by Ann Hood
“I don’t know,” Maisie said.
“Well, I think we should try. Don’t you?”
Felix looked at her expectantly.
“But Great-Uncle Thorne said not to overuse the words,” Maisie said, unsure of what to do.
“What? There’s more?”
“That’s all. I promise. He said if we overuse them—”
“What would happen?”
Maisie shrugged. “He wouldn’t tell me. He said since The Treasure Chest was sealed it didn’t matter.”
“Great,” Felix muttered. “Now I don’t know what to do.”
Maisie stared off at the ships, and the buildings of Honolulu beyond them. On the docks, people were selling silk from China, and spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, and whalebone carved with pictures of ships. Felix had been down here a dozen times already. But to Maisie it was new, and she wanted to see everything.
“Let’s think about it awhile,” she said, eager to buy some time. “We don’t have the crown, so we’re not going anywhere.”
“Fine,” Felix said, in a way that let her know it was not fine.
“Who would have thought,” Maisie said as she moved into the crowd on the dock, “that lame demon could cause so many problems?”
Felix didn’t hear her, though. Something had caught his eye, and he was squinting in the sun to better see it.
All of a sudden, he grabbed Maisie’s arm with one hand and pointed with the other.
“Look!” he said.
She turned to see what he was pointing at. A group of sailors in dirty striped shirts and bell-bottoms, their faces bearded and sunburned, their hats pushed back on their heads, were selling a heap of treasures. The sailors appeared to be guys you wouldn’t want to mess with, Maisie thought as Felix pulled her closer to them. One of them had a gold tooth that sparkled in the sun. Another had an elaborately carved saber strapped to his hip. A third had a gold hoop earring dangling from one ear like a pirate. And a fourth had a bright green, blue, and red parrot perched on his shoulder, squawking.
“They look like real toughs, Felix,” Maisie warned as they neared the men. “This doesn’t seem like a very good idea.”
Just as she was wondering why her brother, who was usually cautious and fearful, suddenly wanted to march up to a quartet of scary-looking sailors, Maisie saw exactly what he must have seen.
The treasures they were selling were laid out on a piece of yellow silk. A whale skull. Colorful paintings of a tropical garden. Cinnamon sticks.
And the crown, glistening in the sun.
“Hey!” Maisie said as soon as she could push her way through the small crowd pawing through the objects. “That’s our crown!”
The sailor with the gold tooth laughed. “Not anymore it ain’t,” he said.
Up close, the men were even more grizzled and unkempt than they had appeared from a distance.
“Yes, it is. It’s a valuable…I mean…an important family treasure.”
The parrot said, “That’s a good one! That’s a good one!”
The parrot’s sailor narrowed his eyes at Maisie. “How much is it worth to ya?” he said in a raspy, phlegmy voice.
“I don’t have any money!” Maisie said. “And besides, it’s mine already. You have to give it back!”
All the sailors laughed at that, and the parrot repeated, “That’s a good one! That’s a good one!”
Maisie glared at the parrot.
The crowd had opened to let Maisie and then Felix in, but now all the people turned their attention to the crown.
“Must be worth a thousand dollars,” someone murmured.
“More,” someone else chimed in.
“A thousand dollars it is!” Gold Tooth said.
“I already told you, I don’t have any money,” Maisie said. “And I already told you that it’s mine and you have to give it back.”
“That ain’t the way it works,” the sailor with the earring said.
“Where did you find it, anyway?” Maisie demanded.
“In the sea,” Gold Tooth said.
“That proves it’s mine,” Maisie told him. “I dropped it in the ocean when I had an accident.”
“Poor thing.” Gold Tooth clucked with fake sympathy.
“Poor thing,” the parrot repeated.
“Be quiet!” Maisie snapped at the parrot.
Then to Gold Tooth she added desperately, “If you don’t believe me, feel the lump on my head. I got hit there and was knocked out, and that’s how I lost the crown.”
