Any Which Wall

by Laurel Snyder

  “You mean boring?” asked Henry.

  “I’d take boring over marauding, any day,” said Sam.

  Emma nodded in sympathy. “Gosh, that does sound hard,” she said.

  “It was,” said Sam. “I had nightmares all the time. After he was gone, my mother married a shopkeeper and we all settled down inland, which was fine, but when my mother passed away, I came back here to live. I like the sound of the waves.”

  Roy remembered something. “But wait—you did say you’re a pirate too. Didn’t you?”

  “Sure, I’m a pirate, officially,” said Sam. “I have a certificate of authenticity.” He pointed to a framed piece of parchment on the wall, written in blood and with a great blob of red wax at the bottom. “I had a buccaneer’s baptism and everything, but I didn’t have much choice in the matter. There’s a lot of pressure, when you’re a second-generation pirate, to carry on the family name, but I—I couldn’t—” Sam began to clear his throat. He didn’t finish his sentence.

  “Couldn’t what?” asked Emma, looking at the shrunken heads and imagining the terrible things Sam had not been able to do.

  “I couldn’t grow a beard.” Sam put a hand over his eyes. “It was terrible. Every time my father came home from the seas, he’d take me out in the yard and examine my face in the sunlight, looking for the least little shimmering blond hairs, but it was no use. Finally he gave up and left me alone, a disgrace to his name.”

  “That does sound awful,” said Susan.

  “There are perks, though,” said Sam. “I own a pirate ship, my inheritance—”

  “Cool!” said Henry.

  Sam continued wistfully, “But it’s off in Ile Perdida, and I’ve never been able to get down there to see it. I’m too busy here.”

  “You are?” said Roy. “With what?”

  “I’m putting together an archive,” said Sam proudly, pointing to the shelves, “full of leaflets and pictures and books about pirates. I aim to have the best pirate archive in the world. It’s my little way of following in his footsteps, I suppose.” He added a weak, “Arr?”

  Roy looked interested. “Do you want to be an archivist,” he asked, “or a pirate?”

  “Well, I’d like to think I’m sort of both,” said Sam. “Keeping the dream alive on paper. I mean, I do love my books, and a pirate’s life is kind of hard and wet, and there’s always the risk of being forced to walk the plank,” he said thoughtfully. “But it sounds like a lot of fun too, what with all the boats and booty—and I wouldn’t have to be nearly so evil as my papa,” Sam sighed. “It doesn’t matter, though, since I can’t be a pirate without a beard. It just isn’t proper.”

  “That,” said Henry, “is just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. You don’t have to call yourself Blackbeard Junior. You can be your own kind of pirate. No-Beard the Pirate. Or Bald-Chin the Pirate. Or Sam the Pirate, if you don’t feel especially creative! But you’ve got the ship, so why not?”

  Sam looked put out. “It’s not that easy,” he said. “You make it all sound so simple. Papa’s ship—the Queen Anne’s Revenge—is far away on an island. How am I going to get there without a ship? You see my problem?”

  “I think,” said Susan kindly, “that sounds a little like an excuse. Are you maybe just afraid?”

  Sam protested, “Who, me, afraid? Bah! It’s complicated. I mean, really, I haven’t ever even seen the ship. It could be in terrible shape or stolen by now. What if I went all the way to Ile Perdida to get the thing, and it wasn’t there?”

  “That’s not a very good excuse,” said Roy. “You’d be having an adventure, and you’d get to chase down the people who stole the ship. Obviously!”

  The others nodded in agreement. “I think your father would be ashamed,” Henry said. “I mean, if he couldn’t grow a beard, don’t you think he’d just find a way to make that seem like a good thing? He’d have said that beards got in the way of real piracy. Or that he’d had his beard torn off in a brawl or something. Why, he’d probably have set a trend, and all the pirates would have started shaving, just to be like him!”

  Sam considered this. “My father was pretty popular,” he said, “for a dastardly villain.”

  “I think,” said Henry, “that you are just a big chicken.”

  Sam’s face fell, but Henry proceeded to make buck-buck-buck sounds.

