Seven Dead Pirates (24 page)

T
he wind! It was like a living thing. It flew at Lewis, trying to hurl him off his perch. But he had fought too hard to be thrown off now. Wrapping both arms around the mast, he clung tight as the ship began a slow teetering slide down the lawn.

A cry rose from below as the
Maria Louisa
leaned to the right. Lewis swung right, too, his backside sliding along the platform. For a heart-stopping moment, his grip on the mast slipped. He seized hold with the desperation of the drowning. Pressing his face into the wood, he was still clinging when the ship somehow—a miracle!—righted itself.

No, not a miracle. Looking down, he saw that
Crawley’s crew on the deck had scrambled as one to the opposite side, balancing the ship with their weight. And Bellows was still back there on the starboard side, pushing and straining with that astonishing unleashed strength.

The
Maria Louisa
groaned on down the grassy slope, pulled by gravity, pushed and balanced by human weight. Lewis glanced around. The last of Dire’s pirates had been tossed overboard by Crawley’s crew. They were running alongside now, looking for a chance to reboard. But Jonas guarded the railings with a small anchor tied to a rope. He swung it like a weapon, driving away any enemy who approached.

Abandoning the
Maria Louisa
, the gray-faced pirates ran for the replica boats instead. They swarmed like wasps over the Haida canoe and the Viking longship.

The
Maria Louisa
, meanwhile, swayed wildly down the last piece of lawn, her balance held only precariously by the shrieking pirates on deck and the giant pirate acting as a living rudder below. She was closing in fast on the ocean.

The grass ended with a jolt. The
Maria Louisa
dropped sickeningly over a small bank, causing the pirates on board to roll like bowling balls down the deck. Her prow hit the water with an immense splash. For a moment, Lewis was sure they would plunge
straight to the ocean floor. But then her stern slid over the bank and splashed down too, throwing Lewis—and the pirates on deck—backward again. Rocking like a giant cradle, the
Maria Louisa
settled slowly into the waters she knew so well.

A whoop of triumph rose from the deck. They were launched! Up on his perch, Lewis started to join in, shouting and waving his right arm in circles like a rodeo rider. Then he happened to glance backward.

Bellows. He was still on shore! His task completed, he stood there, looking baffled and exhausted. Some of Dire’s pirates were almost upon him. Others were dragging the replica boats, now torn loose from their moorings, down the grassy hill.

Lewis yelled at the crew below, but in all the racket, no one heard. He put two fingers in his mouth and let out a shrieking whistle. The pirates looked up. They saw Lewis point to shore, heard him shout Bellows’s name.

Skittles was the first to reach a rope. In a blur of speed, he uncoiled it, tied it to a cork float and hurled it over the stern. It didn’t even reach the shore. But on his next try—as the first enemy pirates leaped onto Bellows from behind—the float fell like a gift into the giant’s hands. Bellows swung off the bank with his attackers still clinging and landed in the Atlantic with a splash.

Poor Skittles was dragged almost overboard by the weight. Just in time, Jack and Moyle joined him on the rope and held fast. In the water below, a furious Bellows thrashed like a breaching whale to throw off his pursuers. At last he was dragged, sodden and streaming, aboard ship. It took all of his crewmates to do it.

Another cheer rose up. Whooping, the pirates rushed Bellows to pummel and hug him and leap around his huge, soggy body. The joyous clamor thrilled Lewis to his bones. The
Maria Louisa
was theirs! It was launched—and Bellows had made it possible.

In the midst of the commotion, Bellows slowly raised an arm. He pointed up at Lewis, still perched in the crow’s nest. The crew erupted again, louder than ever. But this time, they were cheering Lewis.

“LADDIE!” they yelled. “LADDIE! LADDIE!”

Mary-Adam began to climb the rigging. She was clutching a dark piece of cloth, and even in the wind, she was as nimble as a monkey. Within seconds, she was beside Lewis on the platform.

“You done a fine thing today,” she said, her eyes filled with such feeling, she had to rub them with the back of her hand. “You’re a true friend to us, Lewis. We never had better.”

