Torn-missing 4 (15 page)

The astonished faces around him made him think that he had. He hadn’t known the translator vaccines could work on speaking, as well as hearing. But he’d never actually had reason to try it out before.

Ikau looked as surprised as everyone else. He swung
his harpoon at the sailors near him and stepped closer to Jonah.

“You don’t know about the river?” Ikau asked, a furrow appearing between his heavy brows. His deep-set eyes took in the wooden frame of the stocks, holding Jonah in place. “And you speak my language—and they have you trapped?”

“Pretty much,” Jonah said. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Ikau looked around—from Jonah in the stocks to Hudson’s self-important stance to the skeletal sailors to John King, with the gun pointing directly at him.

And then in a flash Ikau ran to the railing and scrambled over. A second later Jonah heard the muffled splash of an oar speeding through water.

“Shoot him!” Hudson commanded. “He’s getting away! He might have stolen something! He might come back with a war party!”

King shot off the gun, but then he shook his head and tried again. And again. And again. Finally Hudson put his hand on King’s arm.

“Hold your fire,” Hudson said. “He’s too far away now.”

Jonah let out a silent sigh of relief.

But then Hudson turned toward Jonah.

“It appears my son has been hiding his talents from me,” Hudson said. “I did not know he knew how to speak savage.”

“I’ve just been … studying a little … on the side,” Jonah mumbled.

“Then pray tell,” Hudson commanded, glaring down at him. “Whatever did the savage reveal?”

Jonah looked for Katherine in the crowd. Surely she’d heard the commotion on the deck; surely she’d raced up the stairs to see what was going on—surely she’d have a better idea than he did about what he should say.

But when he caught a glimpse of Katherine’s see-through face behind a bunch of sailors, she looked just as worried and confused as Jonah felt.

“Um,” Jonah began. He gnawed on his lip and tried to figure out what to say next.

“I, too, know a bit of the savage tongue,” Prickett said, stepping between Jonah and the captain. “The boy was only speaking doggerel.” Prickett laughed, lightly, in a way that made Jonah seem ridiculous. “But I believe the savage was saying that the river is wide for many leagues ahead, until it spills into a vast sea none of his
people have traveled. Isn’t that correct, boy?”

Prickett turned to look at Jonah. Jonah opened his mouth. But Prickett was already turning his back on him again.

“But what am I saying?” Prickett murmured, with a shrug. “The boy will only lie. Why should I ask him?”

Jonah’s face burned.

“Come,” Prickett said, taking Hudson’s arm. “Is not this cause for more celebration?”

But Hudson pulled his arm from Prickett’s grasp.

“I should like to see the scope of this passageway with mine own eyes,” Hudson said. “
I
shall stand lookout in the top.”

“Sir, your bad knee—,” Prickett began.

“It is not that bad,” Hudson said.

“As you wish, sir,” Prickett said, backing away to leave Hudson a clear path toward the rigging.

But Jonah caught a glimpse of Prickett’s face as Prickett turned aside. His eyes were squinted almost shut, and his teeth were clenched.

He really doesn’t want Hudson up in that crow’s nest,
Jonah thought.
Why? Because there’s something about the passageway he doesn’t want Hudson to see? Or—because he knows there are papers up there saying he’s bad, and he’s afraid Hudson will find them?

Jonah was pretty sure it was the second reason. Should
Jonah call out, Y
o, Dad, look under the canvas when you get up there!
—or something like that, only sounding a little more 1611-ish?

Or would that just make it look like Jonah was the one who’d written and hidden those papers?

Prickett had his eyebrows raised, staring at Jonah.

He knows I’m trying to decide what to do,
Jonah thought.

Prickett reminded Jonah of someone.
Who?
Jonah wondered.
How many people do I know who have so many scars and sores and pockmarks? And that long, stringy, thinning hair … It has to be someone I’ve seen traveling through time.

Then Jonah realized: It wasn’t. It was his old friend back home, Billy Rivoli, who liked playing games like Stratego and chess. Physically, Billy didn’t look anything like Prickett—Billy had short, thick black hair and braces and was a little bit chubby, because he also liked sitting around eating Oreos all day long. But Billy had always had this way of raising his eyebrows when he was planning to trap Jonah in chess or Stratego. The raised eyebrows always said,
Ha, ha, ha. You will never figure out my brilliant plan. Give up! You’ve already lost!

It was almost always true, because the raised eyebrows would make Jonah so mad that he’d do something dumb. And then he really would lose.

Prickett’s raised eyebrows made Jonah mad too.

“Father?” Jonah called out to Hudson.

Hudson turned around.

“Yes, son?” he said cautiously.

Jonah caught a glimpse of Prickett’s face, though he turned away to hide it.

Prickett was
beaming.
He must have thought Jonah was about to make a huge mistake.

“Just—be careful on those ropes,” Jonah said quickly. “They’re still a little icy, up by the top.”

“Thank you, son,” Hudson said.

Jonah couldn’t tell from Hudson’s voice if Hudson was grateful for the warning, or if he was annoyed that Jonah was acting as if Hudson couldn’t even climb a rope without slipping. Jonah knew from his own parents that adults didn’t like being treated as if they were too old to do stuff. But Jonah decided he’d done the right thing when he caught another glimpse of Prickett’s face.

Prickett was scowling now.

