Alex and the Ironic Gentleman

by Adrienne Kress

  “Any last requests?” asked Senseless.

  Alex tried to think hard of some way to outwit him. Of something she could do or say so she could run up on deck. But she couldn’t. She was out of ideas. There was only one thing she could think of, one thing that her morbid fascination wouldn’t let go of.

  “Can I see behind the scarf?” she asked ever so softly.

  There was a pause, and Alex watched the sides of Senseless’s mouth twitch.

  “If you insist,” he said, amusement playing in his voice.

  Without moving the sword an inch, he reached up with his left hand and pulled off the scarf. Alex gasped at what she saw. At the man with no eyes, no nose, and no ears. She had never seen anything like it, and, truly, why would she have? He looked hideous: his skin was pasty white and the few wisps of hair on his head were pressed onto his skin like worms. It was the worst thing Alex had ever seen, and she cowered against the plank. Senseless was laughing. He was thoroughly enjoying the moment, and while he had lost the rest of them, it appeared as though he had retained his sense of humor.

  Alex wished she hadn’t asked him to show her something so disgusting. What was she thinking? People hid things for good reasons. What was she expecting to see? The most distinguished Roman nose of our time and eyes the color of sapphires? She looked up at him again, and then she suddenly had a very striking thought.

  “Are we quite finished now?” he asked, still amused.

  Alex didn’t answer, but not because of her paralysis—rather because she was trying to make sense of what she had just realized.

  “Let’s end this, shall we? If only you had been there the night I killed your uncle, all this could have been averted.”

  Alex looked up at him sharply.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  “Do you even remember him?” asked Senseless. There was a sound of mocking in the question. Alex didn’t answer but glared at him. “Well then, you know that he died, surely?”

  “Yes, I do. He was found under a shelf of doorknobs. Did you do that?”

  “Of course I did, didn’t I just say that? The way he begged when we took Mr. Underwood, it was just miserable, like some pathetic dog. So I put him out of his misery.”

  “You are a horrible, horrible person!” shouted Alex, rage filling her.

  “Oh please, you’re just a child. What do you know about anything?” replied Senseless, touching the tip of his sword to the underside of her chin.

  Alex was still shaking, but now with anger. “What do I know?” she seethed. “Well, let’s see. I know the difference between right and wrong. I know that there are good people and bad people in this world, and that it takes a lot of work distinguishing between them. But I know I’ve figured out you are a bad person, not just because you are about to kill me, but because you killed my uncle, my old defenseless uncle, for no reason whatsoever.”

  Senseless began to laugh quietly.

  “You know what else I know? I know that pirates are not fun, romantic characters from adventure books, but hardened criminals with the maturity of infants who, when they don’t get their way, hurt someone else. And I know that adventures are only fun in retrospect, that at the time they are hard and tiring and you get hungry, and that there are more important things than treasure . . . like the people you care about.” She paused for a breath. “I know that being afraid of something, or someone . . . ,” she gazed at Senseless, “doesn’t necessarily mean the person is actually someone to fear.” Alex stopped briefly and listened to Senseless laugh more and more loudly. “And I also know something else,” she said quietly.

  The tip of the sword dug deeper into her skin. “That’s enough now.”

  “I also know,” said Alex, looking right into his eye sockets, “that you can’t see me.”

  The laughter stopped. With one quick flick of the wrist she beat away his sword and jumped onto the table. She watched him flail his weapon in her general direction but she jumped easily over it, like when you skip rope. Walter the dog began to bark and jumped up beside her, but she grabbed a few bottles off one of the shelves and threw them at him, hitting him square in the jaw and sending him flying off the table. Suddenly Senseless grabbed her wrist, pulling her down into a squatting position, and aimed the sword between two of her ribs.

  “You think you’re so smart,” he hissed and pulled back to lunge at her.

  “That’s because I am,” she replied and grabbed the cabinet on which were sitting the fox ear and toenail of the Zamboni driver. She pulled at it hard and jumped back. It fell with great accuracy on top of Senseless and made a hearty thud when it landed.

