Hook's Revenge Page 8

  The man replied with another enthusiastic string of gibberish. Smee translated: “He says it won’t hold him back. Matter of fact, might be dead useful at times. Jim can tell when a storm is brewing by the phantom itch where his meat leg used to be.”

  “Very good, Jim. Be sure and let me know if that happens.”

  The crew was rounded out by the arrival of Nubbins, the cook, and Blind Bart, the ship’s lookout. Nubbins was the only crew member with a real battle wound. Smee explained that the man had lost his left thumb in an unfortunate cooking accident, but claimed that it had been bitten off by a giant squid. Nubbins liked to brag that he’d gotten his revenge by transforming the creature into a delicious dish of calamari with capers—served cold, of course.

  Blind Bart seemed an unusual choice for lookout, as he wore patches over both eyes. His reasoning here was elegantly simple: if one eye patch made a pirate look fierce and dangerous, two would make him look doubly so. (The man also had a fear of drowning—an unfortunate quality in a sailor—but as even the stupidest toddler knows, covering your eyes makes you invisible. Thus, if the ocean couldn’t see him, it couldn’t get him.) Though her pirates were certainly odd, Jocelyn was in no position to turn even a single one away. She was running with a skeleton crew as it was. Her ship would need every man to do his part.

  The young captain called her men together before they left the harbor. “Let the dreadful crocodile beware, for I now christen this ship the Hook’s Revenge. Hoist anchor, find the eye of the wind, and let’s be under way!”

  The crew cheered. Mr. Smee cried. One-Armed Jack clumsily raised a black flag emblazoned with the image of a large red hook. The ship’s sails filled with wind, and she proudly set out to sea.

  As soon as the Hook’s Revenge reached open waters, Jocelyn ordered her crew to gather on the main deck. “All right, you dogs, we are on an important and dangerous mission. As you know, my father, Captain James Hook…”

  All the men shuddered.

  “…is dead, viciously slain at the jaws of the Neverland’s crocodile. It is my duty—nay, my privilege—to avenge him. Who is with me?”

  The crew whooped and hollered “Aye, aye, Captain!” (With the exception of Smee, who was still happily sobbing into his handkerchief.) Jocelyn felt heartened by their enthusiasm. With such spirit on her side, defeating the crocodile should be easy. She imagined how it might play out:

  Jocelyn’s men would be gathered behind her, cheering. She would stroll up to the beast and tap it on the shoulder.…Do crocodiles have shoulders? They must; they have arms, don’t they? Or are they all legs?

  She tried to remember what, if anything, she had read about crocodile anatomy. Nothing helpful came to mind. Making a mental note to look through her books, Jocelyn continued with her fantasy.

  Shoulders or not, she’d tap it somewhere, and say, “Excuse me. You may remember eating my father, Captain Hook? I’m here to avenge his death. Farewell, hideous beast.” Then she would poke the creature with her sword and it would die. With its dying breath, it would say:

  “CANNONBALL!”

  Cannonball?

  Jocelyn drew her attention back to the deck. It was in a state of utter pandemonium. A line of men had formed at the plank. They were using it as a diving board, hence the “cannonball” that had interrupted her daydream. A dripping-wet One-Armed Jack, apparently forgetting his missing arm, climbed up the anchor chain. Near the middle of the deck, as far as possible from the water, Blind Bart was trying to start a game of Marco Polo.

  Smee was still crying.

  The air was filled with shouts of me hearty, arr, and bucko as the men all tried to outpirate each other. Jocelyn needed to gain control before the crew tore her ship apart. She clapped her hands. She whistled. She stomped her foot. Nothing happened; the crew hardly noticed her.

  “Attention on deck! The next to speak out of turn will…will walk the plank!” That did no good. With the exception of Bart, they all wanted to walk the plank.

  “Settle down or I’ll keelhaul you!”

  The only response she received from that was a chorus of “Me first!”

  Jocelyn wondered what her father would think of her crew and felt ashamed. She climbed to the poop deck so as to tower over the foolish men below her. “Listen up, you miserable powder monkeys!” she roared. “Shut up and be still, or face my wrath!” The girl truly had no idea what her wrath might be, but neither did her crew. The men gave her their attention.