The life of the ship went on around Jonah, trapped in his stocks. Katherine went down belowdecks again to look for messages. Hudson went up to the crow’s nest and then came back down. Various crew members raised and lowered sails, catching the best winds. Hudson conferred with Prickett, with King, with others. Late in the afternoon Jonah even saw Staffe stride into Hudson’s cabin for a brief conversation.

Staffe didn’t even look in Jonah’s direction on the way out.

Okay. So that hurts my feelings. So what?
Jonah told himself.
I’ve got bigger things to worry about. Like saving all of time. And—Andrea. Will I ever see her again?

Jonah managed to distract himself for a while just thinking about how pretty Andrea was, with her gray
eyes, and her long brown hair, and her fragile air.

She was never as fragile as she looked,
Jonah reminded himself.

Again and again, traveling through time, Jonah had discovered that things often weren’t as they seemed.

So, here in 1611, am I going to discover that Prickett is the good guy and Staffe is secretly the one who’s out to get me?
Jonah wondered.

He shook his head. He might be confused about a lot of things, but he refused to believe that the world could be that messed up.

Jonah realized that while he’d been lost in his thoughts, Henry Hudson had come out of his cabin. He looked around, then veered toward Jonah and the stocks.

Around them all the sailors seemed to be carefully looking away—carefully not watching Hudson stop beside his supposed son.

“You know the story of why I ran away to sea, don’t you?” Hudson asked. “How I argued with my father about anything and everything, how we couldn’t see eye to eye, ever?”

“You’ve told me that,” Jonah said cautiously, because, if he were the real John Hudson, he’d know a story like that, wouldn’t he?

“I was just your age,” Hudson said. “Your age exactly when I left.”

Jonah nodded, because what was he supposed to say to that?
Uh, just how old am I, anyway?
Or
I kind of doubt it, Pops. If you want to be exactly accurate about how old I am, really, I think you’d have to use negative numbers.

“And when I got back from my first sea voyage, my father was dead,” Hudson said, staring at a point just above Jonah’s head. “He died a week after I left, but of course I didn’t know that. I spent that whole two years at sea imagining coming home to my father, bringing him treasures, making up for all our fights …”

Hudson’s voice trailed off. He wouldn’t start crying, right there, would he?

“He probably knew you wanted to bring him treasure,” Jonah said, a bit awkwardly. “He probably knew you didn’t want to fight anymore.”

“But what if I did?” Hudson said. “What if the treasure was my way of saying, ‘See, I was right all along?’ The way boys think …”

Oh, no,
Jonah thought.
Don’t make this about “boys.” Don’t make this about you and your son!

Hudson shifted his gaze to meet Jonah’s eyes.

He’s going to see that I’m not really John Hudson!
Jonah thought, panicked.
He’s going to see that I’m really some other kid in a mask and a wig and a cape!

Hudson was almost glaring, his eyes narrowed to slits.

“You volunteered!” he said fiercely. “I didn’t force you—I wouldn’t have forced you. Not my own son!”

“Are you talking about putting me into the stocks?” Jonah asked, his voice coming out like a yelp in his surprise. “You may not have forced me, but John King sure did! Force was used!”

Hudson looked around. A sailor who was rebraiding a frayed rope nearby bent his head lower, clearly trying to pretend that he hadn’t heard a thing.

“I’m talking about yesterday!” Hudson hissed, sotto voce. “When you got us the special map!”

Jonah’s eyes sprang open so wide he was afraid he might split the John Hudson mask. He barely stopped himself from saying,
What do you mean,
I
got us the map? What did I do? I thought you got the map! I thought Second gave it to you! This is crazy! What am I supposed to think now?

“I—,” Jonah began, then stopped, because anything he said would just be like screaming out,
I’m not the real John Hudson! I’m a fake!

Hudson leaned closer.

“Did you run away? How did you do it? Are they following you?” he whispered.

“I can’t talk to you about that right now,” Jonah said, which was straight out of one of those guidance assemblies at school, where the counselors played out ridiculous
role-plays about being offered drugs or alcohol or dealing with bullies or coping with out-of-control emotions. “I can’t talk to you about that right now” was supposed to be an all-purpose answer, what you could use when anything else you could think of was bound to get you into trouble. The entire school had made fun of that saying for weeks afterward—even the teachers had joined in.

But, what do you know? Looks like that saying actually does work when you’ve traveled through time and people are talking to you about stuff you’ve got no clue about,
Jonah thought.

Because Hudson was backing away and murmuring, “Of course. Of course. Sometimes you show wisdom beyond your years, my son. We’ll talk later. After you’re out of the stocks.”

“Um, you couldn’t let me out early, could you?” Jonah asked. “Like, give me time off for good behavior? Or—for showing wisdom?”

Hudson looked around, as if suddenly remembering the sailor with the frayed rope, the other sailors clustered around the ship, everyone who could have heard what Jonah said, even if they’d heard none of the whispers and murmurings.

The sailor with the rope resorted to lopping off the end with an axe. The sound of the axe hitting made Jonah jump.

“Of course I can’t let you out early,” Hudson said coldly.
“I run a tight ship. You will stay in the stocks until sundown tomorrow—not a minute more, not a minute less.”

And there’s another thing that’s different than it seems,
Jonah thought.
Henry Hudson doesn’t treat his son the same in private as he does when other people are listening.

But what did that have to do with the map? And what in the world had the real John Hudson “volunteered” for?