Seven Dead Pirates

by Linda Bailey

  “So you see,” said Mr. Dearborn, “the ship-maker attaches the masts and sails to the ship with hinges and strings, so the ship will lie flat and narrow while it’s being inserted into the bottle neck …”

  And that’s all Lewis heard because, in the corner of his eye, he spotted the evidence he’d been looking for. One of the lace curtains was moving. Slowly it swelled out, larger and larger, into a shape that was impossible not to recognize. Barnaby Bellows!

  Lewis blinked a couple of times, thinking hard. In three quick steps, he was at the middle window. He pulled it open, allowing the wind to come in. If the pirates were going to make the curtains bulge, he could at least provide an explanation.

  But the open window began attracting his classmates. They crowded over to stare at the view.

  “Aaaaaahhhhh,” said a deep, rough voice from their midst, “there ain’t nothing on this earth like a good salt breeze.”

  Lewis froze.

  Crawley!

  He was right in the middle of Lewis’s classmates. Invisible.

  “Why, yes, indeed!” replied Mr. Dearborn heartily. “Quite right! A good salt breeze is one of the great pleasures of a home like Shornoway.” He didn’t seem to know—or care—who had spoken.

  And to Lewis’s astonishment, no one else wondered about the voice, either. Nor did anyone notice when a tin soldier rose quietly off the green cabinet and began moving slowly across the room. But, of course, no one else was looking for such things.

  So no one except Lewis noticed when Mrs. Dearborn suddenly twitched in an odd way and looked down at her jacket—where her pocket showed a small bump. Reaching inside, she pulled out … the tin soldier.

  Her mouth dropped open. But she didn’t speak. She just stared at the toy for a very long time, her forehead crinkled.

  Her husband, meanwhile, was concluding his explanation of the eight-sided construction of the tower. “Any other questions?” he asked the group.

  Amanda Wilcox put up her hand. “Is Shornoway …” She paused nervously. “Haunted?”

  Lewis held his breath.

  Ms. Forsley shook her head. “Excuse me, Amanda, that’s not really a polite—”

  “No, no.” Mr. Dearborn held up a hand. “It’s all right.” He smiled at Amanda. “I’ll bet you heard that from someone, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “My grandma.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Dearborn, “sometimes, over the years, old houses get that reputation, whether they deserve it or not. Especially if they become rundown and start to look—heh, heh—spooky. Makes them more interesting, I suppose.”

  “Folks love a good story,” sniffed Mrs. Binchy, frowning at Amanda. “You tell your grandma for me—Irene Cotter, isn’t it?—that she doesn’t need to be wasting people’s time with silly rumors. You tell Irene that if there were ghosts here, I’d have sent them packing long ago.”

  Ms. Forsley spoke up quickly. “Thank you, Mrs. Binchy. I think we’ve had enough talk of ghosts. We don’t want to scare Lewis, do we?” She gave him a joking smile.

  He tried to smile back, but his mouth felt as if it had been frozen at the dentist.

  “Is this where she stared out to sea?” asked Abbie. “The bride? Elizabeth Douglas?”

  She was standing by the window alone, with the breeze lifting her long dark hair. “Is this where she looked home to England?”

  “I imagine it was,” said Mr. Dearborn softly.

  The whole class stared at Abbie, framed by the window, her long hair drifting in the breeze. It was as if they had traveled back in time to catch a glimpse of young Elizabeth Douglas, longing for her family across the sea.

  Finally, Mrs. Binchy broke the spell. “Who’s hungry?”

  The class thundered down to the dining room.

  Food had been laid out across a white linen tablecloth on the giant table. There was, Lewis was delighted to see, no sign of goat cheese anywhere. No eggplant, squid or snails, either. Instead, there were large platters of tiny triangular sandwiches filled with salmon and egg salad and shaved roast beef. Tiny quiches awaited, too—still warm, with soft, flaky crusts. And that was just one end of the table. The other was crowded with desserts—lemon tarts, cranberry squares, caramel-pecan clusters. To wash the feast down, there were huge pots of tea—raspberry, mint and regular—served in delicate china cups.

  “Ohhh,” said Ms. Forsley, when she saw the spread. “How wonderful! Like an old English teahouse.”

