بخش 01

CHAPTER 1

THE NEVER LAND

THE TIRED OLD CARRIAGE, pulled by two tired old horses, rumbled onto the wharf, its creaky wheels bumpety-bumping on the uneven planks, waking Peter from his restless slumber. The carriage interior, hot and stuffy, smelled of five smallish boys and one largish man, none of whom was keen on bathing.

Peter was the leader of the boys, because he was the oldest. Or maybe he wasn’t. Peter had no idea how old he really was, so he gave himself whatever age suited him, and it suited him to always be one year older than the oldest of his mates. If Peter was nine, and a new boy came to St. Norbert’s Home for Wayward Boys who said he was ten, why, then, Peter would declare himself to be eleven. Also, he could spit the farthest. That made him the undisputed leader.

As leader, he made it his business to keep his eye on things in general. And he was not happy with the way things were shaping up today. The boys had been told only that they were going away on a ship. As much as Peter didn’t like where he’d been living for the past seven years, the longer this carriage ride lasted, the scarier “away” sounded in his mind.

They’d set out from St. Norbert’s in the dark, but now Peter could see grayish daylight through the small, round coach window on his side. He looked out, squinting, and saw a dark shape looming by the wharf. It looked to Peter like a monster, with tall spines coming out of its back. Peter did not like the idea of walking into the belly of that monster.

“Is that it?” he asked. “The ship we’re going on?”

He ducked then, avoiding the hamlike right fist of Edward Grempkin. He was always keenly aware of where this fist was; he’d been dodging it for seven years now. Grempkin, second in command at St. Norbert’s Home for Wayward Boys, was a man of numerous rules—many of them invented right on the spot, all of them enforced by means of a swift cuff to the ear. He paid little attention to whose ear his fist actually landed on; all the boys were rule-breakers, as far as Grempkin was concerned.

This time the fist clipped an ear belonging to a boy named Thomas, who had been slumped, half asleep, in the carriage next to the ducking Peter.

“OW!” said Thomas.

“Do not end a sentence with a preposition,” said Mr. Grempkin. He was also the grammar teacher at St. Norbert’s.

“But I didn’t … OW!” said Thomas, upon being cuffed a second time by Grempkin, who had a strict rule against back talk.

For a moment, the carriage was silent, except for the bumpety-bump. Then Peter tried again.

“Sir,” he said, “is that our ship?” He kept an eye on the fist, in case ship turned out to be a preposition.

Peter was thinking about trying to run away, but he didn’t know if that was possible—to run away from “away.” In any event, he didn’t see much opportunity for escape; there were sailors and dockhands everywhere. Carts and carriages. Near the back of the ship, fancily dressed people boarded via a ramp with a rope handrail. Toward the bow, some pigs and a cow were being led up a steep plank, followed by commoners dressed more like Peter and his friends.

Grempkin glanced out the round window and grinned, but not in a pleasant way. There wasn’t a pleasant bone in his body.

“Yes, that’s your ship,” he said. “The Never Land.”

“What’s Never Land?” said a boy named Prentiss, who was fairly new to the orphanage and thus did not see the fist until it hit his ear.

”OW!” he said.

“Don’t you be asking stupid questions!” said Grempkin, who defined “stupid questions” as questions he could not answer. “All you need to know is this ship will be your home for the next five weeks.”

“Five weeks, sir?” asked Peter.

“If you’re lucky,” said Grempkin leaning out of the carriage now to study the sky. “If a storm doesn’t blow you halfway to hell.” He smiled again. “Or worse.”

“Worse than hell, sir?” inquired James.

“He means if the ship sinks,” said Tubby Ted, who had a gift for looking on the dark side, “and we wind up in the sea, swimming for our lives.”

“But I can’t swim,” said James. “None of us can swim.”

“I can swim,” Tubby Ted declared proudly.

“You can float,” corrected Peter. Even Grempkin cracked a smile at that, yellow tooth stumps showing through chapped lips.

Peter looked down the wharf and saw a much nicer-looking and bigger ship, painted a shiny black. Its crew wore uniforms, unlike that of the Never Land. It, too, was being loaded and seemed ready to set sail. If it came down to choosing between the two ships …

“It don’t matter,” said Grempkin, brightly, his mood improving. “Swim, sink, float—the sharks will take care of all you boys before you get a chance to drown.”

“Sharks?” said James.

“Big fish with lots of teeth,” said Tubby Ted. “They eat people.”