  Alex stood on the plank for a silent moment, panting. She didn’t know if he was dead, but he certainly wasn’t getting up anytime soon. Suddenly she noticed that the noise above had vanished. In a flash of panic, Alex grabbed Senseless’s fallen sword and ran out of the surgery up on deck. What she saw surprised her more than anything in her adventure so far.

  Mr. Underwood was holding a sword, standing in the middle of the deck surrounded by a dozen or so fallen pirates, with the rest of the crew cowering on the fringes. Facing him a mere three feet away was Steele, pointing her pistol at his head.

  “No!” cried out Alex, running to Mr. Underwood.

  “Alex, you’re still alive?” asked Steele casually, still focused on Mr. Underwood.

  “Don’t shoot!” she begged.

  “Give me one good reason not to,” replied Steele.

  “The articles! You said that all fights were to be settled ashore.”

  “Well, yes. But I don’t think someone who has single-handedly tried to take over my ship deserves such courtesy.”

  Alex looked up at Mr. Underwood. He looked very much as he always had. He was skinnier than before, and paler, but he was still wearing that sweater of his and the white tennis shoes. And his floppy hair still fell in his eyes.

  “Kill her,” said Steele quietly. And Alex turned just as Sir Geoffrey lunged at her with his sword. Never when she had been practicing in the safety of the gym at Wigpowder-Steele had she anticipated needing to fence for real. Luckily for her, she had been taught by a man who evidently could take on an entire pirate ship by himself.

  She parried Sir Geoffrey easily with a bind and lunged forward. He reeled from the shock, but took instant stock of the situation and just managed to defend himself. They continued fighting until Alex realized she had been simply toying with him, trying to make the fight last longer, as she did with some of her fellow pupils. What was needed now was the kill or, in this case, a nice swift swipe to his right arm and upper thigh. In an instant, Sir Geoffrey was down for the count.

  “Where on earth did you learn that?” asked Steele. The momentary distraction allowed Mr. Underwood to disarm her.

  “Guess,” he said, pointing his sword at her chest.

  Alex beamed with pride. She truly had the best sixth-grade teacher in the world.

  Steele looked at Alex. “I was right about you, wasn’t I?” she said. There was a distinct look of pride in her face. As if somehow she was secretly responsible for everything Alex was capable of. “I feel terrible,” she continued, with a sad smile. “I should never have threatened you like that, or for that matter handed you over to Dr. Brunswick. If you come back to me, I can guarantee that will never happen again. Partly because, of course, Dr. Brunswick has been thrown overboard, but also because you are just too special to lose.”

  “I don’t think so,” replied Alex ruefully.

  “No, think about it,” said Steele quickly. “I could teach you everything I know. You would become my prized pupil. We would sail the world accomplishing feats that others have only dreamed of. Every day would be an adventure. There would be nothing we couldn’t do. We would be known far and wide as the most fearsome pirates this side of the equator. Imagine the way the entire world would fear you and I!”

  “‘Me.’” Alex said it without thinking.

  “Pardon?”<
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  Alex looked at Mr. Underwood and then back at Steele. “It’s ‘me,’ not ‘I.’ ‘Me.’ ”

  “Well, whatever. . . .”

  “No,” said Alex, approaching Steele, “not ‘whatever.’ It’s ‘me,’ not ‘I.’ A very clear grammatical error.”

  “What difference does it make?” shouted an exasperated Steele.

  “Every difference in the world!” matched Alex. “You make these fancy speeches, you think you’re just so eloquent, you love to feign elegance. But you’re neither. You’re just a pirate. With a bad temper.”

  With a roar, Steele produced her dagger, which had been secretly sheathed up her sleeve, and went to charge Alex, but Mr. Underwood intervened with a thrust of his sword. Alex watched as Pirate Captain Steele the Inevitable fell as in slow motion onto her knees. The sword had gone clear through her torso, and she looked down at it in contempt.