  Lewis’s mother, who had been very quiet, spoke up now. “We’re lucky to have two fine cooks at Shornoway,” she said. “Mrs. Binchy and my husband. I hope you’ll all enjoy their excellent food. There are plenty of napkins at the end of the table, children. I’m sorry, but I have to leave you now.”

  Ms. Forsley offered thanks, and Lewis was surprised to see that his mother still looked a bit stunned. He was even more surprised when he spotted the bump in her pocket. She was still carrying the tin soldier! He saw her pat her pocket as she left for the university.

  Shaking his head in bewilderment, he turned back to the food. He was far too excited to eat, but he put a couple of sandwiches on a plate. Then he stood beside Ms. Forsley, so he could hear her exclaim as she popped things into her mouth, “Really,” she said to Mr. Dearborn, “you could run a great teahouse. This food is amazing!”

  “Didn’t I say so?” Mrs. Binchy nudged Lewis’s father. “If I’ve told him once, I’ve told him a hundred times, he could have crowds flocking here. Taught him everything I know about cooking. Not that I take all the credit. He has the gift.” Offering a bowl of sweet pickles to Ms. Forsley, she added, “A teahouse is fine, but I’ve always said it should be a bed-and-breakfast. All these rooms, sitting empty. It’s a shame.”

  Ms. Forsley turned to Lewis’s father. “Have you ever thought of that, Mr. Dearborn? Turning Shornoway into … well, an inn or a teahouse or a bed-and-breakfast?”

  Lewis almost choked on his sandwich. Here—here!—was the answer to Shornoway’s problems.

  But Mr. Dearborn just shrugged. His face got that hopeless smile Lewis recognized from the book writing. “I’m not a businessman. There’s a lot more to running an inn than cooking. It’s a nice idea, but look at this place.” He gestured at the stained wallpaper. “It would cost a fortune to restore. I’m afraid we don’t have that kind of money.”

  “But surely,” said Ms. Forsley. “Forgive me, it’s none of my business, but … your inheritance?”

  Mr. Dearborn sighed. “The inheritance is only the house. There’s almost no money.”

  The sandwich in Lewis’s mouth glued itself dully to his teeth.

  Mrs. Binchy nodded sadly. “It’s a shame. Wonderful old place like this, coming down.”

  “Coming down?” Ms. Forsley’s eyes widened in alarm.

  Lewis couldn’t listen anymore. He ran to the bathroom and stayed there, sitting on the edge of the tub, till he heard the kids leave.

  Mrs. Binchy and his father were clearing up when he returned.

  “Ah, there you are,” said Mr. Dearborn. “We wondered where you’d got to. Your classmates have already gone back. I said I’d drive you over after lunch.”

  “Lunch?” said Mrs. Binchy. “Look at these empty plates. I’d say lunch is over for today.”

  Lewis smiled. “It was great, Mrs. Binchy, Dad. Really good food. The kids liked it. Thank you.”

  He realized, as he said it, that it was true. Somehow, the class visit had turned out all right.

  His father looked pleased. “What about my speech? Was it okay?”

  “The speech was great.”

  “Would you like to see my research now?”

  Lewis wasn’t in the mood, but his father had done so much. He followed Mr. Dearborn to his study.

  His father handed him a thin, faded book. “I found this in the library.”

  The cover said Tandy Bay, A History by Edmund William McAlistair.

  “There are McAlistairs in my school,” said Lewis, opening t
he book. It didn’t look like a real book. The pages had been typed on a typewriter, instead of printed. The cover looked homemade.

  “They’re probably relatives of this fellow,” said Mr. Dearborn. “This book was written in 1938. McAlistair published it himself, just a few copies apparently. Still, it’s quite well done. It seems he was a history buff. Like me. Heh, heh.”

  Lewis flipped through.

  “Shornoway’s on page 52,” said his father. “A whole chapter. I don’t know where McAlistair got his information, but it looks authentic.”

  Lewis found the Shornoway section. There was an old photo of a building that he recognized as Shornoway, except that the house in the picture was bright and elegant, with no broken windows or sagging eaves. Surrounded by well-kept shrubs and lawns, it looked grand and stately, with the tower giving it a castle-like air. Glancing through the paragraphs, Lewis found the part about Elizabeth and Jeremiah Douglas.

