Seven Dead Pirates (8 page)

“Lookee there,” said Moyle. “All them words.”

“So many of ’em,” said Jonas.

“Too many!” muttered Jack.

Lewis pointed. “See? Here’s the town hall and—”

“Didn’t I
tell
you the lad could read?” Moyle smiled proudly at the others. “Talks like a book, don’t he?”

The others nodded, impressed.

Suddenly, Lewis got it. “You mean … you can’t read?”

The pirates laughed.

“Now where would we be learning that?” asked Skittles. “Us that had to earn our way from the age of—well, I were five when I were orphaned. Lived by my wits in the streets of Liverpool.”

“I worked like a dog from the day I were weaned,” said Moyle. “Looking after me dear sick mother. The two of us in the poorhouse.”

“Poorhouse were a palace,” muttered Jonas, “beside the life of a slave.”

Lewis gaped. “You were a slave?”

Jonas nodded, his face grim. “Captured as a boy and packed into a ship that were no more than a traveling coffin. Took me to a plantation on an island off Jamaica, where the master—you never met such a devil! Except for maybe that Captain Dire what drowned us. As soon as I were old enough, I ran away. Joined up with some buccaneers and went to sea. Since then, I been free in body and soul.”

“Not as free as you’d be in Libertalia,” Moyle put in.

“Aye.” Jonas heaved a sigh. “Libertalia. There ain’t no such freedom as you find there.”

“Libertalia?” Excitement coursed through Lewis. “You mean it’s … a real place?”

“Why, o’ course it is!” grinned Moyle. “Best place in the world for a pirate. Off the coast of Africa, on a sunny isle called Madagascar.”

“It’d be
warm
there,” said Jonas.

Lewis nodded. “I know about Madagascar.”

“That’s where Libertalia be,” said little Skittles. “A kingdom of pirates where all is equal.”

“Where they lives in peace and harmony,” added Adam. “Where no man is better than another.”

Crawley hoisted a tankard in a toast. “To Libertalia!” he shouted.

“To Libertalia!” echoed the others, raising their own tankards—where had those mugs come from?—and putting them to their lips to drink.

Was there anything
in
the tankards? wondered Lewis.

Crawley let out a disgustingly complicated belch. “Now, laddie. Back to the matter at hand. Our ship. What’s the plan?”

Lewis sighed. He folded the map. If they couldn’t read, it was useless. So much for his plan.

But the pirates were still staring. Waiting.

He had to give them
something
.

“You … well, you’d have to go at night,” he said. He
was careful not to say “we.” No way he was going there
with
them.

“Aye,” said Moyle, nodding wisely. “Night would be best, for certain.”

“And you should be … um, extremely quiet.”

“True,” rumbled Bellows. “Well said, lad.”

“And, of course,” added Lewis, gaining confidence, “you’d have to stay invisible.”

He waited for agreement. To his surprise, they glanced away. Several twitched or bit their lips.

“What’s wrong?” asked Lewis.

“Ah,” said Crawley sadly, “if it were only that easy. But here’s the rub, lad. A ghost may
make
hisself invisible, as you say. But he cannot guarantee to
keep
hisself that way. If something were to happen as to get us excited—why, we’d be as visible as you. Seen by anyone who cared to look!”

“It’s the getting excited,” added Skittles. “Makes us bright as ships’ lanterns.”

“Aye, and when we sees them things that go so fast, we gets
terrible
excited,” said Jonas, breathing hard at the thought. As Lewis stared, he
did
seem to grow a little brighter.

“It’s like when … when …” struggled Bellows. “Now what’s that word for when your skin comes up red?”

“Blushing?” said Lewis.

“Aye, that’s it.” Bellows looked impressed by Lewis’s cleverness. “When we gets excited, we comes up brighter, the way a lad like you might come up blushing.”

Moyle leaned in close to Lewis, inspecting his face. “Lookee here, mates. The lad’s blushing right now.”

“I am not!” Lewis twisted away in embarrassment. He couldn’t believe he was blushing
here
! With the pirates.

“It’s all right,” murmured Adam to the others. “He can’t help it, no more than we can.”

Lewis forced himself to concentrate. If the pirates were right—if they became visible when they got excited—then that changed everything. Invisible, they might make it across town, even past the police station. But visible? Looking the way they did? Not a chance.

He spoke carefully. “That’ll make it … harder. I’ll … I’ll have to think about it.”

“Think?” yelled Jack. “
More
thinking? I say we puts the thumbscrews to him. See how he likes a taste of—”

“Stow that talk!” interrupted Crawley. “If the lad says he must think, then that’s what he must do. We’ll just settle ourselves to wait.”

With a flourish of his coattails, he claimed the wicker chair, while the others found places around the room. Everyone fell silent.

Lewis stood it for twenty seconds.

“I can’t!” he said.

“Can’t what?” said Crawley.

“Can’t think with all of you watching me.”

Crawley looked surprised. “You wants us to leave?”

“Well,” said Lewis, “if you don’t mind. Just for a while. So I can think.”

Jack spat on the floor in disgust.

But Crawley just smiled. “Why didn’t you say so, lad? We can disappear. Nothing easier.”

“Really?” said Lewis. “Thank you.”

They began to fade immediately. Emboldened by success, Lewis called, “Wait!”

They paused, and Lewis was treated to the fascinating sight of seven transparent bodies.

“I don’t know if I can figure out a good plan right away,” he told them. “I might have to come here in the afternoons … to think! It might take a while.”

“Not to worry.” Crawley was now barely an outline. “We’s waited this long, hasn’t we, mates? We has lots of time, we has.”

“All the time in the world,” added Moyle’s voice from an empty spot near the desk.

