Seven Dead Pirates

by Linda Bailey

  “Ain’t I a picture?” Crawley threw out his arms and twirled, scraping his knuckles on the changing room walls.

  Lewis froze in the doorway, aghast.

  Crawley’s good eye focused on something behind Lewis.

  “Mam’selle,” he said in an oily voice, with a surprisingly graceful bow.

  “Oh …” said Abbie.

  Lewis whirled. She was standing behind him, goggle-eyed.

  “I’m …” she said, breathing hard. “I …”

  It was the first time Lewis had seen her lost for words.

  His mind raced. “This is … my uncle Craw … Crawford.”

  “Your uncle?”

  Lewis remembered the mirror. He threw out his arms to block her view.

  “From Los Angeles,” he blurted. The pirate had to be from somewhere. No one around here looked like that.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr.… Crawford,” said Abbie. Lewis slammed the door.

  Abbie continued to stand there, staring. “Whoa!” she said under her breath.

  Lewis saw that he’d have to explain. “Los Angeles” provided an idea. “He’s in the movies,” said Lewis. “A stunt man.”

  “Oh,” said Abbie, breathing a little easier. “So that’s how he got …” She ran a hand down her body to indicate the long scar.

  Lewis nodded.

  “And the …” She pointed at her left eye.

  Lewis nodded so hard, he felt dizzy.

  “Wow! Must be dangerous work.” Abbie peered again at the door.

  “Yeah. Uh-huh. Dangerous.” He waited for her to leave, but she just stood there, twirling her braid.

  “I’d better help … you know.” Lewis nodded toward the changing room.

  “Oh. Okay. Is there anything special you’re looking for?” She waved at the racks. “While I’m shopping?”

  “No,” said Lewis. “I mean, yes! A patch. An eye patch. For …” He jerked his head toward the changing room.

  “Sure,” she said. “Good idea. I’ll keep an eye out … I mean …” She let out a giggle, then, to his surprise, colored red with embarrassment. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” said Lewis.

  She nodded. Then she smiled, wide. “Glad I got a chance to talk to you, Lewis. Finally!”

  “Uh, yeah,” said Lewis. “See you later.”

  “Later,” she echoed, backing away. “Good-bye, Uncle Crawford!” she yelled at the changing room door.

  Lewis watched her walk to the women’s section. He waited a few minutes longer till she left the store. Then he slipped into the changing room.

  “We have to go! Now!” he told the pirate, who was pulling on a pair of tight black cycling pants. Crawley opened his mouth.

  “No arguments,” said Lewis, surprising himself. “Now!”

  “Aye, aye,” said the captain. Lewis waited as the pirate faded into invisibility. Then he gathered up the clothing and walked, without stopping, to the cash register. He could tell the captain was with him by the pressure on his left arm.

  “How much for all this?” he asked the cashier.

  She stared at him suspiciously. He waited, breathing hard, while she added it up.

  “$29.90,” she said. Lewis paid and accepted two bulging shopping bags.

  Outside, he studied the street nervously. People were driving home from work. The traffic was heavier.

  He set off briskly, hoping that if they kept moving, Crawley wouldn’t notice the cars. The bulky bags made it hard to walk, and he wished he could give one to Crawley. They were his clothes, after all.

  They took the first quiet street. They hadn’t gone far when Lewis came to a halt.

  Two boys were shooting hoops in the driveway of a low blue bungalow. Both were dressed in white. Even at a distance, Lewis could pick out Seth.

  He darted behind an elm tree, dragging Crawley with him.

  “Hey!” yelled Seth. “It’s Dearborn. Over there!”

  Lewis heard the ball thump-thump to a stop. An instant later, the boys were in front of him. The second boy was Mike Burrows, also in his class.

  Seth grinned. “What you got there, Lewisssser?” He reached into one of the bags.

  Before Lewis could stop him, Seth whipped out the huge purple pants. “Hey, Burrows, check this out. Dearborn bought himself some cool—wow, I don’t believe this! Hoo-eee!” Holding the pants by the waist and stretching them as wide as they would go, he started shrieking with laughter.

  Mike joined him, pointing and doubling over.

