"In Search of ..."

OPENING PARAGRAPH: Three weeks guesting under the so called roof of Silas the Survivalist was quite enough, thank you very much. I mean, just how much freeze-dried beef stroganoff is a girl expected to withstand? Besides, there was the smallish matter of the bigger picture: my shipmate, Sweet Betsy and yours truly, Hermione, had yet to locate, and to return to the fold, Betsy's dad, one Captain J. Peacock-Perks - now missing and unaccounted for, for some upmteen months, presumably somewhere on the seven seas.