BillFi shook his head. “Give me a minute,” he said. He pushed up his glasses and looked out to sea toward the Dreadnought. “No. It’s not at the ship. It’s not at the ship—and neither is she.”
“How do you know? You can’t see—” Crystal asked, but she stopped herself abruptly. This was BillFi she was talking to. “Okay, so what the hell do we do?”
“We fan out,” Arthur said. “If she’s not on the Dreadnought, then she must have come back on the dinghy. She probably just parked it somewhere else to give us a hard time.”
They found it a few minutes later drifting sullenly in the middle of a small mossy inlet. Jesse took off his clothes, swam out to it, and brought it back. Crystal kissed Jim goodnight and, with several of the others, climbed into the dinghy. A couple of trips later, everyone was back on board. Everyone except for Marietta.
The sight in the dining room was shocking. An inch-deep layer of muddy rum and smashed glass covered the floor. The lamp was broken, most of the food had been dumped out of the kitchen shelves, and all the sleeping bags had been pulled down into the muck. Ishmael trembled underneath the table, staring with wild eyes and twitching her tail. The Dreadnought sailors stood, stunned, then they got to work. Crystal checked Marietta’s bunk.
“All her stuff is gone,” she said.
“So is our spare cash,” Arthur called out from the captain’s quarters.
Logan took the broom and dustpan from the bathroom, and Joy produced a large supply of trash bags. The crew dug into the mess, cleaning with an energy fueled by anger. Broken glass and booze-soggy papers were scooped into trash bags and stowed in the stern. Sleeping bags were put up on deck to dry. Dawn salvaged as much of the food as she could. Ishmael sneezed and cowered out of the way, sodden with rum and seawater.
When they had cleaned the room and repaired the oil lamp, they all gathered around the table in the main cabin. Logan poured everyone—except for Crystal, Joy, and himself—tall glasses of rye and apple juice. It was all they had left.
“Where do you think she went?” Joy asked.
Crystal shrugged. “Could be anywhere,” she said, sipping plain apple juice. “Where do her parents live?”
There was silence as each of the crew looked at the others. No one knew.
“Does she have any brothers or sisters?” Crystal asked. No one knew.
“Friends in Maine?”
No one knew.
Arthur shook his head. “I’m beginning to see why she felt she didn’t belong here,” he said. “And most of it is my fault.”
“Quit being so damn egotistical,” Crystal responded. “She drove us all crazy, and none of us is too upset that she’s gone. I’ll even bet it’s a relief to Logan.”
Logan had nothing to say. The table grew quiet.
“So now what?” Crystal asked. “If we call the police or the Coast Guard, it’s ‘goodbye, summer’ and ‘hello, freaking Mom and Dad.’”
“We can’t call anyone,” Arthur said, “and we have to hope that Marietta doesn’t, either.”
That night, Arthur untied another knot from his calendar ropes. Twenty-seven knots left. The summer was running out.
The Dreadnought spent the next thirty-six hours floating in Rockland Harbor, each crewmember hoping, for somewhat different reasons, that Marietta would return. The crew on watch kept an eye on the marina, looking for Marietta’s familiar scowl, but only the yachtspeople wandered about. Jesse was captain, and the ship went nowhere. The sailors dozed on deck, took short swims, played idle games of cards. Ishmael stayed close to Jesse, and he petted her with reassuring hands. She sneezed some more, trembled, and seemed unable to calm down.
Crystal spent the time writing an entry in her journal.
I’m worried that it’s going to end soon. Marietta took off in a huff, after smashing up the dining room, and knowing her I think she’ll turn us in. It would take just one phone call from her to bring an end to this crazy and wonderful summer.
It has been great. The people on board are a lot of fun, except for Marietta, and I’ve had a great time getting to know them all. We’ve had some incredible adventures, and we’ve seen a lot of the Maine coast. And Jim is fantastic—I really think he’s great. Ever since we dove off the mast together, I’ve really connected with him. It would be a shame to see it all end.