“And now ya’ve found it,” he grinned, showing off that tooth.
“Exactly,” she said, relieved.
“And ya’ve got to buy it if ya want it bad enough.”
“That’s…that’s…preposterous!” Maisie stammered.
Suddenly, someone shoved her aside and ran past her. In a flash, she saw that the someone was Felix, crouched low. He snatched the crown, and just as the crowd gasped in unison, he ran off with it, fast.
“You little thug!” Gold Tooth shouted, scrambling to his feet.
Stunned, Maisie took off after Felix, with Gold Tooth pounding behind her.
“Thief!” Gold Tooth yelled.
But no one tried to catch Felix. Curious faces turned to watch the boy running with the crown, a girl with a tangle of hair flying in the breeze as she tried to catch up to him, and a dirty, big-bellied, unshaven, gold-toothed sailor shouting and huffing behind her.
Felix ducked down an alley, and Maisie followed, glancing over her shoulder. Gold Tooth was still pretty far back.
Panting, she caught up to Felix, who did not even slow when he saw her.
“I. Can’t. Believe. You. Took. The. Crown,” Maisie sputtered between breaths.
Felix ran alongside a building, then turned the corner to face its entrance.
MONTGOMERY’S the sign above the door read.
Felix pulled the door open and finally collapsed against the wall just inside, panting for breath, the crown nestled in his arms like a football. Maisie collapsed beside him, panting, too.
“Felix!” a man said, a look of alarm on his face. “What happened?”
Felix took a gulp of air.
“Mr. Melville,” he gasped. “You’ve got to help us.”
From Mr. Melville’s back office they could hear Gold Tooth banging on the now locked front door of Montgomery’s.
“You little thief! You thug!” Gold Tooth shouted.
Felix took a sip of the water Mr. Melville had brought to him and Maisie, and tried to explain.
“That guy out there stole this crown. And it’s ours. And he wanted us to pay a thousand dollars to get it back.”
Mr. Melville let out a low whistle.
“You have to hide us,” Maisie pleaded.
“Maybe we should call the police?” Felix asked, afraid that Gold Tooth might just break down the door.
Mr. Melville shook his head. “They’ll take that crown,” he said, “and keep it until they unravel the story.”
The sound of wood splintering filled the air, followed by the too-familiar, frightening sound of Gold Tooth’s heavy footsteps pounding toward them.
“He broke down the door!” Felix gasped.
Mr. Melville glanced around the office, then ran to the small window above his desk and opened it.
“I’ll stall him,” he told Maisie and Felix as he held out his hand to pull them through the window.
They could hear Gold Tooth opening one door after another, screaming in frustration when he found just storerooms or empty offices.
“Run,” Mr. Melville hissed at them, seconds before Gold Tooth burst into his office.
“May I help you, sir?” Maisie and Felix heard Mr. Melville ask as they scrambled to their feet and began to race down the alley.
At the corner, they stopped to be sure the coast was clear. Felix thought his heart might actually pound through his ribs, it was beating so fast.
“We need to get to the palace,” Maisi
e said. “We need to get the crown to Lydia.”
“Right,” Felix said, taking off again in the direction of the palace.
Maisie and Felix did not stop again until the palace appeared before them like a beautiful mirage.
We’re safe! Felix thought with relief.
Just then, he felt a hairy hand on the back of his neck.
Felix peered up and up, into the angry, grizzled face of Gold Tooth.
Gold Tooth gripped Maisie by the scruff of her neck with his other hairy hand.
“I’ll fix you two,” he growled.
Maisie tried to wriggle away, but he just held on tighter.
He easily lifted them off their feet and gave them a little shake, then headed back toward the harbor.
CHAPTER 9
Prisoners!
“Look what I found,” Gold Tooth announced when they arrived at his ship, the Rambler.
The deck was filled with sailors fixing nets and ropes, sharpening harpoons, and swabbing the floor. The smell of rotting fish was so strong that Maisie had to hold her breath so she didn’t throw up.
