The announcement hit Jem like a blow to the head. He hadn’t thought to check on the map since they’d returned from Island X.
“Who . . . who knew about this?” Scarlet wrenched herself out of Jem’s grasp and turned to the rest of her crew. “WHO KNEW?”
No one answered, no hands were raised.
“Lucas only told me,” Gil said. “Look, I’m not happy about this, either. When Lucas stole the map, he said that when we mutinied, I could expect a big slice of the booty. And now I won’t see a speck of it.”
Jem caught Scarlet’s arms again before they could wrestle Gil into a headlock. He almost didn’t, though, tempted to let the little traitor pay.
“What are we going to do?” Ronagh asked, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
Jem looked around at a sea of dejected charcoal-coated faces. Within a few minutes they’d gone from lively pirates to, well, lost souls. He could tell they were seconds away from giving up completely.
“We’re going to go. To the treasure. Right now.” As soon as the words escaped his mouth, Jem wondered where they’d come from. But he didn’t take them back.
“Fitz, are you crazy?” Edwin said. “Lucas has our map and a gang of grown-up pirates on his side. We can’t compete with that.”
“Wait,” Scarlet spoke up, wriggling out of Jem’s hold. She looked at him as if he’d just invented a long drop that cleaned itself. “Jem’s right. We’re going, anyway. We’ve got to.”
“But we’ve got no map!” someone yelled.
“Then we’ll try to remember the way,” Scarlet shot back.
“Their ship’s faster than ours!” another pirate protested.
“If we get a head start, we might beat them,” Scarlet said.
“They’re bigger than us!” Ronagh said.
“We’re smarter,” Jem returned, and a few Lost Souls dared to giggle.
Scarlet nodded. “By the time the pirates reach Island X, we’ll be waiting onshore to scare them off.”
The pirates began to murmur among themselves. “But how?” one asked. “What if Lucas has already told them we’re only children? They won’t be scared of us.”
Scarlet paused for a moment. “Then it’s time for us to be real pirates,” she said. “It’s time for us to show them, and ourselves, that we’re more than just children.”
“We are?” Ronagh had to ask.
“What do you mean, ‘We are?’ We can pillage with the best of ’em. Swig could sail blindfolded in the fog, and Liam’s sneer’ll make your heart stop. We’ve got a ship that’s never let us down. I’d say we’re some of the best pirates around, of any age, and it’s time we face these old sea swabs and conquer them.”
The murmurs grew louder, and the crowd of Lost Souls began to wiggle and sway. Jem felt their energy swelling, and he decided that now would be the perfect time to prove their faith in their captain.
“All right then,” he said. “Let’s put it to a vote. All who want to stand behind Captain McCray and prove that children can be pirates, too, raise your hands.”
Scarlet shot him a look of panic, but it was too late. Her status as captain had been challenged outright. Again.
The first hands in the air belonged to Smitty, Tim, Ronagh, Liam, and of course Jem. Then a few other hands shot up out of their cloaks. Followed by a few more. The night sky was already full of quivering fingers when Gil stood up to add his to the scene. His friends, seeing this, quickly added theirs.
Jem counted twenty-two hands, including his own. “Right then.” Relieved, he gave Scarlet a grin. Then he yelled, in his most piratelike voice, “To Island X! Full speed ahead!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
This time, we’re gold.
This time, we know.
This time we mean business.
Come on, let’s go.
We’re off to find the treasure
And give it its rightful home.
The pirates might be
Close behind,
But we are determined
That we will find
Our precious mys’try treasure
And give it its rightful home.
To Island X,
Full sail, top speed,
Without even looking
behind, ’cause we
won’t leave without our treasure—
“Um, Smitty,” Jem interrupted Smitty’s latest impromptu chantey. “I think you’d better scrap that last verse.”
Smitty stopped and gave Jem an irritated look. “If you think you can do better, mate—”
“No, no. It’s just that I think we might . . . well . . . maybe we should look behind us.” He frowned at something beyond the poop deck.