Especially since once it ends, I’m on my own again. It’s obvious that some of these people are going to keep in touch with each other. Arthur and Dawn will, I’m sure. BillFi and Jesse will always be friends. Joy has a boyfriend back home to return to. But I’m worried that, once again, no one will bother to keep in touch with me. I might keep in touch with Jim for a while, but I’ll bet he doesn’t even come to meet me at the docks when we go back to Rockland. I’ll write letters to Arthur and Dawn and the gang, send them cards at Christmas. But then, after a while, it will be just like all the other people I’ve met. They’ll stop writing, they won’t think about me, and if any of them get together and talk about this summer, they’ll say, “And oh yeah, there was this tough tomboy. What was her name? Christine or something. Yeah, she was kinda difficult.” And that will be that.
I hate feeling this way, but I don’t know how to change things. Marietta’s approach is to throw herself at guys—not exactly my style. Dawn and Arthur seem to make close friends easily, but I can’t somehow. I don’t know what to do myself. How to make a long-term friendship.
I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been on my own for so long that I send out these “STAY BACK—DANGEROUS” vibes. Jim was the first guy I’ve ever really talked to, in a deep sort of way. That felt great—really great—but I doubt I’ll ever see him again.
Well, maybe we’ll get lucky and Marietta won’t turn us in. Maybe she’ll think she got back at us by smashing up the place. Maybe we can spend the next few weeks together, and maybe I’ll make a good, close friend. Someone to keep in touch with forever.
Maybe.
Three days later, Crystal was captain. The Dreadnought remained at anchor until midafternoon, and then Crystal put her hands on her hips and gave the order to hoist the sails.
No one offered any arguments.
Crystal met with a few of the others and charted a course for Large Green Island, which lay farther out to sea almost due south. The wind was steady, the sails filled easily, and the crew trimmed and sheeted with automatic competence. The Dreadnought made good time downwind, cutting a rolling wake through the waves. There was little talking on board.
While the ship was underway, Joy scraped together a few more of the things that Marietta hadn’t trashed and served dinner, but few of the crewmates noticed the herbs in the cheese spread or the wheatberries in the bread.
It was at that moment that Logan took charge. His energy—and his courage—had rebounded noticeably since he stopped drinking every night. “All right, gang,” he told the crew on deck. “We can mope around all day, worried that Marietta is going to bring our summer’s fun to an end. But if we do, then she’s totally succeeded no matter what she does. I say we forget about her. We can always make other plans if we need to. We’ll figure out something. In the meantime, as the official Dreadnought Morale Officer, I say we have some fun.”
“Like what?” Dawn asked half-heartedly.
“I saw some people on television doing this really cool thing, and I’ve always wanted to try it,” Logan said. “Well, now’s my chance.” He scurried below and returned a moment later with a large bundle of canvas in his arms. He clipped one corner to a forward halyard and the other corners to side sheets. When he pulled on the halyard and tightened the sheets, a huge red-and-white striped triangular sail opened in the breeze. “It’s called a spindler,” Logan said.
“Spinnaker,” Dawn corrected with a smile.
“It’s called a spinnaker,” Logan said. He was smiling more, too. “You use it when you’re going downwind. A lot of people think it doesn’t help very much and isn’t worth the trouble. They might be right—it’s totally
a pain to keep it filled. But these people on TV did something with it that I’ve always wanted to do. So here goes.”
He let the port sheet out a long way, almost to the point of letting the spinnaker collapse. Then he cleated it off and ran over to the starboard side. He uncleated the sheet over there, tied a loop in it, put his foot in the loop, and with a goofy grin on his face, he stepped calmly overboard.
“What the hell!” Crystal shouted. Everyone jumped to their feet. They started to rush over to the side, but then they stopped. And they stared. Logan wasn’t dragging through the ocean at all. In fact, he was rising—and he continued to rise higher than the ship’s deck. He was holding onto the spinnaker sheet with both hands, his foot firmly in the loop, and the wind was blowing him high in front of the ship.
“Whhooooo—EEEE!” Logan shouted as he dangled and twisted and swung through the air forty feet over the ocean. “YEEEEE—haaaaaa!”
