Walking down the beach while staying in the trees to keep from being seen by anyone looking from The Jolly Roger wasn’t easy, but the tree trunks were far enough apart that it wasn’t insanely difficult either. I started out walking but got so worried about the time it was taking that I ended up trying to gallop in the woods. Big mistake. I don’t know how many scrapes and bruises I ended up with on my knees from tripping over everything from branches and holes to my own paws. After what seemed forever, I finally made it to where the water formed a small inlet into the woods. I crept carefully out from the woods to see if I could see anything of The Jolly Roger. There was no sign of the ship or anything else because a mist had sprung up and was beginning to cover everything. I tried to decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
I walked across the beach to the water, expecting a yell from somewhere as I took each step. Nothing happened and I reached the water’s edge without incident. The waves looked weird, as though it was chore for them to reach the sand from wherever they were coming from. I didn’t think it was possible for a wave to be lethargic, but these managed quite nicely. The waves breaking on the beach did make a sound, thank goodness, but it was muted as though my ears were stuffed with cotton. Knowing it was the Island and strange stuff happened all the time made it a tiny bit easier to bear, but not much.
I stood on the sand, the waves soaking my paws, and snagged my happy thought, playing follow-the-leader with Ember. It might not sound like much, but if you’ve ever played that game with a wolf you know it can get interesting really fast. I opened one of the pouches of pixie dust and sprinkled it over myself. I concentrated on my happy thought, lifted to tiptoe height, and came to a stop. “C’mon,” I said to myself in disgust. I tried jumping up and down and flapping my arms as hard as I could but every time I tried, I settled back down to tiptoe height. It took four more bags of pixie dust to get me airborne which left me three. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I started flying out to sea while frequently turning around to see how far away from the Island I was. Even with constant checking and worrying, I managed to get lost. I managed to lose sight of ship, fog bank and even the Island all at once. I started zigzagging back and forth in the direction that I thought I needed to go and it was only through the luck of hearing a pirate yelling an oath at someone that I was able to figure out where I needed to be. I zipped into the fog and almost immediately saw the side of The Jolly Rogerin front of me. It’s not possible to come to a screeching halt when you’re flying, or any other type of quick stop. I hit the side of the ship hard enough that my teeth rattled and I saw stars. The collision knocked me back a few feet, but I did come to a stop and hovered in the air. I listened, but no one seemed to be concerned over the fact that a body had hit the side of the ship. I whispered a prayer of thanks to whoever the patron of Lost Boys might be if there was one, and circled the ship. I found a place midships that was dark enough that no one should notice me. I lined myself up, dropped my happy thought, and landed on the deck.
Using pixie dust to fly is something I’ve gotten sort of used to and have even managed to have fun doing. The bad part is the landing. No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I practice, no matter how many times I’m shown how, I can’t land. Well, I can land, but it’s normally a two-step process in which my feet hit the ground followed by my face. This time was no different, except that instead of digging a furrow in the ground, I ended up with splinters in my nose. I turned over on my back and looked up to see a pirate in the rigging facing the Island. There wasn’t any sign that he’d seen me or was paying any attention to what was happening on deck, so I ignored him and stood up.
I moved as quietly as I could and thought that even Surefoot would have been, not impressed, but approving of my performance. The ship was as noisy as the Island had been silent. The sound of the water against the hull, the creak of the wood, and the murmur of voices forward was almost deafening to me even as low as they were. The ship stank of unwashed bodies, tar, vomit, urine, rum and powder. It was impossible that an open deck could smell bad enough to come close to gagging someone, but it pulled it off in magnificent fashion. I couldn’t ever remember it smelling so bad the few other times I’d been on board. As I got closer to the bow of the ship, it became easier to make things out, even through the fog that was drifting around. There was a group of pirates gathered around something near the rail on the Island side of the ship and I knew that’s where Red had to be. Remembering Leo’s advice, I stopped sneaking as I came to the end of the cabin that had been hiding me. I took a deep breath and started out across the deck as if I’d been walking it all my life. I was almost positive no one could tell my legs were quivering. My self confident manner lasted exactly eight steps before I tripped over a coil of rope.
I’d been noticed the moment I left the shadow of the cabin but no one had said anything, even when I tripped over the rope. Most of them were busy along the rail, staring at the Island, or were paying attention to whatever it was they were crowded around. There were guffaws and one of the pirates used an expletive to start a very long description of one of his fellows that ended with drunken sot. I got back up to my feet and continued on towards the bow where everyone was gathered. I was still a good 15 meters or so away when I realized that the only ones there were pirates. They were all grown-ups and there was no sign of anything even vaguely resembling a fox-pelt at all. I came to a sudden halt and started patting myself as though I was trying to locate something in a pocket. I gave a dramatic sigh and turned back towards the cabin shadows.