  “These aren’t pants,” yelled Seth. “This is a tent! Someone could live in these pants.”

  “A whole family!” howled Mike, grabbing one side of the pants and trying to stretch them further.

  “Stop!” said Lewis, thinking of Bellows. “You’re going to rip them.”

  That only made the boys laugh harder.

  That’s when Crawley stepped out from behind the tree. The boys froze as he bore down on them, his good eye flashing. Seizing them by the backs of their necks, Crawley hoisted them into the air.

  “Drop them breeches, dogs!” he roared.

  The pants fluttered to the ground. Lewis stuffed them into the bag.

  Crawley, meanwhile, had turned Seth, floundering like a hooked fish, around to face him. The pirate’s blind eye was up against Seth’s face.

  “I am going to cut out your liver, boy,” he growled, in a voice like rolling thunder, “and I’m going to fasten it to the top of this tree! Does you think you’ll look pretty without your liver?”

  He gave Seth a shake.

  “Nnn—” said Seth.

  “A liver is one of them things you don’t hardly think about. But I promise you, you’ll miss it when it’s gone!”

  Crawley turned slowly from one captive to the other, breathing so heavily and with such rank fish breath that even Lewis could smell it. Both boys hung limp and terrified, unable to look away from the pirate’s missing eye. Crawley shook them as easily as if they were kittens, making harsh, animal grunts.

  Mike let out a sob.

  “Pah!” said the pirate and dropped them both.

  They crumpled in a heap and lay there, stunned, before scrambling to their feet. Lewis watched as they ran shakily toward the house.

  “And now, laddie” came a weary voice behind him, “might we go home?”

  Streetlights blinked on as Lewis and his invisible companion walked home. Cars honked and whooshed past, but Lewis noticed none of it, still stunned by the incredible sight of Crawley shaking Seth—like a terrier shaking a rat!

  “I never liked the cat o’ nine tails,” announced the voice to his left. “Felt the pain of the whip meself in my younger days. But, by thunder, if anyone deserves its sting, it’s them two sharks. I’d give ’em thirty lashes each, if they was on my ship!”

  Lewis shook his head. “That’s not how we do things these days.”

  “Oh?” said the pirate. “And how does you do things, lad, if you doesn’t mind me asking? When you comes up against a pair of bottom-feeders like them, how does you take the wind out of their sails?”

  “We …” The truth was, Lewis didn’t know. If he knew, he wouldn’t have been plagued by Seth all this time.

  “There’s a lot to be said for cutting out a liver,” grumbled Crawley. “Slows a body down.”

  “No,” said Lewis. “Cutting out a liver is … is inappropriate!” Putting down his shopping bags, he glared at the space to his left.

  And then, out of nowhere, he started to laugh. It bubbled up like a geyser, impossible to stop. Suddenly, it all seemed ridiculous. Crawley. The pirates. Even Seth. Mostly, Lewis laughed at himself. Inappropriate? Where had that come from?

  The shopping bags, which had been resting beside his feet, began floating down the street.

  “Stop!” yelled Lewis, a new bubble of hilarity rising as he raced after the bags. “Put them down!”

  Aside from the laughing, which he attributed to some kind of hysteria (he wasn’t
used to laughing), he reached home without further incident. He still had to sneak into Shornoway, of course, which was no small matter with two overstuffed shopping bags and an invisible pirate dragging from his arm. Tiptoeing past the kitchen, he heard the chirruping sound of Mrs. Binchy’s chatter, followed by his father’s rumble. Garlicky smells filled the hall.

  Upstairs, the pirates made no attempt to conceal their joy at seeing Crawley again. They clutched at their captain with a kind of desperate relief, as if they hadn’t expected him to return. Lewis, carrying the bags, was treated like a hero, too. Soon the clothing was flying out, looking like giant, swooping butterflies as the pirates swirled it above their heads.

  Watching them, Lewis smiled.

  “Aye, lad,” said Crawley. “We done it, didn’t we? We brought back the treasure.”

  Treasure? Lewis would never have imagined that secondhand clothes could be described that way. But looking around, he saw that it was true.

  “Did you ever see anything so grand?” asked Adam, holding a pair of red jeans against his body.