  “There’s another bit you might enjoy in this book,” said his father. “About the pirates who used to sail this coast.”

  “Pirates?” The back of Lewis’s neck prickled.

  “It mentions the Maria Louisa. That’s the ship they restored—the one down in the museum. Did you know that it ended its days as a pirate ship?”

  Lewis had to work to get his voice under control. “Dad? May I borrow this book?”

  His father looked pleased. “Of course. Just be careful. The pages are fragile.”

  Lewis hurried to the parlor, where he dropped onto a sofa and started flipping through the book. It took just a minute to find it.

  The printing was faded and uneven but still readable. It said that a notorious pirate, Captain Dire, had attacked the Maria Louisa in the waters just off Tandy Bay. At the time of the attack, the Maria Louisa was sailed by another crew of pirates, led by a Captain James Crawley. Crawley’s nickname, Lewis learned, had been “Gentleman Jim.”

  Crawley was known up and down the coast by this name because of his tendencies to softheartedness and his habit of sparing the lives and even the fortunes of those he attacked. Crawley himself disliked the name intensely, preferring to think of himself as fierce and ruthless. He forbade his crew to ever use it in his presence.

  Lewis let out a loud snort. Then he read on.

  The other captain, Dire, was far from gentlemanly. He was as cruel a pirate as had ever sailed the seas, and he spared no one—not even children.

  On the day that he captured the Maria Louisa, he keelhauled the navigator, Harry Douglas, just for sport and would have tortured the others, too, except that a storm was coming. He contented himself with hog-tying the entire crew with a single rope, claiming they were “not worth two,” and then he hurled them overboard. Tied together, Crawley’s men sank like stones. Captain Dire sailed away on the captured Maria Louisa.

  But in a strange twist of fate, Dire himself died, less than three months later, of food poisoning. Most of his crew, having shared the same tainted beef, died with him.

  Lewis closed the book and took a deep breath. A smile crept across his face.

  He was right! Crawley wasn’t the awful, wicked criminal he claimed to be.

  Gentleman Jim!

  Lewis grinned and jumped up, ready to take the book straight to the pirates. He would read it out loud to them. What would Crawley say?

  He was halfway up the stairs, when he stopped. After all these years, what difference did it make?

  He carried the book to his father’s office. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” said Mr. Dearborn. “About Gentleman Jim.”

  Lewis laughed.

  His father gave him a quizzical look. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” said Lewis. “Nothing.”

  He waited till he was in the hall to laugh again. He laughed for a long time, muffling the sound with his hands.

  At school that afternoon, Lewis could feel the kids staring. But it felt okay.

  “Hey, Dearborn,” said Justin at recess. “You always eat that way in your house?”

  Lewis thought about the sautéed kidneys he had left on his plate a week earlier. “No,” he said. “Not always.”

  “Did you bring any leftover desserts?”

  “Just one.” Lewis realized suddenly that he should have brought more. “A lemon tart. Do you want it?”

  Justin shook his head. “Nah, you keep it. If there’s just one.”

  It wasn’t a big thing, talking to Justin. And it wasn’t a big thing when, a little later, Olivia asked where he’d gotten the ship in the bottle. But something in Lewis that had been tight as a fist felt a little bit looser. They had come to his house. They had seen everything—well, almost everything—and they hadn’t mocked or sneered.

  The next day, Seth returned.

  Lunch hour was almost over, and Lewis was finishing a granola bar in the schoolyard, when it came—a sharp poke in his side, right where the bruise had been.

  He didn’t move.

  “Hey, Lewissssssser. You’re standing in my square again.”

  Stepping in front of Lewis, Seth leaned in so close, their faces almost touched. Seth’s skin was tight, flushed a hot red. The other guys weren’t with him. Lewis suddenly wanted those other guys.

  “So what, Dearborn? You think you’re so great now? Even MORE special, with your big house and your ape-man bodyguard? Think I’m scared?”

  Seizing Lewis by the hair, Seth forced his head down. “See? This square here! Take a good look. MINE!” He gave Lewis a shove. “MOVE!”

