Seven Dead Pirates (18 page)

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 shook 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?”

“Sure. Tonight. I promise.”

It was only when she was walking away that he began to think it through. Was he crazy? The pirates could whip out their swords, they could flash their knives, they could …

He took a slow, deep breath. It will be okay, he told himself. He could do this. So could Abbie. So could the pirates. He stared up at the tower and took another breath. It would be okay.

“You invited the
girrrrl
?” shouted Crawley, his face mottled with anger. “Does you think we’re a show, lad? Does you think we’re a
play
for your friends to come see?”

“No,” said Lewis. “I just—”

“Keep the girl away!” snarled Jack the Rat. “We doesn’t trusssst her.”

“Aye!” hollered Bellows, waving an enormous finger under Lewis’s nose. “We wants no girrrrrls in Libertalia.”

“No strangers, neither,” added Moyle.

Lewis threw up his hands. “What are you talking about? I just brought a whole
class
full of strangers into the tower. Girls, too! You were here when they came. Don’t tell me you weren’t!”

“That were different,” said Crawley with a sniff. “We was invisible. We was practicing!”

Lewis let out a sigh.

“Look,” he said, “Abbie isn’t a stranger. She’s my friend. She’s already reading
Treasure Island
and—”

“No, by thunder!” roared Crawley. “We don’t allow no girls aboard ship, and we won’t allow one in Libertalia now!”

“No!” echoed the others. “No!”

Lewis had to shout to be heard. “Excuse me! EXCUSE ME!”

They stopped.

“I think you’re forgetting something,” said Lewis. “I’ll be doing you a big
favor
on Halloween, right?”

The pirates blinked.

“I did you another favor when I bought you those clothes.”

Silence. Skittles nodded.

“In fact, I do you a favor every night, don’t I? When I read?”

Most of them were staring at the floor now. Even Crawley looked abashed.

“So I think,” concluded Lewis, “that it’s only fair for you to do
me
a little favor.”

“Fair,” grumbled Jack. “I hates fair.”

There was a mumble of agreement, but it petered out.

Crawley scratched the stubble on his pockmarked chin. “One time!” he said finally. “She can come here one time only. And she takes us as we are, mind. Rough as old rope. You tell her that!”

“I will,” said Lewis. “I promise.”

The bell rang for dinner. As he walked to the door, he heard a final mutter from Jack. “We’ll feed her to the sssharks.”

“You will not!” said Lewis over his shoulder.

Jack mumbled something else, too low for Lewis to hear.

There weren’t any sharks anyway, thought Lewis.

Were there?

He shook his head. The pirates really
were
making him crazy.

T
he part of
Treasure Island
that Abbie wanted to read with the pirates was the end.

“It’s hard to wait,” she said as she and Lewis left school the next day. It was becoming a habit, this walking partway home together. “But there’s something special about finding out how a story ends. Unless … do you think I could visit more than once?”

“No,” said Lewis quickly. “Sorry.” He didn’t say how hard it had been to arrange even once.

“Is there anything I should … you know, do? Say? When I meet them?”

Lewis heard the tremor in her voice.

“Not really. I’m sure they’ll like you.” He wasn’t sure at all. “Just watch out for Jack the Rat. Try not to get too close.”

“Why not?”

He wants to feed you to the sharks, thought Lewis.

“Jack’s … different.”

“Oh,” said Abbie. “Okay.”

“And you have to take them as they are,” he added.

“What does that mean?”

“They’re not very … polite.”

“Oh. Well, what does
that
mean?”

He shook his head. “You’ll see for yourself.”

In the days that followed, Lewis read steadily with the pirates, while Abbie read the same chapters alone. Seeing that the final two chapters of
Treasure Island
were short, they decided to leave both for her visit.

Lewis, meanwhile, wondered how to explain Abbie’s visit to his parents. She solved that problem in a second.

“Just tell them we’re working on a project together. We
are
, aren’t we?”

When Lewis told his father and Mrs. Binchy about the project, they sounded pleased.

“Invite her for dinner, why don’t you?” said Mrs. Binchy. “You’ll think better with a good meal in you.”

“Yes, of course,” said Mr. Dearborn. “We’ll plan something delicious.”

On the day of Abbie’s visit, she walked to Shornoway with Lewis after school. He had decided to leave the tower for after dinner, but he wasn’t sure what to do till then. Abbie made that choice herself by lingering in the kitchen, where Mr. Dearborn and Mrs. Binchy were cooking Spanish paella. Lewis had eaten this before—a pan of yellow rice, dotted with chicken, sausage and clams. He watched Abbie, wondering if she’d find it weird.

“Can I help?” she asked.

“Of course you can, lovey,” said Mrs. Binchy. “Here! Top these beans.”

Lewis, feeling useless, found himself volunteering as well. When Mrs. Dearborn poked her head in fifteen minutes later, there were four people chopping and frying.

