X Marks the Spot (7 page)

“It's after us,” cried Frankie. “Devin, take a left!”

Wham!
I hit a tree.

“I meant the other left!”

“Now you tell me!”

“I almost wish we were back fighting pirates,” Jim huffed as we tore through the jungle. “Long John Silver and his crutch seem less terrible than some island monster.”

“It's like an old horror movie,” I said, slapping my way through the hanging vines. “And those never end up good—”

But as fast as we were, the creature was much faster, thudding along the ground then leaping into trees, swinging on vines, scampering along branches. In no time, it had worked its way around and dropped to the ground right ahead of us.

We screeched to a stop. I gaped at the thing crouching there. It was breathing heavily.

“Don't eat us!” I cried.

“Wait a second!” said Frankie. “That's not a crazy, kid-eating monster. It's … it's … a man!”

It was a man. Though he was about as disguised as you could get. He was little and wiry and thin, with a long dirty white beard that hung to his waist. His hair was shaggy and loose, falling messily below his shoulders, and with enough tangles and snarls to give a hairdresser a fit.

Wherever his skin showed—and that was a lot—was either very hairy or very dirty. He was dressed in what looked like the tattered remains of an old ship's sail mixed and matched with various local plants. All this was held together with sticks, brass buttons, and loops of twisted grass.

He took a step forward. We backed up.

“Don't attack us, please,” I said. “That is if you even understand what I'm saying, mister, uh, mister—”

His eyes, all wrinkled and old, suddenly grew wide, and his lips parted in an enormous grin. Without warning, he threw himself on the ground in front of us, clasped his hands and shouted at the top of his lungs, “CHEESE!”

We blinked at the hairy guy.

“Mr. Cheese?” said Frankie. “Your name is Mr. Cheese?”

“No, no, my name is Ben Gunn!” he chirped in a high, raspy voice. “I'm saying
cheese
because I love cheese. And I'm asking—do you have any cheese?”

“Do we have any cheese?” I said, doing the fake feeling-my-pockets thing. “Sorry. Fresh out.”

“I've lived on berries and goats and bugs and oysters. But what I'd really love is a nice wad of cheese. A chunk of Cheddar. A bit of Brie, even. Perhaps a load of Limburger. Or a munch of Monterey. I'd even go for a pinch of Parmesan. Or a ripple of Romano. A—”

“We have some on our ship,” said Jim abruptly.

Ben Gunn's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“SHIP!”

“Ship,” said Jim. “The
Hispaniola
.”

“You have a ship!” Ben cried, as if “ship” was the only thing better than a block of cheese. “A ship to sail me home! Oh, my, my, you've come to save old Ben Gunn! Why, I haven't seen a soul for three whole years!”

We could tell from his voice that he was an English guy, like all the others in this book.

“Poor man, were you shipwrecked?” asked Jim.

“Marooned,” said Ben Gunn.

I remembered Long John Silver using the word. It meant a horrible kind of punishment, like when I have to stay after school and my mom forgets to pick me up and I have to stay there for a while.

“A ship!” Ben muttered once more. Then a sudden shadow fell over his face, and he raised a finger before our faces. “You haven't come on old Captain Flint's ship, have you?”

“It's not Flint's ship,” Frankie told the old man. “Flint is dead. But there are some of Flint's old crew on the island right now, which makes things pretty sticky.”

It was Ben's turn to gasp. “There's not a man with … one leg, is there?” he asked.

Jim nodded. “Long John Silver! You know him?”

“Akkkk!” Ben screamed. “He's the most terrible creature that ever hopped on this earth! He was with me on Flint's ship when they buried the treasure here. Six strong seamen Flint took ashore with him. Then me, Billy Bones, and Long John Silver see Flint coming back to the ship after burying the treasure. And the six men were not with him. And his sword was gone. We knew then that Flint had buried the treasure and killed the six men who knew where it was!”

It was a horrible story. Frankie's expression went all the way from astonishment to fear. Mine did, too.

“How did you get marooned?” asked Jim.