Scarlet and Tim squinted in that direction from their position at the wheel. Something had appeared on the horizon where the darkness was giving way to a pale dawn.
“It’s a ship,” Tim commented.
“Really? I thought it was a sea monster,” Scarlet snapped. “Sorry,” she added quickly, trying to remain gracious under pressure. “But that’s not just any old ship.” She shivered. They’d started out for Island X a few hours ago, not long after their getaway from the Dark Ranger. If Lucas had wasted no time in explaining the situation to Captain Wallace, and if his new crew had set out after the treasure right away, then that speck on the horizon was, in all likelihood, the Dark Ranger. And that truly scuttled.
She didn’t have to say any of this out loud to her friends. They understood. “But how can we be sure it’s them?” Jem asked. He’d shed his black cloak but hadn’t bothered to wipe the coal dust off his face. No one had. They had more important things to do.
Smitty wriggled his eyebrows. “Just so happens I can help with that,” he said. “Take a look at what your uncle Quickfingers pinched from the Dark Ranger.” He disappeared down the stairs to the cabins, then reemerged moments later carrying a cylindrical leather case. Smitty tipped open the case. Out slid a shiny gold tube.
“A spyglass!” Tim cried. “And a fancy one, at that. Smitty, where’d you find this?”
Smitty shrugged. “In the captain’s quarters.”
Jem reached out and nabbed the spyglass from Smitty’s quick fingers. He looked at it the same way one might look at a lost spaniel that found its way home.
“It’s my uncle’s,” he said quietly.
Scarlet didn’t know what to say. Their raid had failed to turn up any sign of Uncle Finn. She hadn’t even had enough time to convince Captain Wallace to stop blubbering and tell her about the man’s whereabouts before the searchers’ unpleasant discovery forced them off the ship. “I’m sorry, Fitz,” she said.
Jem turned the tube over in his hands. “It’s all right.” He raised it to his eye and pointed it toward the growing blot on the horizon.
“What do you see?” Scarlet asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
Jem handed her the spyglass. “Look for yourself.”
She pressed one eye up to the glass and waited for her vision to adjust. When it did, she saw the unmistakable shape of a schooner rising and falling with the waves. She found its mainmast, then followed it up to the ship’s flag. It took her a moment to decipher the shape on the flag, but soon she recognized the profile of the Dread Pirate Captain Wallace Hammerstein-Jones flapping in the breeze. Scarlet rolled her eyes and handed the tube back to Jem. A sea monster would have been a much more welcome sight.
“It’s them,” she told her friends. “They’re following us.”
“Figures,” Tim muttered.
“How much longer till we get to Island X, Swig?” Scarlet asked.
“A good hour, I’d say,” he replied, gnawing on his lower lip. “They’re bound to close in on us before we get there.”
> Scarlet sighed. That blasted Lucas Lawrence. And to think she’d lost sleep worrying that a horde of wild pigs had ripped him limb from limb. If only it had. She should have keelhauled him herself while she had the chance. And worst of all, he’d taken their map! She punched her right fist into her left palm and shouted, “All hands on deck!”
In minutes, the Lost Souls all stood before her, casting nervous glances over their shoulders at the approaching schooner.
“All right, crew. We won’t have much time once we reach the shores of Island X, so let’s get organized now. We need to think of some way to scare off the pirates before they can get inland. We need a . . . a . . .”
“A preemptive strike,” Jem offered.
“Right. Or just a quick way to scare the trousers off ’em. Any ideas?”
The Lost Souls looked at one another and shrugged.
“I’ve got a jolly dagger.” Elmo held up his weapon.
“Ever used it, though?” Liam asked.
“Well, no. But it looks kind of deadly.”
“The Dark Ranger pirates have every weapon from the cutlass to the cannon,” Tim reminded him. “A dagger or two won’t exactly send them running.” The Lost Souls looked at their weapons in doubt.
“All right then.” Scarlet tried another tactic. “What’re pirates most afraid of?”
