Valkyrie at sea
By Diana the Valkyrie (c) 1998; Valkyrie@TheValkyrie.com
Part 3 - a Game of Cricket and a Roasted Valkyrie
Update: 17/08/1998 to valkyrie


On the Sun Deck, they'd organised a game of cricket. Yes. I kid 
you not. There, a couple of dozen miles off Lisbon (I thought smugly, 
knowing that the other passengers neither knew nor cared where they 
were) a dozen or so of England's Finest were wearing white flannels and 
shirts, and getting ready to whack a ball around. I was wearing a cream 
mid-calf skirt and a white cotton blouse, and my Reeboks. Yes, I do look 
better in heels, and I know superheroines and goddesses can run in them, 
but I'm not the most graceful Valkyrie in the world, and I knew that 
falling over every five minutes wasn't going to impress the trousers, 
not at all. So Reeboks. 

You possibly don't know the rules of cricket, so I'd better explain. You 
have a bat, that's like a short plank with a handle, about a yard long 
and a hand wide. You have a ball, which is about the size of a tennis 
ball, and about as hard as a brick, made of wood with a leather cover. 
You stand in front of a wicket, which is three sticks hammered into the 
ground, the bowler bowls the ball at the stumps (bowling means she has 
to keep her arm stiff while hurling it) and the batswoman has to swing 
the bat at the ball and whack it into the next county. Bowling at the 
batswoman is within the rules, but considered to be unsporting. 
Meanwhile, the opposing team stand round looking silly, hoping to catch 
the ball which comes at you like a cannonball if it's hit properly, and 
the wicket keeper stands just behind the wicket, hoping to avoid being 
smashed over the head by a bat. No armour, naturally, Englishmen don't 
wear armour, it isn't sporting. Rain stops play, as does poor light, so 
matches don't last very long except outside England, where they can take 
as long as five days. And if you think I'm making all this up, ask any 
Englishman, he'll tell you. 

So how do you do this on a ship? Each belt of the ball is going into the 
sea, no problem. Well, they used the net again, of course, and I 
wondered how the scoring would work. Not to mention how they proposed to 
hammer the stumps into the deck planks. We chose up sides, and this time 
I wasn't the last one chosen, I'd shown that having a Valkyrie on your 
side might be somewhat of an advantage. 

I watched as the first batsman swung and missed at the inaccurately 
bowled cricket ball. I thought I was an inaccurate thrower, but maybe I 
wasn't alone. I was one of the fielders, meaning that if he did manage 
to connect, I was supposed to try to catch this iron-hard missile with 
my bare hands. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, and the first time 
he did manage to whack one roughly in my direction, I ran to meet it, 
only to meet another fielder running in the opposite direction. Wallop. 
We collided in a tangle of arms and legs, he went down, I fell on top of 
him (not my preferred orientation) and he went "whuff" as a couple of 
hundred pounds of Valkyrie falling from a height of five-five knocked 
all the whuff out of him. Well, not actually a couple of hundred pounds, 
but getting on for. When a Valkyrie lands on top of you, you're not 
going to quibble about the odd fifteen pounds. 

It was quite fun disentangling myself, but as I helped the poor bloke to 
get up off the deck, I heard a familiar "Rah rah rah" and I closed my 
eyes and thought "I don't believe it." But when I opened them, there she 
was, wearing white shorts and a top that almost wasn't there, one foot 
several inches higher than her head and still heading upwards, Linda the 
Cricketer. I felt embarrassed for her, but she clearly saw nothing 
inappropriate in what she was doing, and of course the men watched her 
routine with obvious enjoyment. 

Then they let me have a go at bowling. Men bowl overarm, women bowl 
underarm, that's the rule. They explained it to me in case I didn't 
know. "Arm straight, try to make it bounce just in front of the wicket." 
I smiled, nodded, took a short run-up and bowled a full toss. That's 
overarm, very fast, and you don't aim to bounce it, just hurl it 
straight at the wicket. Afterwards, they reminded me that women bowl 
underarm, so I explained that I knew that, but I'm a Valkyrie, so 
women's rules don't apply. Anyway, he wasn't too badly hurt. 
Fortunately, the ball hit his stomach with was large and soft, not 
something small and breakable like his head. I didn't aim at his belly, 
it just sort of got in the way. So all he had was a large purple bruise, 
and I told him he'd feel as good as new in a few weeks. "Oh, have you 
done this before?" someone asked. I ignored that, and Linda came to my 
rescue, and he stood with his head against her belly, which made him 
feel better immediately, well, maybe a few inches higher than her belly. 
But not many. They didn't let me bowl after that. 

