The Pirate Code

by Heidi Schulz

  The relative substance of the ship wasn’t the biggest surprise. Standing at the wheel was a man—one made not of moonlight, but of flesh and bone, and one whom Jocelyn hadn’t expected to see again.

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “So. You survived, then?”

  Jocelyn couldn’t decide whether to be angry with the man for his past duplicity or grateful for the rescue. She settled on what was likely to most annoy him: smugness. “Pleasure to see you again, Gentleman Starkey.”

  Starkey’s ship was a marvel and a curiosity. The entire craft, from timbers to topmast, shone with a flickering light, not unlike that of a firefly. The deck under Jocelyn’s feet hummed and pulsed with some faint energy, and when she breathed in, the girl caught a scent like the air after a lightning strike. The ship did not fly a pirate flag. Indeed, no flag at all hung from its mast. And it appeared to be outfitted more for fishing than for sea battles. Nets, woven together from threads of starlight, hung over the sides, dragging the water in the silvery path.

  Evie, Roger, and the rest of the crew spread out along the deck, curious about the ship’s operations. The reflected light painted them all in pale, ghostly hues. Jocelyn stayed near Starkey at his place behind the wheel, the vantage point of the poop deck making it easy to see all that was happening. As she watched, a crew of men began hauling in their catch: a net filled with faintly luminous, wriggling creatures.

  “What—” Jocelyn began, almost succeeding in keeping the wonder from her voice.

  Starkey huffed loudly, interrupting the girl, somehow conveying leagues of impatience in a singular puff of air. “Here we go with the questions. You won’t rest until you’ve had them all out, then, will you?” He huffed again. “I’ll answer you, but only to pass the time. Don’t for a moment fool yourself into thinking I am enjoying your company.”

  “Nor I yours,” Jocelyn said. “I was merely going to ask what kind of ship this is.”

  He gestured to the netting. “It’s a fishing boat, of sorts. We sail the moonlight river, catching electrical eels. That’s how I had the misfortune to come upon you. Your shipwreck was clogging up my path.”

  Jocelyn raised an eyebrow. “Truly?”

  The man glowered at the girl. “Yes, truly,” he mimicked in a high-pitched voice. His imitation of whiny childspeak was spot-on. “I didn’t come looking for you, if that’s what you are thinking. Certainly, I saw Krueger sail into the harbor with your broken ship, and I did indeed hear his men talking about abandoning you out here at the ships’ graveyard, but I didn’t care. Why should I? I’ve had enough of the company of children to last me a lifetime. And I don’t feel bad about going back on my word when we met before.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “If anything, I came to see if Smee survived. He owes me money.”

  Jocelyn shook her head, clearly disbelieving the man—though he was most certainly telling the truth. A feeling of satisfaction thick as the morning mist rolled off her. Starkey scowled and changed the subject. “At any rate, we were talking about the eels. They only swim in this particular current here, you see.”

  The fishermen on the deck below swiftly picked the strange fish from the net, dropping their snakelike bodies into an open hatch.

  “Is there a market for eel meat on the Neverland?” Jocelyn asked.

  The man snorted, taking his turn at being smug. “We don’t eat them,” he said. “We milk them—rather, we take them to an eel-lectrical plant on the shore and have them milked. The plant bottles it for us, and we ship the bottles to the mainland and sell it by the pound. People there can’t get enough of it. Like bottled lightning, it is. They use it to power horseless carriages and candleless lanterns.”

  “Horseless carriages! That would be a sight.” Jocelyn had seen a lot of fantastical things on the Neverland, but as before, she found his claims hard to believe.

  Starkey prodded her on. “I know you aren’t finished yet. I can smell the questions on you. What else?”

  “I was going to ask if this were your ship.”

  “If this was my ship,” he corrected. “Grammar is important, girl. And no, it isn’t exactly mine, though I was hired on as captain.”

  Jocelyn remembered that Starkey had once been a schoolmaster. She renewed her dislike of the man. “I thought you were anxious to get back to pirating,” she asked, a slight trace of mockery flavoring her words.

