185
" I would let her…have adventures. I would let her…choose her path. It would be hard…it was hard…but I would do it. Oh, not completely, of course. Some things have to go on. Cleaning one’s teeth, arithmetic. But Maia fell in love with the Amazon. It happens. The place was for her--and the people. Of course there was some danger, but there is danger everywhere. Two years ago, in this school, there was an outbreak of typhus, and three girls died. Children are knocked down and killed by horses every week, here in these streets--” She broke off, gathering her thoughts. “When she was traveling and exploring…and finding her songs, Maia wasn’t just happy, she was…herself. I think something broke in Maia when her parents died, and out there it was healed. Perhaps I’m mad--and the professor, too--but I think children must lead big lives…if it is in them to do so. And it is in Maia. "
― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea
186
" You know you said you used to wake up every morning in the lagoon when your father was alive and think, ‘Here I am, where I want to be.’ Well, that’s how I feel when I wake up on the Arabella.”
Maia did not care whether they found the Xanti or not. It was not about arriving for her, it was about the journey. Even the sadness about Minty deserting her had gone.
For Finn, who had almost kidnapped her, there were moments of anxiety. He should have told someone that Maia was safe, instead of taking her away without a word, but gradually he stopped worrying and gave himself up to the journey.
And if Maia knew deep down that she would not be allowed to sail away forever up the rivers of the Amazon, she managed to forget it. She sang as she worked and when Finn whistled “Blow the Wind Southerly,” she smiled, because she had been wrong to be cross with the wind. The wind had brought him back, and she was content.
And when Finn complained at the end of a day that they had not come very far, she said, “What does it matter? We’ve got all the time in the world.”
Which is not always a clever thing to say. "
― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea
187
" Bernard was afraid of loud voices. He was afraid of the dark. He was afraid of his brother, Dudley, who tried to make a man of him, and he was afraid of his sister, Joan, who threw him in the lake and held his head under the water to make him swim. When Barnard spoke to the maids, he did it quietly and he said “please” and “thank you”--and sometimes, though he was a boy and a Taverner, he cried.
His father, of course, was desperate. A boy like Bernard had never happened in his family before. He sent him away to the toughest school he could find, but though the teachers caned him even more than his father had done, and the boys did interesting things to him like squeezing lemon juice into his eyes and piercing the soles of his feet with compass needles, it seemed to make no difference. Bernard went on being quiet, and he went on being terrified of his family, and he went on saying “please” and “thank you” to the maids.
But there were some things Bernard was not afraid of. He was not afraid of spiders--when the servants screamed because there was a large one in the bath, it was to Bernard they went, and he would put a glass over it and let it out in the garden, admiring its furry legs and complicated eyes. He was not afraid of the adders that hissed on the moor. He liked the adders with their zigzag markings and flickering tongues. Bernard did not mind the rats in the cellars and he did not mind the horses. He minded the people on the horses--his sister, Joan, with her braying voice and his brother, Dudley, with his whip--but if he met the horses quietly in a field he got on well enough with them. "
― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea
190
" They had reached Euston station. Miss Minton waved her umbrella at a porter, and Maia’s trunk and her suitcase were lifted onto a trolley. Then came a battered tin trunk with the letters A. MINTON painted on the side.
“You’ll need two men for that,” said the governess.
The porter looked offended. “Not me. I’m strong.”
But when he came to lift the trunk, he staggered.
“Crikey, ma’am, what have you got in there?” he asked.
Miss Minton looked at him haughtily and did not answer. Then she led Maia onto the platform where the train waited to take them to Liverpool and the RMS Cardinal, bound for Brazil.
They were steaming out of the station before Maia asked, “Was it books in the trunk?”
“It was books,” admitted Miss Minton.
And Maia said, “Good. "
― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea
193
" The journey they took up the Negro and into the Agarapi River was very different from the dreamy voyage Finn and Maia had made the week before.
“Faster--can’t we go faster?” Miss Minton kept saying.
When their supply of wood ran low, she jumped ashore, grasping the machete which Furo had left with the other tools, and slashed her way through the undergrowth as though she had been born with a knife in her hand.
Everything she had forbidden her pupils to do, she did herself--thinking gloomy thoughts, going off into black daydreams. One minute she thought that Maia had died in the fire, and the child seen on the Arabella was an Indian girl to whom Finn had given a ride. The next minute she thought that it had been Maia, but that she had now drowned, or had reached the Xanti, who had killed her.
“You couldn’t blame them if they’d turned savage,” she said, “the way some of the tribes have been treated.”
“Yara was a very gentle soul,” said the professor. “Finn’s mother.”
“That was then,” said Miss Minton. "
― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea
196
" This time the dog greeted her as a friend, placing his cold nose in her hand, and the happiness she always felt when she came to his place rose up in her.
“It’s all settled,” she said. “The professor was wonderful--he showed me everything. And I stole the keys,” she added proudly. “At least I think I did, though he did tell me where they were, so that may not be proper stealing.”
She handed them to Finn, hoping for praise, but he had obviously expected her to do what he had asked.
“Good. The trapdoor may be difficult to lift; we’d better take some oil. It’s still under the sloth, is it?”
“Yes. And the professor is still worried about the missing rib. How’s Clovis?”
“He’s washing his hair. He’s always washing it,” said Finn gloomily. “I thought you might cut it for him.”
“I’ve never cut anyone’s hair before.”
“There’s always a first time. "
― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea
