Peter and the Starcatchers (31 page)

Another growl. The glowing eyes
moved.

F
IGHTING PRAWN AND THE REST OF THE MOLLUSKS stood outside the cage, silent, waiting. Waiting for the screaming to start, dreading it, knowing that once the screaming started, it would be much longer—hours, sometimes—before it final y stopped.

The Mol usks took no pleasure in enforcing the law. But Fighting Prawn was their leader, the only one who had lived with the outsiders, and he had told them that this, difficult as it was—especial y with children—was the only way they could protect themselves, and their island.

And so they waited, as the evening sky darkened into night.

Fighting Prawn, as always, stood closest to the cage, staring at it, absolutely stil . The others gathered around him in a loose semicircle, al of them facing the logs, imagining what was happening inside, waiting, waiting….

It was because they were facing the logs that they did not immediately notice the movement high in the trees just outside of the clearing. It was a smal child, a girl of three, who saw it first; she cried out to her mother, her tiny voice making the grunt-click sounds for “bird.”

“Bird! Bird!” she said.

“Hush,” her mother said.

“Bird!” the girl repeated. “Big! There!”

And then her mother looked up and saw it, and her shout of surprise and alarm caused the rest of the Mol usks to look up, too, shouting as the thing swooped through the high branches at the edge of the clearing, coming closer now, clearly far larger than any bird they’d ever seen, its shape difficult to discern in the near-darkness.

The entire tribe was shouting and pointing now. Suddenly, the thing burst from the trees into the clearing, swooping low toward the Mol usks. Some screamed; others ducked; stil others ran. A few men hurled spears toward the thing. But it was moving too fast, and in an instant it was over the wal , into the cage, out of sight.

Fighting Prawn, standing calmly amid the chaos of his people, watched the swooping thing pass overhead; for an instant, as it disappeared, he thought that it looked like…

But that’s impossible.

And then his mind went to something the boy had said:
“It’s magic, and we think it’s on this island.
”

T
HE GLOWING EYES WERE COMING.

“Get behind me, lads!” shouted Alf, crouching, preparing to fight—
but what,
he wasn’t sure.

Peter, ignoring Alf, dropped to hands and knees, looking in the gloom for a weapon. He grabbed a heavy bone—
Must be a leg,
he thought—then found its mate, which he handed to Alf.

The thing was coming fast, now. The cage echoed with the sound of claws scrabbling on the floor, and massive weight being dragged closer, closer. Now Peter could see the massive, flat head. And now the glowing eyes disappeared from view as the thing opened the biggest mouth Peter had ever seen, lined top and bottom with jagged teeth as big as daggers, a gaping cavern of a mouth that easily could have taken him in whole. The cage echoed with a monstrous, bone-chil ing roar. Then the enormous mouth snapped shut with a sound like a gunshot and the thing sprang forward at its prey.

“NO!” bel owed Alf, leaping forward to meet it, swinging the leg bone down hard with both hands onto the massive charging snout, and right in time. The bone broke in two; the creature stopped for a moment, as if surprised. Then it snapped again, and lunged at Alf, who sidestepped, trying to draw it away from the boys. His ploy worked; the thing turned toward him, pivoting its huge body, sending its massive tail—a tail, Peter now saw, that was the size of a longboat—sweeping across the wal , sending Peter and the other boys flying.

“COME ON, YOU DEVIL!” Alf was shouting. “COME ON AND FIGHT LIKE A MAN!” He was walking backward, trying to keep his eye on the monster as he looked around desperately for another weapon. Peter lunged to his feet and fol owed, careful to keep out of the way of that terrible tail, his plan being to toss the other leg bone to Alf. As the tail swept back and forth, Peter jumped over it as though it was a jumprope.

“ALF!” he yel ed.

“STAY BACK, BOY!” shouted Alf. “ST—UNH.”

Alf was down. He’d tripped on a skul , and he’d hit his head hard. He moaned and rol ed sideways, but did not get up. The monster opened its mouth again; it would be eating Alf in another step.

“NO!” screamed Peter, leaping forward, again dodging the sweeping tail, and bringing his bone-club smashing down on the thing’s hard, scaly back. “NO! NO! NO!” he shouted, each time striking it again. The monster whirled and snapped, moving far faster than Peter expected. Peter jerked his hands back just far enough, but the bone was caught, instantly crunched to splinters in the monster’s massive jaws.

