Liberty (13 page)

At the sound, Frenchie turned. With a bellow of anger, he dashed toward them, yelling, “All ‘ands on deck! All ‘ands on deck!”

Captain Kingsley saw them, too, but he turned back to the sea serpent and tried to haul the rope in by brute strength. He was pitted against a different sort of serpent, though; the rope didn't move.

Leaving Santiago to cut through the rope, Penelope leapt to meet Frenchie. The penguin was about her height, but she had the reach on him. She threw a right punch, her hooves connecting with Frenchie's jaw. He fell. But the crew was pouring onto deck from below.

Snap! The harpoon rope broke. The loose end thunked the deck, and then slithered away.

“No!” Captain Kingsley roared.

But the rope whistled through his paws, and he was left shaking them against the smart of a rope burn.

A fierce joy surged through Penelope; the sea serpent was free. She wished she could meet the sea serpent under different circumstances, when she might see the awful coils in a different light, might talk with the creature, might listen to the stories sea serpents told their children about sailing vessels. The creature was free, and that meant anything—anything!—was possible.

While the creature was escaping, though, the Talberts were being captured. Crewmen swarmed from under the deck toward them. Penelope put her back against Santiago's. They were surrounded by the
Hallowe'en
's crew.

F
renchie paced
in front of the captives, Penelope and Santiago. His face was almost purple with rage. “You!” he yelled. “You ‘elped zat serpent get away!”

The crew encircling the pigs was a scruffy looking bunch. Hair was plastered to their skulls, their striped shirts clung to their chest, and rain dripped from eyebrows, noses, ears. In short, they were miserable. The storm helped them in only one way: it carried away the stench of unwashed bodies, leaving only the clean smell of the ocean.

Captain Kingsley strode toward them. Though the deck was tilted and slippery and the wind gusted, he kept his sea legs.

Even above the roar of waves pounding the shore, Penelope and Santiago heard his deadly calm words: “What will we do with them? Eh, Frenchie?”

“String zem up,” Frenchie said loud enough for everyone to hear.

Penelope turned, looking for a friendly face amongst the crew. But in the last twenty months or so, Captain Kingsley had replaced many crewmen. Cactus leaned against the galley door, his quills shedding rain like an umbrella. Penelope lifted her hooves to him in appeal, but he shook his head, and then went back inside.

She moved closer to Santiago, lifted her chin defiantly, and faced Captain Kingsley.

“You're accused of mutiny,” Captain Kingsley said. “I gave you a direct order, and you disobeyed. As Captain of this boat, I am the law. You're guilty, and you'll hang.”

In answer, the storm began to howl again, the wind tearing at the boat. A lantern ripped off and crashed at Captain Kingsley's feet. Oil sputtered and flared, but was quickly put out by the deluge. Meanwhile, the storm's wail escalated until nothing else could be heard. Cactus appeared in the galley doorway with a lantern; he stayed just inside the galley, out of the worst of the wind. The weak light only made the dark seem darker. Captain Kingsley shook a hairy paw at them, then pointed up toward the yardarm.

Despite the storm, he meant to hang them. Penelope shuddered. To think they'd come so far, only to wind up hung as traitors. It was almost unbearable.

Penelope glimpsed huge coils—were they green or brown?—in the midst of the rain. Suddenly, the boat lurched, and then tilted abruptly to the opposite side. The sea serpent had jolted the boat.

It happened so fast, that half the crew was thrown to the deck. Santiago fell heavily against Penelope and they rolled, crashing into the rails. Keeping his wits, Santiago heaved Penelope up, and they lurched over the side of the boat.

They landed in three feet of water, and another wave crashed over them. The water was rising, which had made the boat easier to tilt.

“Hurry,” Penelope yelled.

The pigs raced toward their own boat. The wind pulsed in continuous gusts, pushing them back toward the
Hallowe'en
. But they managed to make slow progress.

The incoming waves had almost floated the
Liberty
because she was lighter than the
Hallowe'en
and hadn't been pushed so far onto shore.

When they reached her, they shoved hard, trying to lift her hull off the sand. Another wave helped pick her up and float her, but almost carried the boat away. Frantically, Penelope and Santiago grabbed the ropes hanging over the sides. They wrapped the ropes around their forelegs and put their hind legs against the boat's side. Little by little, they hauled themselves over and fell onto the deck. Penelope struggled into her protective harness, and then helped Santiago with his.

Already the
Liberty
was floating, carried by the awful, crashing waves. Captain Kingsley stood on the shore, braced against the wind, with one fist raised in anger. Frenchie was swimming, trying to reach them, but even the penguin couldn't make progress against the incoming waves.