  “What? No. This is wrong,” she said and looked up at Mr. Underwood, who slowly took a few steps away from her. “This is not supposed to have happened. You’re a schoolteacher! I’m Pirate Captain Steele the Inevitable. Captain of the most deadly pirate ship this side of the equator. I was supposed to win! It was my right! It was my right!” She squeezed her eyes tight, then opened them again. “You’ve made a horrible mistake,” she spat at Alex.

  “I don’t think so,” replied Alex, holding onto Mr. Under-wood.

  Steele shook her head in disbelief and said, “The Wig-powders won? They actually won? That was not supposed to happen.” She took a difficult breath. Then she shook her head and looked up. “So . . . what happens now for the great Mr. Underwood?” They made eye contact.

  “I guess . . . I go back to work . . .”

  “Ah yes, marking all those ‘What I want to be when I grow up’ papers.” She smiled broadly. “I always hated that assignment. My teachers always graded me very low.”

  “Why, what did you write?” asked Alex curious.

  Steele raised an eyebrow at her and fell lower onto the deck.

  “Well, that I wanted to be a pirate, obviously!” She fell onto her side and laughed. She laughed and laughed and laughed until she stopped. And then that was it. And Pirate Captain Steele the Inevitable was gone.

  THE LAST CHAPTER

  In which the loose ends are tied.

  Alex turned to Mr. Underwood and looked at his tired face. Then she hugged him tightly. She hugged him for a long time, never wanting to let go. And when she finally did, he crouched down to look her in the eye.

  “I’m so sorry for the way I talked to you that time,” he said, his eyes misting with tears. “I was just scared. The thought of you getting hurt was unbearable. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about you. It was, in fact, for the exact opposite reason that I got so angry. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to protect you, and I would have told you that, but you wouldn’t let me.”

  “I know, I’m sorry!” said Alex, her eyes misting as well. She felt so stupid and so guilty for having even thought what she had thought about Mr. Underwood. He was one of the good ones. One of the best ones.

  “And then, when I heard that Steele was going to have you killed, I had to do something. I wish I’d done it sooner. I wish I hadn’t wallowed in self-pity for so long. Will you ever be able to forgive me, Alex?”

  “Of course,” she said, the words catching in her throat, and she threw her arms around him again and hugged him even more tightly than before. He picked her up and held her close.

  “Alex,” he said, setting her down softly, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking in that dark hold. And I was wondering if maybe . . . that is, only if you think it’s a good idea . . . if you wouldn’t mind . . . if I adopted you. I know it’s really soon after your uncle and everything, but I mean if you were interested . . . .”

  “Really?” she asked quietly.

  “I mean only if you want to.”

  “Would you, you know, take care of me and stuff?”

  “I guess that would be my job, yes.” He nervously ran his fingers through his hair.

  “ ’Cause I really think I need to take a break from making all the decisions for a while.”

  Mr. Underwood laughed. “I can’t imagine that you’d ever really stop being the independent person you are, Alex. But if you ever need help, I promise, I’ll be there for you.”

  Alex nodded. “Then I think I would be up for that,” she said with a big grin, which Mr. Underwood returned with one of his own. Alex wiped away the tears on her face. And to break the slightly embarrassing silence, asked, “Say, . . . so . . . how did you manage to escape, anyway?”

  “Oh, I guess,” Mr. Underwood smiled to himself, “having lived with your uncle and working in his shop, well, I couldn’t help but learn a thing or two about the nature of doorknobs. Especially ones made with very outdated locking mechanisms that can be easily overcome by manipulating the spring-bolt.” And he held up the handle to his cage.

  Alex took it in her hand and shook her head. Then she looked up at Mr. Underwood. He shrugged. And they both started to laugh in a way that wasn’t so different from crying.

  “Ahoy there!”

  The two of them turned around, and Alex started to laugh even harder, with a big smile this time.

  “Captain!” she called out and ran to the deck rail.

  Alex thought that there couldn’t have been a more beautiful sight in the world than what she was seeing that moment. HMS Valiant was floating by them on gigantic orange water wings. The whole of the crew had gathered on the starboard side and were waving happily. There was much cheering as well.

