Hunt for the Panther 3 (9781101610923)

by Delaney, Rachelle; Guerlais, Gerald (ILT)

  There was an awkward pause, then Cecily spoke up again. “Oh, excuse poor Scarlet, Father,” she said, her lips pressed into a tight, vengeful line. “She goes to an island school where they aren’t taught real manners.”

  “You little—” Scarlet began.

  “Miss Scarlet!” Ben cried, then lowered his voice. “Y-you were about to tell us about your favorite class at school.” His eyes pleaded her to say something that made sense.

  “Oh, that’s right.” Cecily smiled. “Pray tell, what is it, Scarlet?”

  “Well.” Scarlet cleared her throat and tried hard to remember classes that Jem had mentioned taking. “I do enjoy… cartology.”

  She heard her father sigh.

  “Cartology?” Cecily repeated. “Don’t you mean cartography? The study of maps?”

  Blast. “No,” Scarlet said. “I mean cartology. The study of… carts.”

  “Scarlet’s school,” Admiral McCray spoke up, “focuses on… transportation.”

  “Really?” Mrs. Humphries asked, looking at Scarlet as if she’d just noticed her third eye.

  “Really?” Cecily’s curls bounced suspiciously. Scarlet imagined how satisfying it would be to snip them right off, one at a time.

  “That sounds terribly interesting,” said Josephine. “How very… progressive for a school to teach girls about… transportation.”

  “Yes,” Scarlet agreed, unsure what progressive meant or why the flotsam her cousin was trying to help her. She bet Josephine and Cecily would get along splendidly. “It is.”

  After that, she made a good effort to hold her tongue and concentrate on not spilling anything. And eventually, dinner came to an end. The grown-ups stood up and moved to the sitting room to discuss how lucrative Humphries’s plantation was.

  “Miss Scarlet,” Ben spoke up before she could follow. “I think there’s a book in the library you might find interesting. It’s about carts,” he added. “Big ones, small ones, ones with… wheels.”

  “Oh!” Scarlet stopped. “Good. I do love a good book about carts.”

  “I’ll come, too.” Cecily stood up, smoothing out her skirt. Scarlet rolled her eyes.

  “But I was hoping you could show me the collection of hair clips you mentioned earlier,” Josephine said. “It sounds wonderful.”

  “Oh.” Cecily looked from Josephine to Ben to Scarlet. “Well, all right. It’s upstairs. We’ll just be a few minutes,” she added to Ben.

  “Take your time,” he told her, and she tossed Scarlet a tiny glare.

  Safe inside the library, Ben shut the door, then turned to face her, hands on hips. “All right, McCray, what the flotsam are you doing?”

  She opened her mouth to answer, but he went on.

  “Why aren’t you with the crew? And when did you leave them for your father?”

  “I didn’t leave them for my father,” she snapped. “How could you think that? I’d never leave the crew. Not like some people,” she added, for she’d had quite enough of being bullied by… by landlubbers!

  Ben flinched, then gritted his teeth. “And yet, here you are.” He spread his arms wide.

  “Not because I want to be,” she retorted. “This is only for a few weeks. Trust me, I’d never set foot on a plantation if I had a choice.” She glared daggers at him.

  Ben tossed them right back. “There’s a new pirate captain out there, you know. He’s planning to take over the entire tropics. They call him—”

  “The Rebel,” Scarlet finished. “And I call him Lucas Lawrence.”

  Ben’s mouth fell open, and Scarlet rejoiced at having one-upped him. “Lucas?”

  “None other,” she replied. “And don’t worry, we’re taking care of it.” That last part wasn’t true, of course, but she couldn’t have him thinking she needed his advice.

  Ben sat down in an armchair, looking dizzy. “I heard… I heard he was getting a new ship. And calling it the Panther.”

  She shrugged, not particularly caring what Lucas decided to call his ship. She still wasn’t done with Ben. “You don’t need to tell me anything, Hodgins,” she said. “I’m still living my mission. I haven’t abandoned ship.”

  He looked as if she’d hit him, and for a moment she almost felt bad. Then she remembered one more thing.

  “And while we’re on the topic, why don’t you come clean? Does your plantation keep slaves or not?”