Eventually, it was our turn to bat. And they were skittling our men like 
ninepins, the Blues were in Dire Straits. Even Linda's energetic jumping 
jacks only made things worse, by distracting our guys from keeping their 
eye on the ball. And then they put me in to bat. 

By then, I'd managed to get quite a reputation. Two on the football 
field, the guy with the Purple Stomach, and of course the story of the 
Round Robin armwrestling tournament had gone through the ship like a 
dose of salts. So as I passed the bowler, I looked him in the eye, and 
said "As soon as you've bowled, lie flat, then you won't get hurt." And 
smiled. Intimidation is something I'm rather good at. 

So he tentatively lobbed the ball at the wicket, then went down on his 
face with his hands over his head - I told you I was good at 
intimidation. The ball floated slowly through the air, as I pulled the 
bat back and behind my shoulder, but I kept my eye on the ball as I 
swung it forward as hard as I could. 

I don't know how we do this, there's some computer inside the brain that 
kicks in and predicts precisely where the ball is going to be and when, 
and the same computer is controlling the placement of the bat. They met, 
a few inches from the bottom of the bat, as it was swinging at its 
greatest speed, there was a crack like the Crack of Doom as leather met 
willow, a shudder went through the bat stinging my hands, which made me 
let go the bat, which hurtled straight towards the bowler, who was 
fortunately prone, because it would have taken off his head if he'd been 
standing, and the reaction (thank you Newton) sent me staggering 
backward, tripping over the stumps, and as I flailed my arms to keep my 
balance I accidentally hit the wicketkeeper on the chest, and the silly 
mid on, who was being just a bit too silly in standing where he did, in 
the ribs, and the three of us went down in a tangle of arms and legs. 

They never did find where the ball went. 

Not that it mattered, because just then it started to rain. 

By the time we'd sorted out which arm belonged to who (no-one else 
claimed my legs) we were all absolutely soaked to the skin. And since 
the deck was for a change deserted (mad dogs and Englishmen stay out in 
the mid-day sun, but they go indoors when it rains, Noel didn't bother 
to mention that because everyone already knew) and we were already cold 
and wet, I suggested that we go to one of the deck Jacuzzi's, where at 
least we could be warm and wet. So I half-carried them over there (well, 
half carried the silly mid on, the wicket keeper was still recovering 
from a major Valkyrie-fall in which he'd played the part of the mattress 
so I just picked him up, it was quicker) and we carefully lowered 
ourselves into the Jacuzzi. I took off my blouse and skirt, revealing a 
rather small bikini underneath, and suggested to the silly mid on that 
he might like to scrub my back. The wicket keeper was still trying to 
breathe. 

We spent an hour in there. I got my back so well scrubbed, I felt it was 
well worth the few knocks and bruises that had happened, and before 
long, the wicket keeper had revived enough to make himself useful on my 
feet; a good foot-wash being almost as good as a back scrub. And, best 
of all, the Cabin Mate from Hell was nowhere to be seen, probably 
carousing with the rest of the cricket teams. 

But all good things come to an end; the silly mid on said he couldn't 
scrub one more inch, the wicket keeper had made my toes feel like 
princesses, and it was getting late. So I went down to my cabin to get 
ready for the evening. 

One of the big things on a cruise is dressing up for dinner. You don't 
slouch down wearing any old thing, you go to a lot of trouble, 
especially on the formal nights. This was the black-and-white night, 
which meant you were supposed to dress in, well, I'm sure I don't have 
to spell it out. It gave me a chance to give my little black dress an 
outing, plus black court shoes and a white ribbon in my hair. Not ideal, 
I know, but you have to work within the parameters. I spent an hour on 
my makeup, and I still didn't have it right. Makeup and me just don't 
seem to hit it off. 

So I moseyed down to the dining room, not really expecting to make much 
of an impact, except when I walked in everyone went "ooh" and "aaah" and 
for a moment I thought they must be referring to someone else. Then I 
turned round, and sure enough, nearly seven feet of effulgent femininity 
was floating in just behind me, demonstrating what black-and-white is 
supposed to be like, in a long flowing white chiffon, er, er, well it 
wasn't really a dress, more a sort of cloud. And black shoes, black 
ribbon in her blonde hair and I wondered if the ship's shop offered a 
hitman service or would I have to do it myself. 

