“SHIVERS!” Margo interrupted him. “Do you hear what you’re saying? There’s treasure everywhere!” She was grinning like a raccoon at a trash buffet. “We just have to figure out how to get it.” She pointed to a pointy-nosed woman with big red earrings. “We could try to swipe those ruby earrings.”
Shivers hopped up and down, clapping his hands. “We could pickpocket the pocket watch from that prickly old man.”
“If we’re quick enough maybe we could snatch the solid-gold vase from on top of that piano over there.” She gestured to a gigantic grand piano on the other side of the ballroom.
Shivers clutched her arm. “Margo, you’re a genius!”
Margo blushed. “The vase isn’t that good of an idea.”
“SONG AND DANCE TIME!” Shivers shouted. “That’ll cheer me up!”
Albee smacked his fin to his fishy little forehead.
Margo stuttered, “What? No! I didn’t mean—”
But Shivers was already halfway across the room, marching toward the piano like a soldier. Or like someone in a marching band. Right now, Shivers felt like a little bit of both. If this is going to be my last day on earth and I’m going to spend the rest of time in the gut of a ghost, I’m not going down without some singing and dancing, he thought.
Margo and Albee looked on in horror as Shivers pulled out the piano bench, sat down, and plinked out a high note.
Immediately, the woman with the ruby earrings looked up in shock and ruffled the feathers of her ostrich coat. “You there! Get your grubby child hands away from that priceless piano!”
“Agreed!” said a man with silver hair, jabbing a jewel-encrusted cane at Shivers.
“AGH! A walking stick!” Shivers screamed.
“It’s not a walking stick, it’s a sitting stick! Don’t make me make my butler get my walking stick!” The man scowled.
Shivers reached out and touched the keys longingly. “But no one’s even played this piano! It’s covered in dust!”
“No one knows how to play that old thing,” said the silver-haired man. “We just keep it here so no one else can play it.”
“But an unplayed piano is like an unpopped kernel of popcorn. You never know what magic you’re missing!” Shivers argued.
Shivers quickly shook out his hands, then held them up to his face to give them a little pep talk. “All right, fingers. You fing, and I’ll sing.”
Then he raised his hands in the air and crashed them down on the keys, striking a chord that jolted the passengers out of their glazed stupor.
“What did I say about touching that piano?” the woman in the ruby earrings barked.
But then Shivers launched into a rhythm so captivating that the passengers couldn’t help but start to groove in their armchairs, squirming around like restless babies in car seats. Their mouth muscles curled up into creaky grins.
“That’s the best ivory-tickling I’ve seen since I paid to play with an elephant on safari last summer!” a man said as two butlers lifted him to his feet. “Dance me!” he commanded, and the butlers twisted his hips for him.
One by one, the passengers demanded help getting up from their chairs. As they started to sway, Margo heard the jingling and jangling of gold-plated bracelets and sapphire-encrusted shoelaces. She had a feeling this song and dance time might pay off soon.
Shivers was really hitting his stride. He pounded out a beat with his left hand and worked melody magic with his right. Then he took a deep breath and let out the most beautiful note his screamy mouth knew how to sing.
“He sings better than my chorus of canaries,” one of the passengers exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air with delight. As she wiggled her wrists up and down to the rhythm, Margo saw an enormous emerald ring slide down her finger and nearly fall to the floor. Suddenly, she knew exactly what she had to do.
She ran over to Shivers and whispered, “They’re loving your singing but you’ve got to get them dancing! After all, this is song and dance time.” She placed Albee on the piano for extra encouragement.
“You’re right!” Shivers said, his eyes lighting up. “Without the dancing, the singing is just a lonely cry for attention.” Then he stood up from the piano bench, all the while continuing to play, and called out to the crowd, “Everybody repeat after me!”
“Everybody repeat after me!” the crowd called back.
“No, not yet!” yelled Shivers.
“No, not yet!” shouted the crowd.
Shivers realized this might have been a bad idea. He decided to rephrase. “Do as I do!”
The silver-haired man looked confused. “You want us to become a small, filthy boy with a funny hat?”