  This was too much for Sam to take. After all, the blood of Blackbeard did run in his veins, however weakly.

  “I’m not a chicken!” he sputtered at Henry. “Why, if I had a way to get to Ile Perdida, I’d go right now! This very minute!”

  Henry stopped teasing and looked Sam up and down. “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” said Sam.

  “Then maybe we can help you,” said Henry. He put his hand flat against the wall.

  When they saw this, the others stepped over to the wall and did the same.

  “Are you sure about this, Henry?” asked Roy. “It seems a little wrong.”

  “Sure about what?” asked Sam.

  “He said he wanted to,” said Henry.

  “Wanted to what?” asked Sam.

  When he noticed their movements, he backed up a few feet. “Wait! What kind of fiendish children are you? How did you get in here, anyway? Hold on a second!”

  “Come on,” said Henry, patting the wall. “If you don’t like it, we promise to bring you back here. Or are you chicken?”

  “Um, n-n-no—” Sam began to stammer. “But if we’re really going, I need to wash some socks for the trip, and I’ll have to pack a bag, and really I don’t know what the weather is like there. Pretty humid, I think, not good at all for my asthma—”

  “Never mind all that!” Henry grabbed Sam’s hand and pulled him to the wall (which was only a matter of a few feet in the very small cottage).

  Sam, stumbling forward, said, “At least let me feed the cat—”

  But he wasn’t fast enough. Henry muttered something, and in the blink of an eye, they were all staring at the familiar green field.

  Only it wasn’t at all familiar to Sam. “Where am I?” asked Sam. “How did you do that? What kind of twitchy magic do you children have?”

  Henry ignored him and began to wish again.

  But Susan said, “Wait a second, Henry. We need to talk. I don’t know how I feel about kidnapping this guy. We should explain the wall.”

  “Yes,” said Sam, “you should explain!”

  “Look, we can always take him home if he wants to go back,” said Henry, “but we can’t tell him about it. We swore.”

  “We can take him with us through the wall, but we can’t tell him about it? That’s silly.” Susan shook her head.

  “I’m with Susan,” said Roy. “I think we need to explain. That way he won’t be so scared. Right?” he asked Sam.

  Sam nodded. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was agreeing to, but he was all for being less scared.

  After they briefly explained about the wall, Sam’s eyes glittered with a tiny shine. “Okay,” he said, “I’m in. We’ll head for Ile Perdida and we’ll take a look at the Queen Anne’s Revenge, see what kind of shape she’s in, but I’m not promising anything yet. After all, she could be very dirty.” Sam made a fastidious face.

  They all touched the wall, and Henry said, “Blackbeard’s house on Ile Perdida,” but nothing happened, so he tried again. “Whatever building is standing nearest the Queen Anne’s Revenge.”

  Lickety-split, the wall under their hands turned to thatched palm fronds, and they were staring at birds. Birds everywhere. Around them, the air was extremely hot, like an open oven door.

  “I’m surprised this even counts as a wall,” said Susan, inspecting the straw mat beneath her hand. It was really more like a bus stop made of palm fronds than it was like a building. There was a thatched roof overhead, but that was about it. Susan stepped out onto the sand to look around and Emma ran ahead of her to hunt for shells.

  Sam wiped his forehead right aw
ay. “Goodness, I feel faint,” he said.

  “But look!” cried Roy, pointing. Off a ways, in the distance, a ship was bobbing on the waves.

  Sam did not look refreshed by the sight of his ship.

  “Let’s go check it out!” called Henry, tugging on Sam’s sleeve. “It’s your inheritance, your father’s legacy. Let’s go!”

  “No, no, no—this will never do,” said Sam fussily, looking around. “Where will I keep all my books?”

  “You don’t have to live here,” said Henry. “You can go anywhere you want once you get the ship in shape.”

  “I guess,” said Sam, sounding a little whiny, especially for a fully grown man who has just laid eyes on his pirate ship. He took a minute to breathe in the air and look around. “But it’s awful hot in the meantime.” He fanned himself.

  Roy had stepped out from the shade of the hut and was peering down the beach at the pirate ship (and at Susan and Emma, who were taking off their shoes) when Sam’s whiny tone shifted ever so slightly.