  “Not since them rubies we took off the Barbary Ellen, there in the Indian Ocean. You look a prince,” said Moyle, “and see what a gent I looks in this!” He wore an apple-green cowboy shirt with gold fringe—one of Crawley’s choices. It was several sizes too small and the spaces between the buttons gaped open, revealing a pale, blue-veined chest.

  But the happiest pirate of all was Jonas. Knowing how chilly he got, Lewis had put aside a fleecy pink tracksuit just for him. Jonas crooned with delight as he pulled it on. “So warm,” he said, stroking the fabric. “Like the finest of furs. I ain’t been this cozy since we left the southern seas.”

  Soon there was a kind of bizarre fashion show going on, with the pirates cheering and clapping as one, then another, paraded his new finery. They couldn’t have been more pleased or proud.

  Not so, Lewis. The longer he watched, the more his heart sank. The smile on his face became more and more forced.

  It wasn’t going to work.

  The pirates did not look like tourists. Not even remotely. He was the only one in the room with any sense of modern clothing, so he was the only one who could see the truth. They looked like clowns! And not even ordinary clowns. With their scars and beards and long greasy pigtails, they looked like clowns who had joined the Hell’s Angels. Biker clowns! To someone meeting them on the street, they’d be scarier than ever.

  He couldn’t possibly take them to the museum looking like this. He remembered Abbie’s shock when she first saw Crawley in the changing room. How would she react to seven Crawleys?

  Lewis would have to tell them.

  But not yet. Not while they were having so much fun.

  He sank heavily onto his bed. He couldn’t think anymore, not with all this craziness. To his right was Barnaby Bellows’s huge stomach—bouncing and jiggling, stretching the flowered pants to their limit. Higher up was a yellow sweatshirt Bellows had fashioned into a bonnet, the sleeves tied under his chin.

  He looks like he’s going to a Halloween party, thought Lewis.

  The thought took a moment to root. He sucked in his breath sharply.

  “Halloween,” he whispered.

  Jumping to his feet, he waved his arms. “Halloween!” he yelled. “Halloween!”

  The pirates paused in their antics.

  “I’ve got it!” he told them. “We have to wait to go the museum—till October 31st. Halloween!”

  Crawley stepped forward. He was wearing gold basketball shorts, black boots and nothing else. “I sees no reason—”

  “It’s perfect,” interrupted Lewis. “On Halloween, Tandy Bay is full of … unusual-looking people. Everyone’s dressed up. Everyone looks … er, different. You’ll fit right in!”

  “Halloween?” said Adam. “Does you mean All Hallows Eve? When ghosts walk abroad?”

  “We used to walk abroad on All Hallows Eve,” said Jonas, “but when folks started racing in them things that goes so fast—”

  “That’s another advantage of Halloween!” said Lewis. “People drive their cars slowly, because of all the kids who are out.”

  A smile dawned on Jonas’s face. “If the children can face them cars,” he said, “I suppose we can, too.”

  Crawley snorted. “Them cars ain’t so terrible. I faced ’em today, didn’t I? I weren’t afeared a bit.”

  The pirates nodded, impressed.

  Halloween could actually work, thought Lewis, feeling his first real confidence in the plan. The pirates would just have to wait, that’s all.

  The kitchen bell rang, and he had to go down to dinner. When he returned, the pirates demanded their usual evening reading. It was a long chapter, and Lewis was so tired he fell asleep in the middle of a sentence.

  It wasn’t until breakfast the next day that he remembered the disadvantages of waiting for Halloween. Actually, there was only one.

  Timing.

  If the pirates waited till Halloween, they would still be at Shornoway for the class visit.

  He let out a groan.

  “Lewis?” said his mother. “Are you all right? Do you feel okay?”

  Lewis dodged the motherly hand that was closing in on his forehead. “I’m fine!” he yelled. “I have to go.”

  He rushed out of the kitchen so quickly he knocked over a chair, but not fast enough to miss his mother’s remark: “It must be puberty.”

  Lewis turned to face her. “It is not!” he yelled back. “This is not puberty!”

  With so many things on his mind, it was perhaps not surprising that he got all the way to school before he remembered …

  Seth.