Their boat was light, easy for strong waves to pick up, so they were swept out to sea. Penelope hoped the island wouldn't have any outlying reefs since they wouldn't be able to steer. More quickly than they thought possible, the island disappeared in the boundless grey sea.

Exhausted, Penelope and Santiago shrugged off the harnesses, went below, and closed the hatches. They crawled under the tightly tucked sheets of their bunk. The
Liberty
would either float or sink; nothing they could do would matter now.

Surprisingly, they slept, rocked by the violent storm.

When they awoke, the rocking had lessened. Coming on deck, they saw that the storm had quieted to a steady hard rain, and the waves, while still large, were manageable.

“We could raise sails now,” Penelope said. “But where are we?”

“We were blown east off Florida,” Santiago said. “The compass works, so I can steer west.”

Like dull scissors, their bow hacked through the grey cloth of the sea. They had no idea of the location of the
Hallowe'en
or the sea serpent island. Clumps of seaweed clung to their hull, so Penelope had to lean over the bow several times that day to pull them off. Slowly the weather improved.

Calmer seas gave them time to talk about the sea serpent. “It saved our lives. Twice,” Penelope said.

“Yes,” Santiago agreed. “Do you think they've lost their home? Captain Kingsley will never leave them alone since he's found their island.”

“I wonder how badly Captain Kingsley injured the sea serpent. I wish we could help them,” she sighed.

When the weather cleared, Santiago was able to take navigation readings from the sun and stars. They were now west of Florida, into the Gulf of Mexico. They turned north and soon ran into the coast. They spent a pleasant day walking on the white sugar-sands, collecting shells kicked up by the storm. Penelope had a nice collection started of large shells.

Collections were odd things, Penelope thought. As a piglet, she had collected corncobs for a while. The corn crop had been ripe, and every slop bucket had cobs. She kept them lined up under a sty pole where her littermates wouldn't notice. But after she collected a couple dozen, the excitement of secret ownership had worn thin. She started playing with her collection; she kicked the cobs, rolled them, and chewed on them like a dog worrying a bone. She studied the different lengths, various diameters and differences between white and yellow corn. She invited her brothers and sisters to study the corncobs and choose their favorites. In short, she took pleasure in ownership, in playing with her collection and in sharing her collection. Captain Kingsley and Frenchie only cared about owning dead sea creatures. Penelope didn't understand the thrill of such a private, forbidden collection.

The next day, the Talberts sailed on, hugging the coastline and sailing north, then west past Mobile Bay, and towards the Mississippi River delta. Here they lingered in the warm bayous, hoping to hide from Captain Kingsley by doing something unexpected. One evening, the tide led them to a pleasant bayou where they tied up.

“We'll stay here a few days,” Penelope said. “You can repair the sails while I fix everything else.”

Santiago frowned. Sewing sails was the hardest task for their hooved feet. “No. You repair the sails, and I'll do everything else.”

“It's your turn for sails.”

“We can both work on the sails. It'll go faster that way.”

With a sigh, Penelope agreed. But it would be an aggravating week for them both.

That first night, fog puddled over the bayou. Penelope and Santiago ate late and sang plaintive sea shanties far into the night. Penelope was in a pensive mood. Would they always be fugitives, hiding from Captain Kingsley? Santiago asked her to sing a few jigs, though, and the mood lightened.

At last, they decided to call it a night. They were climbing down the steps into the cabin for the night, when Penelope stopped.

“Shhh!” she said.

Santiago leaned forward to listen to the night.

Penelope whispered, “What is it?”

Santiago tiptoed back up the steps and onto the teak deck. The crying grew louder. Near the main mast, he found something wrapped in Spanish moss.

“What is it?” Penelope asked again.

“A baby.” Santiago's voice was deep with wonder. “But I've never seen anything like it!”

The baby was obviously an intelligent creature. He had a snub nose, long body with short legs, and wide, searching eyes. When he batted his long lashes, he captured Penelope's heart.

“Here. Let me,” she said, taking the bundle from Santiago.

Tacked to the mast, Santiago found a strange letter:

“
P
lease help
! My husband was lost in the storm,

and I am hurt.

Take my baby and sail with him

for a year and a day.

Then bring him back here to me.

Signed,

His Sick Mother”

P
enelope studied the note
. It was written in large block letters on a piece of ragged parchment. Maybe it had once had something else drawn on it, but it looked waterlogged and bleached by water and sun. Perhaps it had been on a ship that was wrecked and floated miles and miles before finding a shore on which to wash up. Most importantly, the parchment and the handwriting told them nothing about who had written the note. She re-read the strange letter.