  He scowled at her. “I tried to get on with a crew out of the pirate village, but no one is hiring. That devil Krueger has everyone squeezed tight, forcing them to surrender all the gold they take. It’s hard for a captain to pay a full crew and earn a decent living on silver and jewels alone. Most ships are running with skeleton crews.” He put on what must have been his teacher voice. “Those aren’t crews made of skeletons, you simpleton, but—”

  Jocelyn pulled herself to her full height. “I know what a skeleton crew is. I’m not a mere child. I’m a pirate captain, which is more than I can say for you.”

  “Perhaps, but only one of us has command of a ship now, as you can see. I may not be pirating, which is a shame, but I am captain of this here vessel. That’s something I can be proud of.”

  Jocelyn ignored his comment. There was really only one thing more she wanted to talk with him about. She was sure to learn what she needed once she found the portrait on the Jolly Roger, but on the small chance the key wasn’t there, Jocelyn wanted all the information she could get. “Tell me what you know of the map.”

  He refused to even look at her. “I won’t.”

  “Not even if telling me could get you back on a pirate ship?”

  “I’ve no desire to sail under you. Besides, we’ve already established that you have no ship.”

  “I’m not offering to take you on, but if I were to defeat Krueger, the pirate village would no longer be under his tyranny. The gold would flow through it again, and—”

  “And the local economy would recover.”

  “If you say so. I was going to say that more pirate jobs would become available.”

  “What is your plan for defeating Krueger?”

  “He has taken my map. I intend to beat him to where it leads and set up a surprise attack, defeating him just as I did the Neverland’s crocodile.” She gave the man what she surely thought was a winning smile. “As interesting as this ship is, you are no fisherman. You are a pirate. Tell me where the map leads.”

  “I have made a blood oath.”

  “Oaths can be broken. Someone once told me to never trust a pirate.”

  The barest trace of a grin grew on his face. “So you know how to listen, do you?”

  “When it suits me. Now tell me. The Neverland has changed so much since the time the map was penned, no one recognizes it.”

  “That’s because it’s not on the Neverland. That spot of land it shows is back home in good old England.”

  Jocelyn started in surprise. “England? Where in England?”

  “In a series of caves. They’re filled with booby traps and I don’t know how to get around them—you’ll still need to solve the code to discover that—but I do know where the caves are.”

  “Go on,” Jocelyn prodded.

  He cleared his throat. “The caves are under a school. Or at least under the site where the school used to be. There was a fire there years ago, burning the school to the ground. It was rebuilt nearer the road, and all that stands above the caves now is an abandoned carriage house.”

  Carriage house?

  Jocelyn’s mouth went dry. She had to swallow twice before she could ask her next question. “What…what is the name of this school?”

  “You know the name of the school. If I’m not mistaken, and I never am, you were a student there yourself, just as your mother before you.”

  Jocelyn thought back to the drawing on the map. The coastline, the creek…it had always seemed vaguely familiar. She had been so sure the treasure was on the Neverland that she hadn’t been able to see what should have been so plain.

  A
ll that time she had spent in the carriage house, and her father’s treasure had been right under her feet. That couldn’t be a coincidence. He must have put it there for her! Surely he would have left another key to solving the code—a spare key, if you will—there as well! She could just go home and—

  But…

  The thought hit her like a bucket of cold water to the face. She couldn’t go home, not as long as Evie was determined to stay on the Neverland. Unless Evie changed her mind, Jocelyn could never go home again, and the treasure would be lost to her forever.

  After revealing the whereabouts of Hook’s treasure, Starkey refused to speak any more about it. He claimed that it was past the children’s bedtime and ushered Jocelyn, Roger, and Evie belowdecks to sleep in the crew’s quarters. The crew was allowed to stay up and help with the fishing because they were adults, of a sort.

  Normally, Jocelyn would have refused to be treated like a child, but she wanted some time to talk to Evie without the crew around to hear. Still, she gave Starkey her fiercest glare and pretended to be unimpressed as he lit a candleless lantern above their heads. The man scowled and made a hasty retreat to rejoin the grown-ups.

  When he was gone, Evie asked Jocelyn, “Which hammock do you prefer? Upper or lower?”