Lewis covered his mouth to hide his delight. He could barely believe his luck. To think that he could come here tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. He had done it.

Libertalia was
his
again.

A
t the end of the second week of school, a new girl turned up in Lewis’s class. Seeing her walk in, Lewis felt a wave of relief. The more the kids noticed her, the less they would notice
him
. She had a strange name, Abriella, and a mother who was, if possible, even more embarrassing than his own.

“Sorry we’re late,” puffed the mother, bending over Ms. Forsley’s desk so that her large blue-jeaned backside faced the class. “We’ve been on a bus for
five days
, can you believe it? All the way from the west coast.”

Hearing a giggle, the mother turned. There it was—the thing the kids had spotted as she entered. A bare midriff and, right in the middle, her
belly button
,
hanging out for the whole world to see, between rolls of fat. And, worse, it was pierced with a bellybutton
ring
!

Off to one side stood Abriella in a long green dress. She was odd, too, but in a completely different way. Skinny and long-legged, she’d be easily the tallest kid in sixth grade. Big eyes, almost pop-eyed. Long nose. Mouth so wide, the corners had to turn up in a smile even though she had absolutely nothing to smile about. Not with
that
mother.

The mother was telling Ms. Forsley her life story—how she’d married “a real zero,” moved across the country, gotten a divorce, lost her “crappy job in a florist shop.” It seemed she’d never stop.

“We’re staying with my folks now, just till I get on my feet.”

The woman wasn’t Lewis’s mother, but even so, he felt like going la-la-la in his head. He peeked at Abriella again. Chin tilted up, she was meeting the eyes of each new classmate in turn. Suddenly she was looking at—him! Not just
at
him. Through him! With those giant eyes. It was like being x-rayed. He glanced down, mortified.

After the mother left, Ms. Forsley said the usual things about making the new girl feel welcome.

“You can sit here, Abriella.” She pointed to the desk in front of Lewis.

“Abbie,” said the girl firmly as she sat down. “With an ‘i-e.’ Abbie.”

At recess, everyone watched her. Lewis watched, too, uneasy, waiting for her to make mistakes. But she wandered the schoolyard with a loose, easy stride, an occasional cheery bounce punctuating her steps. Everywhere she went, she talked. Lewis was surprised—shocked even—at the way she talked to anyone at all. First-graders. Boys. Mrs. Reber. He couldn’t hear what she said, but they all answered. When she reached the swings, she dropped into one and began pumping, her skirt riding up to show thin bare legs and scuffed black boots, higher and higher till she was almost even with the top frame. A sixth-grader, on a swing! When Mrs. Reber scolded her—the playground was crowded, she could hit someone—she just grinned. “Sorry,” she yelled, dragging her feet to slow herself down.

Lewis was so busy watching, he didn’t hear Seth approach.

“That your girlfriend, Dearborn?”

The boys in white laughed.

“Oh, wait, I forgot. You have to
talk
to get a girlfriend. Even a weird one like that.”

Lewis swallowed. He opened his mouth to say—he didn’t know what. Nothing came out.

“Duh,” said Seth. “Come on, Lewissssser, you can say it. Duh! Your mouth’s already open.”

More laughter.

“How about ‘Ma-ma’? I bet you can say ‘Ma-ma.’ ”

Lewis felt heat shoot through his body. Luckily, at that moment, Mrs. Reber strolled by. The boys in white scattered.

Lewis looked up. Abbie’s swing had stopped. She was staring at him—at his tomato face.

He ran inside.

There was another surprise waiting for Lewis that day—when he got home from school. His father was wearing an apron! A giant white chef’s apron, crisp and new.

It wasn’t a total surprise. More and more, when Lewis came home, he’d been finding his father in an odd place—the messy, cluttered kitchen. Mr. Dearborn, it seemed, was helping Mrs. Binchy cook. How this had come about, Lewis didn’t know. But the first time he saw his father bent over a cutting board, he could hardly believe his eyes. His father
never
cooked.

Seeing Lewis’s face now, Mr. Dearborn waggled the knife he was holding above a pile of chopped walnuts. “Just making myself useful,” he said cheerily.

Lewis glanced around. Mrs. Binchy was stirring a huge, steaming pot on the ancient stove. Her cat Patsy lay curled on a stack of newspapers. Fiddle music blared from a radio on the counter, half hidden under a pile of potato peels, while from the oven rose a rich baking smell.

Mrs. Binchy held out a wooden spoon. “Have a taste, dear. It’s chowder.”

Lewis blinked in surprise. She was offering him the spoon from the pot. He
never
ate from the pot spoon. It was unsanitary. His mother said so.

But his mother wasn’t there. She was teaching. She wouldn’t be home till six.

“Go on,” said Mrs. Binchy, pushing the spoon at him.

Lewis glanced at his father. Mr. Dearborn grinned.

Obediently, Lewis took a slurp. The chowder was rich and creamy, thick with potatoes and seafood. He closed his eyes in wonder. Like everything Mrs. Binchy cooked, it was the best he’d ever tasted.

“There,” said Mrs. Binchy. “I knew you’d like it. Want to help?”

“I … um, homework,” said Lewis.

“Here,” she said, “take a cheesy biscuit.” She handed him two, still warm from the oven.

Biscuits in hand, he headed up to Libertalia.

He was feeling more at home in the tower room all
the time. The pirates had kept their word about leaving him alone. Every day after school, he climbed the stairs to Libertalia and stayed till dinnertime. And what did he do there? Anything. Everything. Whatever he wanted. There was neither a whiff nor a whisper from the ghosts.

And because they were so quiet, there was only one thing Lewis
didn’t
do during his time in Libertalia. He didn’t think about the pirates. Not once.

It wasn’t that difficult, really.

Lewis was good at
not
thinking about things.