  “We’re sorry, Mother,” she heard one of them say.

  “Mother? Mother! Which of you dogs dares to call me mother?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “I am not your mother. I am your captain, and you would be wise to address me as such. We have no need for a mother on this ship. I have lived my entire life without one, and I never missed a thing. Are we clear on the matter?”

  The crew nodded, wide-eyed, at their fierce captain.

  “Men,” Jocelyn went on in a slightly calmer tone, “while your enthusiasm is not wholly unappreciated, your behavior is not befitting your station. This is no pleasure cruise! We must find and kill the Neverland’s crocodile. Any more of this foolishness and I will cast anchor in ye!”

  Smee applauded wildly, looking fit to burst with pride. The rest of the men reluctantly joined in.

  Jocelyn continued her speech. “The crocodile is dangerous. It is wily. We will need all our wits about us. We will need courage. We will need…” She stopped to consider what else would be necessary. “We will need to find it. Does anyone know where the beast lives? Mr. Smee?”

  “No, Miss Captain, I’m afraid I don’t. We used to know it was around by the ticking clock in its belly—at least until the end.” He took off his spectacles and wiped his eyes. “The croc’s clock stopped ticking for a time, you know. That’s how the beast was able to…to do what it did to the poor captain. But it started ticking again soon after. Maybe we’ll hear it somewhere.”

  Nubbins timidly raised his hand. “Cap’n Jo? I’m not sure of the truth of this, but someone from my dinner club—er, I mean my drinking, cussing, and carousing club—arr!”

  The other men shouted “Arr!” in reply.

  Jocelyn glared at them until they looked away, ashamed.

  Nubbins went on, addressing his feet. “This fellow from my club went out to Salmagundi Island to gather cuttings of wild lavender, uh, to brew into a sort of, um, flower whiskey—potent stuff, it is. So he went out to gather the lavender and as he rowed away, he heard a ticking sound coming from one of the island’s sea caves. Scared him something terrible; thought it was a bomb, he did. Might not a been, though, right? It could be the croc’s on that island.”

  The increase of pirates in the area since Captain Hook’s death had led to a need for more places to bury treasure and maroon people. To fill that need, the Neverland had broken off some pieces of itself and sent them out into the sea to form a smaller chain of islands. Salmagundi was the largest and most popular in the chain.

  Blind Bart spoke up. “If there is a clock to be heard anywhere on, around, above, or below there, I will hear it.” (As he was unable to rely on his sense of sight, Bart made up for it with extraordinary hearing.)

  No one had any better ideas on where to find the beast so Jocelyn set their heading for the long voyage to Salmagundi Island in order to look—or listen, as it were—for the crocodile.

  “Tonight we feast!” Jocelyn called to her men.

  Nubbins looked over the galley stores and whipped up a delightful meal: tarragon-scented salt pork with sauerkraut and hardtack topped with lime-ginger crème. One-Armed Jack passed out beverages, managing quite well with his one arm by switching to the other whenever he tired.

  Jim McCraig sang, surprising Jocelyn and the rest of the crew with the clarity of his words. In song, strangely enough, his bizarre accent became quite easy to understand:

  Yo ho
ho and a bottle o’ rum,

  My mum thinks I am jist a bum,

  She hoped I’d become a social worker

  But I’m a sailin’ mad berserker.…

  I’ll ne’er go home again! Yo ho!

  She can’t make me go home again!

  It was the best party Jocelyn had ever attended. She ate with her fingers and threw her scraps to the floor. She danced on the table, soaking her skirts with grog and gravy. She sang along with her men, her sweet voice matching theirs in enthusiasm (and surpassing them in pitch), and found herself heartily agreeing—she never wanted to go home again either. The pirate life was even better than she had dreamed.