  “You pushed the button very well!” called out Francesca over the noise, indicating the wings with a big grin. She was leaning on a crutch, and her head was bandaged tightly. “Is it not the most useful of my buttons?”

  “It is!” laughed Alex. “By far!”

  The crew of HMS Valiant anchored their ship beside them and moored it to the Ironic Gentleman. They were so close they could easily swing from one ship to the other. Magnanimous sent some of his crew to round up the remaining pirates and put them in the hold of the Valiant, and meanwhile sat with Alex and Mr. Underwood on the Ironic Gentleman. After a brief, but enthusiastic, introduction and the telling of their adventures, Magnanimous smiled that incredible smile of his and whistled.

  “That is most impressive,” he said. “Most impressive. But I think,” and he pointed to his ship and De Wit, who disappeared into the hold, “I think you still haven’t had your happy ending.”

  Alex and Mr. Underwood exchanged puzzled looks. While they waited for De Wit’s return, Alex had to ask, “How did you find us, Captain?”

  Magnanimous smiled. “You still had Heather’s excellent copy of the map in your bag. We must remember to thank her when we get back.”

  Alex smiled at that thought. She was very excited that she would get to see Heather again soon.

  “Captain!” called out O’Connell, and Captain Magnanimous looked back toward the Valiant. Alex and Mr. Under-wood followed his gaze.

  “Holy sweet cherry orchard tree,” said Alex with a gasp.

  Congregated along the deck rail, like a group of suspected criminals in a lineup, were all five of the Daughters of the Founding Fathers’ Preservation Society. And behind them stood O’Connell and De Wit, holding a giant treasure chest between them.

  “We caught these little dears in a rowboat. We don’t quite know who they are or how they found the stamina, but it would seem that they are responsible for stealing the Wigpowder treasure from you. We have all five trunks with us and are taking the old ladies in for questioning,” explained Magnanimous.

  “How do they do that?” gasped Alex.

  “Don’t I know them?” said Mr. Underwood, remembering hard.

  “No, seriously,” said Alex, standing up at the rail. “How do you do that?” she called across to them. “How can you possibly have followed me, and, what’s more, how could you have managed all that treasure?”


  “I don’t have to answer to you, urchin,” replied Poppy with a sneer. “And I haven’t done anything wrong. We found that treasure fair and square!”

  “No, you didn’t. You stole it!”

  “And it was stolen from others who probably in turn stole it from others. They can’t lock us away for that!”

  Alex thought hard. “No, they can’t. But they can lock you away for stealing both the receipts and the wine from the house on the hill! Not to mention kidnapping!”

  “Hey,” said Mr. Underwood, snapping his fingers, “aren’t they the little old ladies from the house on the hill?”

  “She just said that,” snapped Poppy.

  Captain Magnanimous nodded his head, and the Daughters of the Founding Fathers’ Preservation Society were trooped downstairs to join the pirates. They didn’t much like being held with pirates, but the pirates felt far worse being with them. It started small, with being told to tuck in their shirts and to take a bath. But when it was discovered that not a single one of them had called their mothers in the last five years, you could almost feel sorry for the poor pirates. They were made to give endless foot massages, and hold their balls-and-chains high above their heads for hours. And if they so much as grumbled, Poppy did her infamous pug-dog impression, and poked them hard with her pen.

  Meanwhile . . .

  Back on the deck of the Ironic Gentleman, a very important conversation was taking place.

  “So what remains is to decide what to do with the treasure,” Magnanimous was explaining.

  “Well,” said Mr. Underwood, “I don’t really know. I’ve never really had much use for treasure. The idea of it was far more intriguing than the reality. Alex?”

  “I don’t care much for treasure anymore. Do whatever you want with it,” she replied, sitting back down next to Mr. Underwood.

  “May I offer a suggestion?” asked Captain Magnanimous.

  “Please.”

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and considering what I know about you, Mr. Underwood, I thought quite possibly an excellent idea would be to take the money to start your own school . . .”