Shivers let out an exasperated sigh.
Margo cupped her hands in front of her mouth and shouted, “Just dance like him!”
Shivers tickled out a new melody on the keys and tapped his right foot to the beat. The passengers tapped their feet to the beat, too, but they ended up looking like they were waiting impatiently for something. Shivers decided to speed up the song, and he tapped out a jig with both of his feet. The crowd tried to keep up, even though some of them were still trying to stand up. All the jigging was making the jewelry jangle even louder and Margo knew that something had to slip loose soon. She saw a stout woman in a shimmering party dress flapping her feet so fast it looked like she was hopping on hot coals. She clapped her hands in the air so carelessly that she didn’t even notice when her clapping turned to unclasping. Her solid-gold watch flew off her wrist and into the air. Margo ran to catch it, holding out her hands, but the stout woman took that as an invitation to dance. She grabbed Margo’s hands and they danced a polka across the room.
Shivers was having the time of his life. This was quite possibly the most successful song and dance time he had ever hosted. But that’s because it was usually just him and Albee, and Albee was a terrible dancer.
It was time to kick it up a notch—with lots of kicking! Shivers flung his feet high in the air while spinning his arms around like windmills, all without missing a note on the piano.
The passengers kicked as high as their plump little legs could go, flailing their arms like baby birds failing to fly. The whole ballroom was bustling with swinging hips and stomping feet. The silver-haired man shouted, “Get me my dancing stick!”
Margo had finally gotten rid of the polka woman, and she darted through the line of kicking legs toward a lady whose pearl necklace was bouncing around wildly on her neck. Margo quietly climbed onto an armchair behind her and tried to pluck the necklace off her, like a ring toss in reverse. But before she could grab it, the woman whirled around and gasped. “Look, everyone, this small child wants a piggyback ride”—she smiled wistfully—“just like my daughter used to before I forgot where I put her!” The woman heaved Margo onto her back, then continued her high kicking.
Even the butlers were beginning to dance. One of them noticed that Shivers didn’t have a dance partner, so he wiggled his way over to the piano. But as soon as he got there, he scrunched up his nose and started coughing.
“What is that ghastly smell?” the butler blurted, backing away briskly.
Shivers was confused. Then he took a big sniff of the air around him and a horrible smell crept its way right into his nose.
I was so busy singing, I didn’t notice I was in a stink cloud! he thought.
He wondered what the smell was and where it was coming from. He tried to snort out the source, but he couldn’t find it and he didn’t know how much more of the thick, moldy odor he could handle.
His piano playing began to fall apart. He smashed his fingers sloppily on the keys.
“Play faster, Shivers!” Margo urged. “Keep ’em dancing!”
Shivers played faster and faster. The smell was making him frantic. He pinched his nose and shook his head—anything to make the stink extinct. But he couldn’t escape it. The passengers were mimicking his every move and the dance floor was deteriorating into chaos. Margo rolled off the wo
man’s shoulders. She squeezed through the bumping bodies and bouncing bellies. All of a sudden, she saw the silver-haired man thrust his hip into the piano. The solid-gold vase slid across the shiny black surface, then wobbled dangerously on the edge. Just as the wobble turned into a topple, Margo dove across the dance floor. She reached out her hands and caught the vase right before it clanged against the ground.
Margo quickly unzipped her big green backpack and stuffed the vase inside, sandwiching it between the pirate book and . . . a sandwich. She was about to zip it back up when the music came to a screeching stop—and Shivers’s screeching came to a sudden start.
“IT’S THE GHOST!” he screamed, leaping up from the piano bench. “IT’S THE STINKY, SMELLY GHOST!”
The passengers were frozen in stunned silence as Shivers ran over to Margo and wailed, “Quincy Thomas is getting closer! It’s just like the curse said. I’m smelling his foul odor everywhere I go!” In his panic, Shivers grabbed Margo by the arms. He shook her shoulders and the gold vase came tumbling out of her backpack. It hit the floor with a loud GONG! that echoed off the ballroom’s marble walls.