“Three years ago, I was in another ship and we passed the island and I told the men what treasure was here, if we could find it,” Ben said. “We landed and searched for twelve days, but never found it. The captain was so mad at me, he marooned me ashore. ‘Find Flint's money for yourself!' he shouts at me, and takes off, leaving me to fend for myself. I built a hut, I built a little boat, I made myself a little life here. But I've been cheeseless ever since!”

“How terrible,” said Frankie. “You poor man—”

Suddenly the air exploded with a thunderous sound.

Ben jumped in fear. “What's that?”

“It sounds like the ship's cannon,” said Jim. “Something's happening. The pirates and our men must have begun to fight! Come now. Follow me!”

All four of us began to run toward where the little boats had reached the shore. Ben trotted nimbly over rocks and broken branches like a real jungle animal.

“Take a sharp right turn!” he said, and we did. “Under the trees to your left,” he said. We went there, too. After three years of nothing much to do, the guy really knew his jungle.

Suddenly, we heard a bunch of sharp crackling noises coming from the shore.

“Pistols and rifles,” said Jim.

“Oh, terrific. Now we're at war!” said Frankie.

A moment later, Ben Gunn broke through the thick woods and into a clearing. There, not fifty feet ahead of us, was a small fort built of logs. And above the fort was the British flag fluttering high over the woods.

“The old stockade!” said Ben. “But the flag is new—”

“Our friends must have come ashore and set up camp here!” said Jim, nearly laughing.

“Does that mean the pirates have taken over the ship?” I asked.

Jim nodded. “Probably. But we'll sort that out later. Ben, come and meet our friends, the doctor, the squire, the captain—”

Another blast of the cannon shot straight through the woods, crashing nearby.

“Oh, ho-ho! Not I!” said the little man. “I'm safer up in my trees! But tell your leaders I may have something to share with them. But I'll only trade it for cheese! Later! Later!”

“Ben, wait!” said Jim.

But the little man darted away like a graceful animal, leaped into a tree and swung from branch to branch until he was lost in the leafy darkness.

“Strange little oddball,” I mumbled.

“Strange big cannonball!” Frankie cried. “Jim! Devin! Watch out!”

We all fell flat on the ground as a third sizzling, whistling cannonball shot straight over our heads.

Chapter 13

The trees exploded above us, showering us with falling leaves and branches.

“Let's get in the fort,” cried Jim. “Hurry!”

We rushed to the stockade walls and pounded on them. A moment later, a small door opened in the wall and there was the squire, looking wrinkled and dirty.

“I say!” he said. “We were expecting visitors, but not friendly ones. Do come in!”

We dashed in moments before the next cannon-ball exploded inches from where we were standing.

Inside the wall was a flat area about the size of the school playground, but paved with dirt. Smack dab in the center stood a house made entirely of logs chopped roughly and fitted together.

“Cool fort,” I said. “You could probably defend this place pretty well—”

“And we'll probably have to!” growled the captain, running out to meet us. “Everybody get inside. Now!”

Frankie turned to me. “It's nice to know the captain hasn't changed!”

Huddled inside the log house we found the doctor, and three other sailors. They welcomed us with a cheer.

“We thought you were lost for good,” said the doctor. “I knew in my heart that you didn't join the pirates.”

“We almost were lost for good,” Jim told him. “Silver and his men have taken down two of our sailors.”

The captain nodded grimly. “They've taken over the ship, too. It was us against twenty. We escaped just in time, taking as many supplies as we could carry—”

A couple more cannonballs crashed outside the fort, then the bombardment seemed to be over. At least for a while.

When I got done crouching, and finally took a look around, it was plain to see that they really had brought everything they possibly could. There were rifles, sacks of pork, gunpowder, and biscuits.

“I think we have another friend,” said Frankie, glancing at Jim and me. “We met him in the jungle, but he didn't want to come in.”

“His name is Ben Gunn,” Jim added. “He used to sail with Silver and Billy Bones, and Captain Flint, too. He was marooned here.”

The doctor seemed especially interested in this information. “What sort of man is he? Is he, well, sane?”

Frankie made a face. “He does seem a little flaky.”

