MEGAN

GOES YACHTING

A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!

by

Owen Jones

Copyright © 14th December 2020 Owen Jones

Megan Goes Yachting

A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!

by Owen Jones

Published by

Megan Publishing Services

https://meganthemisconception.com

The right of Owen Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. The moral right of the author has been asserted.

In this work of fiction, the characters and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or they are used entirely fictitiously. Some places may exist, but the events are completely fictitious.

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Other novelettes in the same series:

The Psychic Megan Series

A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!

The Misconception

Megan’s Thirteenth

Megan’s School Trip

Megan’s School Exams

Megan’s Followers

Megan and the Lost Cat

Megan and the Mayoress

Megan Faces Derision

Megan’s Grandparents Visit

Megan’s Father Falls Ill

Megan Goes on Holiday

Megan and the Burglar

Megan and the Cyclist

Megan and the Old Lady

Megan’s Garden

Megan Goes To the Zoo

Megan Goes Hiking

Megan and the Cookery Competition

Megan Goes Riding

Megan Goes Yachting

Megan at Carnival

Megan at Christmas

Megan Catches Covid-19

DEDICATION

This edition is dedicated to my wife, Pranom Jones, for making my life as easy as she can, she does a great job of it, and to my parents, Colin and Marion, for the wonderful upbringing they gave to me and my brothers.

Karma will repay everyone in just kind.

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

“I do not seek to walk in the paths of the wise men of old, I seek what they sought.”

Matsuo Bhutto

––

Great Spirit, whose voice is on the wind, hear me. Let me grow in strength and knowledge.

Make me ever behold the red and purple sunset. May my hands respect the things you have given me.

Teach me the secrets hidden under every leaf and stone, as you have taught people for ages past.

Let me use my strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy myself.

Let me always come before you with clean hands and an open heart, that as my Earthly span fades like the sunset, my Spirit shall return to you without shame.

(Based on a traditional Sioux prayer)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to the artist who did the cover for me,

Jacqueline Chavarria.

1 ROBERT’S SURPRISE

One Friday evening during the hot summer school holidays, when Megan was meeting her father at the front door as he arrived home from work at six o’clock, he said mysteriously, “Remind me that I have something to tell you after dinner, won’t you, Megan?”

“Daddy! You know I can’t bear to be kept in the dark about anything, why can’t you tell me now?”

“Well, I can’t, because I’m not sure of the details yet, I have to make a phone call at about seven first and then I’ll know more. I wouldn’t like to get your hopes up for nothing.”

“But what you’ve just done is far worse! I won’t be able to stop wondering what it is now.”

“Maybe, but I had to tell you so I wouldn’t forget to make the phone call. I know you and your curiosity, you won’t let me forget. You’re better than any alarm clock.”

“Well, I think it’s cruel. At least give me a clue.”

“Come on let’s go through to the lounge. What’s for dinner today? Fish?”

“Fish? That doesn’t smell like fish to me! It’s ‘Toad in the Hole’… where do you get the smell of fish from?”

“I don’t know,” he replied smiling, “have you washed your hands for dinner yet?”

“No, but I will before we sit down to eat. Are you feeling all right, Daddy? You haven’t had a bump on the head today, have you?”

“No, not that I remember. Hello, Suz, I’m home. Mmm, ‘Toad in the Hole’, my favourite. How long have we got, love?”

“Fifteen minutes… set the table, please, Megan.”

“Inside or out?”

“Outside, I think, it’s too hot to be stuck indoors.”

Megan washed her hands, thinking about her father’s strange behaviour as she did so and then proceeded to lay the garden table for dinner.

“Daddy’s got something to tell me, Mam, but he won’t tell me what it is until after dinner. Don’t you think that’s cruel?”

“I’m sure he’ll tell you when he’s good and ready, dear.”

“You asked for a clue and I’ve given you two already?”

“When? I didn’t hear you give any.”

“Yes, you did, you commented on them.”

“When?”

“Before we sat down to dinner, which by the way is absolutely superb, as usual, my dear.”

“Yes, Mam, it’s lovely. I’ll give you a hand to get the sweet.”

She collected the dirty plates and followed her mother inside, where Suzanne gave her three dishes to take outside.

“Trifle and runny cream, the perfect accompaniment to the meal on a warm evening like this. Suz, you spoil us.”

When they had finished, Megan hurried to clear away the dirty dishes and bring out the teapot and cups.

“OK, what was the surprise, Dad?”