The crew fell silent again. Then Ronagh spoke up. “That’s easy. The islands. Remember Cutthroat MacPhee?”
“Cutthroat MacPhee. Hmmm . . .” Scarlet studied her cabinmate for a moment. “The islands. Hmmm . . .” Then she nodded. “That’s it, Ronagh. The islands. Exactly.”
From her perch in a sturdy tree where the beach met the jungle, Scarlet could see the Dark Ranger pirates rowing to shore. She gulped and lowered Jem’s uncle’s spyglass. There were probably fifty of them—more than twice the number of Lost Souls. Could they really pull this off? She raised the spyglass again.
The first boat held her two biggest nemeses, Lucas Lawrence and Captain Wallace. They were pointing and discussing something with two other men—Iron “Pete” Morgan, with the tight, red head scarf, whom she’d tied up on the Dark Ranger just hours ago, and a gigantic pirate with a face like a Saint Bernard. They were probably debating where best to enter Island X’s dark jungle and how to find the trail the Lost Souls had cut through it mere days ago. Or perhaps they were wondering where the Lost Souls had disappeared to after anchoring the Margaret’s Hop and rowing to shore. Scarlet hoped her crew was hidden well enough. She hugged the tree trunk and looked to her right, where Tim straddled his own branch. He winked back.
The Dark Ranger pirates kept their wary eyes on the trees as they sloshed through the shallows and up onto the beach. Most had their weapons drawn and ready. Scarlet gulped again and trained the spyglass on Lucas’s face. His expression was grim, but his furrowed forehead gave away his uncertainty. She hoped his conscience was killing him, the bilge rat.
“Thomas, out in front!” Captain Wallace yelled out. “Use your cutlass to clear the jungle and make way for the rest of us!”
The poor Saint Bernard looked like his master had just declared him fit to be put down, but he gripped his weapon and inched toward the trees. Lucas followed close behind.
“Almost there,” Scarlet whispered under her breath. “Almost there. And . . . now.”
The smallest Lost Souls, hiding in the bushes near the edge of the jungle, started up their chorus. First came Sam’s breathy moan, then a few eerie notes from Liam’s flute, followed by Ronagh’s cackling laughter. The pirates froze and exchanged glances, which turned from uneasy to terrified as a few other Lost Souls threw in some ghoulish shrieks. Thomas turned, ready to flee, but Captain Wallace, who’d been cowering in the big man’s shadow, stopped him with a slap to his chest.
“Don’t even think about it, Thomas. It’s . . . it’s just the wind. D-don’t tell me you’re af-f-fraid.”
Just then, Ronagh screamed like a banshee, and the captain nearly clambered into Thomas’s arms.
“It’s just them—the crew I told you about,” Lucas said with a scowl. “They’re trying to scare us. I know it. Keep going.”
So he did tell them after all, Scarlet thought. So much for the legend of the Lost Souls.
“S-someone else go first,” Thomas said. “Cap’n, you go. I think this is one of those islands.”
“What?” Captain Wallace took a step back. “I can’t go first. I . . . I get claustrophobic. Small spaces, you know.”
“Oh, I’ll go.” Lucas stepped up, looking disgusted. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Scarlet looked over at Tim and raised her hand in signal. Time for Phase Two of Operation: Petrify the Pirates.
She let Lucas pass underneath the tree, but when Captain Wallace’s head came into view below her, she lowered a long vine until it just tickled his scalp.
The man screamed. “Snakes! Oh God, I hate snakes!”
Behind him, Iron “Pete” Morgan yelped when Tim’s “snake” smacked his head scarf. Then all the Lost Souls hidden in the trees dropped their snake-vines at once, making the pirates duck and holler. Some, including Captain Wallace himself, started to run back toward the shore, but once again Lucas yelled for them to stop.
“They’re just vines, not snakes. What kind of pirates are you?”
