,” she said.
Kitty trotted ahead between crowded marina berths without once looking back. The crew followed rapidly past endless rows of leisure yachts packed tightly together beneath fluttering festival flags and covered sails.
Portland Marina stretched around them in dense forests of masts. Boat after boat after boat. White hulls. Blue covers. Tourists. Maintenance crews. Shore cables. Normality everywhere.
Then Kitty stopped.
Ahead of them, partly hidden between two much larger yachts, sat the dark blue Rustler 36.
https://open.substack.com/pub/myrtlelion/p/portland-maine