“We can't take care of a baby for a year,” Penelope cried. “No!” But the baby was warm and fit into her arms just right. She already knew that she would do anything to protect this child.

The baby started crying again: great wails filled the bayou. The still waters trembled at the sound, but wherever the mother was, she didn't appear.

Oh! He cried all night long. No matter what food Penelope offered or what lullabies Santiago sang, the baby just cried.

In the morning, bleary-eyed and yawning, they decided to search for the mother. They cast off. The boat began to rock, and the baby suddenly went to sleep.

“Keep sailing,” Penelope whispered.

There were too many unanswered questions. What sort of creature was this baby? Why did the mother choose them to watch over the baby? Why a year and a day? What if they took the child and returned a year later, but no mother appeared? Still the baby's sleeping face was smooth and sweet.

“We were going to sew sails and mend the boat,” Santiago said.

Penelope rubbed her cheek softly on the baby's forehead and smiled. “We'll be so busy with this baby that we'll have to stop at some port and buy new sails. And we'll let the sail maker rig them, too.”

Santiago cleared his throat, and his face lit up with an answering smile. “You're right. We have to sail, so the child can sleep.”

While Penelope tended the baby, Santiago hauled up the main sail, and they headed for open water.

“
W
here should
we sail for a year and a day?” Penelope wondered. They were still in the Gulf of Mexico, where the waters were relatively calm and deep blue.

“We'll stop by Bermuda,” Santiago said, “and retrieve your journals and Irish harp. You need it to sing to the child.”

“Too dangerous,” Penelope said. “Captain Kingsley could have spies there.”

Santiago shrugged. “Still.”

Penelope knew what he meant; the thought of her harp made her smile, and she started humming an Irish lullaby. She missed singing shanties for the
Hallowe'en
's crew—the only thing she missed about Captain Kingsley's ship.

“See? Hampshires have an ear for music,” Santiago said.

“And Berkshires definitely don't,” she teased.

“I can sing.” He cleared his throat and sang, “La, la, la, la.”

But Penelope didn't answer. She was remembering Captain Kingsley hefting the harpoon. “Seriously. Anywhere but Bermuda.”

“You need your harp,” Santiago insisted.

The baby started crying. He was lying in a hammock strung from the boom. Penelope went to pick him up and started singing a ballad. Her voice was almost hoarse from constant singing, because even sailing, only her singing would calm the baby. He cried constantly, like a baby with a colicky stomach. The interesting thing was how much he already understood. He spoke a few words. And he could already walk. Whatever kind of creature he was, he was maturing rapidly.

“We'll stop at a small harbor, not St. George's. I'll sneak over and find Captain Brice.”

“We'll regret it,” Penelope warned.

But they set course around Florida and out into the Atlantic towards Bermuda, 1000 miles away.

All the way, they argued about the advisability of stopping over. In the end, it was Dickens—for so they had named the child—who decided it for them. He wasn't eating well and was growing thin. Santiago insisted, “We've got to talk with a doctor.”

“We don't even know what kind of creature he is,” Penelope grouched. “How can a doctor help?” She watched the seagulls circling the mast, and her own worry circled endlessly; Captain Kingsley was looking for them, but Dickens was sick. Looking for them. Sick.

Sick. They had no choice.

Dickens sat in the stern, his dark eyes watching the waves thump gently on the boat's side. He had alligator-like hide, green or brown in color, depending on how the sun shone. His head was long and narrow; his legs were short and stumpy. Today, he looked greener, and Penelope wondered if that was partly because he was feeling poorly.

They sailed on fair winds into the Great Sound of Bermuda. The Bermuda Islands are shaped like a fishhook pointing southwest. St. George's is at the top of the hook, in the northeast. The hook itself encompasses the Great Sound, and at the bottom of the hook is the Port Royal Bay. Rather than taking a commercial mooring where they might be seen, they found a deserted cove and anchored.

Santiago waded ashore and walked north to the town of Hamilton. He came back a few hours later with a penguin, Dr. Kevlin.

The doctor climbed aboard and stopped abruptly when he saw Dickens. “What kind of creature is he?”

“We don't know,” Penelope said. “We found him, and he obviously needed help.”

“Where did you find him?”

“North,” Penelope lied. She didn't like these questions. They only needed advice on how to take care of Dickens, not a meddler who would report them to Captain Kingsley.