Now it was Peter’s turn to scramble backward, with the thing turning in his direction, coming after him…coming, coming…its glowing eyes strangely dispassionate, a hungry beast about to do its work. As Peter backed away, he simultaneously crouched and felt around his feet for another bone…for anything…He touched nothing but hard ground. He backed up some more. Hit something hard.

The wal .

He was trapped in the corner.

The monster paused, as if knowing Peter had no way out. It halted and then slowly opened its massive mouth, close enough now that Peter could smel its musty, fetid breath.

He could have reached out and touched the dagger teeth that were about to tear into his flesh.

Peter closed his eyes and held out his hands in a futile gesture of self-protection, and as he did…

“Peter!” shouted a voice.

Molly!

He opened his eyes and saw her hovering above him, waving something.

“Here!” she shouted, dropping it.

He caught it.
The locket.
He fumbled frantical y at it, but could not find a catch.

“It won’t open!” he shouted.

The beast moved closer, its jaws wide open.

“There’s a button on the side,” shouted Mol y.

Closer
.

Hands shaking, Peter found the button, and the locket sprang open. Instantly his hands disappeared inside a glowing sphere.

“Touch the inside part!” shouted Mol y.

Peter put his finger into the heart of the sphere, and immediately he felt his body start to rise, felt his feet leave the floor….

Too late.

He saw it in an instant; the jaws were closing, and they would catch him.

Too late.

Instinctively, Peter struck out at the closing jaws; his right hand, with the locket stil in it, landed directly on the tip of the monster’s snout, which was suffused by the sphere.

The jaws stopped, half open, half closed.

The monster made a noise—not a roar, this time; more of a groan, or even a sigh.

And then, slowly, slowly, the monster began to rise from the floor of the cage, its body perfectly stil , and in the light from the locket, Peter—who was also rising, slowly—could final y see its true size.
It has to be twenty-five feet long,
he thought.
Maybe thirty feet. It must weigh a ton.

But it rose like a feather, the monster did; rose as easy as a bit of ash carried by a wisp of smoke, up, up, and then over the thick log wal . And then, with a flick of its tail, it drifted, stil sighing, off into the jungle night.

B
LACK STACHE, WITH SMEE and the rest of his raiding party crouched behind him, peered through the dense jungle into the camp of the savages.

It looked to Stache as if the whole lot of them were praying to a giant wal made of wood and mud. They stood silently facing it, man, woman, and child.

Stache was intensely interested in what was on the other side of that wal . For only moments earlier, he’d seen the boy—
that
boy, the cause of so much of Stache’s troubles—

climb a bamboo ladder, say something to the white-haired old savage below, and then disappear over the wal .

Where that boy is, the trunk is nearby.
Stache was sure of it. He was eager to lead his men over that wal , but unsure of the disposition of the savages. And so he waited, and watched, and listened.

“NO!”

The shout—from a grown man—came from the other side of the wal . The man sounded terrified. His shout was fol owed by a loud, unnatural snapping sound, like…could that be a
bone?
Stache wondered what could snap a bone like that.

Just then a little girl savage turned his way, pointed, and started shouting. Stache ducked, thinking at first that she’d spotted him. But then he heard a rustle in the branches above. He looked up, and gasped.

A flying girl.
Directly over them. Swooping like a bird.

The same girl that had been on the ship.
He was sure of it.

“Sir,” whispered Smee, pointing, “there’s a
mmmpph.
”

“I
see
her, idjit,” hissed Stache, clapping his hand over Smee’s mouth.

The girl swooped swiftly across the clearing and, as the natives shouted and pointed in alarm, disappeared over the wal .

Stache was worried now. Al this flying, he was now certain, had something to do with the treasure he was after. The flying boy had gone over the wal , and now this flying girl.

He decided that, savages or no, it was time to find out what was on the other side of that wal .

He signaled to his men. They rose, drawing swords and pistols. Facing the clearing, Stache held his hand up, about to give the signal to attack.

Then his arm dropped, limp, staring in astonishment. His men fol owed his gaze. Several shouted in alarm, but there was no danger of their being heard by the savages, who were now in loud disarray themselves, many shouting and running frantical y to get away from the gigantic creature now emerging from behind the wal .

A crocodile,
Stache thought as the thing floated ful y into view.
A flying crocodile.

Stache had seen crocodiles before; he’d seen dozens. But never one this large. Never one
half
the size of this monster. He stood, motionless, as the croc drifted his way, thirty feet in the air, its tail swishing back and forth lazily, its legs moving as though it were swimming. It passed almost directly overhead, then continued off over the jungle treetops.