Conversation at my table was mostly about the Cabin Mate from Hell; even 
the old biddies were talking about her. "Is she really six feet nine?" 
they were asking, as I tried to straighten the fork I'd wound round my 
index finger. 

Then after the meal, I went to the night-club thing they have, music and 
dancing to Ben Crump and his Band until the ungodly hour of 1am, gosh. 
Of course, all the old biddies had dragged the old dears off to bed, 
leaving me and about 20 aliens from another planet. You could tell they 
were aliens by the way they dressed, the way they spoke, and the way 
they regarded anyone over 20 as being a different species, and not to be 
mingled with. After wasting half an hour trying to make some sort of eye 
contact with one rather dishy bloke who looked like he might actually be 
old enough to shave, I gave up and went to bed. 

Linda, I noticed, was conspicuous by her absence. I guess she scored 
that night. I guess she scored every night. I fell asleep thinking how 
awful it must be to be like Linda, no challenges, all you have to do is 
just stand up straight and loiter near doorways. 

I woke up next day, jumped out of bed, and left Linda snoring. Oh yes. 
And not some ladylike pok-pok-pok either, this was the sound of a 
chainsaw going through mahogany. Out on the sun deck it was a beautiful 
day, so I unwrapped my skirt, stripped off my shirt, and stood looking 
helpless with a bottle of sun cream I my hand. Sure enough, I was 
rewarded quite shortly by one of the blokes I hadn't arm-wrestled with, 
and he offered to rub it into my back. "And my legs" I said happily, and 
lay down on the sun lounger. 

And fell asleep. 

Wearing factor 15. 

Yes, I know. Well, it's like this. Coming from a country where the sun 
shines so rarely that when it does, everyone turns out to gaze at it and 
reminisce about the last time they saw it, your skin isn't exactly ready 
for the full blast of the Mediterranean sun at mid-day. Left to myself, 
I would have become Roast Valkyrie or possible Valkyrie Flambe within a 
few hours - lucky for me, someone A) noticed my predicament, and B) did 
something about it. 

They did an experiment in New York; someone pretended to collapse, and 
then they spent the next half hour videoing the people who walked round 
her pretending that they hadn't noticed. That's nothing. English people 
are far, far too polite to speak to a complete stranger without being 
introduced, and although they might have been more careful not to 
actually step on the victim, they certainly wouldn't strike up a 
conversation. I mean, if someone is lying on the pavement turning blue, 
he's merely exercising his historic right that all true Englishmen have, 
to lie on a pavement and turn blue, and if that's what he wants, who are 
we to naysay him? 

Fortunately, Linda hadn't heard this theory, and when she saw the 
likelihood of Crispy Valkyrie in the offing, she did the obvious thing. 
She dumped a bucket of water from the swimming pool over me. 

My gratitude was slow to come. I started off with a string of phrases 
that would  make a costermonger blush, and followed it up with some 
blasphemy I'd learned in Italy, and some sexual suggestions I'd got from 
Sweden.  When they were done, I shifted into the traditional curses of 
the Icelandic cod fisherfolk, but I really got going when I moved into 
the best swearing language in the world; German, where even a simple 
"good morning" sounds like a curse, and I was just getting the air a 
nice shade of electric blue when Linda, saying nothing, pointed to the 
tops of my thighs. I looked down, and they were practically glowing. And 
they were beginning to smart, too. Ouch. Ooh. Oh. Oops. 

"I think you'd better come inside, Diana" she said.  "I'm from 
California, we're used to the sun there."  So I've heard; they have sun 
the way we have rain, and when it rains, they all stand outside and ask 
each other what all the wet stuff is doing falling from the sky, and 
does it cause cancer? We went to the ship's shop, which was doing a 
roaring trade in apres-sun - it seems I wasn't the only lobster on the 
ship. Linda poured water into me to rehydrate my baked body, and rubbed 
apres-sun on my skin, and I gradually felt that maybe I wouldn't need a 
skin transplant after all. "Lucky I saw you there, Diana, you could have 
gotten badly burned."  I wondered what "Badly burned" meant, and blessed 
our cool wet climate where the biggest hazard is mildew brought on by 
damp. "Thank you, Linda. I'm sorry I said all that stuff to you when you 
dumped the bucket of water on me." "What stuff." Oh, right. I guess she 
didn't speak Italian, Swedish, Icelandic or German, so I thought, well, 
maybe I won't tell her what I said. "Come on, Di, lunchy-poos." Gack. 
Lunchy-poos?