“It's because he has no sunblock,” I said. “In fact, he doesn't have much of anything. Being here for three years all by himself, with no friends, has made him sort of a bit strange. All the guy really wants is cheese.”

The doctor laughed. “Funny. It sounded like you said cheese.”

“I did say cheese!” I replied. “And so did Ben Gunn, about a thousand times. He said he had something valuable to share, but only if we came back with cheese.”

“How odd.” Dr. Livesey then pulled a small silver box from his coat and popped open the lid. “I keep a pinch of Parmesan with me for just such occasions!”

I blinked at the guy. “Dude, you are prepared!”

All of a sudden, there came a cry from one of the men on guard. “Captain! Doctor! Come quickly!”

We all rushed out to the walls and climbed to the top to see what the fuss was about.

Frankie clutched my arm. “Devin—look!”

A small white patch of fabric was waving from the midst of the trees. Then it slowly made its way from the woods to the clearing before the stockade.

“It's a flag,” said Jim. “The pirates are surrendering!”

“Unless it's a trick,” said the captain.

Two men walked up to the stockade walls. Well, the one with the flag walked. The other did a sort of hopping motion. It was Long John Silver. On his shoulder sat that feathery parrot of his.

While the captain and the doctor climbed down to the gate, Frankie edged closer to me, took out the book, and found the page where we were. She pointed to it.

“Devin, this is fishy. I mean, look. We're nowhere near the end of the story. The pirates can't be surrendering this early. There's too much story to come. Ten-to-one this really is a trick.”

“Arrh, arrh!” Silver bellowed up the walls at us. “I be here to talk with you about striking up a peace!”

“Strike! Strike!” shrieked the parrot.

Just seeing Silver standing there made me nervous and afraid. I mean, here it was, daylight. The sky was getting brighter by the minute, and the tops of the trees shone rosily in the sun. But where Silver stood was all in shadow. There was a low, white mist streaming out of the swamp behind him. It all made me shiver.

“Come forward, Silver,” said the captain firmly.

The pirate hobbled and limped and nearly stumbled several times trying to get to the stockade, but, huffing and puffing, he finally made it. He stood across from the captain just outside the main gate.

“Well, pirate,” snarled the captain. “What have you got to say?”

“Arrh! The captain gets right to the point!” Silver said loudly, trying to laugh, but not being too convincing. “Well, then, here it is. We want that treasure, my men and I, and we'll have it! But you have the map to it all.”

“Well, so?” said the captain angrily.

“So,” said Silver. “Give us the map and you go free.”

“Wrong!” I shouted down from the wall. “We heard what you're planning. We were in the apple barrel and heard every single word. You'll strike us down as soon as we hand over the map!”

“Strike! Strike!” shrieked the parrot again.

Silver glanced up at me slowly. He rolled his eyes from me to Frankie to Jim and back again. Those eyes were as cold and steely as a sharpened cutlass.

“So, it's that way, is it?” he said. “Well, I suppose I know where I stand.”

“You don't stand,” said Frankie. “You lean.”

“And you shall fall,” added Jim, gritting his teeth.

“Look here,” said Silver. “You give me that chart and as I'm a man of my word, I'll give ye all some treasure and put you on the next ship we see!”

The captain burst into cold laughter. “Now, hear what I say. Lay down your weapons and let me take you prisoner and—as I'm a man of my word—I'll see to it that every last one of you is brought to justice!”

Silver's eyes nearly popped out of his head. “So, you're taking a hard line, are you? Then, listen to this! Before the hour's done, we'll destroy your stockade. And all of you will be food for my parrot!”

The bird ruffled its feathers. “For me! For me!”

With that, Silver flung the white flag to the ground and he and his pirate flunky stumbled off and disappeared among the trees.

The captain wasted no time. “We shall be under attack in minutes, my mates. We must defend our house against pirates! Doctor, you take the north side. Jim take the east side. Frankie, Devin, the west side. Squire, you are the best shot—”

“Of course I am!” said the squire, grinning.

“Take the front gate,” the captain went on. “Together, we shall defeat these pirates, or die trying!”