  It was just the opening Jocelyn needed. “That reminds me of a game,” she said, climbing to the upper hammock. She lay there, looking up at the ceiling. “Shall we play a bit before we go to sleep?”

  “I like games,” Roger said, choosing a bed across from the girls. “How do you play?”

  Jocelyn pushed off from the wall, making her hammock swing. “It’s easy. We simply take turns asking each other questions about the things we would prefer.” She pushed off from the wall again. “I’ll begin.” She cleared her throat. “Answer this: Which would you prefer? To never eat sweets again, or eat only sweets for the rest of your life?”

  “Oh, that’s easy.” Evie said. “Only sweets. I rather wish that one were true.” Even though Jocelyn wasn’t looking at her, she could hear the smile in the girl’s voice. “How about you, Roger?”

  “Does fruit count as sweets?” he asked.

  “No,” Jocelyn said. “Only things like pudding and pastries.”

  “Oh, that makes it tougher. I suppose I’d have to say no sweets. How could I ever walk through an apple orchard and not be allowed to eat some? That would be torture!”

  Evie laughed. “You could always pick them and have them made into pies.”

  “Good point,” Jocelyn said. “Why don’t you go next, Roger, since you didn’t consider that.”

  “All right, let me think…” He paused a moment. Jocelyn heard him scratching his head, thinking. “I’ve got one. Would you prefer to walk backward everywhere you went, or ride a goat?”

  “Ride a goat? What kind of question is that?” Jocelyn giggled and Evie joined in.

  Roger stuck out his foot and gave Jocelyn’s hammock a push, setting it swinging again. “I don’t know. I panicked!” he said, laughing at himself.

  Evie pushed his hammock, in defense of her friend. Jocelyn was about to reach down and push Evie’s, but she thought better of it. A hammock war would be fun, but she needed to keep at the game for a bit longer. “Why don’t you take a turn, Evie, and show Roger how it’s done?” she asked.

  Evie knew her question right away. “Would you prefer to belch all your words or never speak again?”

  “How’s this for a reply?” Jocelyn asked. She and Roger answered in unison: “Buuuuuurrrrrrp!”

  It was several minutes before they settled down enough to continue the game.

  “Ask another, Jocelyn,” Evie said.

  It was the moment the girl had been waiting for, but she pretended to think it over. “Would you prefer to live a long life, but not very happily, or die before you get very old? I mean, you’d still be old, but not very. Perhaps in your twenties.” She stole a glance at Roger. He was watching Evie.

  “My twenties may as well be a hundred years away,” Evie said, “they seem so far off. Would I be happy up until that time?”

  “I think so, for the most part. You would fall in love and have a family, but you would have some heartbreak, too,” Jocelyn answered honestly. “On the other hand, if you lived to be old, you wouldn’t have your heart broken, but you would feel like you’d left your true self behind somewhere else. You would spend your life looking for it.”

  “What do you think, Roger?” Evie asked.

  “I think I’d rather hear what you think.”

  “I think that is an oddly specific question for the game, but I’ll answer: I’d rather die early after truly living.”

  That was what Jocelyn had both hoped and feared Evie would say.

  Starting the next day, Jocelyn would begin her plan to convince Evie to go home.

  Mr. Smee roused Jocelyn, Roger, and Evie before dawn the next morning, after reaching the end of the moonlight river. Starkey had brought his boat to a section of unoccupied beach, far from the pirate village, surely more for his own convenience than out of any concern for Jocelyn’s safety. He barely looked at her as she prepared to leave, giving only an annoyed wave of his hand by way of farewell. Jocelyn returned the sentiment with a loud yawn in his direction.

  I like to think it was a bonding moment for the two of them.

  After disembarking, Jocelyn gathered her friends and crew around her. “Well, men—and Evie,” she said, “yesterday was difficult. I won’t deny that. But we prevailed!” She chose not to mention that this was mostly due to coincidence and luck. It was likely no one wanted to hear that anyway. She continued her speech. “Now that we are back on the island, we can set our sights on reclaiming what has been taken from us!”