“Oh, yes, the surprise, I’d forgotten about that,” he fibbed playfully. “I did say I’d have to make a phone call first, and I still do, so could you fetch me my mobile from the table in the living room, please, Megan?”

“Ooh, you’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you, Daddy?”

“Moi? Jam… Never! Would I do a thing like that? I said that I had to phone at about seven, or not? And what time is it now, pray?”

Megan looked at her watch.

“Seven-oh-three.”

“There you are then.”

He tapped in a series of numbers and waited.

“Hello, Ray, how’re things? Marlene all right too? Good… Yes, Suzie’s well and Megan… Any news on what we were talking about this morning? It is going ahead, is it? For definite? Great! She will be pleased. Thanks, Ray… I’ll do that… I’ll ring you again after lunch tomorrow… Yes… bye for now and thanks again.”

Robert clicked off his phone and put it on the table, before picking up his cup and looking around. Both Suzie and Megan were watching him.

“That was Ray. You remember Ray and Marlene, don’t you, Suzie?”

“Yes, of course, I do,” she replied somewhat impatiently.

“Do you remember them, Megan?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met them, have I, Mam?”

“No, I don’t think so dear, this is just your father having his little joke. Come on, Robert, get on with it. What about Ray and Marlene?”

“I was talking to Ray this morning and he invited us to go sailing on his yacht on Saturday… that’s all.. What do you think about that? We were only talking about yachting the other week, well now we can go! I’d forgotten that Ray had a boat. Well, I hadn’t really forgotten, but you have to wait to be invited to things like this… it’s not nice to ask.”

“Well, what do you think? Fantastic news, or what? Don’t both rush to thank me at once, will you?”

“I’m up for it, Dad, it’s just that I wasn’t expecting anything like this… I was expecting you to say that you were going to get a dog or a budgie or something like that.”

“We talked about getting a dog before, didn’t we and decided against it. This will be a new experience for us all.”

“You haven’t committed us, have you, Robert? I’m not at all sure about going out on the Channel in a tiny boat. All that water and in a small yacht… it’s very scary, isn’t it? They say that we have some of the strongest tides in the world out there.”

“I don’t know about that, Suz, highest tides, or highest rises from low to high tide, yes, but I don’t know a lot about it myself. The point is though that Ray does. He’s been sailing these waters for decades. As long as the skipper knows what he’s doing, everything should be all right, surely?”

“Perhaps, but with us for crew?”

“If Ray is happy to take us out, I for one am happy to go out with him. He wouldn’t take chances with people’s lives… nor his own… nor Marlene’s, would he? Come on, be sensible now. We’ve known Ray for a long time… he’s a sensible, solid, trustworthy sort of a guy… dependable.”

“Yes, I wouldn’t argue with any of that. I’d just be scared, that’s all.. I mean, if you’re on a Roller Coaster and don’t like it, you know it’ll be over in ten minutes, but once you’re out there… who knows? It could be hours before you can get back in.”

“Yes, well, I can’t dispute that either… I don’t suppose you could make everyone go back in because you don’t like it… and the tide may not allow it either. You’re right. What do you think, Megan?”

“Like I said, Dad, I’m up for it. Sure, it sounds scary, but, I’ll give it a go… I’ve never been on the water before.”

“No, I haven’t either, have you, Suzie?”

“No, at least not on the sea. I’ve been rowed around a boating lake in a dinghy. I liked that, but this is something altogether different. Couldn’t we phone back tomorrow and say ‘Sorry, but we’re sick?”

“No, not really. Look, Ray and Marlene invited us to meet them over at the Yacht Club tomorrow at one, ready for the high tide at two something or other. Let’s go over there then and see what you think.”

Suzanne liked the idea of drinks in the Yacht Club. She had never been there, but she had heard that the view was spectacular and she liked the idea of being able to say ‘Last Saturday, when we were sipping cocktails at the Yacht Club…”

So, they settled for that and left the arrangements as they stood.

Megan was much more upbeat about the idea though.

“Will we need any special clothing to go yachting, Daddy?” she asked.

“You know, I have no idea. I forgot to ask.”

“Typical man!” grumbled Suzanne, going off the idea of sailing, but still wanting to go to the Yacht Club. “You’d better phone Ray back and find out so we can buy what we need tomorrow before we go over there and make complete fools of ourselves.”

“Yes, all right, dear,” he replied crestfallen.

