Crown of the Cowibbean (5 page)

Dakota pulled the cow mask away from his face. For once, he was amazed. “Are we supposed to take the broken clock?” he asked.

“I think we're supposed to take whatever's in that chest.” Chuck said. The front of the chest had rotted away, and they could see something was inside. When they pedaled the bubble closer, they made out the shape of a spyglass covered in slimy green gunk.

“
A spying eye
!” Chuck gasped. “Let's reach in and get it!”

“That thing?” Dakota said. “It's all gross. Besides, Marco already has a spyglass.”

“You heard what Marco said,” Chuck reminded him. “A captain's spyglass is a treasure in itself.”

Chuck reached out toward the chest. He froze as his hoof neared the edge of the bubble. “Uh-oh,” he muttered. He suddenly realized that there was one thing they had to do before grabbing their new treasure. “We have to pop the bubble!”

“What about our air?” Dakota said, as all the color drained from his face.

“Just take a deep breath,” Chuck said. “As soon as I grab that spyglass, play the song again so we can get our bubble back.”

Dakota's hands shook as Chuck's plan got more dangerous by the minute. They both took a deep breath, Dakota held the pointy end of the hornpipe to the side of the bubble, and…
POP
!

The first thing Dakota noticed was how surprisingly cold the water was. It rushed in from everywhere, making all his muscles tense up. Chuck reached out quickly and broke his hoof through the rotten wood of the chest. He grabbed the spyglass and nodded his head at Dakota. Dakota put the hornpipe to his lips and blew hard into the hornpipe, playing “The Fishes' Breath.”

BLOOP! BLIP! BLOOP
! All that came out were air bubbles! Chuck closed his eyes as he realized the flaw in his plan: You can't play a hornpipe underwater!

Dakota flailed his arms and legs in a panic. He had used up all his air blowing into the hornpipe. The cold water squeezed him from all sides as he began to sink.

Chuck grabbed Dakota by the shirt and swam up and out of the cabin. Cows were known for having strong legs, but Chuck knew that even legs as strong as his wouldn't take them all the way to the surface. Instead, he started kicking toward the anchor chain for the
Swashclucker
, dragging Dakota with him. They both grabbed onto the chain and started climbing and kicking as quickly as they could, leaving a trail of bubbles behind them. The water got warmer as they neared the ocean surface, until…
SPLASH!
Their heads popped out of the waves about ten feet away from the
Swashclucker
.

Dakota and Chuck gasped for air, taking in big, hungry breaths as they clung to the anchor chain. They were very tired but very excited they survived and they couldn't wait to look at their new treasure. But before they could even look through their new spyglass, a huge shadow covered both them and the
Swashclucker
. It was the large shadow of a large ship speeding up right up alongside them.

Their secret voyage was no longer a secret. They were not alone.

6

THE TYRANT

Ribeye helped Chuck and Dakota climb back up onto the
Swashclucker
.

“It's about time!” Marco crowed. “We have company!”

“Who is that?” Dakota asked, still catching his breath.

“That's the
Tyrant
! The Kingfish's ship!” Marco said. “I told you to stay away from him!”

Dakota's face fell. “That's the
Tyrant?
” he squealed.

The Tyrant was much bigger than the
Swashclucker
. It was more than twice as long, and was outfitted with cannons all down the side. Big, scary spikes stuck up from its deck and an enormous fish skull stuck out from its bow. It had raggedy sails and a flag as red as blood blew in the breeze.

Worst of all, the
Tyrant
was loaded with ferocious shellfish—dozens of them, far more than they had seen in the Black Spot. Lobsters, crayfish, cannibal shrimp, and all kinds of crabs littered the deck and masts of the
Tyrant
, gnashing their claws and whipping their antennae. As they pulled up alongside the
Swashclucker
, a gang of crayfish jumped across to their mast.

“What are they doing?” Chuck mooed.

“They're
pirates
, you
kau'pai
!” Dakota cried. “They're attacking us!”