  “No,” Sam said, “I don’t think I like it here. I don’t think I like it at all. The southern seas don’t suit me, but you know, there are many ways to buccaneer, and this”—he patted the straw wall beside him—“gives me an idea.”

  Only Henry heard this, and only Henry noticed when Sam laid a hand on the palm fronds deliberately. Emma and Susan were already wading into the shallows and Roy was studying a sea turtle when Sam uttered the words, “I wish I was—”

  “No!” shouted Henry, hurling himself toward Sam.

  And though he had no time to stop the pirate, he did manage to touch the wall of the hut before Sam could say, “back at that wall.”

  EMMA AND SUSAN, watching from the beach, yelled and then ran barefoot in the direction of the thatched hut. Roy heard their cries and turned to see what all the fuss was about. All three of them dashed over to the wall and wished breathlessly to be home, but nothing happened!

  “We’re stranded,” cried Susan. “We’re stuck!”

  “We are?” asked Emma. “What will we do?” Her chin quivered.

  “Not much to do,” said Roy, patting her shoulder. “We just have to wait, but I’m sure it’ll turn out fine.” He looked at Susan for confirmation of this fact. “Henry will come right back for us. Won’t he?”

  “Of course he will,” said Susan. Under her breath she added, “If he can.”

  But Emma didn’t hear that part, so she breathed a sigh of relief. “Can we go swimming?” she asked.

  Susan was about to say no because she thought they should wait by the wall for Henry, but when she looked out at the greenish blue water, she changed her mind. It did look tantalizing. “Okay,” she said, “I guess our clothes will dry fast in this sun, but we have to be extra careful and stay close to shore. Who knows how many miles we are from the nearest lifeguard.”

  Roy took off his sneakers and they all walked into the water, which felt as good as it looked. They paddled and watched tiny fish dart around their feet, and it was nothing like the murky brown reservoir they swam in at home. None of them had ever gone swimming in their clothes before, and they laughed when their shirts filled with big air bubbles. But when a dark shark fin broke the surface of the sea only about twenty feet away, they all climbed quickly back onto the sand, licking the salt from their lips.

  Meanwhile, Henry and Sam arrived in the cornfield side by side. They eyed each other up and down, with their hands still firmly plastered to the wall.

  Henry wasn’t someone who believed in thinking too hard about things, so he moved quickly. As soon as he saw that they were back home, he grabbed Sam, toppled them both to the ground, and held the man down for about twelve seconds. Unfortunately, Sam was more than twice his size and rolled Henry off in no time, pushed himself back to standing, and dusted off his britches.

  Henry frowned. He only knew one way to overpower a grown-up, and that was by tickling, a technique he often practiced on his dad. He’d never imagined the skill would come in handy in an actual fight, but he was ready to try anything. He jumped to his feet and gave a battle cry. With his hands outstretched and his fingers flexed, he charged and tickled the would-be pirate mercilessly so that Sam fell back onto the ground.

  “No, no, hee heee heee, ho, help!” cried Sam. “It’s just what all the sea dogs used to do. Oh, help, help, he-eh-eh-elp. Please, please stop!” he called out breathlessly, laughing hysterically in that not-really-happy way that accompanies a serious tickling session.

  “Promise you won’t jump up?” shouted Henry as he tickled. “Promise you’ll stay put? Promise—on the pirate’s code!”

  “I promise, I promise, I promise!” panted Sam.

  Henry stopped tickling, but as soon as he stopped, Sam lunged at the wall again. Henry dove after him and barely had time to touch the wall before Sam called out in a rush, “I wish I was in a bank full of gold!”

  Suddenly they were in a small room, surrounded by stacks and stacks of money. Neither Henry nor Sam was willing to take his hand from the wall, but Sam reached down and groped in a bag at his feet. When he drew out his hand, his fingers were wrapped tightly around a bundle of old-fashioned-looking money. He cackled, “Now, this is fun! I could loot all day! At last I understand why my mean old papa ran back to the sea and the ships and the suckers!”

  Henry eyed Sam angrily without taking his hand from the wall. “You promised,” he said, “on the pirate’s code.”

