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ladder for the rest of you to climb down.'
    Nobody argued. They all knew Li was an expert free-climber who could scale a sheer cliff without using lines. She was an Anglo-Chinese girl, born and brought up in London, but her parents were zoologists and they had been taking her on field trips with them since she was little. Li had come across a friendly group of free-climbers on one of these trips and discovered that she was a natural. The sport suited her wiry strength, perfect balance and sense of adventure. She loved climbing. A swinging rope-ladder would be nothing to her.
    Amber tightened the straps on the rucksacks while Paulo left his look-out post to collect a spare length of rope from the deck locker. Quickly he looped one end of the rope through the straps of the two rucksacks and secured them with an expert knot, then stuffed the rolled blankets through the straps, threw the rest of the coiled rope over his shoulder and carried the whole lot over to the stern rail.
    The gate in the stern rail had been padlocked shut, so Li pushed the rope-ladder under the bottom rail and let it uncoil. Boosting herself over the top of the rail, she balanced casually on the very edge of the deck and waited for the movement of the ladder to settle down.
    Alex left Hex to finish tying the painter while he hurried over to try and hold the ladder steady. Li swung down onto the first rung and Alex grunted with effort as the ladder tried to twist itself out of his hands.
    'Be careful, Li!' hissed Paulo. Li stuck out her tongue at him, then quickly made her way down the spinning ladder, stepping from rung to rung with sure-footed grace until she reached the bottom. There, she began to swing on the ladder until it was moving like a pendulum, each swing taking her further and further in under the counter-stern. On the final swing, just before she jumped out of sight to land lightly in the hidden tender, Li lifted her head and grinned up at them, her eyes alight with excitement.
    'Five go on an adventure!' she laughed and they all laughed back, caught up in the thrill of a shared rebellion. Not one of them guessed how accurate her words would prove to be.
    The Phoenix was holding a steady course and moving at a low rate of knots, so the little tender bobbed along gently enough under the counter-stern and they all managed the rope-ladder without any problems. Li had already spread the bunk blankets out to make the seating more comfortable. She and Paulo settled down side by side in the stern, Alex and Amber faced one another across the rucksacks, and Hex sprawled out in the bows with one arm hanging over the side.
    'Give me food,' moaned Paulo, pretending to faint with hunger. 'Give me drink.'
    'Did you get anything from the galley, Amber?' asked Alex, feeling his own stomach suddenly clench with hunger.
    'Did I? Wait till you see the menu for tonight.' Amber reached into one of the rucksacks. 'Soda for starters,' she said, tossing each of them a can of cold drink. 'Fruit to end the meal,' she added, pulling out a bagful of apples and bananas and carefully laying it aside. 'But here's the best bit.'
    They all leaned forward as Amber dug down into the rucksack and lifted out two of the large storage tins from the galley. She cracked open the lids and a fragrant steam rose from both tins, filling the air with the smell of roast chicken and cooked rice.
    'I snuck in and filled them up from the pots on the stove while the cook was out of the galley,' said Amber proudly, pulling a chicken drumstick from one tin and biting into it. 'Still hot,' she mumbled through a mouthful of chicken.
    They all attacked the food, suddenly realizing how hungry they were after four hours of work on deck. The rice was cooked to perfection and flavoured with herbs. They formed it into balls with their fingers and shoved in into their mouths along with pieces of spiced chicken. For a while there was silence as they all concentrated on eating. Finally Paulo leaned back,