Alex and the Ironic Gentleman

by Adrienne Kress

“Alex, you know I didn’t mean it like that . . .”

  Alex shook her head. “Mr. Underwood, you said you came to my town to reclaim your inheritance, and yet you spent most of your days marking papers or reading books on fencing. I had to drag you out of the house to go in search of a treasure map, even though we knew where we needed to look! Next, you got yourself kidnapped, and when my uncle tried to help you, you wouldn’t let him, and then you went without a struggle, and you can’t deny it—there was a picture of it! And finally I find you, alive, saying that I have somehow ruined your chances of escaping when it seems to me you are more than happy to sit in the pitch-dark waiting for something to happen, either good or bad. You know what, Mr. Underwood? I always thought you were a sensible kind of grown-up, always thinking and stuff, someone who always had a plan just waiting to be put into some serious action, but it’s not like that, it’s not like that at all. You don’t have any plans. The reason you never do anything . . . it’s ’cause you’re a coward!” Alex paused to take a breath. “And another thing, how can you get mad at me for getting involved, when it’s all your fault that my family is in the middle of all this! I mean, my uncle gave you a place to live, and he died for it! And now as far as you’re concerned I should die, too!”

  “I didn’t say that,” replied Mr. Underwood. He sounded farther away from her somehow.

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t need you. I’ll escape on my own. I haven’t been doing so badly myself, you know,” said Alex, and she brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly.

  “No, you haven’t,” said Mr. Underwood gently. There was a silence punctuated by the dripping of water somewhere. “Did you really bring my bike?” he asked.

  But Alex wasn’t interested in answering him. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to lighten the mood, to make her less angry, but she didn’t want to feel less angry. This was a serious situation and deserved serious feelings.

  “Alex?” he called out into the darkness.

  Alex hugged her knees closer and rested her chin on them. She was crying again. She was so sick of crying. She suddenly felt extremely tired. When Dude Hector had locked her in her cage, she never imagined she would be able to sleep, but now she couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Alex lay down in the cold wet and closed her eyes. Mr. Underwood called out her name again. She didn’t respond. She knew eventually he would give up. After all, that’s what he was good at.

  THE THIRTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER

  In which Alex is made an offer.

  “Jack!” Alex awoke with a start. She sat up. The left side of her body was drenched in a foul-smelling wetness from the damp floor.

  “Jack!”

  Alex looked up at the hatch through the bars of her cage. A silhouette of a pirate was looking down at her. When he saw that she had seen him he hugged himself and viciously scratched his back.

  “What do you want?” She was in no mood for pleasantries, and anyway, being polite to a pirate was, like dinner without dessert, pointless.

  “Jack!” he said again and ran down the stairs, unlocking the door to her cage. Alex stood up slowly. Every muscle in her body was aching. As Jack escorted her up the stairs, Alex took a glance down the hatch to see if she could see Mr. Underwood. She caught a glimpse of a hunched figure at the far side of the hold in his own cage, but it was impossible to see his face or if indeed it was Mr. Underwood and not some other poor prisoner.

  Alex was greeted by a hot, clear morning, and she gazed out across the water as she was ushered along toward the stern of the ship. The fog from the previous day had cleared to reveal an extraordinary coastline in the distance. Tall, white cliffs rippled slightly in the atmosphere, and large waves crashed against the reef. The Valiant was nowhere to be seen, and Alex harbored a secret hope that somehow the frigate had managed to escape, or that at least the crew had found safety in the lifeboats and were regrouping at this very moment.

  Soon Alex found herself sitting opposite Steele yet again, this time digging into a hearty breakfast of pancakes drenched in maple syrup. Alex had her own stack in front of her, and she found herself surprisingly willing to eat this morning.

  “Did you sleep well?” asked Steele.

  “Not really,” replied Alex between bites.

  Steele nodded to herself. “Understandable,” she said and wiped the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “I don’t suppose you read that parchment with the articles I gave you?” she said, putting her feet up on the table again.

