by Linda Bailey
“We been here a long time,” mumbled Jonas. “Safe, like.”
Lewis swallowed hard. What now? After all this, was he now going to have to persuade them to leave?
Trying to hide his own anxiety, he said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be with you all the way.”
“Well said!” Crawley whacked Lewis across the back. “Rest easy, mates. We has the lad! He knows everything about the world out there and all them strangers, too.”
“Aye, we has the lad!” agreed Moyle, trying to smile.
“Name the hour, young Lewis,” ordered Crawley. “We’re ready.”
“Well,” said Lewis, “soon.”
The sooner, the better, he thought. Before the real estate agents came. And his class.
“But …” He struggled to say it. “There’s still a tiny problem.”
“Problem?” Crawley fixed him with a belligerent eye.
“It’s … it’s the same as before,” stammered Lewis. Suddenly, it all spilled out. “Captain Crawley, you just don’t look like the people around here. You look like what you are. Pirates! Ghosts! You have to stay invisible when we go. All of you! If people see you, it’ll be a disaster.”
Worst of all, he thought, a disaster for him. He allowed himself to picture, just for an instant, what would happen if people in Tandy Bay spotted the ghoulish pirate crew … and Lewis Dearborn walking among them. No! Lewis Dearborn leading them. His reputation as a weirdo would be sealed forever. He’d spend the rest of his life trying to explain.
“You have to stay invisible,” he repeated.
Crawley slung an arm around Lewis’s shoulders, pulling him aside. “Laddie,” he whispered, “ain’t you listening? Now, for myself, I ain’t afeared of nothing. Not strangers. Not them things that go fast—”
“Cars,” said Lewis.
“Cars,” agreed Crawley. “But the boys? Well, you can see how it is for them. Just talking about it, they’re going on and off like them things you puts in your lamps.”
“Lightbulbs,” said Lewis.
“Aye! They’re glowing and dimming like lightbulbs. And we ain’t even left the house.” Crawley clutched Lewis tighter. “So you see, lad … we has to find a way to get there visible.”
Lewis swayed, feeling faint. It was impossible. Even if they snuck out at night, even if they only ran into one Tandy Bay resident, it would be a nightmare. Lewis pictured a late-night shift worker fleeing in terror, yelling into his cell phone at the 911 operator: “Yes, that’s right! LEWIS DEARBORN! He’s the leader!”
Suddenly, Crawley let out a whoop. “Son of a sea biscuit!” he yelled. “I knows! By all the saints and sinners, I knows how to do it.”
“Wh-what?” said Lewis, as the other pirates gathered around. “How?” He was drowned out by shouts.
“Garments!” hollered Crawley above the din. “Ah, mateys, it’s a lucky thing we have the lad—and him knowing all about what folks wears nowadays. Give a cheer now! For the lad!”
“Huzzah!” yelled the pirates. “Huzzah for the lad!”
Alarm bells clanged wildly in Lewis’s head. “Me? What do you—”
“Here’s the plan again, a mite improved,” interrupted Crawley. “We needs to look like travelers, lad! We needs to appear as ordinary traveling folks passing through the village.”
Lewis blinked. “You want to pass as … tourists?”
“Tourists! Aye, that’d be it. You needs to dress us up, laddie, in clothing such as tourists would wear. Mayhap we’ll be lucky and no one will see us. But if we is seen, lad, we needs to look like a crew of ordinary tourists.”
He grinned, the gaps in his smile winking darkly. His good eye blinked, while the other stayed fixed in a frozen stare.
Tearing his gaze away, Lewis looked around the rest of the group. At Jonas’s missing fingers. At the scar that carved Moyle’s forehead in two. At Jack’s hunched posture and lip-licking scowls.
The only one who was even close to normal-looking was Adam.
How could he make them look like modern tourists? It was insane!
And yet Crawley was right. They’d have to do something.
“I’m not really an expert on clothes,” he said hesitantly. “I mean, of course I have clothes, and my dad does, too. But I don’t know if they’ll fit.” He glanced at the colossal Bellows and the diminutive Skittles.
The pirates didn’t reply.
“I don’t have much money, either,” he added, thinking out loud. “It would cost a lot to buy you … er, tourist outfits.”
Moyle laughed. “No need for money. Easier just to steal ’em!”
“Aye!” growled Bellows. “Steal ’em. We’ll show you how.”
Lewis shrank back. “I can’t do that!”
“Why not?” demanded Crawley. “Don’t folks do laundry round here? Don’t they hang it outdoors to dry? Why, it would be easy as drifting with the tide to steal some nice clean britches for me and the boys.”
“People don’t hang their laundry outside anymore,” explained Lewis, “at least not this time of year. They have dryers mostly and …”
He stopped, overwhelmed by the enormity of it all.
Seeing the look on Lewis’s face, Adam crept closer. “It don’t have to be nothing fancy,” he whispered.
Lewis shook his head, but the words “nothing fancy” triggered a memory. The conversation he had overheard at school. Abbie’s scarf. He realized suddenly that he did know where to get clothes that weren’t fancy—or expensive, either.
“The thrift store,” he said under his breath.
“Beg pardon?” said Crawley.
“It’s a place where they sell secondhand clothes. They’re cheap. I could afford to buy you clothes there.” Actually, he wasn’t sure. He’d never been in Rag Time. He could only hope that his $37 in savings would be enough.
The pirates clapped and pounded the furniture, delighted by this new development.
“I ain’t had new britches in hunnerts of years,” said Bellows, looking down at his ragged pants, the color of mud. “I’d like some blue ones, I would. Might I go with you, lad, to that thrifty shop, to fetch ’em?”
“I’ll go, too,” grunted Jack. “I still doesn’t trusssst the little bludger.”
Skittles smiled timidly. “Well, if it ain’t too far, I could—”
“No!” said Lewis. “I—”
“Back, you lubbers!” Crawley swatted Skittles across the back of the head. “The lad don’t need you blocking his path out there. No! I’ll go with him.”
“What?” said Lewis.
Grabbing the boy’s arm, Crawley pulled him aside again, out of hearing of the others. “Lookee here, lad. I been cooped up a long time, and I’m restless as a bat in a jar. I needs a peek at the world, I do.”
“But—”
“You knows I can stay invisible, right? Won’t be no problem for me.”
“Well—”
“I could give you advice in your ear. About fittings and such.”
Lewis thought quickly. He was a little nervous about picking out clothes. And the captain was an adult—of a sort. If Crawley could stay out of sight, he might actually be helpful.
“Okay,” he said, before he could change his mind.
“When?” said Crawley.
“Tomorrow. After school.”
“Tomorrow!” repeated Crawley, clapping his hands in excitement.
“Remember,” said Lewis. “You promised.”
“Promised what?”
“To stay invisible!”
“Aye, lad, of course. Do you think I wants to give meself grief? You won’t see a hair of me. Not a hair.”
“Okay,” said Lewis. Exhausted, he dropped onto his bed and closed his eyes.
He might have fallen asleep, just like that, in all his clothes, except for the book that was placed gently on his right arm. He opened his eyes.
Treasure Island. He looked around. They were sitting on the floor, waiting.
He sighed. Sittin
g up, he opened the book.
The boy in this story was Jim Hawkins. And, like Lewis, he had found himself accidentally in the middle of a pirate crew. Lewis felt a real kinship to Jim, whose pirates were causing him huge amounts of risk and aggravation.
But that was where the similarities ended. Jim Hawkins was the kind of boy Great-Granddad had described—a “bold one,” fearless and decisive. Jim would make things work. He was the kind of boy who solved problems.
But him? Lewis Dearborn?
One thing at a time, he told himself.
First, the clothes …
The next day, Lewis raced home from school. With barely a hello to his father, he charged straight up to Libertalia.
Twenty minutes later, he opened the front door of Shornoway and stepped outside. He was alone. But a sharp-eyed observer might have noticed that he was talking to an empty space just to his left.
“Excuse me, Captain Crawley,” he was saying. “If we’re going to walk all the way to the thrift store together, you’re going to have to loosen up on my arm. You’re making a bruise.”
The vice-like grip on his left arm relaxed, then tightened again as they reached the street.