The rest of the crew burst out laughing. They shouted encouragement, admiration, and Tarzan jokes. After a while, they reeled Logan in and he collapsed, panting and grinning, on the deck. They rigged up a rope seat and attached it to the free corner of the spinnaker so they wouldn’t have to hold on so tight, and they each took turns. Joy floated up a short distance and came down, insisting after she was back on deck that it was fun. Arthur took a long ride, controlling the sail carefully and rising high into the air, and Jesse and BillFi each took turns. Dawn took a running start and pushed sideways as she left the deck, causing her body to spin wildly through the air. And Crystal put her foot on the seat and flew high—then dove off and rocketed in a tight graceful arc down to the sea. The crew flashed into the “sailor overboard” drill and fished her out of the ocean.
“Thanks,” she said once she was back on deck, dripping seawater from her blond hair but clearly pleased. She grinned at Logan. “I needed that.”
Crystal steered the ship to the southeast side of Large Green Island, where the water was just sixteen feet deep and somewhat sheltered by small ragged islands called the Seal Ledges. The Dreadnought clipped sharply between the island and the ledges, and Crystal gave the order to come about. “Get ready,” she said, feeling better after Logan’s spinnaker craziness. “Hard alee!”
The next sound—heard by everyone on the ship—wasn’t quite a crash, and it wasn’t quite a scrape. It was more like a pressing, and a popping, and a sickening crunch. The sound of rock on wood. The sound of rock through wood. A jolt shuddered through the frame of the ship, and everyone on board lurched forward and fell to the decks.
“Oh, shit!” Crystal shouted, regaining her footing quickly. “What the hell was that?”
“We hit the ledges!” Dawn called back from the port beam. “I can’t tell if it did any damage.”
The answer to that question came an instant later. Joy dashed up the stairs from the galley.
“Water’s coming in—fast!” she shouted. “It’s getting deep!”
Crystal wasted no time in organizing the crew.
“Arthur! You and Jesse get below and stop the leak. Use whatever you need. Joy! Figure out exactly where we are and tell us where the closest deep water is. Dawn! Get over the side and see how bad it looks from out there. Logan! You and BillFi salvage as much stuff out of the cabin as you can. I want all of you to report back to me in ten minutes or less. Go!”
The teams rushed to carry out their orders. Arthur was impressed at the authority with which Crystal gave her commands. He and Jesse scrambled down the gangway and waded through thigh-deep water toward the galley. The water poured against their legs; there was a current inside the ship. They fought their way to the galley—and saw no damage at all to the hull. The room was strangely calm. Floating on the murky water were half-empty jars of jam, knotted plastic bags of bread, a cookbook not yet waterlogged, some plastic forks. Ishmael, looking small and wet and terrified, dug her claws into a cutting board that bobbed on the surface. Faint ripples betrayed a bulge of water surging up from below.
“The break must be way below the water line!” Arthur said. “We’ll never fix it until we get off this rock.”
A few minutes later, Crystal had come up with a plan. She gave instructions to Arthur and Jesse below. She ordered Dawn to take the wheel, and Crystal herself moved to the port rail with a small sail in her hands and a line around her waist. “NOW!” she shouted.
Several crewmates rushed to the starboard side of the boat, causing the Dreadnought to tilt slightly away from the rock. An instant later, Joy and Logan hauled in the mainsheet, and the sail overhead popped into shape. The wind pushed the ship over even more, and down below, Arthur and Jesse braced their backs against the pantry and pushed against the splintered wood and submerged granite with their feet. Ishmael tumbled into the water, then scrambled, soaked and panting, onto a countertop. The ship drifted free from the rock.
Crystal, of course, had volunteered for the hard job. The rope tied around her waist had been snaked around a cleat on deck, and Logan had wrapped the other end behind his waist and was holding on tight. Crystal climbed over the rail and leaned backward. Keeping her feet in front of her and her legs parallel to the ocean’s surface, she backed slowly down the side of the ship. It was like the rappelling she had done down the cliff on Brimstone Island, except that this was the wet and broken hull of a ship—in a brisk wind. She had a scrap of sail in her hands and a hammer and nails in her pocket.