The crayfish began coming down the ship's lines. At the same time, a troop of crabs began climbing over the side of the ship, scuttling onto the deck.

“They're overtaking the ship!” Marco shouted, drawing his sword. “I hope whatever you found in that shipwreck was worth it!”

Chuck held up the slimy, grungy telescope.

“That's it?” Marco clucked. “A spyglass? I already have a spyglass!”

Chuck's shoulders slumped. As a great explorer, he thought for sure that Marco would be more excited.

The pirates set a plank across the two ships. A brigade of burly lobsters marched across the bridge, followed by none other than the Kingfish himself. Chuck and Dakota looked right at him as he strolled aboard the
Swashclucker
, and he looked right back at them as they held the hornpipe and spyglass.

“
Andare
! Scram!” Marco ordered the calves. “Go hide in the cabin! Ribeye and I will fight them off!”

Chuck and Dakota followed the captain's orders, scurrying into Marco's cabin and locking the door.

“Oh, no!” Chuck mooed. “The Kingfish saw the spyglass!”

“Who cares? What are
we
gonna do?” Dakota panicked.

“I'll think of something!” Chuck said as he looked around the room for an idea. The door banged loudly as shellfish pirates tried to break their way into the cabin. Suddenly, Chuck's gaze landed on Marco's spyglass.

“I've got it!” he said. He quickly rolled the old spyglass in a rug and stashed it in a trash barrel in the corner of the cabin. Then he grabbed Marco's spyglass from the table. It was very fancy. Tiny diamonds were embedded in its rich wood. It had gold rims and a gold eyepiece. It was heavy and shiny and sparkly…and looked every bit like a treasure.

No sooner had Chuck taken Marco's spyglass in his hand than two big crayfish burst their way into the door. The crayfish dragged Chuck and Dakota out of the cabin and up to the quarterdeck, where the Kingfish already had Marco and Ribeye held prisoner by six heavily armed lobsters. They had put up a glorious fight, but they were no match for an entire pirate army. The crew of the
Swashclucker
watched helplessly from the ship's wheel as shellfish began stealing whatever they could find on the ship.

“A prisoner on my own ship,” Marco grumbled. “You calves are definitely bad luck.”

“Some treasure hunt,” Dakota murmured.

“How did you find us?” Chuck asked the Kingfish.

Dakota frowned as a familiar black parrot fluttered down and perched on the Kingfish's shoulder. “I'm guessing a little bird told him.”

“Nwar!” Chuck mooed. “You rotten spy!”

Marco gave Chuck a look as sharp as daggers. “You said you didn't tell anyone!” he clucked.

“Okay, so I told the parrot!” Chuck admitted. “But I didn't think he'd
repeat
it!”

Marco's beak dropped open. “That's what parrots DO!”

“I told you I'd let you off with a warning for one day,” The Kingfish said with an evil grin. “Well, that was yesterday. Today's a new day, and I woke up feeling a whole lot less generous.” He motioned his head to the parrot on his shoulder. “My friend here tells me you're on your way to find the Coral Crown. Says you've got a map and everything. Now, you do know that only a king should wear a crown, right?”

Ribeye answered the Kingfish with a series of snorts and grunts, all the while giving him the stink-eye.

“Don't worry, Cyclops,” the Kingfish said with a cruel smile. “I'll get to you in a minute. But first…I want that map. And I want that flute. And I want whatever you just took out of that shipwreck.”

“We'll give you nothing, you shovel-nosed bottom-feeder!” Marco clucked boldly.

“You talk big, Pollo,” the Kingfish taunted. “But you can't fight off all of us. In the end, it looks you're nothing but a scrawny…little…
chicken.
”

Marco didn't care for the way the Kingfish had said the word “chicken”. It sounded an awful lot like he was comparing chickens with weaklings and cowards. He tried to break free again, but the lobsters holding him were too strong. The entire ship of shellfish roared with laughter.