“What if there’s no people in the sea?” said Thomas. “What do the sharks eat then?”

“Whales,” said Tubby Ted. “But they like people better, and there’s plenty of people in the sea. Ships is always going down. I heard about one … OW!”

“That’s enough of your jabber,” said Grempkin, who had a rule against too much jabber.

The carriage pulled to a stop beside the ship. As Grempkin and the boys climbed out, a thick, bald man in a grimy officer’s uniform thumped down the gangplank and approached the carriage.

“You Grempkin?” he said.

“I am,” said Grempkin. “And you are … ?”

“Slank. William Slank. First officer, second in command of the Never Land.” The man made a face as if he’d just bitten into a rancid prune. It occurred to Peter that Slank didn’t like being second in anything. “These are the orphans, then?”

“They are,” said Grempkin. “And you’re welcome to them.”

“I don’t care for boys,” observed Slank.

“Then you’ll definitely not care for these,” said Grempkin.

“We’ve had boys on board before,” said Slank. “They was always stirring up the rats.”

The boys glanced at one another. Rats?

“The thing to do,” said Grempkin, “is keep them disciplined.” To illustrate, he shot his fist sideways, not looking where it was going. It struck Prentiss, who, being fairly new, had not yet learned that it was unwise to stand immediately to Grempkin’s right.

“OW!” said Prentiss.

“Sir,” said James, to Slank, “there’s rats on the ship?”

“Don’t you be playing with the rats!” said Slank, cuffing James on the ear. “They make a tasty treat when the food runs out.”

“The food runs out?” asked Tubby Ted, suddenly reluctant to take another step. “When?”

Slank slapped him across the ear and said, “After we eat you.”

Grempkin nodded approvingly, confident now that he was leaving the boys in good hands.

Peter scanned the area for a place to run and hide. He saw a supply store offering pulleys and hemp rope, some taverns—the Salty Dog, the Mermaid’s Song. Mermaids? Peter wondered. But everywhere he looked, there were sailors and dockworkers, rough men with rough hands. He wouldn’t get ten paces before one of them would collar him, if Slank didn’t collar him first.

“I’ll be getting back to St. Norbert’s,” Grempkin said. He turned toward the coach, paused for a moment, then turned back and said, “You boys better watch out for yourselves.”

In seven years, that was the nicest thing Peter had ever heard Grempkin say.

“All right,” said Slank, as Grempkin turned back to the coach. “You boys get on board. We’re waiting for one more piece of cargo, and then we cast off.”

Peter eyed the nicer ship down the wharf. Some soldiers were approaching it, carrying rifles with bayonets. The soldiers wore crisp blue uniforms and black, shiny boots. They walked on either side of a horse-drawn cart that carried a single trunk, black, done all around with chains and padlocks.

The boys hesitated, taking their first good look at the Never Land. It wasn’t as big as they’d expected, and it looked old and poorly kept—frayed ropes, peeling paint, barnacles and green slime climbing the hull from the waterline.

“Get a move on!” said Slank.

“I can’t swim,” whispered James.

“We’ll be all right,” said Peter. “It can’t be worse than St. Norbert’s.”

“Yes it can,” said Tubby Ted. “The food runs out.”

“Sharks,” Thomas reminded them. “Rats.”

“We’ll be all right,” repeated Peter, and he started up the gangplank, being the leader, but still thinking about finding a way to escape before the ship set sail. CHAPTER 2

THE SECOND TRUNK

NOT FAR DOWN THE WHARF from the Salty Dog and the Mermaid’s Song, two men toiled in a dark, dismal warehouse, its enormous doors open to the harbor and the ships that were preparing for departure.

“Are we done, then?” asked Alf, the bigger of the two. He had a nose wart the size and shape of a small mushroom. “Because I could use some grog.”

Alf, being a sailor, could always use some grog.

“Not yet,” said Mack. “Slank says we got one more to get aboard, this one over here.” Mack, a thin man, but as strong as any hand on the Never Land, had a tattoo of a snake’s head on his neck, the snake’s body disappearing into his sour clothes.

Mack pointed to a corner of the warehouse where a filthy canvas was draped over a bulky object. The two men trudged over. Mack grabbed a corner of the canvas and pulled it off, revealing a common-looking trunk made of rough wood but held shut by thick chain and secured by two—no, three—padlocks.

Alf studied the trunk, frowning. “Ain’t this the trunk them soldiers brought in here this morning?” he asked.