  “Well, it was kinda dark, and I didn’t feel like it. Why?” Alex took a sip of orange juice.

  “Just curious.”

  They stopped talking again as Steele watched Alex finish her breakfast. Usually Alex would gulp down her food as fast as she could. In fact, her uncle would often reprimand her for it, and try to get her to relax and take her time. But this morning Alex ate so slowly that even he would have asked her to speed up. And the reason she was doing so was that she was worried about what would happen once she had finished. She wasn’t as concerned about what Steele might do or say to her. No, the problem was that Alex was deeply conflicted about her own opinion of Steele. She ought to despise her, but she just didn’t for some reason. And she had a sense that quite possibly Steele liked her, too. And if that was the case, she wasn’t sure what her own reaction would be to what might be put on the table when breakfast was over.

  But, inevitably, Alex did finish eating, and when she did, Steele ordered the table cleared. While members of her crew frantically removed the table settings, Steele leaned her chin on her hand and stared at Alex. Finally, when they were alone again, Steele broke from her trance and said, “Alex, I’m not a fan of beating around the bush. I like to get right to the point.”

  “Me too,” replied Alex nervously.

  “Yes, I imagined you would. Well then, my point: The moment I heard about a young girl who was seeking out the Ironic Gentleman, I confess I was impressed. Few grown-ups would attempt such a thing, let alone a smaller-than-average child. And now that I have met you . . . well, believe me when I say I am an excellent judge of character. There’s something in you, Alex. I have a sense of incredible potential in you. And so, Alex, for that reason, I would like to offer you the opportunity of becoming a member of my crew. It will have to be put to a vote, of course, and there are contracts to sign. But with my endorsement, I can virtually guarantee you a position. That is, if you’re interested.”

  Alex sat utterly still. “Isn’t,” she asked quietly, “isn’t piracy, you know, wrong?”

  Steele nodded thoughtfully. “Well, you know, Alex,” she said, “right and wrong aren’t as clear-cut as all that. For example, we, as pirates, tend to hurt other people physically—that can’t be denied—to get what we want. Other people hurt people psychologically. I mean, your friend Coriander is a perfect example. He’s a nice enough sort of fellow, I suppose. But he’s also willing to betray a friend.”

  Alex shook her head vehemently. “No! You tortured him!”

  “There was some torture, but I can assure you that was after the fact. It is well known that if you give the Conjuror something to drink, he just can’t control himself. This is something he even knows himself, and yet he insists on keeping up with the habit, putting not only himself but others in danger, too. Do you know what the penalty is for desertion and betrayal in the Army, Alex?”

  “No.”

  “Death. We’re just following the same laws as everyone else by eventually putting him to death.”

  “Oh, please don’t!”

  “Alex, we’re getting sidetracked. Let’s talk instead about your dear friend, Mr. Underwood.” Alex felt a knot tighten in her stomach. “A man who is willing to put your life on the line to protect his own. I know what you talked about last night. I know how unwilling he was to plan an escape. Why do you think that is? Because he is afraid. Of what? Of being hurt. He isn’t thinking how you could be in serious danger, how he could protect you. No, he’s thinking abou
t himself. If I didn’t like you as I do, that would be a death sentence. Now who is more responsible, the executioner or the judge who sanctions the execution?”

  Alex admitted begrudgingly to herself that what Steele said rang true.

  “We live in a world where the victors make the rules, but the victors do not always make good rules. How different really is the Navy from pirates? The Navy has punishments. The Navy kills. It does whatever it takes to achieve its goals. It is the goal that makes the difference. We, the pirates, follow our hearts. You see, the pirate is a dreamer, someone who doesn’t want to be tied down to what some rich person who bought their way into government tells us to do. You ran away from an expensive school to find treasure. Alex, you are already a pirate.”

  “No, I’m not.” But she said the words with little force.

  “Okay, I see you’re having trouble making a decision,” said Steele, examining Alex’s expression carefully. “Shall we offer you a trial run, perhaps? We could go find the treasure, see how all that works out, have a meeting again in a week, say?”