  Deep down, she hadn’t really believed it possible. Ben, her former captain, managing slaves?

  So when his face clouded over again, and he stared at the floor, her mouth fell wide open.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Just then the door opened, and in walked Humphries, followed by Uncle Daniel and Admiral McCray.

  “Ben! Scarlet!” Humphries looked surprised. “What are you doing in here?”

  There was a long pause, then Ben said, “Looking for a book.” He turned around to browse the books on the shelf before taking one down and handing it to Scarlet. “About carts. To help Scarlet’s… schooling.”

  Scarlet looked at the cover. A Young Lady’s Guide to Embroidery. Not even close. But she couldn’t say anything. She was still reeling at what she’d just learned.

  Humphries gave them an odd look, then shrugged and walked over to his desk. “Daniel and John and I were just having a fascinating conversation. Did you know, Ben, that John was married to an Islander at one point? An Islander! Can you believe it?”

  Scarlet relieved Ben of her dagger glare and turned it on Humphries instead.

  Ben looked from Humphries to John, then back at Scarlet, and she suddenly realized that she’d never told him about her past. Back then, she’d barely remembered it herself.

  “I see.” Ben frowned. “I’m sorry for your loss, Admiral McCray.”

  Her father acknowledged him with a nod. He looked tired, Scarlet noted. Talking to Humphries for hours probably had that effect on everyone.

  Humphries pulled a pipe out of a desk drawer and lit it. “It just astounds me, John, that you would have left port to live in the wilds of some island with those people. Did you actually go barefoot? And wear leaves for clothing?” He laughed. “What a fascinating life you must have led.”

  The back of Scarlet’s neck began to tingle, as if somewhere out there, Voodoo Miranda was sticking pins into a wax doll with her name on it. The admiral pressed his lips together and didn’t answer.

  “They were indeed fascinating people,” echoed Uncle Daniel. “And such a tragic story. The Islanders knew everything about plant cures, didn’t they? To think, all that knowledge died with them.”

  “The Islanders’ demise was tragic for more reasons than that,” Scarlet pointed out, and her father’s eyes flicked over to her. But he didn’t even bother reprimanding her.

  And anyway, Humphries didn’t seem to hear. He pointed his pipe at Uncle Daniel. “I never thought of it like that.”

  Uncle Daniel nodded. “There are so many undiscovered medicines in the jungle. There might well be something in there that could cure the plague back home.”

  Something that could have cured his wife, Scarlet thought. Then another thought occurred to her: And maybe keep his daughter safe, too. Maybe that was why Uncle Daniel was so afraid for Josephine’s health.

  Humphries puffed on his pipe. “Interesting,” he said slowly. “Can you imagine how much money one could make off a cure like that? I bet it would be a lucrative business.”

  Scarlet gagged, then tried to cover it with a cough.

  “Scarlet?” Uncle Daniel turned to her. “Are you all right?”

  “No,” she replied between gritted teeth. “No, I’m not feeling so well. I bet it was the soup.”

  “Would you like to go home now, Scarlet?” asked her father, who obviously wanted to be there himself.

  She nodded. “Please.”

  “Well, that’s unfortunate,” said Humphries. “We’ll have to continue this conversation another time. I’ll have the butler fetch the girls.”


  Scarlet avoided Ben’s eyes as they filed back out to the carriage and drove away. Her brain still reeled at her latest discovery—that her former captain now worked for someone who kept slaves.

  Don’t think about it, she told herself. It doesn’t matter. She had bigger things to think about than a family of Old Worlders who thought themselves better than everyone else. If she never saw any of them again, it would be too soon.

  “How’s this?” Liam clapped both halves of a coconut shell together.

  “Good,” said Jem. He shook the gourd he’d hollowed out and filled with seeds. “Kapu?”

  Seated on the jungle floor beside them, Kapu held up his own noisemaker—several wooden pipes that hung from a block of wood and made a hollow chiming sound when shaken.

  The boys played their noisemakers all at once, as loud as they could.

  “All right, already!” Tim yelled from his seat in the tree above their heads. “You’re giving me a headache.”

  Jem set his instrument down and looked up at the quartermaster, who still hadn’t recovered from Uncle Finn stealing the Hop the day before. “How’s the wire coming?” he called.