The penguin bent over Dickens and examined his eyes and throat. He ran a flipper down Dickens' back. “His backbone's rough. I wonder if adults of his kind have a growth there.”

Penelope struggled to unknot her stomach. She was anxious to figure out what was wrong with Dickens, but she also wanted this doctor to be gone, so they could leave.

After poking Dickens' stomach and asking him to walk around a bit, the doctor said, “I don't know what he is or what he eats, but my instinct says he needs fish.” He shrugged up his flippers, and then let his head droop onto his chest to look Dickens in the eye. “Has he been swimming lately?”

Dickens shook his head.

“He's a baby,” Penelope said. “He won't know how to swim. We've been very careful to make sure he doesn't fall into the water.”

Dr. Kevlin lifted his head and glared at her. “You don't even know what kind of creature he is. How can you say that?” To Dickens he said, “Go on. Jump in.”

Penelope stamped a hoof and started to protest, but Dickens had already slid smoothly into the water. He didn't swim by moving sideways like a fish, but by undulating his short body, like a mermaid might.

Dr. Kevlin beamed. “He does swim.”

Suddenly, Dickens dove and the water churned for a moment. When he appeared, he had a small fish in his mouth and was tearing it apart.

The penguin nodded. “Fish. Let him swim every day, and he'll catch his own. It's what my chicks would do. Penguins don't look like carnivores, but we are, you know. Feed me vegetarian stuff, and I'll get sick, too.”

They watched Dickens playing in the cove. He ate two more fish, and then swam contentedly on his back with his eyes closed.

Penelope sighed with relief. She was wrong about Dickens swimming, and she didn't care, as long as he had more energy and gained weight. “Thank you, Doctor.”

The breeze whispered through the tops of the palms.

Dr. Kevlin said quietly, “Someone has been looking for two black and white pigs.”

“Hampshires or Berkshires,” Santiago asked automatically.

“You're different breeds?”

Santiago carefully laid out the history of Berkshire pigs. “The Queen's breed, you know.” But after the story, he asked, “Did you say your fee for tending the child is $25 in gold coins?”

“No. $50,” Dr. Kevlin said.

Santiago barely held back his anger. $25 was a huge fee for a doctor, so he'd already offered extra for the penguin to keep his mouth shut. This penguin was asking for a huge bribe. “For $50,” Santiago said, “you can tell us if Captain Brice and the
Endurance
are in St. George's harbor.”

“They sailed three weeks ago.”

Santiago paid the bribe for silence, while Penelope fumed.

After the penguin left, Penelope said, “We need to leave Bermuda immediately.”

“It'll take Dr. Kevlin weeks to get a message to Frenchie or Captain Kingsley,” Santiago said.

“Unless they're in St. George's.”

“He took our gold,” Santiago pointed out.

“That means nothing,” Penelope said. “He could still tell, and we could do nothing. He just made $25 extra.” She called to Dickens, “Come in, now.”

Dickens swarmed up the rope easily, and then stood dripping onto the deck. Penelope scolded him and set him to work mopping up his mess.

When dusk fell, they set sail again, sailing north out of the Great Sound, then turned south to skirt the hook of the islands, and then headed east. While Santiago took the rudder, Penelope took Dickens downstairs into the cabin for his nap. While he twisted around on the bunk, she started straightening up. She had meant to work on the map cabinet for the last few weeks, so she pulled everything out and stacked them onto the tiny cabin table. She found one stack of maps that Santiago had bought from Captain Nichol's widow out of sympathy. They had forgotten to show them to Cricket and get her appraisal of them. They were clearly old. The parchment was yellowed, the edges frayed. Within the stack, Penelope spotted a darker map. She pulled it out, opened it and stared in wonder. The stained parchment spoke of age; the lettering—especially the odd spelling—spoke of days gone by.

“Dickens, look.” Her heart thumped loudly in her ears.

But Dickens had settled down and gone to sleep. Penelope stroked his forehead with her hoof and smiled. The fish meal had done him good; this was the deepest sleep he'd had in several days. Penelope brushed his cheek with a kiss, then, by candlelight, she pored over the map.

It showed the Atlantic, but oddly distorted by expanding the east to west width. The sea serpent island was clearly marked, an astonishing thing in itself. There was another island shown, too: Atlantis, the lost island of legend. Of course, Atlantis was gone, if it had ever existed. But there were other, smaller, islands marked.

Penelope wondered how so many islands could be there and no one know about them. One especially intrigued her: it was a small island in the south Caribbean, near the equator, and out of the main shipping lanes. There was no reason for a boat to sail near that space of ocean unless they knew there was an island.