  Sam shrugged, sniffing his handful of bills. “You can’t hold me to that. There is no such thing as the pirate’s code.”

  “Oh,” said Henry. “I thought there was.”

  “Nope, and if there were a pirate’s code, it would probably be ‘Do what you want, and never mind about the mess.’ Plus, you were tickling me, and that’s downright unfair. You can’t expect someone to keep a promise they make when they’re being tickled.”

  “That might be,” said Henry, “but you deserved it for stealing the wall from us. Why did you do that?”

  “I was being a pirate,” Sam said matter-of-factly. “What do you think pirates do? They steal stuff from people, and you’re people.”

  “But that’s crummy,” said Henry, who had never considered what it might feel like to be pirated from. “That’s not adventurous or exciting or glorious. That’s just being a bully.”

  “Well, sure!” said Sam with a laugh. “And just imagine what a bully I could be! With that wall, I could be the ultimate pirate without ever getting seasick. I could steal from everyone, work from home, and never even get sunburned. A whole new breed of pirate! My papa would be so proud.”

  Henry thought this was actually kind of clever, but it didn’t really change anything. “You could have stranded us there forever,” he said. “With no food or water. You have stranded Roy and Susan and Emma! Do you want to be a pirate badly enough to leave a bunch of kids to starve? On a desert island? In the past?”

  “It wasn’t a desert island,” said Sam, neatly counting his stack of bills, “and I’d have come back for you. I just wanted a little booty and some respect.”

  “Respect from who?” asked Henry.

  “Why, my father’s old sea dog friends. They stop in periodically to dig holes in the yard to see if they can find Blackbeard’s treasure. They eat my food and laugh at my books and get their big swashbuckling boots all over my good rugs. Ha! I’d show them!”

  Henry could understand this desire and felt for Sam, but all the same, this behavior was out of line. “Too bad it isn’t your wall,” he said. He turned to the vault wall and added, “Home, please.”

  In a blink, they were back in the field in the shadow of the wall.

  Sam eyed Henry up and down. “You’re no fun, and anyway, who says it’s your wall?” Then he turned to the wall and said, “The bank!”

  They were back in the bank in a flash, and Sam’s greedy fingers were scrabbling around in another bag.

  “It’s our wall because we found it first!” said Henry, and
then to the wall he said again, “Home!”

  Instantly, they were back in the field, only now, Sam had two bundles of bills.

  “In that case,” said Sam, “I found it too—right after you did. You aren’t the first people in the world to find it, you know!” He stuffed the money in his shirt and turned back to the wall. “The bank!” he said.

  They were back in the bank, and Sam was rooting in a bag of coins on the shelf beside him.

  Henry sighed. In a tired voice he said, “Home, please!”

  They were back in the field just as before, only this time, Sam had been holding onto the burlap sack the money was in, so he had the entire bag with him! With the weight of all the money, the bag was incredibly heavy and it fell sharply to the ground, spilling gold and silver coins all over the grass. Sam laughed in delight. “Look at all that!”

  Henry was feeling funny from all of the switcheroo-ing. “Please stop?” he begged. “Please? We aren’t getting anywhere, and this could go on all day.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Sam. “I’m getting somewhere. I’m getting rich.” He kicked at the pile of coins but did not take his hand from the wall. “Okay,” he said to the wall with a greedy grin, “now I want to be in the biggest bank in the history of the world!”

  Instantly, they were in the biggest bank in the history of the world. Only it wasn’t quite what Sam had bargained for. He meant to arrive in the biggest bank in the history of the world as he knew it, but the history of the world is long and extends in both directions. Suddenly Sam found himself in a very strange place: a highly secure, high-tech, ultramodern bank vault!

  Under their hands, a metal wall looked to Henry like it was made of some kind of futuristic metal. It felt solid but looked like mercury, like a silvery flowing river. Laser beams crisscrossed the walls in roving strands of multicolored light. The walls were not simple shelves full of bags of coins, bars of gold, and stacks of bills. Instead, they were tightly sealed, airtight compartments full of strange vials and boxes and lights. Henry thought they looked like spaceship refrigerators.