“It looks like it,” said Mack. “But it ain’t. There was two trunks come in together. The black one got loaded onto the Wasp by them soldiers. Heavy as lead, it was. Then Slank pulls me aside and says he wants us, real careful-like, to put this one aboard the Never Land. He says, tie the canvas tight ’round it and walk it up the main gangway like it belong to one of the travelers. He says if we do this right there’s two bob more in our pay.”

“Apiece?” said Alf.

“Apiece,” said Mack.

“All right, then,” said Alf, who was not one to ask questions when two bob was involved.

“Let’s tie her up, then,” said Mack. “You lift the end there, and I’ll tuck this canvas underneath, and slip the rope ’round it.”

“Why don’t you lift the end?” said Alf.

“It’s me back, Alf,” complained Mack. “You know how it troubles me.”

“No more than mine troubles me,” said Alf.

“But I said it first,” said Mack.

Alf sighed. The longer they argued—and Alf knew, from experience, that Mack would argue this point a good long time—the less chance he’d have at some grog before they set sail.

“All right, then,” Alf said, and he squatted to grab hold of the end of the trunk.

Alf was a simple man, of simple wants. What he hoped to get from life was food that was soft enough to chew, a place to sleep out of the rain, and some grog now and again. Alf had never known true happiness, and he didn’t expect to.

And so he was not ready, not ready at all, for what happened when his rough, callused hands touched the trunk.

First, he felt it: a warmth, starting in his hands but quickly moving up his arms and down his back and into his legs, and everywhere the warmth went it was … wonderful. Like stepping into a bath. In an instant the pain in his bent old spine, the throbbing pain that he’d lived with since almost his first day on the docks, was gone. So was the aching weariness in his legs. Gone!

But there was more: there was a … smell. It was flowers. New grass in a meadow right after a spring rain. A fresh orange being peeled. It was cinnamon and honey, and bread just baked and pulled from the oven. And another smell even more wonderful than all the others, though Alf couldn’t place it. Like nighttime, he thought.

Alf could see light now, swirling around his head, colors and sparkles, moving to music, dancing to the sound of … bells, yes, it was bells, tiny ones, by the sound of them, and it was a sweet and joyful sound, though Alf could hear something else in it, something that seemed to be trying to tell Alf something. He strained to hear it, he wanted to hear it….

“ALF!” said Mack, shaking Alf’s shoulder harder now, hard enough so that Alf let go of the trunk. And when he did, the wonderful smells were gone, and so were the lights, and the bells, and Alf could feel the weight come back into his body, his back and his arms and his legs, along with all the old aches and pains, and he felt himself settling, as though he’d been—but that was impossible—floating above the warehouse floor, just a little bit of an inch, but floating. He brushed off his hands, thinking someone had put rat poison on the outside of the trunk. He’d seen sailors go into a crazy dance from messing with rat poison.

“ALF!” said Mack again. “What’s wrong with you?”

Alf looked at Mack, then down at the trunk, then back at Mack. He put his fingers in both ears, looking silly.

“I … when I touched it …” Alf said. “Didn’t you hear them?”

“Hear what?” said Mack.

“The bells,” said Alf.

“What bells?” said Mack. “There weren’t no bells.”

“Bells,” said Alf. “And lights, and …” He stopped, seeing the way Mack was looking at him. “Rat poison!” he said, slapping his hands against his pants, trying to get them clean.

“You already been to the tavern today?” asked Mack suspiciously.

“Rat poison!” said Alf, now rubbing his hands on a dirty old towel. Mack was looking at him all funny. “Got to gets it off me hands.”

“Bells?” Mack teased him, shaking his head. He turned back to the trunk. Alf saw that Mack had slipped the canvas more tightly around the trunk, and the rope around the canvas. A tiny bit of the trunk still showed.

“Mack,” said Alf. “I dares ya to touch it.”

“What?” said Mack. “Me?”

“Just touch the trunk,” said Alf. “On the wood there.”

“I’m not messing with no rat poison! You remember what happened to Hungry Bob?” Mack considered himself a cautious man, and the truth was, he was afraid to touch the trunk now. He knew that something had happened when Alf touched it; somehow, he’d felt it. No, Mack had decided there was something strange about this trunk. Why else would Slank be giving special orders and offering two bob? Mack was not going to touch it, thank you very much.

“It’s not our job to fool with it,” Mack said, pulling the rope tight. The canvas now covered the trunk entirely. “Slank said put it aboard the Never Land, and that’s that.”