“Where ya think you be going, ye lubber?” a voice called from the group at the rail. It was a voice that didn’t seem to have much experience with vowels, which all came out sounding as though they’d been dipped in gravel before being released by his mouth.
“I fergot jug thing,” I called back in as garbled a voice as I could come up with. Being scared to death helps you garble your voice a lot whether you’re trying to or not. Someone repeated the drunken sot comment, although now I was the one it was directed to.
“Yeah, well same to you.” I could always come up with the best comeback lines. No one else seemed interested in me and I quickly made my way back to the shadows, collapsing on the deck when I’d reached them. Red obviously wasn’t on the bow and there wasn’t any activity on the stern. That meant he had to be somewhere below deck. I stopped and wracked my muddled mind trying to figure out where he might be below deck before I remembered my most recent trip to The Jolly Roger.
We’d been on a raid and I’d managed to take a wrong turn and somehow ended up near Hook’s cabin at the stern of the ship. There hadn’t been anything to see as far as the cabin door went. It was what was a short distance down the companionway or corridor or whatever it was called that I’d noticed. It was a small cell with a barred door. It had been empty and I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it as I was more concerned about getting the heck back on deck with both skin and pelt intact. I’d asked Red about it later and he’d said that was Hook’s cell for ‘special guests’. He’d looked as though he’d seen a ghost when I’d asked him about it and I’d let it go. As soon as the memory of the cell wandered to the surface of my mind, I knew that’s where Red was. I stood back up and headed aft, trying to remember how I’d stumbled into the place the first time I’d seen it.
Predictably nothing looked familiar except in a twisted, backwards sort of way. I tried cocking my head to the left side and to the right while both squinting and non-squinting. It didn’t make things any clearer as it sometimes did. I opened one hatch and went through only to find myself in one of the sleeping quarters. There was a lot of snoring, muttering, and the occasional evil laughter. Fortunately everyone appeared to be asleep and I backed out as quietly as I could. I wrapped a piece of stray cord around the hatch knob and tied it to some sort of bracket or brace hoping that if something happened later, that might keep them from joining in for a little bit.
I walked all the way to the stern of the ship and looked forward trying to make sense of anything I might recognize from earlier raids. I started back towards the bow, carefully scanning the deck for any hatches that might lead below. The first one was locked and I had feeling that was probably the one I was looking for. I moved a few feet ahead and came across another hatch, this one unlocked. I started opening it and grimaced as it made a horrible squealing noise. I gently let it fall closed and, not having brought any oil with me, spat all over the hinges. It didn’t solve the problem entirely, but it quieted the screeching enough that I wasn’t worried my heart was going to jump out of my mouth any longer. I went through the hatch to the deck below, once more gently closing the hatch. I made sure I could reopen it before I moved on. There had been way too many times I’d forgotten to do that in other situations to forget to do it this time.
I found myself in a dimly lit hallway. There were shadows all over the place from the one dim lantern hung from a wall a couple of yards towards the bow. The passage also ran towards the stern, but I decided to go forward since that was where the lantern was. Pirate disguise or not, I sneaked on tiptoe trying to look in all directions, not breathe, and listen to everything all at once. There was a doorway on the left from which a bit more light was shining from. I peeked around the doorway and discovered I’d found the galley. It smelled rancid and sour and I was fairly certain that not even I would eat anything I might discover in it. I didn’t have to worry about exploring, though. Mr. Smee sat at a table facing away from me and talking to an enormous brown skinned man who was stirring something on a stove also facing away from me. I took a quick look up and down the passage I was in, but didn’t see anyone in either direction. Not that it would have been easy to see someone towards the stern end of the passage, but I didn’t hear anyone either.
“I don’t like it,” Smee was saying, just barely loud enough for me to hear. It seemed pretty obvious that he was worried about someone overhearing him but fortunately he didn’t bother to check to see if anyone was in the doorway to the galley.
“What’s not to like?” the pirate that I decided must be the ship’s cook said in a voice not nearly as quiet as Smee’s. “One of them brats walks and that’s one less of ‘em we haveta worry about. It be one of the most straight-forward plans the Cap’n come up with.”