“What’s all this?” she asked. “Looks like the kitchen at the Ritz.”

Mrs. Binchy sniffed. “As if there’s anything at the Ritz to match
my
paella.”

To Lewis’s surprise, his mother sat down and accepted a glass of wine. She didn’t join the cooking party, but she did listen—even smiling now and then—to the conversation, most of which came from
Mrs. Binchy. Lewis noticed that, while Mrs. Binchy did most of the talking, it was his father who did the work.

Dinner was perfect. Abbie said it twice. Mr. Dearborn said Abbie was the perfect guest. Lewis was glad to hear the food was good because
he
was so nervous, he could barely taste it. All he could think about was the pirates, upstairs waiting for “the girrrrl.”

“Run along now,” said Mrs. Binchy when Abbie offered to help clear up. “Homework’s more important.”

“What’s the project, Lewis?” asked Mrs. Dearborn.

Before Lewis could think, the word slipped out. “Pirates.”

Abbie’s eyes widened.

“Pirates?” Mr. Dearborn reached for the newspaper. “Is it a history project, then? About the pirates along this coast?”

Lewis paused, eyes locked with Abbie’s. “Uh-huh.”

“Great idea!” Mr. Dearborn snapped open the paper’s front section. “You should look at that book again—by that fellow, McAlistair.”

“Be sure to write a clear outline,” added Mrs. Dearborn. “It makes all the difference.”

Lewis and Abbie laughed all the way up the back stairs.

Then they stopped. Suddenly … there it was. Lewis
reached out to touch the carved letters on the door.
Libertalia
.

“Ready?” he said.

“I think so.”

He knocked twice. Then he opened the door.

The pirates were lined up, waiting. They looked … different.

It was their hair! They’d slicked it down. The tangled thatches of the day before had been flattened into greasy-looking manes. Several pirates wore colorful bandanas, tied at the backs of their heads like caps.

And their feet! They were all wearing shoes. Lewis recognized the odd footwear as the contents of an old trunk down the hall. Some of it didn’t fit—slippers that barely covered Bellows’s toes, enormous rubber boots on Skittles’s small feet. But the pirates had all made an effort to cover their gnarled toes and ragged toenails.

They had taken care with their clothing, too. The effect was still ridiculous. But knowing them as he did, Lewis understood that they had put careful thought into those capri pants and satin vests and—in Jack’s case—plaid boxer shorts.

“Hi,” said Lewis awkwardly, as the silence grew. “This is … Abbie.”

Heads bobbed stiffly along the row. Captain Crawley, resplendent in a burgundy velvet jacket and green jogging pants, bowed deeply from the waist. “We be most honored, miss.”

If Abbie was shocked by the pirates, she didn’t show it. She responded with a deep, low curtsy as elegant as if she’d been curtsying all her life.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said.

No reply came, except anxious, aching glances. The pirates seemed hypnotized by Abbie. Lewis remembered that although they had
seen
girls over the years, including his mother, and more recently his classmates, they hadn’t actually
talked
to any for a very long time. Maybe since they’d died! Even Jack the Rat was wringing his hands with the strain.

What must it be like not to talk to a girl for two centuries? Watching the pirates, Lewis realized that he was looking at a shyness as deep as any he had ever felt. It made him want to help.

“Why don’t we sit down?” he said.

There was a flurry as the pirates all reacted at once, stumbling into one another and fighting for the same places on the floor. Captain Crawley smacked several of them aside in his haste to reach the wicker chair, which he dusted off and set in the middle of the rug.

“For you, miss,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Abbie, settling herself in the chair.

Lewis was astounded. There she sat, surrounded by dead pirates, her smile so comfortable it was as if they were all old friends.

“Well, Lewis?” she said. “Aren’t you going to read?”

Taking a seat on the brass bed, he began. He read haltingly at first, aware of Abbie listening, but gradually he relaxed. Soon he was doing the different voices and speaking softer or louder as the words demanded. In this chapter, the treasure was finally discovered, and even though many of the book-pirates perished searching for it, Lewis’s pirates were thrilled. They beat on the floor with their fists, hollering “Yo ho!” and before Lewis could stop them, they were punching each other, too. He had to shout for order. Remembering Abbie’s presence, the pirates quieted down.

He finished the second-last chapter to a dead hush. The audience waited expectantly.

Lewis offered the book to Abbie. “Would you like a turn?”

The pirates let out a collective gasp.

“Me?” said Abbie.

“Sure!” Lewis focused his gaze on the ghosts, daring them to interfere.

“Well,” she said nervously. “If nobody minds.”

She started softly. But soon, like Lewis, she was deep into the story, reading with eagerness and expression. When she got to the part where Long John Silver’s final fate was described—his mysterious disappearance to an unknown place—the pirates began chanting. “Sil-ver! Sil-ver! Sil-ver!”