“You field-trotters just don't get it, do you?” the Kingfish jeered. “I'm the boss around here. I'm the king. You don't belong here. This is a fish's ocean. It's
my
ocean. That means everything in it also belongs…to
me.
” He stretched out a fin and snatched Marco's spyglass from Chuck's hooves.

“Hey! That's my spyglass!” Marco squawked.

“Well, now it's my
spyglass
,” the Kingfish gloated. “Now give me that flute thing you took from my tavern.”

Nwar flapped over to Dakota and tried to take the hornpipe. Dakota refused to hand it over, and the two of them wrestled back and forth over it. Nwar cleverly molted a cluster of black feathers right in Dakota's face, and Dakota dropped the hornpipe. The sly parrot carried it in his beak and dropped it in the Kingfish's fin.

“So what's the big deal with this little thing?” the Kingfish asked.

Chuck's tail began to twitch as a great idea came into his head.

“Well…it plays music,” he answered. “Perfect entertainment for those long, boring sea voyages.” He gave Dakota a sideways glance. “In fact, Dakota here can play a
heavenly
song for you that will just set the place
on fire
. How about it, your highness? Can we play one
last
song?”

Dakota felt his heart beat faster as he realized Chuck's plan. The Kingfish shrugged his fins and tossed the hornpipe back to Dakota. “Go on, little hamburger. Entertain me.”

Chuck watched nervously as Dakota played the last song on the list, “Fire in the Heavens.” Just as before, the hornpipe started jumping and bumping when he finished the tune. Dakota aimed the hornpipe toward the
Tyrant
as sparks spewed from inside. Once again, a bolt of fire shot out, streaking like a comet straight to the Kingfish's ship. It exploded in flames, lighting his sails ablaze.

“My sails! My ship!” the Kingfish shrieked. He roared at his crew in a panic. “Move it, you swabs! Put the fire out!”

Shellfish everywhere began to scramble, scurrying back to the
Tyrant
as the King-fish screamed orders from the
Swashclucker's
quarterdeck. In all the commotion, Marco broke free. He flapped up to the ship's yardarm and pulled on the lines, unfurling the
Swashclucker's
main sail. It billowed in the wind, swinging the ship's heavy wooden boom across the quarterdeck and knocking the Kingfish and his goons right into the water.

“Hoist the anchor!” Marco ordered as he flapped to the ship's wheel.

“Stop them! Stop them!” the Kingfish blubbered as he searched for his glasses in the water. By this time, the Kingfish's crew realized they had been tricked. Three big coconut crabs started rushing their way back to the
Swashclucker
with their powerful claws snapping.

“Never mind!” Marco squawked. “CUT the anchor!”

Ribeye unhooked the anchor's chain from the ship. The chain disappeared into the water as the
Swashclucker
swiftly took off in the strong tropical wind.

“
Ciao
, your majesty!” Marco crowed back at the Kingfish with a phony bow. “We'll send you a postcard from Spidercrab Rock!”

The Kingfish was furious. But with his ship's sails on fire and his crew in a panic, there was nothing he could do but watch them escape. He ranted and raved from his spot in the water, watching the
Swashclucker
get smaller and smaller until it disappeared on the horizon.

7

LULLABY

With the Kingfish far behind them, the
Swashclucker
and the crew were well on their way to Sterling Reef. But not everyone was as happy as they should have been.

Marco paced his cabin in frustration. His map was no longer a secret, his ship had been looted, and he had lost his spyglass to the Kingfish.
These two calves are bringing me nothing but trouble
, he thought.
If it weren't for my quick thinking, we never would have escaped
!

Marco wasn't the only one in a foul mood. Dakota spent much of the day moping and thinking about all the fun and
safe
things he could be doing back on Bermooda.

Chuck tried to pull Dakota out of his funk by reading the poem from map aloud.

“What about this last line?” Chuck nudged Dakota's shoulder. “‘
Those who bring ruin will earn it as well.
' What do you think that means?”