After ten minutes on the phone, Robert said:

“Ray said all you really need is soft-soled footwear like daps, so you don’t damage the surface of his boat. He said that he and Marlene can handle all the sailing, so we just have to enjoy ourselves. He also said to bring suntan lotion, food and drink. Sunbathing allowed, he said. I asked about the weather forecast and he said that the Channel should be like a duck pond all weekend. So, there, who could want more than that?”

“That’s fantastic, Daddy, don’t you think so, Mam?”

“Yes, it sounds lovely,” she replied, but her tone, facial expression and Aura did not match her words. “I’ll have to see how I feel tomorrow. That’s all I can say right now.”

“Fair enough, Suz, you think about it”.

She got up and started to take the cups and saucers in. Megan and her father looked at each other without expression, but they were both disappointed. Megan picked up the teapot to take inside.

“Do you mind if I go to my room, Daddy? I’m looking forward to it anyway. Thanks. It was a nice surprise,” and she patted his hand. “There’s just one thing, Dad. What were the clues you gave me about yachting?”

“Ha, I asked whether we had fish for dinner, and I asked whether you had washed your hands… Get it? Water and fish that live in water.”

“Yes, I do now,” she said slowly, “the links were a bit tenuous though, weren’t they?”

“Perhaps, but you only asked for clues, not big clues.”

“Yes, OK, Daddy, I believe you, though thousands wouldn’t. I’ll see you later.”

Megan clattered up the stairs as usual and burst into her room.

“Grrr, we’re going yachting tomorrow! What do you think of that!? Exciting or what?” She threw her arms around her friend and kissed her on the top of the head.

“Oh, perhaps tigers don’t like water… domestic cats don’t, do they? Do you like water, Grrr?”

Grrr licked her hand, but Megan didn’t know whether that meant ‘yes’ or ‘I like you’, so it didn’t help much. She reached up, took her laptop off her desk and typed ‘tigers and water images’ into a search engine. There were three million seven hundred thousand results with pictures of tigers swimming in the sea, rivers and lakes.

“So, you’re not frightened of water like our silly little domestic cats then… What a brave, clever girl, you are! Will you come out with us then on the yacht tomorrow, Grrr? I’d love you to be there. I think my Mam’s frightened and perhaps you could give her some confidence, like you do me. What do you say, eh?”

Grrr yawned widely, showing all her big teeth, but wasn’t behaving threateningly.

“It might be boring to you, my friend, but she is my mother and I do love her and care about her, so if you can help, I hope you will. Oh, I know you will if you can.” She kissed Grrr again.

Megan showered, did her yoga exercises, showered again, put on her pyjamas and got into bed with her laptop on her chest. She wanted to know some facts about the water off Feyton, about the currents, the tide and the history of the people who had used it to make a living in the past.

She found a colourful history of piracy dating right up to only a hundred and fifty years before and inspiring stories of monks who had lived on the islands in the Bristol Channel.

Megan put her laptop on the bedside table when she felt herself starting to drift off. She was looking forward to the next day and her first adventure on the high sea. She dreamt that she was a nun, living on the Viking-named island of Steep Holm in the Channel with a tiger. She rescued and nursed back to health, handsome pirates who had been shipwrecked there when fighting the government’s navy and the Inland Revenue.

2 THE YACHT CLUB

Megan got up on Saturday morning thoroughly looking forward to a day out on the sea, or at least the Severn outside Feyton. The family went to the shopping mall a lot earlier than usual so that they would be done before they had arranged to meet their friends in the Feyton Yacht Club. Megan already had appropriate clothing and footwear, but Robert and Suzanne hadn’t worn daps or trainers for decades, they also wanted more nautical-looking apparel. In fact, when Robert had inspected his wardrobe, he also found that he no longer had a pair of short trousers and that his only T-shirt had a moth hole in it, although Suzanne fared better in this respect.

Once they had finished their weekly shopping, they returned home, had a light lunch for fear of being seasick, put on their yachting gear and drove over to the Yacht Club.

They sat nervously in the car for a while not daring to go in.

“Are you sure that we’re dressed appropriately, Robert?” asked Suzanne. “I will die of shame, if I walk in there and stand out like a sore thumb. Have you ever been invited inside before?”

“No, or maybe, I can’t remember, but I’ve definitely never been inside the clubhouse before. Don’t worry, we look smart enough.”

“I do worry though, I am worried, I don’t want them looking down on us. Why don’t you phone Ray and tell him we’re all sick and can’t make it?”

“I can’t do that, he and Marlene are probably already in there waiting for us. Come on, or we’ll make it even worse by being late.”

“What do you mean ‘even worse’? What else is wrong?”

“Nothing, I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that you are nervous now, but if we’re late to boot, then you’ll feel even worse.”

“Oh… How are you feeling, Megan?”

“I’m a little nervous as well, Mam, you’re not the only one, but at least you and Dad know people in there, I don’t know anyone at all.”

“We’ll be fine, Suz, don’t worry. If they are that much of snobs, we’ll have one drink and leave them to it. Ray and Marlene are not like that though, you know them. Come on, deep breath and we’ll go.”

“Why don’t you phone Ray, tell him we’re in the car park and ask him to take us in? None of us knows where he’ll be, do we? That would make me feel easier and we’ll definitely know that he’s there… What if we walked in and they weren’t there? Oh, I’d feel such a fool. Go on, give Ray a call and ask him to come and get us.”

Robert could see that it was the only way that he was going to be able to put his wife’s mind at ease, so he rang Ray.

As the mobile was ringing, Megan took the opportunity to observe her mother. She watched the colours swirling in her Aura. They weren’t ugly colours, but the rate of their movement reminded her of the Auras of the monkeys in the zoo. This was not to denigrate her, it just meant that her emotions were chopping and changing quickly. Mostly, Megan recognized fear and pride. She surmised that her mother was proud to have been invited into the Yacht Club, but frightened of making a fool of herself, because it was unknown territory. She considered her own life at the mercy of her mother’s fears - hadn’t her fear of the so-called paranormal and supernatural been the reason why she had been cast into their dark and dingy, and in those days, scary coal cellar?

Not for the first time, she pitied her mother, because she was sure that she was living a life of denial. Sure, this insecurity was another issue, but it must be difficult, she thought, to have conflicting core ideas. She said that she didn’t believe in the paranormal, but Megan believed that she did, deep down, or had done, until her mother had ‘knocked’ it out of her, like Suzanne had tried to do to her. The only explanation for her grandmother’s success and her mother’s lack of it, Megan put down to conviction… her strong conviction that she was right and her mother’s weaker conviction that she was. In fact, she was convinced that her mother believed in Spirit too, but was simply too frightened to admit it… Perhaps she thought she would be letting her own mother down if she admitted the truth now.

Megan was awoken out of her reverie by her father’s voice.

“Here’s Ray now,” he exclaimed opening his car door and getting out. “Over here, Ray. How are you doing, mate?”

“Fine, what are you doing sitting in the car? Come on up, we’re waiting for you.”

“Oh, we didn’t know the way and weren’t sure whether you’d arrived yet. You know how it is… new place and all that…”

Ray noticed Suzanne’s reluctance to get out of the car, so he nodded and went around to her side.

“Hello, Suzie, nice to see you again,” he said opening Suzanne’s door, “and you Megan, I haven’t seen you since you were knee-high to a grasshopper. Come on, ladies, Marlene’s waiting for you inside. Come on, ‘Time and tide waiteth for no man… or woman, eh, Robert? I’ve been asking your Bob to come over here for a drink or a sail for years, haven’t I Bob?”

“Yes, but you know… work and, er, other commitments.”

He locked the car with the click of a button on his ignition key once Suzanne and Megan were out.

Ray clapped his arm around Robert’s shoulder and led the way.

“Come on, ladies, follow us.”

Megan and her mother did so, and Megan could feel instantly that Ray’s infectious good humour and warm nature had gone a long way to putting Suzanne at ease. As they walked down the path alongside the clubhouse, their view was restricted and so could not prepare them for the vista that was in store for them once they had reached the front of the building. Megan had to stop and admire the sight of boats of all kinds slowly rising out of the mud on the in-coming tide. As the boats rocked on the waves, bells in their masts produced a harmonious, if irregular tintinnabulation that soothed.

“Come on, Megan,” snapped Suzanne, “stay with us, don’t show us up in front of Ray and his friends.”

Megan skipped a few paces and caught them up as they were entering the double swing-doors to the club.

They trotted up the stairs, turned right, and suddenly they were in the bar. Megan noticed her mother’s unease return immediately, although it ebbed slightly when she saw Marlene sitting at a table waving at them, framed by a large picture window overlooking the harbour and the Channel, and that the bar was less than half full.

She felt even easier when it became obvious even to her that no-one was paying them any more attention than could be expected when any strangers walk into a bar of locals. Still, she was glad to be able to sit down and be even less obtrusive.

“Hello, Marlene,” she said taking