  “How can we do that, Cap’n?” Dirty Bob asked. “We don’t even have a ship.”

  “What if I told you we could use my father’s ship, the famed Jolly Roger?”

  Most of the crew broke out into applause at the very idea. Bob did not clap, but there was a light in his eyes, an excitement Jocelyn hadn’t seen before. She decided to give everyone something more to look forward to. “And finding the Roger won’t just give us a ship,” she said. “It also contains the key to Hook’s map.”

  “But Cap’n?” One-Armed Jack raised his hand, or rather, his whisk. “We don’t have the map. What good will the key do?”

  “Everyone knows that aboard the Jolly Roger is the largest and deadliest cannon ever forged. We’ll use Captain Hook’s legendary Long Tom to blast that devil Krueger out of the water; then we’ll rescue Meriwether and take back my map.” Jocelyn raised her sword dramatically. “Victory and the treasure are both within our grasp! Believe it, men. We won’t let anything stand in our way.”

  The crew cheered wildly. Mr. Smee was overcome with weeping.

  “There is just one small detail,” Jocelyn went on, quieter than before. “We don’t exactly know where the Jolly Roger is.” Before the men’s joy could turn to dismay, she hurried to explain. “But we know who does! It’s…” Jocelyn mumbled the name.

  “What’s that, Captain?” One-Armed Jack placed his whisk to his ear. “I didn’t quite catch that. Pebble Ann?”

  Blind Bart leaned in close to the girl. “Even with my superior hearing, I couldn’t decipher your words. Dieter Graham?”

  “No. I’m sure she said ‘partridge hen.’ We’ll need to ask a bird, right, Captain?” Nubbins asked. “Somebody grab the parrot.”

  “Wrong.” Jocelyn sighed. “I said we’ll need to ask…Peter Pan.”

  “That’s what we planned all along, ain’t it, Captain?” Mr. Smee asked. “Do you want me to write up a ransom letter now?”

  “Ransom letter? Of course. I almost forgot I was your prisoner.” Evie spoke bravely, though disappointment was evident on her face. “I had begun to feel like a regular part of the crew.”

  “Evie, you don’t have to go back to Peter,” Jocelyn said.

  “I don’t? That’s wonderful news!” The
older girl’s eyes sparkled.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Roger intently watching the conversation unfold. She forged on. “No. You can go home.”

  “What? Why?” A frown creased the girl’s brow. “I already told you, I’m not going back. Have I done something to upset you?”

  “Not exac—”

  Evie never heard what Jocelyn was going to say, for she didn’t get a chance to finish. At that moment, Peter Pan and his lost boys attacked, running pell-mell out of the trees and onto the beach, their faces smeared with crudely drawn war designs in mud and berry juice, screaming, “Victory for our mother!”

  Or rather, the lost boys attacked. Peter, and his irksome fairy, flew above, shouting instructions. Lost boys and pirates quickly paired up for battle. Even little Tully did his part, nearly incapacitating Blind Bart with a string of screeched curses. The poor man covered his ears and moaned.

  Only Dirty Bob stood apart, arms folded across his chest and a sneer upon his face, refusing to join in. When one of the twins rushed at him, short sword drawn, Bob deflected him with a scowl. “Hook may have felt it worth his time to fight children,” he said, “but I’m more of a traditionalist.” The boy turned sadly away, clearly stung by the rejection.

  With the exception of those two, the pirates and lost boys were having a marvelous time. Evie took in the scene, grinning wildly. “It’s frightfully exciting, isn’t it?” she asked Jocelyn. “So long as no one really gets hurt.”

  Jocelyn raised an eyebrow. “Oh, but someone might,” she said. “You never know how things may go on the Neverland. It’s not civilized here at all. Not like at home.”

  “That is for certain.” The older girl’s eyes shone with what Jocelyn hoped was dread but feared was delight. “Which side should I fight on? Am I with you, or with Peter?”

  Jocelyn pictured Evie being injured or even killed. Still, she knew that Evie would never consent to sit and watch. The only way to ensure her safety was for Jocelyn to protect her. “You’re with me, but stay close. We fight together!”