The woman with the ruby earrings pointed her finger sharply. “These aren’t children. They’re tiny thieves!”
The crowd gasped.
The silver-haired man put down his dancing stick and picked up his shouting stick. He jabbed it in the air and commanded, “RELEASE THE HOUNDS!”
SHIVERS FELT A LOW rumble beneath his feet. He could hear the stampede of angry dogs tearing down the deck toward the ballroom. He could imagine the saliva spilling from their jagged teeth as they readied themselves for an afternoon snack of petrified pirate.
“Prepare to meet our attack dogs!” the silver-haired man cackled.
All Shivers could think to do was close his eyes, cover his face with his hands, and hope that Margo tasted better than he did.
SLAM!
The pack of dogs careened through the swinging door and spilled into the ballroom. Shivers couldn’t bear to look, but in an instant, he heard the most unexpected noise—laughter. And it was coming from Margo.
Shivers peeked between two fingers to see what was so funny.
“Poodles!” Margo guffawed. “They’re poodles!”
And they really were! Fluffy white poodles no bigger than bunnies, with puffs of fur on the tops of their heads and the tips of their tails so it looked like they’d just come out of a cotton candy machine. They were all wearing different doggie outfits, each more ridiculous than the last. One wore a tuxedo and top hat. Another wore a bedazzled T-shirt that said Top Dog. There was even one poodle in a full tennis outfit, including tennis shoes and a miniature racket.
Shivers couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the poodle parade. “Hey, little buddy!” he said, reaching out to pet one of the dogs.
But just then, Tobias, the captain of the butlers, appeared in the doorway. “ATTACK!” he commanded, pointing at Shivers and Margo.
In an instant, the poodles stopped looking like baby bunnies and started looking like rabid rabbits. They bared their teeth and snapped their jaws.
Margo snatched up the golden vase and Shivers snatched up Albee. “RUN!” they both shouted at the same time.
They scrambled between the passengers and bounced off different butlers, making their way toward a door at the back of the ballroom. The dogs scurried behind them, yipping and nipping at their heels.
“This way!” Margo said, flinging open the door.
Shivers followed and tried to close the door behind him, but there were too many poodles pushing their way through.
They ran down a long hallway with elegant green carpeting. The poodles squeezed their way through the hall behind them, pouncing over each other like they were playing leap dog.
“Margo, get me out of here! This hall room is even scarier than the ballroom!” Shivers shrieked.
“In here!” Margo said, running through the first door she could find. The door led to the ship’s spa, where all the passengers went to relax and unwind after a long day of laxing and winding. The room was dimly lit and dotted with flickering candles that smelled like peaches. It was completely quiet except for the soothing sound of whale calls piping in through speakers. Passengers lay around in one big sudsy hot tub with slices of cucumber sitting on their eyes. Butlers fed them huge slices of cake whenever they opened their mouths.
“Margo, where are we? This is the most terrifying place I’ve ever seen!” Shivers said skittishly. “Haven’t these people heard of night-lights? Why is it so dimly lit?”
“Because we’re trying to relax!” said a lady in the tub with a towel wrapped tightly around her tiny head.
Shivers’s jaw dropped open at the sight of her, as he mistook the cucumbers on her face for giant green eyeballs. “ALIEN!” he shrieked. “THEY’RE ALL ALIENS!”
“Sir, you’ll have to calm down,” said one of the butlers. “Here, have a slice of cake.”
“What?! Cake?!? Again?!? Don’t you know I get C-sick!” Shivers batted the piece of cake out of the butler’s hand.
“We’ve got to go!” Margo urged, grabbing Shivers’s sleeve. She could hear the poodles’ yips getting closer.
“Wait!” Shivers cupped his hand over his ear. “Is that the sound of whales? THERE ARE WHALES IN THE TUB!”
“Whales?!” the passengers screamed as they flailed in the tub, sloshing soapy water everywhere.
“Oh no! Spilled suds!” the butlers cried, grabbing huge buckets.
By now, all the wailing about whales had attracted the poodles’ attention and they came bounding into the spa.