  Lewis lurched backward, but remained in the square. It wasn’t that he planned to stay there. His body just hadn’t figured out where to go.

  “You’re mean!” said a voice, coming from waist-high.

  Lewis glanced down. Two little girls were standing to his right. They looked like kindergartners. One of them, wearing round red glasses that had slid halfway down her nose, was glaring at Seth.

  “It’s not your square,” she told him.

  Seth grunted. “Bug off, kid.”

  “You bug off.” She pushed the glasses higher on her nose. The lenses were thick and covered in fingerprints. Her eyes swam like minnows behind them.

  “MOVE, Dearborn!” ordered Seth again.

  “It’s a free world!” said the girl, plopping her fists on her hips.

  As Lewis looked down, a laugh bubbled up in his throat. The little girl was so fierce. He wasn’t sure why this struck him as hilarious—why so many things were suddenly striking him as hilarious—but there was no way to stop the laughter that was rising in his chest like lava in a volcano. It rolled out, getting bigger and louder every second.

  “Last warning, Dearborn,” muttered Seth.

  The little girl clamped her lips together. Taking two quick steps, she joined Lewis inside the square.

  “There!” she told Seth.

  The other little girl, watching all this, let out a giggle. Then she stepped into the square, too. Now there were three of them—Lewis and two little girls he’d never seen before. This struck him as funnier than ever. He was howling now. A crowd was gathering.

  “MOVE!” yelled Seth.

  Suddenly, the small square got even more crowded as a fourth body stepped inside. A tall one.

  Abbie.

  A long moment followed during which nobody moved. Lewis was still gasping a last few laughs.

  “What’s going on here?” It was Mrs. Reber.

  The girl with the glasses pointed at Seth. “He’s being mean.”

  Mrs. Reber turned to Seth, but he was already loping away. “Okay, everyone, lunch is over. Bell’s about to go.”

  Lewis spent his afternoon in a daze. No matter how often he replayed the schoolyard scene, he came no closer to understanding what had happened.

  Abbie caught up as he walked home from school. “Good trick with Seth!” she said. “It worked.”

  “What trick?”

  “The laughing.”

  Lewis shoo
k his head. “It wasn’t a trick.”

  “Who are the little girls?”

  Picturing their upturned faces, Lewis grinned. “I don’t know!”

  They walked on in silence.

  When Abbie spoke again, it was in a whisper. “So where were the you-know-whos? When we visited your house?”

  “The pirates?”

  “No, the mice. Of course, the pirates! Were they behind the red door?”

  “They were … around. Yeah, that’s where they come from—behind the red door. But they seem to like my room the best.”

  Abbie grunted. “Who wouldn’t? You only have the best room in the world.”

  “I do?” Of course, he knew it, but he didn’t expect it of other people.

  “Are you kidding? Your own tower?”

  He smiled. But the smile faded as he remembered that soon the tower wouldn’t be there. The whole house wouldn’t be there.

  “So,” said Abbie, “have you finished Treasure Island yet?”

  “Not yet. We’re on chapter 26.”

  “Hey, I’m almost caught up.”

  They walked on in silence.

  “Must be fun,” said Abbie, “reading it to real pirates. Seeing how they react, I mean. Knowing they actually lived like that.”

  “It is fun,” said Lewis, thinking for the first time how different it would be to read Treasure Island alone. Glancing sideways, he caught the wistful look on Abbie’s face.

  “Would you like to read with us?” He blurted it without thinking.

  “Really?” She beamed like a sunrise. “You and the pirates?”

  “I’d have to ask them, of course. I don’t know how they’d feel. But you’ve already met Captain Crawley, so I don’t see why—”

  “Oh, Lewis!” Suddenly, she was hugging him. Her thin arms wrapped tightly around his neck, and her hair brushed his nose. It smelled like lemons.

  Just as quickly, she stepped away. “Do you think I could? Really? When?”

  Lewis was still flustered by the hug. “Well … I don’t know … I’ll ask them and—”

  “Doesn’t matter. Any time. Oh, Lewis!”

  He thought she was going to hug him again, but she hugged herself instead.

  “Will you ask the pirates right away?”