“But, Mack,” said Alf. “I’m telling you, God’s truth, rat poison or not, it felt good. “

“Let’s just finish the job,” said Mack, pulling the knot tight, “and take our two bob to the tavern, get our grog quick-like, and forget about this trunk.”

“All right, then,” said Alf, though he didn’t think he would soon forget that feeling he’d just had. Maybe once the Never Land was under way he could sneak in and visit this trunk again.

Grunting, the two men lifted the canvas-wrapped trunk onto a handcart, and trundled it out of the warehouse, onto the wharf. A minute later they passed the Wasp, whose crew was preparing to cast off.

“She’s a pretty ship, ain’t she?” said Mack.

“What?” said Alf, who’d been thinking about the trunk.

“I say, the Wasp is a beauty,” said Mack. “I’d love to sail on her someday. They say she’s the only ship afloat that might outrun the Sea Devil.”

The mention of the pirate ship won Alf’s full attention. The Sea Devil was the ship of the most feared pirate on the Seven Seas. Sailors said that if you caught sight of the Sea Devil, it was time to make your peace with your maker, because you’d be with Him within the hour.

“No ship can outrun the Sea Devil,” said Alf. “Nobody ever has.”

“Till now,” said Mack. “The Wasp was built for just that, and Captain Scott is as able a seaman as ever sailed these waters. Unlike the idjit in charge of our bilge bucket.”

Sneering, Mack nodded toward the Never Land, now just ahead.

“Aye,” said Alf. “Pembridge could capsize a dinghy on dry land.”

Cyrus Pembridge, the Never Land’s captain, was widely regarded as the most incompetent man to command a ship since the formation of water.

“Who in the name of common sense would put to sea on that ship with that man in charge?” wondered Mack.

“Well,” Alf answered, “we are.”

“True,” Mack said. “But nobody else’d hire the likes of us.”

They were alongside the Never Land now. The ship had been loaded and provisioned; the crew was preparing to cast off. Most of the passengers were on deck. Some were looking around anxiously at the decrepit ship, and the scruffy crew in whose hands they were placing their lives. Others were leaning on the dockside rail, watching the cast-off preparations. Among these, Alf noticed, was a group of five boys near the bow. They looked plainly scared, except for one, a wiry boy with bright orange hair—not the largest of the lot, but the one who seemed to be in charge. He had an air about him, Alf thought, the look of a boy who doesn’t miss much.

“It’s about time,” said Slank, tramping down the gangplank, trailed by two more seamen. “You’re late. Tide’s begun to run.” To the men behind him, he said, “Get this cargo trunk aboard.”

As the men bent to heft the load, Alf—not thinking; not knowing why he did it—slipped his hand under the canvas flap, thrusting it forward until his fingers felt the smooth wood.

“Here now!” said Slank. “What the dickens are you doing?”

“Alf,” said Mack. “What are you doing?”

But Alf didn’t hear them. Instantly he was lost in it all again—the warmth, and the smells, the music and the floating—and it was so good, especially the sweet song. There was something else in there, too, something the bells were saying, trying to tell him…. What was it?

“HANDS OFF THAT CARGO!” Slank yelled. Alf felt himself yanked away from the trunk, and then the music was gone, and all the other good feelings with it. Alf was wobbly, but with Mack’s help he managed to keep his feet. Alf watched two men carry the trunk onto the ship, and he felt a sadness come over him, because he knew he might not hear the music again. He almost wept, except that a man like Alf didn’t cry.

Then—he didn’t know why—Alf looked toward the bow, and found himself looking right into the startlingly blue eyes of the orange-haired boy.

“Come on, Alf,” said Mack, gently tugging at Alf’s coat, concerned about his old friend’s strange behavior.

But for a moment Alf held still, his gaze still locked with that of the orange-haired boy.

“Come on” repeated Mack. “We’re casting off!” Alf turned and followed his friend toward the lines that held the ship to the wharf. After a few steps, he looked back, but the boy was gone. Boys gets into all sorts of trouble, he thought, his ears still ringing from the music of those bells. CHAPTER 3

MOLLY

PETER TROTTED AFT on the Never Land’s bustling deck, dodging the sailors making final preparations for casting off and getting under way. The forward gangway had been detached, hauled aboard, and stowed; now sailors were working on the aft gangway. When they were done, there would be no way off the ship.

Peter’s plan was to dart down the gangway just before they finished the job and disappear into the bustle on the wharf. He figured the ship’s departure wouldn’t be held up just for him, a mere one boy out of five.

