A Very Small Stowaway

Wednesday. Summer holidays, and today a party came aboard with a baby.

The baby did not pull a single lever. In fairness, nobody asked it to. A child under three may come aboard in a parent’s arms to watch, if the crew at the venue agree, and rides free, but it still takes one of the eight places, which the parents had forgotten and the management had not.

It watched the whole hour with enormous eyes. When the Beast passed the porthole it laughed, which is the first time anything has laughed at the Beast. I am grateful. I intend to remind the Beast of it at every opportunity.

The real work was done by the older children, a girl of eight and a boy of eleven, with both parents aboard, which is just as well: an eight-year-old needs a paying grown-up in the room, and she had two. She asked whether she could be captain next time. I offered her first officer. She said she would think about it.