  “Almost done. Keep your trousers on,” Tim grumbled. A moment later, he jumped down to the ground. “There.”

  Jem stood and squinted up at the trap they’d created thanks to Kapu’s creative thinking. They’d installed it on the narrowest part of the path, so the panther would have to pass over it on his way to the tree houses. A trip wire on the ground would set off the noisemakers in the tree, effectively scaring the beast away. “Think it’ll work?”

  Tim shrugged. “You think your uncle will be back today?”

  Jem sighed. “I don’t know, Swig. If not today, probably tomorrow.” Of course, he had no idea when Uncle Finn would be back with the Hop. And frankly, the ship’s absence hadn’t made much difference to anyone except Tim—they had no plans to go to port until Scarlet was ready to come home, and that wouldn’t be for another few weeks. But that kind of logic would only make the quartermaster even grouchier. So he left it at that.

  “It’s just…” Tim took off his spectacles and wiped them on his shirt. “I’m worried he’s not treating her right. Her wheel needs a special touch, and I’m sure Uncle Finn doesn’t have it. See, sometimes she lists to starboard, and—”

  “Blimey, Swig,” Liam cut in. “Quit worrying. I’m sure Uncle Finn knows how to steer a ship.”

  “I’m not!” Tim pushed his spectacles back on and glared at Liam. “He’s a scientist, not a navigator. And… and he just had no right to take her!” He turned his glare on Jem.

  Jem took a deep breath and counted to five. “Swig,” he said for perhaps the tenth time in two days, “if I’d known he was going to take the Hop, I would have stopped him. But I didn’t know, any more than you did. And there’s nothing we can do now except wait until he gets back.”

  “If he gets back,” Tim said darkly. He turned and marched away.

  Jem rolled his eyes and turned back to Liam and Kapu. “All right. Let’s add these to the collection up there.” He pointed to the cluster of noisemakers already suspended from Tim’s wire.

  “Kapu!” Smitty came running through the trees, emerging breathless beside them. “Kapu! I heard the news! Is she all right?”

  “What news?” Jem and Liam turned from Smitty to Kapu. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Sina,” Smitty panted. “She’s… sick.”

  “Really?” Jem looked at Kapu. This was the first he’d heard of her illness.

  Kapu shrugged and pointed at his head. Then he put both hands together and used them as a pillow, pretending to sleep.

  “She has a headache?” Liam asked. Kapu nodded.

  “That’s all?” Jem looked at Smitty, who shook his head.

  “It’s terrible,” he said. “I need to go see her. I’ll… I’ll sing her back to health.”

  Kapu shook his head violently.

  “Don’t think that’s a good idea, Smit.” Liam grinned.

  “Why not?” asked Smitty. “I think she needs me.”

  Kapu shook his head again, then held up a finger, instructing them to watch. First he pretended to be Sina, sleeping peacefully. Then he pretended to be Smitty, warbling off-key. Then he was Sina again, lunging for Smitty’s throat and shaking him violently.

  Jem laughed. “Sounds like she’s a bit grumpy when she’s under the weather.”

  Smitty considered this. “Okay, so I won’t sing. I’ll just bring her some nice flowers. She’ll like that, right?”

  Kapu shook his head again. This time he mimed Sina reaching for her bow and arrow and aiming it at Smitty’s head.

  “Come on, Smit,” said Jem. “Help us put the finishing touches on this trap for the panther. Then we’ll test it out.”

  Smitty looked around at the wires and noisemakers, and he shook his head. “I have a feeling she needs me. I’m going to go check up on her, anyway.”

  Kapu shrugged as if to say, “Suit yourself,” and the older boy turned and walked away. As he disappeared, they could hear the strains of his latest song:

  My darling is under the weather.

  Kapu says that makes her angry,

  But I’m sure that when we’re together,

  She won’t feel like strangling me.

  Jem sneaked toward the trip wire, pretending to be a panther on the hunt. Gingerly, he reached a “paw” into the pile of leaves he and Liam had used to cover it. All of a sudden, a clatter erupted above him, as gourds shook and shells clapped and hollowed sticks rattled together.

  Jem covered his ears until the noise subsided. Then he looked up at Liam and Kapu, who were both grinning.