“Just what we need,” Earring muttered. “Kids.”
He spit right on the floor, as if the very idea disgusted him.
In one motion, Gold Tooth opened both hands, sending Maisie and Felix smack onto the wet, slimy floor.
Felix was staring at fish guts swirling in the puddle of water left by the mop. He struggled to his feet, the crown still in his hands.
“That,” Gold Tooth said, “is mine.”
Felix held on tighter.
“This is kidnapping!” Maisie shouted at him. “And robbery!”
“Guilty as charged,” Gold Tooth sneered, and he tore the crown from Felix’s hands.
“Throw them in the brig,” he ordered a skinny sailor, who didn’t look much older than Maisie and Felix. He had a smattering of acne on his cheeks, and his pants were too big for him; he’d rolled up the cuffs so he wouldn’t trip over them and looped a rope several times around his waist to keep them up.
“Come on,” Skinny said to them, contorting his face into a sneer that did not make him look any tougher.
It occurred to Maisie that they could probably run away from him without too much trouble. But the steady gaze of Gold Tooth dissuaded her from trying.
Skinny shoved them in the direction of a narrow, steep stairway that led down into a dark maze of rooms.
“Keep going,” he said in his fake tough voice.
Down an even narrower and steeper stairway, they descended into the bowels of the ship. It stunk even worse than the fishy deck and was as dark as the middle of the night.
“You can’t leave us down here,” Felix begged.
“Shut up!” Skinny yelled, giving Felix a hard push.
Maybe his toughness wasn’t just bravado, Felix thought.
Skinny produced a giant key, and Maisie and Felix watched as he unlocked what looked very much like a cage.
He grinned at them, revealing two missing teeth and many more blackened ones.
“Welcome home,” he said.
When they didn’t move, he yelled, “Get in!”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Maisie said.
Skinny stuck his face so close to hers that she could see the slight beginnings of a moustache on his upper lip.
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” he said, sending a blast of onion breath at her.
Maisie shook her head.
“Now get inside!” he screamed.
Felix took Maisie’s hand.
“We have no choice,” he said softly.
They had to duck their heads to enter the room, if you could call it a room. Low and dark, it was more like an empty, smelly, dirty closet. As soon as they stepped inside, Skinny slammed the door shut and locked it. He peered through the bars at them and smiled.
“Might as well get comfortable,” he said. “It’s six weeks to Tahiti.”
Maisie’s legs had fallen asleep from the way she had to scrunch them under her in order to fit in the room. She stretched them as best she could, her feet sticking through the bars when she did, and shook them until she felt pins and needles.
As soon as the feeling came back into her legs, Maisie realized that her feet were touching something soft. Soft and moving. She prodded it with the toe of her sneaker, and the thing ran away.
Immediately, another one appeared. And then another one.
“Uh, Felix?” Maisie said hesitantly.
“What?” Felix said, his voice about as miserable as she’d ever heard it.
“There’s something…I mean…some things…alive out there.”
Felix didn’t answer.
Into the silence that settled between them came the sounds of small feet scurrying and the faint squeaks of…of…
“Rats!” Maisie yelled, yanking her feet back inside the bars.
“Rats?” Felix said, proving that his voice could, in fact, sound even more miserable.
Maisie inched away until her back hit the farthest wall, which wasn’t very far away at all.
Felix did the same.
“Rats,” he said, shivering.
“Maisie?” Felix said into the darkness. “Do you think this qualifies as a pickle?”
They had been sitting on the cold floor for a long time, their backs pressed against the wall, listening to the rats scampering around them, and trying not to cry.
“I would say yes,” Maisie said, her voice sounding small and frightened.
“Let’s try?” Felix offered.
He had no other ideas. They were locked into a room on the lowest level of a ship filled with scary sailors. The crown was who knows where, and even if they could escape from here and find the crown, how would they be able to get it away from Gold Tooth again?
