Remarkable (21 page)

I
f Jane had been paying closer attention in her conversation with the Grimlet twins, she might have noticed that they’d said something strange. They told her they wanted her help carrying their science fair project up Mount Magnificent. But the science fair was not being held at the gifted school. Instead, it was being held in the Great Exhibition Hall near the edge of town. The only event that was happening on Mount Magnificent that night was the Science Fair Dance.

“Ugh,” Eddie said as he dropped his end of the weather machine crate with a heavy thud. “When we were designing this, why didn’t we think to put wheels on it?”

“I thought of it,” Melissa said as she dropped her end of the crate and shook out her arms. “I wrote it down in our plans. Then you stupidly forgot to install them.”

“You’re the one who’s stupid. You never wrote down anything about wheels!”

“Don’t get mad at me if you don’t know how to read a simple schematic drawing in invisible ink,” Melissa said smugly.

“Then don’t be mad at me if I call you a lying scupperlout, you lying scupperlout.”

“If I’m a lying scupperlout, then you’re a whining renegado.”

“If I’m a whining renegado, then you’re a lily-livered labberneck,” Eddie shouted, giving Melissa a shove.

“Did you just call me a labberneck?” Melissa asked as she shoved him back.

“I did, you labberneck.”

As they hurled insults back and forth at each other, the Grimlet twins failed to notice that they were using the most colorful and elaborate examples of pirate-speak that Ms. Schnabel had taught them. They would have been horrified if they had realized
it, since they tried never to learn anything at school.

But Jeb, Ebb, and Flotsam, who happened to be nearby, heard their shouting and recognized what they were doing immediately.

“There be only one place two landlocked rogue-lings could learn to shout at each other like that,” Flotsam said to Jeb and Ebb.

“Aye,” said Ebb. “They must ’ave come from that school with the pirate lessons.”

“Which means they probably know the location of Captain Rojo Herring,” Flotsam said. “So if we ask ’em all nice like, maybe they’ll tell us where he be.”

Of course, most pirates really don’t know how to ask nicely, and asking the Grimlet twins about anything at that moment was a special challenge since their argument had moved past the insulting stage, through the shoving stage, and was now deep into the kicking-biting-and-throttling stage.

“Ahoy!” Flotsam yelled to get the Grimlet twins’ attention. The Grimlet twins ignored him. The kicking-biting-and-throttling stage took a great deal of concentration.

“Ahoy!”

Flotsam gestured to Ebb and Jeb, and they each
grabbed a twin by the scruff of the neck and pulled them apart.

“Now what’s all this about then?” Flotsam said. “Can’t you two snips stop yer fighting long enough to have a civilized conversation with the likes of us?”

“Why should we want to talk to you?” Melissa said, twisting around to kick Jeb in the shin.

“We just have one little question for you, then we’ll let you get back to yer brawling, savvy? Now who taught the two of you all of those lovely pirating phrases you’ve been hurling at each other?”

“That’s none of your business,” Eddie told him as he struggled to break free of Ebb’s grip.

“In fact it’s top secret,” Melissa said.

“Highly confidential,” Eddie added. “Classified, even.”

“Really?” Flotsam asked.

“No. Not really,” Eddie said. “We just don’t want to tell you anything.”

Flotsam scowled. “I see,” he said. “So you wouldn’t want to tell me if that book I see lying on the ground over there belongs to you?”

Melissa and Eddie looked. The Book of Dangerous Deeds and Dastardly Intentions had fallen out of
Melissa’s backpack during their scuffle and was now lying in the dirt. Eddie opened his mouth and closed it again. Melissa managed to defiantly mumble, “Never seen it before.”

“Then you won’t be minding if I be ripping some of the pages out then, would ye now?”

Eddie paled and Melissa turned green, but neither of them spoke.

“Or perhaps,” Flotsam said, pulling a match out of his pocket and lighting it on the heel of his pirate boot, “I’ll just burn it up while you watch. How does that sound to ye?”

