Peter and the Shadow Thieves (35 page)

“No,” said Mol y. “It was being kept in a secret place here in London, but Father felt it wasn’t safe there. He said he needed to move it to a safer place, because the Others were sending something…what was the word he used…something
formidable
to retrieve it.”

“Ombra,” said Peter.

“Yes,” agreed Mol y. “That must be what it was.”

“Did your father say where he was taking the starstuff?” said Peter.

“Just that it was a place away from London. He said that only a few Starcatchers know where it is. They’re going to keep it there until it’s time for the Return.”

“What’s the Return?”

“Do you remember when we were on the
Never Land,
and I first told you about starstuff?” said Mol y.

“Yes,” said Peter. “I made you fly to prove it was real.”

Tink, very displeased that they were discussing something that happened before she came into being, turned a deeper shade of red.

“That’s right,” said Mol y, smiling at the memory. “Wel , I also told you that the Starcatchers, when they find fal en starstuff, send it away somehow, so the Others can’t get hold of it.”

“Yes,” said Peter. “I remember now.”

“That’s cal ed the Return,” said Mol y.

“Where do they send it?” said Peter.

“I don’t know,” said Mol y. “Only the senior Starcatchers know about the Return. It’s quite dangerous, I believe.”

“But is it done, then?” said Peter. “The starstuff that Ombra and the Others are after—have the Starcatchers returned it?”

“I don’t know,” said Mol y. “Father said the Return could happen only at certain times, so they’d have to wait for the next one. I don’t know when that is. Or where it is. But now I
have
to find him, Peter.”

“Al right,” said Peter. “Then we’l find him.”

“But
how
?”

“I don’t know,” Peter said. “But we wil . I found you, didn’t I?”

Mol y looked at Peter’s face for a moment by Tink’s soft, jealousy-hued glow. Tears slid down both of her cheeks. She squeezed his hand. He felt himself float perhaps a quarter inch off the limb.

“Yes,” she said. “You did find me. You’re a wonderful friend.”

Peter swal owed.

“Al right, then,” he said. “Where do we start?”

“Wel ,” said Mol y, wiping her tears, “it looks to me as though you start with a change of clothing. And a pair of shoes.” Peter looked down with embarrassment at his filthy, stinking, tattered clothes, his bare feet black with mud.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I…this was al I—”

“Oh, Peter,” said Mol y, squeezing his hand again, “don’t apologize! But you must be awful y cold.” Peter, suddenly realizing how cold he was, shivered.

“We need to get you somewhere warm,” said Mol y, who was coatless and quite chil y herself.

“I don’t think we can go back there,” said Peter, pointing toward her house.

“No, definitely not,” said Mol y, remembering Jenna, and the guards who had turned into captors. She thought for a moment.

“I know,” she said. “We can go to George’s house.”

“Who’s George?” said Peter.

“He’s a friend of mi…of my family,” said Mol y. “He’s very nice, in a stuffy sort of way. He lives not far from here, about a ten-minute walk across the park. He’l help us, I’m sure.”

“Good,” said Peter, though he felt just the slightest bit troubled by the thought of George.

“Al right, then,” said Mol y. “Let’s get down out of this tree. Can you help me, Peter?”

“Of course,” said Peter, putting his arm around her.

Let her drop,
said Tink.

“What did she say?” said Mol y.

“She said to be careful,” said Peter, shooting a hot look at Tink to tel her to keep her bel s to herself.

J
AMES AWOKE WITH A START.

What was that sound
?

Dawn was just breaking on Mol usk Island, the sun shooting pink rays into a brightening sky. Thomas lay next to James, sleeping soundly.

“Wake up,” said James, shaking him.

“
What,
” said Thomas, turning away, irritated.

“Listen!” said James.

Thomas, hearing the urgency in James’s voice, sat up, ful y awake now.

“Is it the boars?” he said, his face fil ing with fear.

“No,” said James. “Listen.”

They remained silent for fifteen seconds, twenty…

Then it came again, a faint cry carried on the wind.

“That sounds like…Tubby Ted!” said Thomas.

“Let’s go,” said James.

In the desperate scramble to escape the wild boars, Tubby Ted and Prentiss had never made it to the boys’ underground hideout. After waiting hours for their friends to appear, James and Thomas had set out to search for them. They’d gone over the familiar island paths, but with no luck. Then they searched farther from their hideout, venturing deeper into the jungle, higher up the mountainside. Stil nothing.

Final y they were forced to consider the awful possibility that the missing boys were not lost but had been caught by the boars—or the pirates. If the pirates had them, James knew he had to ask the Mol usks for help. He had planned to do so this morning.

But then he’d awakened to Tubby Ted’s cry for help.

Now James was sprinting through the jungle toward the sound, leaping over logs, holes, vines, rocks. Thomas, shorter-legged but quick, fol owed as closely as he could.

The next cry they heard was clearer, and closer.

“HELP!”

No question: Tubby Ted.

“SOMEONE HELP ME!!”