Then she held up the black cloth. A pirate’s flag!
Not the skull and crossbones Lewis had seen in movies, but similar. This flag showed a whole skeleton, with a curved cutlass on each side. Balancing on the small platform, Mary-Adam tied the Jolly Roger to the mast. When it flapped open, there was another great shout from below.

As the cheer died, a powerful voice rang out. “Stand by to make sail!”

Crawley! He was finally on his feet. His gait was unsteady as he walked to the quarterdeck, but his voice was strong and clear. Responding to his command, the crew moved quickly to their posts. The deck came alive with activity as the long-imprisoned pirates remembered what it was to crew a ship.

Lewis glanced back to shore. The Viking ship and the Haida canoe were now at the water’s edge, about to be launched by Dire’s pirates.

“Look!” cried Lewis to Mary-Adam. “They’re following. What if they catch up?”

The cabin girl shook her head. “Them boats look fine and new, but they ain’t what that crew of scoundrels knows. It will not be easy for them, Lewis. See for yourself!”

Lewis looked more closely.

The Haida canoe replica was beautiful, but as he now noticed, it didn’t have its paddles. The pirates
who had claimed it were trying to steal oars from the Viking longboat—an effort that was being met by strong resistance from the pirates on the Viking ship.

“They’re fighting each other!” muttered Lewis.

“Aye,” said Mary-Adam, “and here we be—on the finest ship on the seven seas, on the grandest of all days. Can you feel these winds? Can you see these sails? Wait, Lewis, wait. You’ll understand soon enough.”

Lewis looked back to shore again. Behind the boats, the first of the kindergarten kids were now reaching the bank. They stood at the edge, waving, as Mrs. Sobowski ran to catch up. Two policemen stumbled along in the rear, one limping badly, the other punching numbers into his cell phone.

Mrs. Sobowski quickly shooed the kindergartners away from the water’s edge. Then she turned to the ship. Her gaze moved up the mast. Shading her eyes, she stared straight at Lewis. Was that a smile?

“Will you come down now?” asked Mary-Adam in his ear. Her foot was on the rigging, ready to descend.

“Not yet,” said Lewis. “I can see everything so clearly from here. I want to look a while longer.”

The cabin girl grinned and slipped down onto the ropes.

As Lewis watched her descend, his attention was
caught by a series of angry shouts from below. He glanced around to locate their source.

There! From the hold of the ship, a pirate appeared, climbing up onto the deck. Lewis squinted. Not one of Crawley’s men. Behind the pirate came Jack the Rat, shouting and wielding two swords.

“Lookee here!” yelled Jack. “See what I found below!”

It took Lewis a second to recognize the stranger.

Dire! It was Dire himself, his long white hair whipped by the wind, his pale eyes blinking in the sunlight. He must have still been aboard as the
Maria Louisa
started to move. He looked trapped now as he ran with a scarecrow clumsiness across the deck—searching, Lewis guessed, for a new weapon.

Before he could find one, Crawley charged. He bolted across the deck and seized his enemy by the scruff of the neck. Then he dragged Dire to the stern of the ship and slammed him—hard!—against the railing.

Jack the Rat followed, still clutching Dire’s sword and his own.

Up in the crow’s nest, Lewis held his breath. It would happen now, he was sure. Crawley’s rage would finally erupt—the terrible, dark fury Lewis had witnessed for the past twenty-four hours.

What would it be? Keelhauling? The lash?

To his astonishment, he saw a smile on Crawley’s face. A grim smile, to be sure, but one that was filled with intense satisfaction.

Facing the pirates on shore, Crawley hoisted his captive in triumph.

“Ahoy, ye sea scabs!” he yelled. “Does ye need another HAND? For yer OARS? For when ye has to ROW across the Atlantic?”

It was too windy, Lewis realized, for the crew on shore to hear. But seeing Crawley glance backward, he realized who the captain’s
real
audience was—his own crew. They were howling as if this were the best joke they’d ever heard.

Crawley’s next line got an even bigger laugh.