  “Works like a charm,” he said, hopping to his feet. “Nice work!”

  They were still congratulating themselves on their handiwork when they reached the clearing, where a few Lost Souls were dangling their feet in the pool, cooling themselves in the midafternoon heat.

  Jem stopped when he spotted Ronagh sitting cross-legged in the grass with a long-haired monkey on her lap. Two other monkeys sat beside her, as if waiting their turn. “Liam, what’s your sister doing?” he asked.

  Liam squinted at his sister, then replied, “Looks like she’s giving the monkeys haircuts.”

  “Of course she is.” Jem shook his head. At least she was being useful. Or rather, at least she was staying out of trouble.

  “Hey, look!” Liam pointed at a person walking across the clearing toward them. “It’s Sina.”

  The Islander girl still looked a little tired when she joined them.

  “Feeling better?” Jem asked, pointing at his head.

  Sina nodded.

  “Did Smitty’s medicine work?” Liam laughed, and Kapu translated the question for Sina, who looked confused. She shook her head and said something back. Kapu looked startled.

  “What?” Jem asked. “What is it?”

  Kapu pretended to be Smitty, delivering flowers and singing a song. Then he shook his head and shrugged, looking around.

  “What?” said Jem. “What does that mean? Where is he?”

  “I think he means Smitty didn’t go see Sina,” said Liam, and Kapu nodded. “That’s funny. He was so set on seeing her.”

  “That is funny,” Jem agreed. In fact, it was downright strange.

  “Maybe we should go look for him,” said Liam.

  “Look for who?” Ronagh asked, joining them. A monkey sat on her shoulder, patting its new spiky hairstyle.

  “Smitty,” said Liam. “He was on his way to visit Sina but never made it.”

  “Maybe he got lost?” Ronagh suggested.

  “It’s a pretty straight path,” Jem said. “And Smitty knows it well.” His stomach began to feel heavy. As far as he knew, only two things could keep Smitty from Sina. One was a pirate. The other was a panther. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Sina, Kapu, Liam, and Ronagh followed him to the edge of the jungle, then down the path back to the Isl
anders’ house.

  “Smitty!” Jem and Ronagh called into the trees.

  “Milton!” Liam added. “Evander!”

  Jem frowned at him. “Is now really the time?”

  Liam shrugged. “You never know when you’re going to get it right.”

  They moved farther into the jungle, scanning the trail and the trees for clues. Sina fitted an arrow to her bow and moved out in front, ready to shoot if necessary. By now, Jem’s stomach felt like someone had filled it with rocks. He couldn’t help but wonder which would be worse—the pirate or the panther. On the one hand, they knew how to fight off pirates. On the other hand, they’d never had to deal with a pirate who wanted to enslave them. Suppose that was what had happened to Smitty? Suppose Lucas was holding him captive, forcing him to swab the deck with a toothbrush? Or maybe he’d make him into a powder monkey, the one forced to carry power to the guns. It was the most dangerous job on board a ship, and one—

  “Look!” Ronagh cried suddenly, pointing off the side of the trail. The group stopped and huddled around the spot she was indicating. The rocks in Jem’s stomach turned a flip.

  There, in the dirt, not three hundred yards from camp, was the biggest, deepest panther print he’d ever seen.

  Sina gasped and pointed to a brambly bush just off the path. Hooked to a prickle was a piece of gray fabric. A piece of—

  “Smitty’s trousers,” Ronagh breathed.

  “No!” Jem exclaimed, kneeling to inspect the fabric. But Ronagh was right. He’d seen the boy wearing those very trousers, not two hours before. “And look!” Next to the brambly bush lay an abandoned bouquet of slightly wilted flowers.

  He began to wish that it had been a pirate.

  “Shivers,” Ronagh whispered. “Smitty’s been… catnapped!”

  Scarlet waited until the merchant was busy haggling with a customer, then reached out and grabbed a compass off his table of wares. She slipped it into her trouser pocket and strolled on.

  To be out of her dress and back into her cabin boy clothes felt nothing short of delicious. She could walk without limping, run without petticoats bunching up, steal things without… well, she couldn’t possibly have stolen anything while wearing a dress. Where would she have hidden her plunder? She shoved her hands in her pockets and whistled one of Smitty’s chanteys.