  It would take Captain Jocelyn and her crew a few days to reach their destination. The men spent their time listening to Smee tell…not exactly lies, but perhaps a few exaggerations, about his escapades with Captain Hook. As to be expected, the bo’sun was a bit of a hero among the young pirates—a fact that did not bother him in the least. While the men talked, Jocelyn took up her inherited sword and sparred with her shadow on the main deck. Even if killing the crocodile turned out to be as easy as she’d imagined, it wouldn’t hurt to practice.

  You may be surprised at her confidence. I have found that it is easy to be self-assured when you are untested—particularly if you are well-read. Once you get out in the world, away from the library, you may find that things are not quite as clear as they seemed when you held the whole universe between leather covers. For example, I once read a book about getting rid of unwanted pests. I felt that I was quite the expert, and yet here you sit.

  Now, let’s see, Jocelyn thought. Was it shuffle-shuffle, thrust? Or thrust, shuffle-shuffle?

  A dark speck in the sky caught her attention, interrupting her musings. For a moment she thought it might be Edgar, perhaps bringing a message from Roger, but those hopes quickly fizzled. Closer inspection revealed a person, a boy to be exact, attired in clothes made from skeleton leaves and tree sap. Jocelyn recognized him as the boy she had dreamed about on her first night at finishing school. He did a series of barrel rolls and a few loop-de-loops before alighting on the ship’s railing with a rather self-satisfied look on his face. Jocelyn found him far less impressive than he found himself.

  “Hello, girl,” the boy said. “I don’t remember bringing you here. How did you end up on a pirate ship?” He pulled a dagger from his belt, looked around, and gnashed his teeth. “No need to tell me now. I’m sure you are terribly frightened. Don’t worry; I’ll rescue you.”

  Jocelyn turned her back on him, stuck her nose in the air, and said, “I do not need rescuing, and you did not bring me here, thank you very much!” She sheathed her sword and brushed at imaginary lint on the sleeve of her father’s jacket.

  The boy flew off the rail and sat cross-legged on the deck in front of her. “You’re welcome,” he replied. “If you want to stay here, that’s all right with me. You go ahead and start telling the story while I keep an eye on the pirates.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  He rolled his eyes and spoke slowly. “Stories. Like the lady that pricks her finger and eats an apple before she has to take a nap. Or the lady that can’t sleep because she has pee in her bed.”

  “It is not pee; it is a pea. And I am not here to tell you stories!” She turned her back on him again.

  “Aren’t you here to be a mother to me and the lost boys? Mothers tell stories, and they do the washing, and the mending, and the scolding. Although if you want to forget about the scolding, I won’t mind. But mothers must tell stories.” He stretched out his legs and kicked his heels on the deck. “If you don’t tell me a story right now, I shan’t take my medicine tonight and you will be sorry!”

  Jocelyn whirled back to face him. “I am most certainly not here to be your mother. What is the obsession with mothers here? You and those lost boys will just have to wash, mend, and story yourselves. I have my own business to attend to. Now go away.” She punctuated that last bit with a stomp of her foot.

  The boy laughed and said, “Fine, fine, you don’t want to be our mother—even though you’re really good at the scolding part. I’ll still rescue you.” He stood and grabbed her by the arm.

  Jocelyn slapped his hand away. “For the last time, I don’t need rescuing!”

  “If you don’t need rescuing, what are you doing on a pirate ship? This is no place for a girl.”

  It seemed there would never be a shortage of people willing to doubt Jocelyn’s abilities. “What business could I have on a pirate ship? The business of captain! I am Captain Jocelyn Hook, and this is my ship, the Hook’s Revenge!”

  The boy crowed with joy and said, “Well, Girl Captain, I’m glad you are here. I do love a good war.” He arranged his face into a fierce scowl, leaped to his feet, and pointed his dagger at her. “If you are here for revenge against me, you will be disappointed. You will die as your father before you!”

  Revenge against him? This strange, arrogant boy?

  Comparing him to the beast her father had described was like comparing a flea to a king cobra. Certainly they could both bite, but only one was deadly. “I am not here to fight you, silly boy!” she laughed at him. “I’m here to have my revenge on the crocodile. When I am done with that, if you’d still like to have a war, perhaps I’ll oblige you. That is, if I’m not too busy.” Deciding that she had had enough of him, Jocelyn turned away and resumed practicing her swordplay. Her shadow stuck out its tongue at the boy before taking up its sword and joining in.

