We Give a Squid a Wedgie (18 page)

The other pirates yelled and waved their weapons in the air, not because they had strong feelings about the chicken versus rooster debate, but because they really liked yelling and waving their weapons. They were pirates, after all. Most days they just sat around watching television while
they waited for wealthy ships to come by. This was a particularly exciting day for them. They had to get all the yelling and weapon waving done that they could. Who knew when they’d have another chance?

Corey and the Navel family backed away to the stairs and rushed down belowdecks to hide in the labyrinth of looted shopping plazas, empty casinos, and luxury spas the cruise ship would never offer to happy vacationers again.

“That was wonderful,” said Dr. Navel. “You guys performed the Romanian Ruse flawlessly! Your mother would be so proud.”

“It was Celia’s idea,” said Oliver. He smiled at his sister. She had saved them from the duel, just like she said she would. As far as annoying twin sisters went, he guessed she was the best one he could have. Celia shrugged. She didn’t know throwing a golf club at some pirates was a plan with name. It was just the first idea that came to her.

“What now?” Corey panted.

“We’ll get to a lifeboat and get off the ship,” said Dr. Navel. “Celia, don’t let go of that chicken. He’s our life insurance policy.”

“Life insurance,” Oliver groaned. “Only Dad
could make a daring escape from pirates sound boring.”

Corey laughed. He thought Oliver was funny. Oliver started to think that maybe the star wasn’t such a jerk after all.

“Bwak,” Dennis squawked as they ran through the maze of corridors inside the rusted pirate cruise ship.

THEY RAN THROUGH
the shopping mall on the ship, although all the store windows were smashed and all the merchandise was gone. They rushed through wide hallways, across balconies, past movie theaters and arcades. They saw piles of fake designer bags and illegally recorded movies stacked in corners and along hallways.

“Pirates,” muttered Dr. Navel. “There’s nothing they won’t steal.”

Corey Brandt’s smiling face watched over them from a billboard as they rushed into the TweenZone. Someone had scrawled graffiti across his forehead in Mandarin Chinese. Luckily, only Dr. Navel could read what it said and he was not about to repeat those words in front of his children.

“I can’t believe they defaced my poster,” Corey lamented.

“They were going to hold you for ransom and kill us,” panted Oliver. “And that billboard upsets you?”

Corey shrugged. They ran through an emergency door and found themselves running through narrow service hallways. Someone had taken down all the signs. They didn’t know if they were running toward the sides or the middle of the ship. Every time they heard a noise in front of them, they would turn and run the other way.

“Dad,” Celia asked. “Do you know where we’re going?”

“I’ve never been on a cruise ship before,” said their father. “I always thought the experience was artificial.”

“Corey?” Celia tried.

“I’ve just done private yachts. Never anything like this.”

“Celia,” Oliver said. “What about
Love at 30,000 Feet
?”

“It takes place on an airplane.”

“Remember that season that was all the Duchess in Business Class’s dream?
Love at 30 Knots
?”

“Oh, right!” said Celia. “They were all on a
cruise ship, and it sank at the end of the season and the duchess woke up.”

“So,” Oliver asked. “Where did they find the lifeboats?”

Celia thought for a bit. “They didn’t.”

“Oh,” said Oliver.
Love at 30,000 Feet
had gotten them out of so much trouble before, he never imagined it would let them down. He felt his hopes sinking.

“Television does not have all the answers, children,” said Dr. Navel. “Sometimes you have to use your brains and your senses. You’d be amazed what you can figure out if you just look and listen to the world around you.”

“Ugh,” said Oliver. “Another explorer lecture.”

“It’s not a lecture. I’m just saying that sometimes the answer you’re looking for is out in the world, not on the television. You have to—”

“Wait!” said Celia. “Listen! Do you hear that?”

They listened.

“That’s television static,” said Oliver.

“Guys,” Corey said. “I kind of agree with your father. Now might not be the time for TV.”

“This way!” said Celia, and she raced down a
side corridor with Oliver close on her heels. Corey and Dr. Navel followed and they found themselves suddenly on an open deck filled with lifeboats attached to cranes and beyond them, the roar of the ocean.

“How did you figure that out?” asked Dr. Navel.

“Television static!” said Celia. “I listened for a sound like the static on our broken television. The TV static always sounded like the ocean, so I figured the ocean would sound like TV static.”

Oliver gave her a high five. Dr. Navel cocked his head to the side and opened his mouth, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I think Dad’s nonplussed,” whispered Oliver, who was glad he hadn’t forgotten that word.

“No,” said Dr. Navel. “I’m not baffled. I’m impressed. Good job!” He hugged both his kids. “Now climb into this boat,” he said, pulling the cover off of one of the boats. “I’ll work the crane to get you out and then I’ll jump aboard when it starts lowering toward the ocean. Put on the life jackets. They should be in there.”

“Maybe I should work the crane, Dr. N,” Corey suggested. “You should stay with your children.”

“Corey.”
Dr. Navel put his hand on the teen star’s shoulder. “You’re a good kid, but I am the adult here, and you need to get on the boat. Your parents and your agents and your managers would kill me if you came to any harm.”

“But the pirates could kill you first.” Corey’s shoulders slumped. He liked to be the hero and didn’t like to be reminded that he was still a teenager.­

“Don’t worry,” said Dr. Navel. “I’ll hop right on. I need you to look after Oliver and Celia. They’re the most important ones here, okay? I trust you.”