At last, Santiago tied down the sails for the night and came downstairs. Together, the Talberts studied the map.

Decidedly, Santiago said, “That's what we'll do this year. Explore these islands.”

With the decision made, they slept well that night. The next morning, they turned south.

Dickens grew fat on a more varied diet. Within a couple weeks, he was running all over the deck, learning about sails, masts, sheeting lines, and anchors. In the evenings, Dickens learned to belt out sea shanties. His voice held a hint of whale songs, of tides that rise and fall and sweet rains upon the waves. As long as he sang, other creatures of the sea lingered beside the boat to listen.

Other evenings, Dickens learned to read and draw maps. He had four fingers, each ending in a claw; when he retracted his claws he could hold things much easier than the pig's hooves. He loved to play with Santiago's pencils and paints. He had a flair for decorating the maps with compass roses and coils of sea serpents.

“If you continue getting better at mapmaking,” Santiago told him, “I'll ask Cricket if you can apprentice with her.” Santiago had to remind himself, though, that Dickens wasn't his child. “If you want to,” he added.

Then he told Dickens again of how they found him in the bayou and how they would take him back to find his mother at the end of a year and a day. Santiago could only repeat that they knew nothing about her except for her letter. It wasn't enough, but it was all Santiago could offer.

Dickens held the letter gently with his claws and read it over again. “A year and a day,” he read. Then he sighed, folded the letter and went back to his mapmaking.

As a precaution, the Talberts sailed first to Barbados, off the coast of Venezuela. They docked there for a couple weeks, watching anxiously to make sure no one had followed them. Dickens was unhappy while they were onshore because he had to stay in the cabin. They didn't want to draw any extra attention by letting people see such a strange child. But Dickens was old enough now that he tried to have patience.

When Santiago was satisfied they weren't being watched, they sailed southeast, toward the islands on the Captain Nichol's map. They sailed slowly, doubled back often, zigzagged north and south, east and west. Penelope constantly scanned the horizon with her telescope. When she was finally satisfied no one had followed them, Santiago zeroed in on the first island.

At first, it was a dark smudge on the horizon; it grew to be a good-sized tropical island. Black sand beaches, salty marshes, a short mountain range and a forest at the mountain's foot—these made the island interesting. Penelope had worried that life on an island would be boring, but this one had variety. Even Dickens liked the island and called it Black Sands Island. He went off exploring for a couple hours at a time and always came back with something to show them: a bird's egg, a piece of driftwood, a coconut that they had to crack open for him. Later on, he dove into the protected lagoon and caught fish for supper. In the evening, they curled up on the warm beach and slept.

After a week on the island, Penelope slept late one morning. Yawning widely, she realized that she was completely relaxed, like she hadn't been in several years. The feeling surprised her. She hadn't realized how wearying it was to hide from Captain Kingsley, to constantly be on guard. She motioned for Santiago to sit beside her, and they watched Dickens fishing in the lagoon.

“Let's stay here,” Penelope said. “We'll be safe for the year.”

“No,” Santiago said. “Let's try the other islands on the map.”

Penelope was tired, though. Tired of exploring. Tired of pushing hard to do the next thing. Tired of always taking a risk. “Maybe we should've stayed on the farm,” she said.

“You don't mean that!”

“Of course I don't mean it. But I'm always looking over my shoulder, always wondering when Captain Kingsley will find us.” She pointed to the gulls flying overhead. “Is one of them a spy?” She stood angrily and strode down the beach, leaving deep hoof prints in the wet sand. Dickens was twenty feet off shore, eating his first fish of the morning. The turquoise blue waters allowed Dickens to easily see fish to catch and, at the same time, made it easy for Penelope to watch over Dickens. She liked easy for a change.

Santiago spun Penelope around and stood with his forelegs on her shoulders. “Penelope, don't you realize that life is a risk? We're not safe anywhere.” He dropped his forelegs. “Oh, I know what you mean. There are places where the physical risks are fewer. But do you really want to stay in those places for long periods of time?”

“We stayed in Boston for a year.”

“Because we both needed to learn about Liberty,” Santiago said.

“We could stay here a year.”

Santiago shook his head. “What does your heart tell you?”

What did her heart tell her? That it was safer to keep moving. She knew that they would settle down sometime. They had sailed the world and had many adventures; soon, they would start to slow down and think about starting a family. But not yet. For the year Dickens was with them, they need to keep moving. “I don't want to listen to my heart,” she griped. “I want easy.”