James opened his mouth to answer, but caught himself. It wasn’t like Tubby Ted to be up this early. What if this was a trap set by the pirates? If so, he and Prentiss were walking—no,
running
—right into it. James raised his hand and stopped Thomas, the two of them huffing to catch their breath.

“Why are we stopping?”

“Because,” James answered, “that’s Tubby Ted’s voice, and that, over there, is the sunrise. Have you ever known Tubby Ted to be awake at sunrise?” Thomas shook his head.

“It could be a trap.”

“Good point.”

Tubby Ted cried out yet again. They were quite close now.

“What do we do?” Thomas whispered.

James thought about turning back, going to the Mol usks for help. But what if, when they returned, Tubby Ted was gone?

Another cry. James made up his mind.

“Watch where you walk,” he said, taking a tentative step off the trail, into the thick jungle. “There could be a pit or a snare.” With their eyes on the ground, the two boys moved cautiously ahead, pushing through the dense vegetation toward the sound of the cries, which now seemed to be coming from only a few feet away; though in the tangled mass of vines and leaves the boys could see only inches ahead.

James and Thomas pushed toward the sound and stumbled into a clearing. Lifting their heads, they found themselves face-to-face with Tubby Ted.

Except that Ted’s face was upside down.

He was hanging from a rope tied to his ankles. His face was ablaze with bright red insect bites. Tears streamed from his eyes, but because he was inverted, they flowed down his forehead.

“Ted!” said James. “Are you—”

“I’m sorry,” said Tubby Ted. “I wouldn’t have done it. But they’ve got Prentiss.”

“Done what?” James asked.

“Who has Prentiss?” said Thomas.

At that moment, a heavy rope net fel around them both, its weight knocking them to the jungle floor. It stank of old fish and sea muck. As they struggled to escape it, four men emerged from the jungle and quickly closed up the net.

James understood his mistake too late: he’d been so intent on where he was stepping that he’d paid no attention to the trap waiting in the treetops. Two pirates hoisted the net, turning it and the boys upside down. With the world inverted, James watched as the rope tied to Tubby Ted’s ankles went slack. Tubby Ted cried out, and from James’s perspective, fel upward and hit a ceiling of dirt as a
whoof
of air escaped from his lungs. Then Ted was replaced in James’s view by the bearded face of a pirate, pressed close, his breath reeking even more than the net.

“You two fishies wil make a
fine
catch for old Captain Hook,” he said.

The other three pirates roared with laughter.

“I’m sorry,” said Tubby Ted.

Two pirates strode triumphantly into the fort, carrying between them the net holding James and Thomas, stil upside down and very uncomfortable after the long, jouncing trek over the mountain. Behind them, prodded by the other two pirates in the hunting party, trudged the exhausted Tubby Ted.

Hook stood in the center of the compound, waiting, a snarl of happiness on his face.

“So my plan worked,” he said.

“Like a charm,” said one of the net-carriers. “We hung the fat one up like you said. Cried like a baby, he did. Brought these two running right into the trap.”

“I am a genius,” observed Hook. There was no response. Hook glared at Smee.

“Aye, Cap’n,” said Smee. “A genius.”

The pirates untied the net and upended it, dumping James and Thomas into the dirt. Hook moved so that he stood directly over James, the tips of his scuffed boots just touching the boy.

“Welcome back,” Hook said softly.

James looked into Hook’s piercing stare, then turned his head away.

“Thought you’d escaped me, did you?” said Hook. “Wel , let’s see if your flying friend can rescue you
now,
boy. This time you won’t be out in the open, or near the spring. You’l be in a
cage,
boy, with your three little friends. How d’you like that?” Hook spat a brown glob that splatted into the dirt an inch from James’s head, then said, “Put the little bilge rats into the cage.”

Rough hands shoved James, Thomas, and Tubby Ted across the compound to a box of lashed bamboo, about six feet square and four feet high. James saw hands clutching two of the bamboo poles from the inside: Prentiss. The pirates untied an elaborate series of knots, opened the top of the cage, and heaved the boys inside—two pirates being required for Tubby Ted. The boys crouched silently as the pirates careful y retied the top. Then, when the pirates had left, James spoke.

“Prentiss, are you al right?”

Prentiss’ face, like Ted’s, was covered with insect bites, some of them now oozing scabs.

“Yes,” said Prentiss, though his lip was quivering. “I’m al right, except the bugs—”

“The bugs at night are big enough to wear shoes,” said Tubby Ted. “The bites sting at first but itch something awful a few hours later.”

“But the bats are the worst,” Prentiss said. “Fruit bats the size of cats, with faces like little monkeys. They come out around dusk and dive and dart through the night sky like…

like, I don’t know what.”

“Like bats,” Tubby Ted said.

“Yes,” agreed Prentiss.

“But that’s not the worst,” Tubby Ted said. “It’s the slugs I can’t stand. Long, slimy, yel ow slugs that come out when you’re asleep. They must like the salt on your skin or something, because I had—” Tubby Ted made a face.

“Sixty-seven,” Prentiss said. “Ted had sixty-seven of ’em on him yesterday morning. Could barely see his face for al the slugs.”