“Here comes one now! Watch out! CARRRR!” said the voice in his ear.
“Ow!” Lewis pulled away. “Captain Crawley, please. Just look at that car. See how it stays in its own lane? As long as we walk on the side, we’re safe.”
“By thunder, them things goes fast!” gasped Crawley. “Hold on now, laddie, while I catches me breath.”
Lewis waited obediently, wondering whether it had been a mistake to bring Crawley. Peering in the captain’s direction, he could make out a faint ghostly outline. Would Crawley be able to keep his promise?
“Maybe we should go back,” he said.
“Never!” declared Crawley. “I weren’t afeared of the evil Captain Dire, and I ain’t afeared of them car things neither.” To Lewis’s relief, he faded.
“We’ll be off this road soon,” said Lewis. “Try to relax.”
Muckanutt Road, where they were walking, was more like a small highway than a street. It had no sidewalks for pedestrians, just gravel shoulders. Shown as a “scenic route” on maps, it attracted plenty of tourist traffic. Lewis could understand why the pirates had been frightened.
He hurried along the shoulder now, his ghostly shadow keeping pace. All went well until a woman in a blue tracksuit ran out of her drive. Before Lewis had a chance to think, she charged straight at the place where Crawley was walking.
“Iiyy!” cried Lewis.
The woman stopped.
“Are you okay?” she asked, looking into Lewis’s eyes. Her face showed concern, but no alarm. She had run right through Crawley! She hadn’t even noticed!
“Fine,” squeaked Lewis.
“Who’s afeared now?” whispered the captain as the woman ran off.
“Well, I don’t know how this stuff works. I thought she would—you know—hit you.”
“Not if I’m invisible, lad. Not unless I wants her to.”
“Well, how am I supposed to know that?” asked Lewis, thoroughly rattled.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the bus stop across the street. Two old ladies in long coats huddled together on a bench, their feet not quite reaching the ground. They were pointing at Lewis and whispering.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” said Lewis out loud, giving the old ladies even more reason to stare. He broke into a slow run, determined to get off Muckanutt Road before a bus came along. The captain stayed with him; Lewis could tell by the drag on his arm.
Things got better when they could finally turn onto Highbury Lane—a quiet street, almost deserted. Following a route of back streets to the town center, they managed to avoid all but three cars, and those were moving slowly. Crawley’s grip on Lewis’s arm relaxed, but he still noticed every vehicle.
“What about this grand white carriage, lad?” He jerked Lewis to a stop beside a parked delivery van. “Would this be faster than the others?”
“Not really. Probably slower.”
“Slower,” marveled Crawley. “Fancy that!”
A kid on a skateboard caught Crawley’s attention, then another on a bicycle. Everything had to be explained. It was as if the captain were from another planet. Thinking about this, Lewis realized that he actually was from another planet, in a way. The earth had been a different place back in Crawley’s time.
Rag Time was on the busiest section of Front Street, so the last block was a challenge. When a car alarm went off, Crawley threw himself—and Lewis!—hard against a building. Lewis stifled a yell as he hit the bricks. Beside him, the ghostly outline appeared, then vanished. Luckily, the few pedestrians nearby didn’t notice.
With his heart in his throat, Lewis opened the door to the thrift store.
“Thunderation!” The voice beside him spoke clearly, at a level far above the whisper they’d agreed on. “Look at the size of this place! All them garments, already sewed up! Where’s the tailor?”
“Shhh!” hissed Lewis. “There is no tailor. Everything here was made in a factory.”
“A factory! Now what would that be?”
“Shhh!” said Lewis again. “I’ll explain later.”
They were already attracting attention. The cashier, a puffy-haired woman in a mustard-colored sweatshirt, stared at Lewis, her mouth open. Lewis knew just how she felt. He’d felt the same way, years ago, watching Great-Granddad talk to himself.
He waved awkwardly at the cashier. “Just looking for … er, men’s stuff.”
She pointed.
“Thanks.” Lewis swerved right, dragging Crawley behind him like an anchor.
The men’s area consisted of a wall of suits and jackets, a round rack of shirts and several rows of hanging pants. The only other customer, a large woman in turquoise stretch pants, was examining a display of neckties.
