The tell-tales showed the wind was still moving. Suddenly Ursula began to shake. The foresail went loose. The boom and the main sail swung over, with an enormous crash that shook the timbers.

Mia cringed and pulled on the winch. The boom swung back, more gently. The sails filled with wind and went taut again. Ursula ran smoothly again.

“Are you okay, Mia?” Bear called.

“Yes, fine!” Mia nodded frantically. “Yes, totally, absolutely, thanks.”

Bear didn’t say anything else. Ursula sailed on, with Mia a little wiser at the helm.

9

LAND HO

Mia stirred sleepily in her bunk. It was still dark but the alarm clock on the shelf by her head was beeping. Time to get up and take her next watch.

Mia and Bear had spent the rest of the day taking turns at the tiller, and pumping, and generally keeping Ursula afloat and on course. They snacked on dried fish washed down with rationed mouthfuls of water. They had worked out their routine well, but by the time Mia had to turn in, she had been dead on her feet.

She had slept like a log, and now she felt completely refreshed – and excited. She was looking forward to getting back to work.

The first task was pumping water out. Then she climbed the ladder back onto deck. Bear was at the tiller, a silhouette against the stars.

The stars!

Mia looked up and felt her mind get blown.

“Wow!”

The sky was alive. Billions of tiny little twinkling points, from horizon to horizon.

“You probably won’t see them like this back home,” said Bear. She could hear the smile in his voice. “There’s too much light pollution drowning them out. But out here, there’s absolutely nothing to get in the way.”

Mia made her way to the back of the boat and took the tiller from Bear.

“I can’t see the compass,” she realised.

“We can navigate by the stars, like our ancestors.” Bear’s outline pointed up. “See the Plough?”

Mia recognised the constellation, like a square saucepan. It was one of the things she could see at night back home, accompanied by a few hundred little friends. Now, it had about a billion.

“See the edge of the blade? Those two stars? Follow them up …” Bear’s finger moved upwards. “And they point at that star there, the North Star. That star stays fixed while the others rotate around it, and it’s always in the north – or from our point of view, about one inch to the right of the top of the mast. So as long as you keep the North Star there, we’ll be on course. Got that? Awesome! See you in a couple of hours!”

Mia was left alone at the tiller again, steering Ursula like a starship through space.