Before he could say anything else, the ship jolted once, then twice, then a third time.
Felix looked at his sister.
“What the…?” he began.
“Uh-oh,” Maisie said. “We’re setting sail.”
Felix grabbed her hand.
“Say it! On the count of three, say it!”
She nodded.
“One,” Felix counted. “Two. Three!”
“Lame demon!” they said together.
And then, exactly nothing happened.
“This is all your fault,” Felix told Maisie.
“My fault?”
“You didn’t tell me everything Great-Uncle Thorne said, and now we’re on a ship sailing to Tahiti.”
Felix knew absolutely nothing about Tahiti, except that it was six weeks away from Hawaii, which meant that he and Maisie were going to be in this dirty, smelly, cold cage for six weeks. And what would happen once they got to Tahiti? He thought of angry natives with spears, walking the plank, cannibals.
Maisie’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Maybe we should try again?”
“Why bother?” Felix said, slumping.
“We can’t just sit here,” Maisie said.
Felix didn’t answer. What was there to say?
“On the count of three?” Maisie asked him.
“Leave me alone,” Felix grumbled.
They sat in the darkness in silence as the ship moved farther and farther into the Pacific Ocean.
“Psssst.”
Maisie opened her eyes.
“Psssst.”
She waited for her eyes to grow accustomed to the pitch black. Outside the bars, a face slowly took form.
Skinny.
“I brought you something,” Skinny said.
“What? Bread and water?” Maisie said. That was what prisoners ate in the movies.
“No,” Skinny said. “This.”
He was holding something up for her to see, but she couldn’t make it out.
“I really can’t come any closer,” Maisie said. “There’s…rats running around out there.”
Goose bumps ran up her arms and legs at the very thought of those rats.
<
br /> Skinny snorted.
“You afraid of a rat?” he said, all full of that braggadocio.
“I bet you are, too,” Maisie said.
“Am not!”
“Humph.”
Skinny sighed.
“I used to be,” he admitted. “When I first sailed, I spent all night scared rats would eat me up.”
“Do they eat people?” Felix asked.
“Nah,” Skinny said. Unconvincingly, Felix thought.
“What did you bring us?” Maisie asked, squinting toward the thing he held.
Skinny pressed his face to the bars.
“The key,” he whispered. “I’m going to let you out.”
Both Felix and Maisie crawled to the bars.
“You are?” Felix said, trying not to be too hopeful.
“Here’s the thing,” Skinny said. “The men will all be eating in about twenty minutes. While they’re in the mess hall, I’ll lead you to the crown.”
“But then what?” Maisie said. “We’re out at sea. Where will we go?”
“Look,” Skinny said. “We ain’t got much time. Just follow me.”
The most beautiful sound Maisie thought she’d ever heard reached her ears: the key turning in the lock.
Then the door creaked open, and Maisie and Felix stepped out of their prison.
Climbing the steps from the lowest floor to the next one, Maisie and Felix had trouble walking as the ship swayed from side to side. As they reached the top of the stairs, they heard the noisy voices of the sailors sitting down to eat. The smell of roasted meat floated through the air, reminding them of how hungry they were.
But there wasn’t time to worry about their stomachs now. They had to get the crown before Gold Tooth—or anyone else—finished dinner.
Skinny put his finger to his lips. “Ssshhh.”
Then he motioned for them to follow him through the maze of rooms.
At last they reached a large room filled with bunks made of rope. The beds hung from hooks, like hammocks.
Skinny pointed to one along the far wall.
There, poking out of a pile of clothes, Felix saw the crown.
Quickly, and as quietly as he could, he half tiptoed, half ran across the sloping floor toward Gold Tooth’s bunk.
The ship seemed to slip out from under his feet with every step, and Felix finally used the bunks for balance, grabbing the ropes that held one to the hooks and then swinging to the next one, until at last he reached the crown.