Treasure Trouble (4 page)

We all gulped!

Manning the ship was an extra-big job.

“No, no! There be a few others to help,” Rotten Tooth said. He pointed toward the galley stairs, where a few other pirates were making their way on deck.

“Avast! That’s the night crew!” I said. The night crew never eats dinner with the rest of the crew. So they didn’t look sick, but they did look tired. That’s because they usually sleep all day.

“Don’t they need to rest?” Inna asked.

“Arrr! Not as much as I do,” Rotten Tooth roared before racing back to the railing. We covered our eyes. It made us sickish just watching him.

“That’s what he gets for double-crossing us,” Vicky whispered.

“Aye,” I whispered back.

“I’m heading back to my quarters,” Rotten Tooth told us. Then he ordered us
to get to work. “Ye pups are always saying you’re real pirates, so prove it!” After that, he disappeared down the galley stairs.

I looked at my friends.

Then I looked at all the sails and ropes and everything else that needed to be manned. Most of the night crew that came above deck were already snoring at their posts!

“Mateys, this is going to be hard work,” I said.

“Aye!” Vicky agreed. “Even harder than rowing!”

“Or digging,” Aaron added.

“Or eating that gruesome gruel,” Inna said.

“It’s going to be impossible!” Gary exclaimed.

“But the ship needs us,” I said. “It’s our duty to try our best!”

“Aye aye!” everyone agreed.

We didn’t waste another second. We each ran to a different post and tried our best to keep the
Sea Rat
on course.

“I said hoist the sail, not
moist
the sail!” Vicky shouted at Aaron. She was furious! Instead of raising the sail to make the ship go faster, Aaron had soaked it with a bucket of water.

“Yo-ho-ho! What’s the big deal?” Aaron asked.

Vicky made her hands into fists. “Wet sails make the ship go slower—that’s what the big deal is!” she roared. “Everyone knows that!”

“Arrr! Who says we need to go faster?” Aaron shouted back.

“Aye! We don’t even know where we’re heading,” Gary said.

My friends stopped doing their jobs and
stared at him. I kept manning the steering wheel and tried to keep the ship straight.

“What do you mean?” Inna asked Gary. “You’re the one with the map! You’re supposed to plot our course!”

“Aye,” Gary admitted. “But when I went into Captain Stinky Beard’s quarters, I wasn’t sure which map to take. And since he’s sick, too, I couldn’t ask him.”

“Arrr! There are a lot of maps in there,” I said, trying to stick up for Gary.

“Aye, but it’s always the one on top!” Inna shouted.

I reached under my pirate hat and scratched my head. “That makes sense,” I said. Inna sure was one clever pirate kid. “Maybe we should have asked you to get the map,” I said.

“AYE! Then my dress wouldn’t have gotten all ruined from these slimy ropes,”
Inna said. She’d been working with Vicky to man the ropes. There were ropes tangled all around her. They’d made her dress all muddy and yucky.

“I’m sorry,” Gary said.

Inna reached over and pulled his hat down over his ears and bopped him on the head. “There! Now you’re sorry.”

I waved my hand up in the air to get everyone’s attention. “Mateys, now’s not the time for fighting,” I said.

Gary wiggled his pirate hat over his ears again. “Aye. Fighting hurts my head.”

“It was your head that got us in this mess in the first place,” Aaron said.

“Aye! We don’t even know if we’re using the right map,” Vicky said.

“Arrr! You didn’t let me finish,” Gary said. “I found the right map eventually.”

“Then why did you say we didn’t know where we were heading?” Aaron asked.

“Because,” Gary explained, “when I came back on deck, the wind blew the map out of my hands. Now I don’t know which
way is up and which way is down.”

Inna reached over to grab his hat again, but Gary stepped away just in time.

I took the map from Gary and looked at it. Then I turned it upside down and looked at again. I wasn’t the best at reading maps. It looked the same both ways.

“Blimey! Give me that,” Inna said. She took the map out of my hands. She was the best map reader out of all of us. “It goes this way,” she said. “Now, where is the
Sea Rat
?” she asked Gary.

Gary shrugged. “I think here,” he said, pointing to a spot on the map that looked like smooth sailing.

I wiped my forehead. “That’s good news,” I said.

“Aye,” Vicky agreed.

“Aye,” Gary said. “But we might also be
here!” Then he pointed to a spot on the map that wasn’t smooth sailing.

“Avast!” Inna shouted. “If we’re there, we’re sailing right into Serpent’s Whirlpool!”

“Sink me!” I shouted. “No ship can survive Serpent’s Whirlpool! The water spins around so fast, it can drown any ship!”

“Well, which is it?” Inna asked Gary.

“Beats me.” Gary shrugged. “It depends on which way I was holding the map when I plotted the course.”

“Um, I think I know,” Aaron said as he glanced over the railing.

“Soggy sails! We don’t have time for you to be a show-off,” Vicky told him.

“I’m not,” Aaron yelled. “I know because there it is! Serpent’s Whirlpool dead ahead!”

We all looked out to sea.

Aaron was right. The water was starting to spin in circles. If we didn’t change course, the
Sea Rat
was going to sink to the bottom of the sea!

“One, two, three…PULL!” I shouted.

Aaron, Vicky, Inna, and I pulled on the rope with all our might. We were trying to turn the mainsail and catch a gust of wind that would take us to safe waters. But no matter how hard we pulled, the sail wouldn’t budge.

The ship was too much for us to man all by ourselves. We had tried to wake up the night crew. But once pirates start snoring, it’s almost impossible to wake them up.

“Serpent’s Whirlpool is still dead ahead,” Gary shouted from the steering wheel. He was on steering duty because we were afraid he’d get tangled in the ropes if he tried to help us.

“It’s no use,” Aaron said.

“Aye,” Vicky agreed.

“But we have to do something,” Inna said. “The
Sea Rat
is starting to sail in circles, which means we’re caught in the whirlpool’s current.”

“Aye,” I said. “We have no choice. We have to try and wake the crew. We need more pirates to help us.”

“With all the racket ye be making, ye could wake the dead.” A voice laughed behind us. It was Clegg. He was the oldest pirate on board. Plus, he was our friend.

“CLEGG!” I shouted. “We’re glad to see you!”

“Aye,” Vicky said. “And we’re double glad to see you’re not icky sicky.”

“I’m fit as a whale, minus the eye, of course,” he joked pointing to his patch that covered one of his eyes. Then he looked around the deck. “Are ye li’l shipmates the only ones manning the ship?” he asked.

“Aye!” I said.

“Well, except for the night crew, but they’re all snoring,” Inna said.

“The rest of the crew is seasick,” Vicky explained.

“Except you,” Aaron said.

“Aye,” I said. “How come you’re not sick?”

Clegg scratched his beard. “Same reason you’re not sick, I suppose.”

“You didn’t eat the seaweed slop either?” I asked.

“No, I ate a heaping helping,” he told us.

We all gulped!

“If it wasn’t the slop, it must be something else,” Vicky said.