The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

'I should think so,' he answered, exasperation in his voice. 'Will the other families already be on board?' Squinting at it he pronounced, 'The Seahawk.' Then from one of his pockets he drew a screw of paper. Grummage paused briefly to look at me as though surprised I was there, to say nothing of asking a question. 'What is the name of the ship I'm to sail on?' Indeed, in some vague way I had the feeling that it was all there for me. All in all it was a most delicious chaos, which, while mildly menacing, was no less exciting because of that. Then too, the surging crowds of workers, sailors, and merchants-all rough-hewn, brawny men-created an exotic late afternoon hubbub.

Bales of silk and tobacco! Chests of tea! A parrot! A monkey! Oh yes, the smell of the sea was intoxicating to one who knew little more than the smell of the trim cut lawns and the fields of the Barrington School. Everywhere I looked I saw mountains of rare goods piled high. There I became instantly agog at the mass of ships that lay before us, masts and spars thick as the bristles on a brush. Our little parade reached dockside in good order. A rough-looking porter, laboring behind, carried my trunk upon his back. Grummage, who had already begun to move on. In a flutter of nervousness I identified my trunk, threw my arms about Miss Emerson (my sweet companion for the trip down), and bid her a tearful farewell. Next, please oblige me by following, and everything shall be as it is meant to be.' 'Now, Miss Doyle, if you would be so good as to indicate which is your trunk, I have a man here to carry it. 'Pleased to meet you,' I said, dipping a curtsy.

'Miss Doyle?' he said as I stepped from the Liverpool coach. His eyes might have been those of a dead fish. His somber, sallow face registered no emotion.

Grummage was dressed in a black frock coat with a stove pipe hat that added to his considerable height. He was also to meet me when I came down from school on the coach, then see me safely stowed aboard the ship that my father had previously selected. It was he my father delegated to make the final arrangements for my passage to America. Grummage was, like my father, a gentleman. Though a business associate of my father, Mr. Just before dusk in the late afternoon of June 16, 1832, 1 found myself walking along the crowded docks of Liverpool, England, following a man by the name of Grummage.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi