Captain Wobble and the Bath-Time Storm

Every night at seven o'clock, the fiercest sea in the house began to fill.

It roared out of two taps. It steamed. It had bubbles on it the size of cabbages. And into the middle of it, every night, sailed the bravest sailor who ever squeaked: Captain Wobble.

Captain Wobble was a yellow rubber duck with a paper hat. The hat had been folded by Noor's dad out of the bath-time instructions for a hair-wash, and it had the word "rinse" on the inside, which Captain Wobble considered a lucky charm.

"Ahoy!" said Noor, which she said for him, because rubber ducks are brave but not chatty.

Captain Wobble bobbed. The sea was calm. Too calm.

Then Noor got in.

The water rose. A wave the height of a knee rolled across the bath and Captain Wobble went up it, over it, and down the other side, spinning twice.

"Storm!" said Noor. "Hold on, Captain!"

Captain Wobble held on. He had nothing to hold on with, so he mainly held on with his face. He bumped against the tap. He went under a cabbage-sized bubble and came out wearing it like a second, much bigger hat. He got stuck for a moment in the shallows by Noor's knees and had to be rescued by a flannel.

"Brave Captain," said Noor. "The bravest."

Then came the worst part of every voyage. The hair-wash.

The sky filled with foam. Noor shut her eyes and Captain Wobble, who could not shut his, watched a jug of water come down like a waterfall from the top of the world. The sea churned. The bubbles rose. Captain Wobble was swept the whole length of the bath and back again and ended up, as he always did, upside down by the plughole with his paper hat on sideways.

"Man overboard!" said Noor, and set him the right way up.

And then, slowly, the storm passed.

The water stopped sloshing. The bubbles, one by one, gave up and went pop. The foam drifted into a quiet island at the shallow end. Noor lay back until her ears were under and the whole bathroom went soft and humming, and Captain Wobble floated beside her ear, bobbing very gently, up, down, up, down, in a sea that had decided to be a pond.

This was Captain Wobble's favourite part. Nobody ever said so, because it is not a brave thing to say. But a sailor who has been through the hair-wash and come out with his hat still on has earned a few minutes of nothing at all.

"Captain," whispered Noor, "the storm's over."

Captain Wobble bobbed, which meant yes.

Then the plug came out. The sea began to leave, with a long, satisfied gurgle, swirling round and round the way seas do when they are finished for the night. Captain Wobble sailed one last slow circle, and came to rest, upright, in the exact middle of the empty bath, with his paper hat straight.

Noor, wrapped in a towel the size of a tent, lifted him out and put him on the edge of the sink, where he could see the window.

"Goodnight, Captain," she said. "Same time tomorrow."

Captain Wobble said nothing. But if you had looked closely at the inside of his hat, you would have seen the lucky word, and you would have known that he was ready.