“I’d tie him up before I toss him over,” he said, then paused for effect. “BUT HE AIN’T WORTH THE ROPE!”

And with that, Crawley seized his ancient enemy by the breeches and neck and tossed him, like garbage, over the rail.

The cheers that rang out on deck might have been heard on the other side of the ocean. They were certainly heard by the crew on shore. Lewis shouted, too, partly in relief. He hadn’t really wanted to witness a keelhauling.

And then, as he watched Captain Crawley strut
away from the railing, his memory tossed up two words.

Gentleman Jim
.

Of course, thought Lewis. It was just as McAlistair’s book had said. Gentleman Jim.

Down on deck, meanwhile, Crawley’s crew continued to holler.

“Drown, you bludger!”

“Down to the deep!”

“Send him to Davy Jones’s locker!”

Crawley waited till the pirates had shouted their fill.

“Are ye done?” he asked finally, his smile filled with excitement and anticipation. “Are ye ready, mates? Can we make sail now?”

As the sails filled with wind, their snapping and billowing almost hypnotized the boy in red. Lewis couldn’t stop watching. Slowly, with a magnificent grace, the
Maria Louisa
began to move.

At first, Lewis couldn’t tell where they were heading, except away from shore. But gradually he noticed that the ship was traveling, not straight out to sea, as he had expected, but at an angle across the bay. Her speed increased by the second as she churned through the waves. Up in the crow’s nest, it felt like flying. Lewis’s clothing flattened against his body. His hair streamed behind him. The bright sunlight made his eyes squint, and the
wind made his nose run. He had never felt so alive.

As the ship neared the other side of the bay, he was astonished to see people gathered along the shore. The cannons, he thought. The sound must have carried across the water, bringing people out of their houses and down to the bay. As the ship drew closer, he squinted, trying to see if the people on shore looked frightened, or maybe angry.

Mostly they looked … excited! Lewis gazed down at the
Maria Louisa
, trying to see it through the eyes of someone standing on shore. A boy like himself, for instance. What would the boy see? A ship full of pirates, that’s what—in full sail, flying the Jolly Roger. Of course, that boy would be excited. He would be
wild
with excitement—and so would anyone else with a grain of adventure in his or her soul.

Lewis peered at the shore, trying to get his bearings. Tandy Bay looked so different from the water. He probably knew these buildings, but only from the front. He couldn’t tell where he was until he saw the playground fence along the shoreline and the crowd of kids behind it.

Tandy Bay Elementary!

It must be recess. Every kid in the school, it seemed, had rushed to the water’s edge to see the ship go by. Most were in costume, of course. They were gathered
five or six deep along the wire fence, shifting and jostling for a better view. There were teachers watching, too.

Could they see him? Could they tell it was him? His hair was free now, and he was the only one in the school with hair that color.

Standing, he planted his bare feet firmly on the small platform. He gripped the mast tightly with his left arm and raised his right as high as it would go, waving it in a wide, slow arc.

“HEY!” he yelled, astonished at the strength of his voice, deeper and louder than it had ever sounded.

“IT’S ME!” he roared. “MEEE, LEWIS!”

On the shore, the kids stopped moving. They peered up at the crow’s nest in disbelief.

“LEW—IS!” roared Lewis again.

The sound began slowly, then thundered back from hundreds of voices. “LEW—IS! LEW—IS! LEW—IS!”

He laughed out loud, standing even taller on the platform.

“LEW—IS! LEW—IS!”

He scanned the chanting crowd. Where was she?

There!

He could tell by the eye patch and the scarf tied backward over her hair. Abbie had
told
him she was dressing up as a pirate for Halloween. And there
she was—halfway up the wire fence, a head above the others, waving her right arm in an arc that matched his.

“LEW—IS! LEW—IS!”

“ABBIE!” he yelled back, waving harder, hoping she would know he was waving at
her
.

In no time at all, the ship was past. Lewis gave his school a final salute before focusing again on the pirates as they scrambled with the sails. Then he glanced back toward the museum. As Mary-Adam had predicted, the Viking ship was far behind. The Haida canoe still drifted in the shallows.