The Grimlet twins tried to act tough. They tried not to mind that years worth of wicked schemes and horrible plots were about to be reduced to ash. But as Flotsam’s match singed the first page of their beloved book, it became too much to bear.

“We’ll talk! We’ll talk!” Melissa shrieked.

“Anything you want to ask us!” Eddie promised desperately. “Just give it back.”

Flotsam blew out the match as Ebb and Jeb released their grips on the Grimlet twins.

“That be more like it. I knew you could be reasonable-like,” Flotsam said. “Now, we be missing a captain,
see? And we have it on good authority that ’e ran away to this ’ere town to start a new life as a schoolteacher.”

“And why do you think we’d know anything about that?” Eddie asked.

“Because someone’s been teaching you two to cuss like pirates, and we’re thinking that person be our missing captain. So tell us where this teacher of yers be.”

“And then you’ll give us our book back?” Melissa asked.

“Pirate’s honor,” Flotsam told her.

Melissa and Eddie conferred for a moment. Then Eddie nodded and turned back to the pirates.

“We’d be more than delighted to help you in exchange for our book. Our teacher likes to go by the name of Captain Schnabel and does seem to have a rather thorough understanding of piracy. Much more than you might expect from a regular schoolteacher.”

“And where can we find this Captain Schnabel?”

“That’s easy,” Melissa said. “She lives in a tidy yellow house with flowers in the front. It’s about two blocks east of the library.”

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Flotsam said, handing Melissa back the book. But Ebb was not so easily appeased.

“Now ’ang on a minute there. Did you say
she
lives two blocks from the library?”

“I did,” Melissa said. “Yellow house. Flowers. You can’t miss it.”

“But our captain ain’t a she. Our captain is a he.”

“Arghh!” Flotsam yelled. “That no-good detective has given us another worthless lead. A pox on ’im!”

“A pox on ’im,” Jeb seconded enthusiastically, then he stopped and thought for a moment. Thinking and standing at the same time was almost more than Jeb was capable of, so he held on to Ebb’s arm to keep from falling over. “Unless, of course, Captain Rojo Herring be disguising himself as a woman.”

“Aye. It could be,” Ebb said, looking at Melissa and Eddie. “Be it possible that yer Captain Schnabel be our Captain Rojo Herring dressed up as a woman?”

The Grimlet twins shook their heads.

“No. Not possible.”

“In fact, it’s completely impossible.”

“And why be it so impossible?” Jeb snarled. He had good ideas so rarely that he hated to see one dismissed without much discussion.

“Because Captain Rojo Herring is an entirely different person who lives in an entirely different
house that’s nowhere near the library,” Eddie told him.

“You know wheres Captain Rojo Herring be?”

“Of course we do,” Melissa said. “And you could have saved us all a lot of hassle if you’d just told us that’s who you were looking for in the first place.”

“Well, tell us where he be! Tell us now!” Ebb said. He could hardly believe that they were so close to finding their missing captain.

“Um…no,” Melissa said.

“Why not?”

“Because we don’t have to, you see,” Eddie explained. Melissa had put The Book of Dastardly Deeds and Dangerous Intentions back in her backpack where Flotsam couldn’t get to it again. “Of course, we might be persuaded to help you, if you did something for us first.”

“What do you want from us?” Ebb asked warily.

“Just a small task,” Eddie said. “We have something rather heavy we need carried to the top of Mount Magnificent. If you help us with that, then we’ll happily tell you where to find Captain Rojo Herring.”

J
ane could not quit smiling to herself as she hurried up the trail toward the Mansion at the Top of Remarkable Hill and contemplated her brilliant plan. The Grimlet twins would be so surprised come Mon-day when they learned that she’d managed to rescue her grandfather without them. Captain Rojo Herring was a better choice to help her than they had been. As an experienced pirate, breaking someone out of jail was probably as easy for him as tying his own shoes—or at least it would be if he had feet instead of peg legs.