Lewis headed for the shirts.
“The small sizes are on this end,” he whispered to his invisible companion. “The big ones down there.” He wasn’t sure which direction to speak, now that Crawley had released his arm.
“OW!” said a female voice. Lewis turned.
The turquoise woman was storming toward him, cheeks mottled with anger. “Listen, kid! I do not find that funny!”
She pushed right up to him, nose to nose. She was practically breathing fire. “For two cents, I’d give you a wallop!”
Lewis could see individual eyelashes, thick with mascara.
“Sorry,” he bleated.
The woman glared silently, then stalked away.
“Crawley?” whispered Lewis. “What did you do?”
A chuckle came into his ear. “Just a wee pinch. By the powers, she’s a fine-looking woman.”
“Crawley! Stop that! No more pinching. I mean it!”
“Aye, lad, you’re right. We has work to do.” Pairs of pants started rising off the racks.
“No!” whispered Lewis. “Just tell me which ones. I’ll pick them up.”
Quickly they worked out a system in which Lewis picked up clothing items—sometimes his choice, sometimes Crawley’s—and held them up for inspection. Crawley showed a fondness for vivid colors.
“I’m not sure we should get such bright things.” Lewis frowned at a pair of lime green yoga pants. “These would be less noticeable.” He held up brown cords.
“Pah!” said Crawley. “Them breeches is the same as we’ve had all these years. No, lad, I wants a bit of color, and I’ll wager the boys does, too.”
Soon Lewis was struggling under a huge load that included Hawaiian shirts, fluorescent sports gear, tie-dyed Tshirts and an enormous pair of elastic-waisted, purple-flowered pants that must have belonged to a clown.
“For Bellows,” explained Crawley. “And these”—a pair of gold satin basketball shorts rose from the pile—“are for me!”
The shorts dropped to the floor and then slowly began to rise and expand. Crawley was trying them on!
“No!” whispered Lewis, jerking at the shorts. “Not here.” He glanced around. “There!”
A minute later, alone with Crawley in a changing room, Lewis piled the clothes onto a chair.
“Hurry,” he said. “Please. I have to get home.”
Crawley ignored him. Visible now, he was hauling on the shorts with an air of pride and satisfaction.
Lewis glanced away, into the mirror. He let out a gasp. The mirror didn’t show Crawley at all! Only him, Lewis, staring at himself.
Noticing Lewis’s consternation, Crawley grinned. “Looking glass don’t work on the likes of us. But it’s good to be in this secret room, lad, where I can see meself properly.” He tugged at the shorts admiringly. “Now these are looking grand!”
“I … I’ll wait outside.” Lewis slipped out, then leaned against the door, catching his breath.
A sign caught his attention. “Costumes.” What Crawley needed most, Lewis decided, was an eye patch.
He was poking through a bin of costume scraps—cowboy hats, magic wands, plastic Viking helmets—when he heard a voice.
“Hey! Lewis!”
He whirled around.
Abbie. She was wearing some kind of … hat? Pink wool. Red wool braids hanging down the sides. Pointy top. She looked so friendly, he almost glanced over his shoulder to see who she was really talking to.
“Uh … hey. Hello.” Heat rose under his skin.
“Well, this is interesting. Did you follow me here? Or did I follow you?”
“Huh?”
She laughed. “Never mind. What do you think of this hat?” She twirled, holding up a braid.
He thought it made her look like an elf. The pointy top. Her wide mouth and too-big eyes. Would she want to look like an elf? He didn’t answer.
She held out a poodle-shaped rhinestone pin. “How about this?”
Lewis struggled for words. “Very nice.”
She laughed again, but not in a mean way. “What are you looking for?”
“I—um—gosh!” Suddenly, he remembered. Crawley!
He ran for the changing room and, without stopping to think, opened the door. There stood the pirate, resplendent in golden shorts and a red checked sports jacket, open to reveal a naked hairy torso. A thick ugly scar ran down his chest and disappeared into the shorts, emerging again above his left knee before vanishing into his boot. On his head was a neon orange baseball cap. “Tandy Bay Tigers,” it said.