  “I don’t know,” said Alex. She felt incredibly conflicted.

  The door to the cabin suddenly opened. Alex turned and felt a familiar chill creep over her.

  “Senseless, excellent,” said Steele, rising from the table. “Just the man I wanted to see.”

  Senseless entered the room deliberately, his dog, Walter, at his hip. “Geoffrey said you needed me,” he said quietly.

  “Yes, I was just about to plot a course for the Wigpowder treasure,” she glanced briefly at Alex, “and I wanted some advice. You know how much I depend on your advice.”

  “Of course,” he replied. The dog growled.

  “Alex, could I have the map now? Time to get to work, I think,” said Steele with a smile. But Alex couldn’t move. Her fear of this man grew each time she saw him. There was something wrong about him. Something she didn’t understand, aside from why he wore a scarf over his eyes. “Alex?” asked Steele again, this time with a note of warning in her voice.

  “Uh . . .” was all Alex could respond.

  Senseless turned and walked straight in her direction. He leaned down close to her ear. “The map,” he whispered.

  With shaking hands, Alex obligingly reached into her pocket and pulled out the toothbrush holder. She passed it to Senseless, who took it and gave it to Steele.

  “I think,” said Steele, carefully pulling the fan out of the toothbrush holder, “that maybe you should go on deck for a while, Alex.”

  She didn’t want to leave her map alone with Steele, but she had little choice, and really all she wanted to do was not be in the same room as Senseless. So Alex rose slowly, left the Captain’s cabin, and went out on deck.

  THE THIRTY-NINTH CHAPTER

  In which Alex makes an important decision.

  It was as if they’d never seen a kid before. As she wandered around on deck feeling rather useless, Alex found herself to be a source of great interest for the crew. She was picked up and turned upside down by Boudicca, who somehow seemed impressed by the way she dangled. Then Jack ran up to her asking if she remembered him from the house on the hill, and when she said she did, he ran away giggling to Dude Hector, who was busy cutting his shirt into tiny strips. No-KneeCaps Calvin dragged himself up to her and examined her feet with intense fascination. And Dr. Brunswick scratched his beard in her general direction.

  Eventually, she made her way toward the forecastle and found a thin woman with horn-rimmed glasses, wearing a tweed skirt and jacket with black, flat shoes, sitting on the ground, typing on a laptop. She seemed like a pleasant sort of person; at least she was the most normal compared with the rest of the crew, and so Alex went to introduce herself.

  “Hello,” she said to the young woman. “I’m Alex. I’m contemplating piracy.”

  “Hello, my name is Fenelle. I’m the scribe aboard the ship. I write about everything that we do or don’t do.”

  Alex smiled and sat down next to her. She seemed nice enough.

  “Say, you know Coriander, don’t you?” asked Fenelle, closing her laptop and removing her glasses.

  “Yes,” replied Alex suspiciously.

  “I used to sail with him on the ship the Ill Repute. He’s a really funny guy. I always liked him.”

  “Yes, he is funny. Most of the time.”

  “But, you know, I hadn’t seen him in years! So it was really just luck that I ran into him after all this time. Talk about fate!” She flattened the hair on the top of her head with her hand, smiling pleasantly. “We met by chance at The Gangrene, and then made plans for drinks the next day. He just started going on and on about you! I think he really misses adventures. He used to have great fun on the Ill Repute. And then when he became famous for his conjuring, he got to travel the world. Well, anyway, he just went on about you and the Valiant and how he’d even tried to steal a copy of the map, but you had this cat . . . what was the cat’s name again . . .”

  “Giggles,” replied Alex, the name catching in her throat. She had forgotten all about him. How could she have forgotten about him?

  “Yeah. Anyway, I can’t remember all the details. All I know is meeting him was a pretty lucky thing to happen. I mean, I think you’d just set sail or something. I was on leave, I wasn’t even supposed to be on the ship right now, but I thought it was far too important. So we flew to Lawless, and here we are today! I mean, that’s luck.”

  For you maybe, thought Alex bitterly.