Smee tossed back a cup of something, banging the empty metal container on the table. “Oh, aye. We be the most feared crew this side of the Locker and we be killing children. That be what I signed up for as did the rest of these swabs.” He shook his head and refilled the cup from a bottle. “The boy, now the boy be different. I think…”
Whatever it was that Smee was thinking was left unsaid as a scream broke the quiet of the deck. It scared me at first and I pulled my head back so quickly that I managed to hit the door frame and once more saw stars. The scream was repeated once and then the quiet returned. I risked a quick look in the galley, but the sound hadn’t caused either grown-up to move an inch. Once I was sure they wouldn’t be following in my wake, I headed back as quickly as I could towards the stern, breaking into a gallop. I knew who was screaming and my cowardice had retreated a little on hearing it. For a moment I wanted to howl out a challenge to whoever was causing Red to scream like that, but even though my courage had moved up a quarter-notch, I was still craven enough that I wasn’t about to announce my arrival.
I passed by the ladder that led to the hatchway I’d used and kept galloping. Ahead of me was where the passage ended at Hook’s cabin door. It was the doorway off to the right before his cabin door that I was after now because I finally managed to remember that it was a small cell that Hook kept for ‘special’ guests of his. I was positive that was where Red was. Something big reared up between myself and the cell and I attempted to bowl over it. Normally I’m good at that for obvious reasons, but whoever it was took exception to me running over them and grabbed my ankle and brought me to a halt. I don’t know how I managed to keep myself falling except that it must have been my luck. Fortunately the pirate had grabbed my right ankle, so I was able to draw the wooden sword without any more trouble than getting a few more splinters in my leg. I could have drawn the cutlass, but every time I pulled a sharp metal weapon, either I or one of my friends ended up losing blood. Leo hadn’t been joking when he’d warned me against using it.
The pirate still had a death grip on my ankle, even though I was kicking as hard as I could at the hand holding onto it with my other foot. I heard a howl and guessed that not cutting my toenails in awhile had paid off. “I’m going to tear you apart,” the pirate growled releasing my ankle and standing up. “I dunno what ye be up to, but I’m going to…” He took a swing at me with his fist which I managed to duck more by accident than any plan when I briefly lost my balance while trying to duck. “So ye be thinking you be hornin’ in on the fun?” He pulled a dagger and made a wide, lazy swing at my head. I tried to become a turtle, but didn’t have the neck for it. Still it was enough that the dagger only grabbed the bandana, pulling it off, and nicked my head. The pirate stopped battling for a moment and stared at me before a slow malicious grin grew on his face. “Oh ho, another brat to gut.”
I realized that in the dim light he must have thought that I’d been another pirate that had had too much rum. I wasn’t sure why the removal of the stupid bandana revealed I was a Lost Boy but a tiny part of my mind got a bit irritated that it probably hadn’t been necessary to cut off all my hair after all. The pirate, deciding that it was an enemy and not a shipmate he was fighting with, got serious and came at me with the dagger. I swung the wooden sword back and forth as rapidly as he could and it and the dagger managed to collide. The pirate’s thrust and my swing were both hard enough that the dagger’s blade bit into the side of the wooden blade and got caught. The pirate started tugging at the dagger, trying to get it free, but the sword wouldn’t give up it’s grip on the blade. I may be fat but I’m also strong, so the pirate wasn’t having much success moving me or breaking my grip on the handle of the wooden sword. He punched me in the chest with his other hand and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to breathe again, but kept my grip on the sword. The pirate started bellowing. I couldn’t tell if it was rage at not being able to get his dagger from me or if it was for help. Red must have figured out what was going on, though, because he started yelling again. It was loud enough to compete with the pirate’s bellows but was something that those around were used to hearing, so no one came to investigate.
The pirate decided to stop pulling and bellowing at the same time and instead dropped the dagger and rammed forward into me, slamming me against the wall across from the cell. I felt pain all over and lost any stew I’d had left in my stomach. The pirate began pounding me against the wall and I was sure that the next adventure was going to be pretty quick in occurring. I tried to yank myself from the pirate’s grip and one of my feet slid in the recycled stew on the deck causing me to lunge forward. My weight carried both of us across the passage and against the cell door. I had my eyes closed and couldn’t tell what happened, but the next thing I knew, I heard choking sounds from the pirate who was still grabbing my tunic. None of us moved for what seemed like forever, then the choking sounds grew a bit louder and the hands gripping my tunic released it. I opened my eyes to see the pirate being supported by his neck which had a set of arms wrapped around it coming from between the bars of the cell door. The arms unwrapped themselves from the pirates neck and he fell bonelessly to the deck.