“Okay,” Corey agreed. He liked being trusted by a famous explorer.

He climbed aboard and Dr. Navel hit the button on the control box. The lifeboat lifted up off the deck and swung outward, hanging over the side of the cruise ship at least fifteen stories above the ocean. Water churned and sprayed off the ship’s side. Foam and mist rose nearly as high as the lifeboat, like they were floating on a cloud. Dr. Navel hit the button to release the raft.

Nothing happened.

He hit it again.

Still nothing.

“It’s stuck,” said Corey.

“Okay,” said Dr. Navel. “Just hang on a second. I’ll fix it.”

“Stop right there!” Big Bart shouted, bursting onto the lifeboat deck. A mass of pirates rushed onto the deck behind him, armed to the teeth. Some of them had even sharpened their teeth.

Big Bart had shed his red velvet coat and gotten rid of his ceremonial sword. Now he held a machete in one hand and a very modern semiautomatic handgun in the other. He no longer looked like a pirate from a movie. He looked like a warlord from the news.

“No, you stop right there!” Dr. Navel turned to the pirates. Oliver and Celia weren’t sure that yelling at a bloodthirsty warlord was the best idea at the moment. “Celia, show this man his chicken.”

“Rooster,” whispered Oliver.

“You’ll never see your rooster again if you don’t let us leave.” Dr. Navel puffed his chest out.

Celia lifted Dennis up above her head as she
and Oliver and Corey ducked low in the boat. The bird squirmed and flapped, but Celia was not going to let Dennis get away.

Big Bart scratched the stubble on his cheek with the blade of his machete as he thought. Finally, he nodded.

“Fine,” he said. “You leave me no choice.” The other pirates looked disappointed. A few of them pouted. “I’ll have to get a new chicken.”

“Bwak!” Dennis squawked.

The pirates cheered.

Dennis stopped squirming. His wings settled against his side and his head hung down. Until that moment, neither Oliver nor Celia could have pictured a heartbroken chicken, but now it appeared that they were the proud owners of one. At least for the last few moments they would be alive.

“Now I’m going to gut each and every one of you from gizzard to gullet!”

“What does that even mean?” Oliver called out.

“Cut you wide open,” Big Bart explained. Then he charged forward with a tidal wave of salty thugs behind him.

Dr. Navel turned to his children in the boat and nodded.
Oliver and Celia shook their heads vigorously.

“Oliver, Celia. I love you,” Dr. Navel said. And then he kicked the lifeboat, tipping it over and dumping his children and Corey Brandt off the side of the cruise ship.

“AHHHH!” THEY SCREAMED
as they plummeted toward the churning water. They only caught a glimpse of their father as the pirates swarmed him. He was struggling to push his glasses back up his nose while the pirates tackled him.

The twins fell past cabin windows where other pirates lounged watching TV, past on-board playgrounds and restaurants, past emergency doors and fire hatches, until they hit the ocean with a bone-crunching crash.

Walls of water erupted around them. Celia lost her grip on Dennis, who flapped his useless wings a moment before settling back down on the surface of the water like a duck.

They felt themselves spinning and turning and churning beneath the salty sea, knocked around in the wake of the cruise ship. First Celia, then
Oliver, then Corey burst through the surface of the ocean gasping for air.

“Everyone okay?” Corey shouted.

“I guess so,” Oliver panted.

“Everyone … except Dad,” said Celia.

As the cruise ship sped off, they looked up at Big Bart leaning out from the lifeboat deck, waving his machete in the air, and the pirates on the other decks shouting and throwing garbage into the water. The ship sounded its horn, which was loud enough to rattle their bones, but it kept speeding away, growing smaller and smaller on the horizon with their father on board, his fate unknown.

“Dad,” said Celia, treading water. “He … he sacrificed himself for us.”

“He could be … you know … okay?” Oliver said.

“Your father is a great man,” said Corey. “He saved our lives.”

“Sort of,” said Celia. “But for how long?”

They looked around. They were alone on the open ocean, bobbing up and down in the waves. The backpack was still on Celia’s back, getting ­waterlogged and heavy. She was struggling to keep her head above water.

“Ah!” Oliver shouted.

“What?” Celia yelled.

“Something brushed my leg!”

“A shark?”

“No.” Oliver relaxed. “It was just my other leg. Sorry. False alarm.”

“We shouldn’t stay out here too long,” said Corey. “The sharks will eventually come.”

“Great,” said Celia. “So what do we do?”

“Swim?” suggested Corey.

“To where?”

“How about that way?” Oliver pointed.

“Why?” Celia asked. “Is there land that way?”

“No,” Oliver told her. “There’s a boat.”

Celia and Corey turned and saw a small wooden boat heading their way, and on board Celia saw the boy from the Orang Laut, Jabir, waving at them with a grin.

“You have taken your chicken for a swim?” Jabir laughed as he helped Corey and the Navel twins on board his boat.

“He’s a rooster,” said Oliver. “Are you an Orange Lord?”

“Orang Laut,” said Jabir. “It means Sea People.”

“It’s good to see you again, Jabir,” said Celia.

Jabir blushed. Corey and Oliver raised their eyebrows, and Celia punched her brother’s arm.

“Where to?” said Jabir.

“We have to save your father,” said Corey.

“I think we’ll need to pay his ransom,” said Celia, pulling the old brass compass from her pocket. “And I have an idea how.”