Unfortunately, Jane’s plan was not nearly as brilliant as she thought it was. A truly brilliant plan would have recognized that Dr. Presnelda’s revelations
about Ms. Schnabel went a long way toward explaining her teacher’s behavior in the last few weeks. And if Jane had understood Mad Captain Penzing the Horrific and Ms. Schnabel were the same person, she might have made the wise decision of going to her for help instead. But, predictably, Jane’s plan was average instead of brilliant, and so she turned to a person who couldn’t even help himself.

As Jane ran to the Mansion at the Top of Remarkable Hill, a sudden, chilly gale rushed up the mountainside. Jane looked at the sky and saw that the west wind was pushing dark anvil-shaped clouds toward the town.

“That’s strange,” Jane said. The clouds looked like cumulonimbus storm clouds—a fact Jane knew from doing the same weather work sheet over and over again. But according to the weather forecast that morning, the weather in Remarkable was supposed to be even more pleasant than usual.

Then Jane heard a wild screech and saw a small, feathered figure flapping vainly against the wind. It was Salzburg, trying to stay aloft in the rough weather. But the wind was too much for the parrot, and she lost control. She cartwheeled through the air and hit the ground with a loud thump.

“Salzburg!” Jane cried as she rushed over to the bird. “Are you okay?”

The parrot had lost a few feathers and seemed a little dazed, but other than that, she was unharmed.

“Come on, I’ll take you home.”

Salzburg growled at this suggestion—she would much rather Jane took her back to Grandmama at City Hall—but when the wind blew again and brought a faint murmur of thunder with it, she settled onto Jane’s shoulder without so much as another grumble.

The cumulonimbus storm clouds were nearly overhead by the time Jane finally reached the Mansion at the Top of Remarkable Hill. She rang the doorbell and almost immediately heard Captain Rojo Herring’s voice from inside.

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” he yelled. “But you can start unloading it onto the driveway if you want. I don’t have much time.” He had a big, expectant smile on his face as he opened the door—a smile that slid away as soon as he saw Jane.

“Oh,” he said dismally. “It’s only you.”

“Sorry,” Jane said, wishing she were someone he’d be gladder to see.

“I thought you were the Munch jelly delivery
person. I just placed an expedited emergency jelly order. Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m in a dreadful hurry and I don’t have time to talk.” He started to close the door in Jane’s face.

“Wait!” Jane said. “I have your parrot.”

“Oh. Good,” he said, sounding insincere. “I was afraid I might have to leave her behind.”

“Behind what?” Jane asked. Captain Rojo Herring was acting quite strange—and he was suddenly speaking much more like a normal person and less like a pirate.

“Uh…it’s not important,” he said. He checked his watch and then peered down the driveway. “I do wish my jelly order would hurry up and arrive.”

“Well, um, while you’re waiting, I was wondering if I might get your advice about something.” Jane was nervous. “It’s about my grandpa. You probably don’t remember him.”

“Of course I remember him. He’s an extraordinary man. I met him out at Lake Remarkable one night.”

Jane was sure that the captain had mixed her grandfather up with someone more interesting, but now was not the time to explain this. “He’s been arrested,” Jane told him.

“He has? What on earth for?”

“For stealing the ropes to the bell tower.”

“Great heavens! So he’s the saboteur, huh? I wonder if it has anything to do with Lucky.”

“Why would it have anything to do with Lucky?”

“Well, she loves beautiful music even more than she loves those figgy doodles he feeds her. Maybe he was worried about the effect the bell-tower music would have on her. I know how much he wants to protect her.”

“But Grandpa John doesn’t know anything about Lucky,” Jane said.

“Sure he does. Just ask him.”

“I can’t! At least not unless we break him out of jail. I‘m going to need your help to free him.”

“What?” Captain Rojo Herring said. “Why would you think I’d be able to help you?”

“Because you’re a pirate—and Captain Schnabel said that pirates knew all about things like that. I mean surely you’ve had to escape from the brig before…” Her voice trailed off. For the first time she noticed that Captain Rojo Herring’s house was in disarray. His clothes had been shoved into a duffel bag. About half of the books from his bookshelves were piled into
moving boxes. Even his piano was wrapped up in a padded furniture blanket that was secured by ropes.