As she slowly worked her way down, Logan paid out the line in gradual controlled movements, never letting both hands lose contact with the rope at once. If Crystal slipped or got in trouble, his job was to cross the rope all the way around his waist and hold on tight—the others would have to do the actual rescue. For the first time in maybe his life, he felt up to the challenge. Crystal moved down steadily, and within two minutes she had reached the damaged part of the hull.
With the sails tight and most of the crew on the starboard side of the ship, the bottom of the hole was just above the water line. Crystal could see that the wooden slats were bent and somewhat splintered, but they hadn’t fully broken. Keeping her feet far apart to maintain her balance, and trusting Logan to hold the rope tight, she laid the sail scrap flat against the dripping mossy bruise on the Dreadnought’s side. She held the canvas in place with one hand and pulled the hammer from her belt with the other. It was awkward, but she managed to drive in the first nail, pinning the sail against the wood. Now able to use both hands, she wasted little time hammering in another three dozen nails, creating a taut bandage over the wound. It wouldn’t last forever, but it would do for now. She grabbed the rope and scrambled back over the rail.
“Let’s go!” Crystal barked. The crew formed a bucket brigade, passing pots and pitchers of water up from the galley and emptying them over the rail. The crew worked quickly and quietly, passing full containers up the gangway and empty containers down. It took nearly three hours, but finally, the galley was only ankle deep, and the sail patch seemed to be holding. Using just the forward sail, the crew moved the ship into deeper water and repositioned the anchor.
Crystal wiped the sweat from her forehead. “We’re going to have to keep an eye on this all night,” she said. “And we’re going to have to bail from time to time. Let’s set up a watch rotation—we’ll split into pairs, and each team will take a two-hour shift. Tomorrow we’ll go into port and get some supplies for fixing that hole better. I’ll take the first shift. Who wants to join me?”
Half an hour later, most of the crew was sitting quietly on deck. The evening was chilly for late July, and Logan passed around mugs of hot cider. To the west, a cluster of energetic lights blinked and moved with a tranquil appeal. Arthur pressed close to Dawn and wrapped a blanket around both their shoulders.
“So, que pasa? What happens now?” Joy asked to no one in particular. “How long can we sail with a leaky boat?”
“Depends,” Crystal answered. “If we can fix the leak tight tomorrow, we should be fine. If it keeps on leaking, we
can still sail, but we’ll have to bail out all the time, and everything below will be damn wet, and cold, and clammy. Including our bunks. Not exactly the Love Boat.”
“And the leak isn’t our only problem,” Joy added. “What do you think Marietta is going to do? I think she’ll turn us into the Coast Guard.”
“I agree,” Arthur said. “She’s angry, and she’s not the sort of person who handles anger real well.”
“So what will happen?” Joy asked. “I wish I could spin my coin.”
“Your God will talk to you in other ways,” Dawn assured her.
“What happens depends on what Marietta tells people,” Arthur said. “That we stole a boat? That we’ve been raiding yachts all up and down the Maine coast? That we threw a dead body overboard? That we killed McKinley? Hell, there’s no reason to think she’ll stick to the truth.”
“I don’t care,” Logan said, pushing his hair back. “I’m totally not worried about Marietta, and I’m not worried about the Coast Guard, and I’m not worried about the leak in our boat. We’ll fix the leak, Marietta is just an annoyance, and as for the Coast Guard—well, it wouldn’t take us long to sail into international waters.”
There was a moment of stunned silence.
“WHAT?” Arthur shouted. “Sail into international waters? Are you crazy? What the hell are we supposed to do out there?”
“It’s simple,” Logan said. “Think about it. We’re pirates, remember? You think Bluebeard or Jean Laffite ever cared whose waters they were in? They just moved around from country to country, from coast to coast, you know, like, raiding when they had to and living however they wanted. There’s no reason why we can’t do that. Go on up to, like, the Canadian Maritimes for a while. Sail up the New Brunswick coast, cross over to Nova Scotia, maybe even go all the way out to Newfoundland. Then sail back after people have forgotten all about us, and just totally keep on going. The Chesapeake. Florida. The Caribbean. Mexico. Hell, we could get enough money to sail through the Panama Canal if we wanted to—go on up to the Baja, California, or Alaska. Don’t you see? We’re all free. We can totally do anything we want to.”
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