  Who had been shaken like a rat the night before.

  Who probably hadn’t forgotten.

  Lewis saw the white pants coming his way as he walked into school. Dirt-gray at the bottoms. Frayed. The blue-and-white shoes.

  He lunged into a crowd of kids.

  A quick movement to his left. A girl’s squeal. Something—an elbow? a fist?—rammed him in the ribs, hard. He caved at the waist, gasping, as Seth ran past.

  The pain was dull. But each time he inhaled, it got sharper.

  He sat very still through the morning, taking light, shallow breaths. In the playground, he stayed close to Mrs. Reber, not caring if he looked babyish.

  But then a little kid fell down, and Mrs. Reber had to help. It gave Seth another chance.

  He crept up as lightly as a panther. “So where’s your big goon, Lewisser? Your babysitter?”

  Forming his fingers into a gun, Seth aimed it straight at Lewis. He made a small explosive sound. Pow!

  “Who’s gonna help you here, Dearborn?”

  Lewis stared at the ground.

  Later, walking home, he watched warily for an ambush. Hedges, fences, lanes. His rib cage ached.

  Mrs. Dearborn’s car was in the drive. She was home early. There was another car there, too—a silver one he didn’t recognize.

  “Is someone here?” he asked Mrs. Binchy. She was polishing the old clock in the front hall, something he’d never seen her do before. There was a stormy look on her face.

  “Real estate agents,” she muttered. “Your mother’s showing them around.”

  “What?” said Lewis. “She said they weren’t coming till Friday.”

  “She changed it. They’ve been crawling over the house all afternoon. Jackals on a carcass. It’s not right.”

  Lewis nodded. Mrs. Binchy never hesitated to speak up. The whole family knew her feelings about Shornoway.

  “Where are they now? The agents?” he asked.

  She sniffed. “They’ve finished the Grand Tour. They’re in there.” She nodded toward the parlor.

  There were two of them. The man was lanky and stoop-shouldered, with a grin that revealed large, even teeth. He shook Lewis’s hand, heartily but kiddingly as if Lewis were four years old. The woman barely glanced at Lewis, which was okay with him. He didn’t like her lipstick. Red and sticky-looking.<
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  They were standing at the parlor window. Lewis’s mother stood beside them, looking uncomfortable, as she always did with company.

  “The house inspection is mostly a formality,” said the woman. “Of course, we’re not positive these clients will come through, but it looks extremely promising, and as I say, they’re planning all new construction.”

  “Ground up,” added the man. “Three levels—gift shop, pizza parlor, karaoke bar. Maybe even a small casino.”

  “Excuse me?” said Lewis.

  “They’ve been waiting years for the right property to come along.” The man chuckled. “Years! Hard to find a big chunk of waterfront land these days. And a view like this? Amazing! The pool could go right where we’re standing and—”

  “Excuse me?” said Lewis again. Having had practice in interrupting the pirates, he put enough force behind it this time to make the man stop. All three adults stared.

  “Lewis?” said his mother.

  “What … what’s going on? What does he mean, a pool? We’re in a room.”

  The man smiled. “Sure, but imagine all this gone, and a great big swimming pool here instead, with a slide and a deep end and—”

  “I know what a swimming pool looks like.”

  “Lewis!” His mother glared.

  “Hot tub,” added the man. “You could probably get visiting privileges in the contract. Come here any time you want. Sauna, small gym—”

  “But what’s going to happen to the parlor?” persisted Lewis, pointing at the shabby walls. This room was right below Libertalia.

  “Lewis, you’re being rude,” said his mother. “Mr. Winnaker’s talking about a new building. A resort. I’ll explain later. Don’t you have homework?”

  Suddenly, Lewis got it. “They’re going to tear down Shornoway?” His voice grew shrill, soaring into the squeaky notes he hated.

  “All right, that’s enough. Go to your room, Lewis.”

  He glared at his mother, but she stared back even more fiercely, her jaw set. Lewis stumbled into the hall.

  Mrs. Binchy was listening at the door. “A crying shame,” she muttered, as Lewis dashed past.

  He looked for his father in the kitchen, then ran to the study.