Margo and Shivers tried to make a run for it, but they slipped and slid all over the floor, which was soaked in soapy bathwater. Albee slid around in his bottle, too, but that was pretty normal.
Just as a poodle was about to make a chew toy out of Shivers’s bunny slippers, a butler scooped the dog into his bucket, thinking it was a ball of bubbles. In fact, because the poodles were so fluffy, none of the butlers were able to tell the difference between them and the foamy bubbles on the floor. They flung the suds—and the poodles—back into the tub.
“GO!” Margo shouted, pushing Shivers forward. They skidded out a side door, leaving behind a spa full of soaking poodles, splashing passengers, and befuddled butlers babbling about bubbles. There was cucumber and cake everywhere.
As the door swung closed behind Shivers and Margo, they looked around and saw that they were now in the ship’s hair salon. The place was packed with passengers in the middle of manicures and makeovers.
Shivers was amazed. He took off his feathered pirate cap, revealing a matted mess. “Margo, look! They could turn my hair don’t into a hair do!”
He jumped up into an empty leather chair.
“I want something new but not scary new,” he told the stylist.
“You got it, kid,” she said, filling her hands with sticky hair gel and squashing it onto Shivers’s scalp.
Just then, the pack of freshly bathed poodles pounced through the door. They may have been cleaner than before, but the bubble bath had certainly done nothing to relax them. They marched through the piles of hair on the floor, baring their teeth and staring furiously at Shivers, Margo, and Albee.
Margo knew she didn’t have a second to spare. She held the golden vase in one hand and grabbed a hair dryer with the other. She pointed the dryer down, then turned it on full force. The blast of warm wind hit the ground, swirling a storm of hair up into the poodles’ faces. They stopped in their tracks, blinded by the hair-icane.
“This way, Shivers!” Margo shouted over the whir of the dryer. She backed up across the room, still holding the dryer out in front of her, until she felt a metal doorknob behind her. In one quick motion, she opened the door, ran through it, and found herself standing in the sunlight on the main deck. Without skipping a beat, she held the stolen golden vase up in the air triumphantly.
“We did it, Shivers! Now let’s get back to the Ground
hog.” She started to run down the deck, but stopped when she heard the sound of . . . nothing. She spun around to see that she was all alone. “Shivers?”
She started to worry. What had happened to Shivers and Albee at the hands—or paws—of those poodles?
Suddenly, there was a screech of tiny wheels as Tobias skidded around the corner in his golf cart.
“Ho, ho! Found you! As I always say, when someone steals a vase, Tobias will crack the case!” he said proudly.
He marched over to Margo, his perfectly polished shoes clacking loudly on the wooden deck. He sneered as he stood over her and snatched the vase from her hand. He took one look at it and scoffed. “Well, this will have to go straight into the furnace.”
Margo was confused. “The furnace? Why?”
“Now that your grubby little kid claws have touched it, I’ll have to melt it down and reshape it into a new vase.” Tobias tossed the vase into a chute marked FURNACE.
Margo watched in horror as her only hope of saving Shivers disappeared like a poodle in a bubble bath.
Tobias grabbed Margo by her wrist. “Now, what to do with you? And what happened to your filthy little friend?”
Just then, they heard a squeal of delight followed by a scream of fright as Shivers burst through the door looking a lot more like a poodle than a pirate. His hair was sculpted into a big fuzzy puff ball on the top of his head.
The poodles chased after him, each with their own new hairstyle. As Shivers tried to outrun the dogs, he yipped and yelped, bounding around the deck, and generally looked like a poorly trained puppy.
“You!” Tobias shouted, pointing right at Shivers. “Stay right there!”
If Shivers had a tail, it would have been between his legs. He was so frightened he couldn’t even speak; he could only whimper. The poodles felt so bad for him that they all crowded around in whim-pathy. With his new hairdo, Shivers blended in perfectly with the pack.
Tobias marched over and sneered down at Shivers. “Stupid poodle! Why aren’t you wearing a collar?” He pulled a jewel-encrusted collar out of his jacket pocket and snapped it around Shivers’s neck.
The Pirate Book You've Been Looking For Page 4