  “Hey, can you tell me your side of the story? It would be brilliant to get another perspective on the whole thing,” she said and opened her laptop again.

  “Maybe later,” replied Alex. “I think I need to be alone for a bit.”

  “Okay,” replied Fenelle. “Just let me know.” And she went back to typing.

  Alex climbed up onto the forecastle. She felt deeply depressed and confused. On the one hand, she was safe and protected by Steele; on the other, she had felt this horrible emptiness when she had heard about Coriander and the pride in Fenelle’s voice that she had saved the day, and how she had used him. Though, Alex continued, how dare he be so indiscreet in the first place! She had trusted him! And what about Mr. Underwood, she seethed to herself. There had been no one she trusted more, and he had let her down too.

  Alex turned to look back along the ship toward the stern. She had never in her life thought that she would become a pirate. Pirates were bad people. Or so she had always assumed. But then so many of them were treating her really warmly and even seemed to like her. Steele was being more than civil. And Steele made excellent points that, really, any reasonable person could agree with.

  And what made one person good and the other one bad, anyway? In her long journey she had met good and bad people alike, people who were not pirates, but who had respectable jobs and were well-liked within their communities. And yet these same people could get away with the most reprehensible behavior. Couldn’t there then be good pirates and bad pirates? Couldn’t she be one of the good ones?

  Most of all, Alex realized, she was now homeless. There would be no way now she could return to her town, not after everything, and piracy offered a fine, adventurous life, a life she had only dreamed about until recently or made up in silly baby stories. This was real life. And it was time to live it. Well, why not, she thought. Why not? Let’s see how it all goes, then. Let’s see what it would be like to become a pirate. Alex smiled and felt herself grow a little taller.

  Becoming a pirate was actually surprisingly easy for Alex. She had already become accustomed to life on a ship from her time on the Valiant, so she managed to impress even Sir Geoffrey, who was overseeing her training. (This meant that he sat in a deck chair sipping lemonade from a tall frosted glass, looking at her occasionally over his dark sunglasses.)

  “Well, yes, that’s all well and good,” he said after Alex had climbed up to the fighting top and back in record time. “But you’ll never be a real pirate until you learn how to fight.�
�� He slurped on his lemonade.

  “I’m very little,” replied Alex. “I hardly think I’ll need to fight, not just yet at any rate.”

  But Sir Geoffrey insisted and took it upon himself to teach her how to use a sword. Alex wasn’t sure whether or not she should let on that she was an adept fencer. Something deep down was telling her to pretend otherwise, and she trusted her instinct. She thought it would also be fun, pretending to make mistakes. However, as it turned out, pretending not to know how to fence was actually far more difficult than learning how to fence in the first place. And there was one nervous moment when she forgot herself and casually disarmed Sir Geoffrey. He looked at her intently, but only sneered, “Beginner’s luck.”

  And in this way, over the next few days as they sailed toward the island with the treasure, Alex became one of the crew of the Ironic Gentleman. She eventually gave Fenelle her interview and enjoyed it very much, feeling like a celebrity. Jack would work with her, showing her how to construct things with his hammer—surprisingly, he was rather adept at using it against a nail and not just as a weapon—and Alex found herself impressed with his handiwork. And once the sun would set, she and Dude Hector would sing a sad song his mother had taught him, while he delicately played with the little fire in his hands.

  Because she was now a pirate, she got to sleep in a little bunk and not in the brig, and because of this she slowly started forgetting about Mr. Underwood and, indeed, Coriander, who were quietly being kept belowdecks, and whom Steele was careful not to mention. And, anyway, it was so much easier not to think about them. By the time they finally reached their coordinates, Alex had all but made up her mind to become a full-time pirate.

  There was a great group of them that went ashore to find the treasure. This was partly due to the fact that they anticipated a vast fortune and needed the manpower, and partly because everyone wanted to be a part of this historic moment. In the end only a few were left behind on the ship, including Senseless and Dr. Brunswick, neither of whom seemed too put out by the arrangement.