“I’m getting to that! The point is, Aunt Vera can only put up with me for a few hours at a time. So in the afternoons, as long as I don’t behave scandalously, I’m free as a bird to wander around and explore, and while I was exploring I noticed that Malachy Campbell kept poor little Federico in a tiny dirty cage in his yard. And then I followed him for a bit, because he was taking Federico all around town trying to sell him, but nobody wanted him. I mean”—Lotti dropped her voice—“even I can see he’s quite odd-looking, especially when he’s so thin. So I said to myself, if Mr. Campbell hasn’t sold that poor dog in five days, I will rescue him. And he didn’t. So I did.”

“But how?” Ben was enthralled.

“Well, that bit was quite easy,” said Lotti. “All I had to do was steal a crowbar from Zachy—Zachy is our gardener, and a darling—and then wait for Mr. Campbell to go out, climb over the wall of his yard, force open the cage, pick up Federico and run!”

“But why are you here, on the Sparrowhawk?”

“Because Mr. Campbell came back and saw what I’d done, so he ran after me. Luckily, even carrying Federico, I’m much faster than him. He never got close! But then I got tired, and I saw your boat and I just … jumped on.”

“How did you get in?”

Lotti shifted guiltily and glanced toward Nathan’s workshop. Ben followed her gaze and winced. A trail of muddy footprints led right across the floor to the door, which was hanging ajar. The gardener’s crowbar lay on the floor beside it.

Ben stood up and closed the door between the cabin and the workshop.

“Are you cross?” whispered Lotti.

Ben thought about this carefully. Nathan’s workshop! He had avoided it for months, and she had just breezed in, traipsed through it as if it were nothing. He should be cross. He was definitely upset. And yet at the same time, he knew that Nathan and Sam would both have loved the story of the rescued Chihuahua …

“No,” he admitted.

Lotti breathed a sigh of relief, then burst out laughing. “Ben, what is your dog doing?”

Elsie had climbed on to Ben’s berth and was turning round in tight circles on the mattress. As they watched, she curled into a ball and pulled the blanket over her head with her teeth.

Ben smiled and reached into the blanket to scratch her ears. “It means it’s going to rain.”

“Rain? But it’s a lovely sunny day!”

“Doesn’t matter. She’s like a barometer, Nathan always said.”

“Nathan?”

“My dad.” Ben stopped scratching Elsie and burrowed his hand in her fur for comfort. “He adopted me from the orphanage. He died in the war.”

“Oh, rotten luck!”