  According to my sources on the Neverland, that was the first time that Peter Pan could find nothing clever to say. He glared at Jocelyn and boasted, “I have a fairy!” Then, with the air of one who has put another in their rightful place, he thumbed his nose and flew away.

  Jocelyn was still trying to puzzle out the strange encounter when Blind Bart called out, “Land ho! I can hear waves breaking on her rocky shore, and the air is perfumed with wild lavender. It can only be Salmagundi Island! We will reach her just as the evening crickets begin to chirp—or for those of you who depend on your eyes, at twilight.” He was rather verbose for a lookout. “I think…no, I am certain—I hear a faint ticking!”

  Guided by both Blind Bart’s keen sense of hearing and Smee’s piloting knowledge, Jocelyn steered the ship into an inlet dotted with caves. Bart claimed the ticking was coming from the third one on the left.

  The young captain, beginning to feel a little anxious, ordered that one of the dinghies be let down immediately.

  In shipman’s terms, a dinghy is a small boat kept aboard a larger vessel—useful for stealthy landings, navigating shallow beaches, and giving people an excuse to say “dinghy” without their mothers becoming cross. Most ships have one, but Blind Bart had firmly requested that the Hook’s Revenge carry three: the main, a spare, and a spare-spare, for safety reasons. His petition for a spare-spare-spare had been denied, as it would have left no room for the cannon.

  Jocelyn chose Smee and One-Armed Jack to accompany her. Before climbing in, she commanded her men. “Bart, keep a weather ear out for that crocodile. If you hear ticking leave the cave, sound the alarm. In that case, Jim, Nubbins—one of you must fire the cannon to alert me. Should I hear its blast, I’ll know the beast is on the move.”

  Having issued all the commands, there was nothing left for the girl to do but climb into the little boat and complete her father’s legacy.

  My, but that sounds dramatic, doesn’t it?

  If you have ever felt a bit nervous about a task before you—such as walking past a snarling dog on your way to school, confessing to your mother that you broke her favorite Royal Family commemorative plate, or needing to dig up and rebury a body on a cold, dark night—you may have an idea of how Jocelyn felt as she seated herself in the little boat.

  Her hands shook as she reached for the oars, but Smee beat her to them. “We ca
n’t let you row, miss. Can we, Johnny?” he said, jostling her out of position.

  Noting that Smee spoke more often to Johnny when he was nervous or unsettled did little to restore Jocelyn’s confidence. “And why not?” she snapped. “Because I’m a girl? I am becoming very tired of people thinking I can’t do things!”

  “No, miss. Not because you’re a girl. That doesn’t have a thing to do with it. Johnny Corkscrew and me are going to row because you’re the captain and rowing is work best suited for men of lesser worth. Your job is to sit back and yell at us to go faster.”

  He pulled Johnny from his sheath and motioned with it to a suddenly nervous One-Armed Jack. “And this one here can’t row unless you want to go in circles. His job is to hold an umbrella over your head to keep you from getting splashed. That’s how we did it with the first Captain Hook, may the devil take his dear soul, and that’s how we’re going to do it with you, miss. Right, Johnny?” Johnny must have agreed, for Smee beamed at the blade and lovingly resheathed it, much to One-Armed Jack’s apparent relief.

  Jocelyn did want to do things the way her father would have. By way of an apology to Smee, she took her seat and yelled, “Well, what are we waiting for, scum? Get rowing!”

  “That’s just the way your father would have done it.” Smee pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes before grabbing the oars. “If you ever want to give me a hard kick to my backside, I’d be obliged to you. It’d be just like the old days!”

  By this time the sun had sunk halfway below the horizon. The sky was streaked with pink and orange clouds. The evening was warm and comfortable. A sweet scent of wild lavender wafted from the island, mixing with the briny sea air. Jocelyn might have been on a pleasure cruise, had it not been for the ominous task at hand—rather, the ominous task at hand and the two sweaty pirates in the boat with her. They were difficult to ignore.