“Just wait, Lucas Lawrence,” murmured Scarlet. “Time for Phase Three.” She gave the signal—a parrotlike squawk—and ten more Lost Souls burst out of the trees, roaring like wild beasts and waving their arms. Except they were no longer Lost Souls. In less than fifteen minutes, Jem and his crew had outfitted themselves in ferns of every shape and size, and smeared dirt all over their faces. They wielded long fern-swords and wore leaves in their knotty hair. Looking down on them, Scarlet decided they were the most convincing island fiends she could ever imagine.
Apparently, Captain Wallace and his pirates agreed. All at once, they turned and ran, hollering, back to their rowboats, with Thomas and the captain leading the way. Lucas ran with them but slowed to a jog when he reached the sand. Scarlet waited until he was a fair distance away to leap down from her perch onto the forest floor, where the island fiends were already slapping one another on the back and laughing.
“It worked!” Elmo turned a cartwheel.
“Did you see their faces?”
“We’ve got them on the run,” said Smitty.
“But not for long,” Scarlet added. “They’ll be back, and soon, if Lucas has anything to do with it.”
“What happens next, then?” Gil Jenkins asked. He’d been one of the island fiends, and in the excitement seemed to have forgotten his loyalty to the one who’d defected.
Over on the beach, Lucas, Captain Wallace, and Pete were all shouting and gesturing madly to the trees.
“I think we’re going to have to split up,” Scarlet said. “We’ll need one crew to stay and scare the pirates as long as they can and another crew to go on ahead to find the treasure.” She chose a group to accompany her and Jem on the treasure hunt and put the others in charge of scuttling Lucas’s plans. A few Lost Souls looked disappointed to be left behind, but most took up their posts with an air of importance. Scarlet instructed them to follow her trail only when the coast was clear.
“And may you die peacefully in your hammocks rather than . . .” She glanced toward the pirates. Now probably wasn’t the time. “Ah, forget it. Just go scare those scalawags silly.”
Then she turned to Jem, Tim, Smitty, Liam, and Ronagh, who awaited her direction. Together, they plunged into the jungle, back on the treasure trail.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The voice returned, not twenty steps into the jungle. It flooded Scarlet’s brain with moans and whispers and words she couldn’t decipher, yet again. She stopped and shook her head; she’d forgotten about
this part.
“What’s up?” Liam peered around her, probably expecting another angry monkey.
Scarlet almost told them all, right there. But she lost her nerve. What would she say, anyway? “There’s this creepy voice in my brain, see . . .”
“Nothing,” she said—a bit too forcefully, for Liam looked startled—then continued down the trail.
They moved faster this time, since the trail had been cut and trampled already. As they hiked, they reminded one another not to touch the trees, make eye contact with the animals, or look up at the poisonous canopy.
But Jem, still wearing his island fiend costume of ferns and dirt, kept glancing behind. And they hadn’t been walking for more than twenty minutes when he uttered a foreboding, “Oh no.”
“Don’t like the sound of that, mate,” Smitty commented without turning around. He hiked in a similar outfit, with a wig of curly ferns cascading down his back.
“They’re coming,” Jem said in a shaky voice. “Look.”
The others turned. Sure enough, Scarlet saw a flash of red not fifty yards back down the trail and heard the shing of a cutlass through some ferns.
“Oh no.” Tim could only echo Jem’s reaction.
“Run” was the only solution Scarlet could come up with. “As fast as you can. We’ll try to lose them.”
They didn’t stop running until they reached the point at which the trail began to climb, where they paused to catch their breath.
“Think we lost ’em?” Ronagh panted.
“Doubt it. The trail’s easy to follow, and even if they’re stupid enough to lose it, they’ve got our map,” Tim said.
Scarlet looked up at the switchbacks that rose above them, remembering the unpleasant climb. But at least it wasn’t raining. Yet.
They scampered on, up the mountainside, over fallen trees, under vines that reached for them like tentacles, mindful of the millipedes that pattered along the amber earth and of every rustle in every bush. Scarlet took to chanting, “Shut up, shut up,” to the voice that plagued her brain, but it only got louder the higher they climbed.
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