He had no plan for what he’d do once he got off the ship; all he knew was, he didn’t want to stay on it. He’d seen enough of the Never Land to decide that it was an unpleasant, dirty place, run by unpleasant, dirty men. They were around him now, stinking of sweat, struggling with lines and sails as an officer shouted orders that consisted mostly of curses. They don’t seem like a happy group, thought Peter.

He neared the aft gangway and stopped, looking for his chance to flee. Directly ahead, blocking his path, stood the first officer, Slank, supervising the gangway crew. Just beyond, two sailors were carrying the canvas-draped cargo that had been brought onto the ship at the last minute. Peter had watched the cargo’s arrival and the little drama that had played out on the wharf. He’d seen the sailor, the one with the big nose wart, reach under the canvas and touch something; he’d seen the look that had come over the man’s face. He looked so happy, Peter thought. Why did he look so happy?

Peter studied the mysterious cargo now being maneuvered into the aft hold. It didn’t look heavy; the sailors handled it fairly easily. Peter wondered what was inside.

He was distracted by a giggle, and turned to see a rare sight: a girl. He’d not seen many girls over the past few years; St. Norbert’s had had only one, the headmaster’s daughter, an unpleasant, sallow-faced child who amused herself by dropping spiders onto the heads of boys passing beneath her third-floor window.

This girl he saw now in no way resembled the headmaster’s daughter. She had large, wide-set green eyes, and long brown hair that curled slightly and turned to gold at the tips. She wore a long, straight blue dress that accentuated the slimness of her frame. She was perhaps an inch taller than Peter, and by the look of her she took baths. At St. Norbert’s, Peter took one bath a month, unless he could get out of it.

He straightened his posture and tried to look older.

The girl stood next to a stout woman, wearing a wide-ranging and complicated skirt and wielding a formidable black umbrella. The woman’s hair was an unnatural shade of red, and she wore a great deal of powder on her face, caked and cracked at the edges of her mouth and nose. She was surveying the ship and crew, and it was clear she did not approve of either.

The canvas-wrapped cargo was lowered into the hold, and disappeared. The brown-haired girl watched it go, then glanced around quickly. Her eyes fell on Peter. He half expected her to look away, as strangers do when their gazes lock by accident, but she didn’t; she kept her eyes on him, studying him openly, until finally it was he who broke the contact. Peter turned toward the wharf.

“Ready, sir!” shouted a seaman.

“Get aboard, then,” shouted Slank. “We’re wasting time!”

Peter’s attention returned to the gangway, which he saw was about to be hauled aboard. This was it, his chance to escape. He tensed his legs as he prepared for the dash to the wharf. Ready, set …

“Peter!” He felt a hand grab his shirt from behind. “Peter!”

It was James. “Not now,” whispered Peter. “Go away.”

“But I lost you—and—and—and I couldn’t find you, and—and …”

“Go away!” hissed Peter, pushing James from him. He looked around quickly and saw the girl staring at him. He looked back to where several sailors were preparing to haul up the gangway. Again Peter stiffened, ready to run for it.

“Please,” James pleaded, weeping, his voice desperate. “I’m scared.”

Peter looked—he didn’t know why—back up at the girl. She was watching him intently. For an instant he thought her expression meant that she disapproved of his shoving James, and it bothered him. Why do I care what she thinks?

But then the girl shook her head side to side, barely moving it.

It’s not disapproval, Peter thought. She’s warning me.

The girl nodded her head toward the gangway. Peter looked that way and saw a huge man—more a horse than a man—who hadn’t been there a minute before. His enormous black-booted feet were braced on the deck. His right hand held a long, coiled whip.

I wonder what he …

It happened in a second, at most two. A sailor bolted for the gangplank, his bare feet slapping wood. He had taken perhaps three long strides when the whip cracked—it moved much too fast for Peter to see it—and wrapped itself around this man’s ankle like a snake. The sailor crashed to the deck as the giant jerked the whip back, dragging the man effortlessly, as if he were no more than a dead cat, to the feet of the scowling Slank.

Slank spat on the sailor.

“Having second thoughts, were you, now?” he said. “Somebody always does, come cast-off time. That’s why we have Little Richard, here.” Slank nodded back at the huge man, then drew back his leg and kicked the would-be escapee hard in the ribs. The man moaned and squirmed on the deck.

“You’ll be starting out this voyage with a week in the brig,” said Slank. “Hardtack and water for a week. You can sleep with the rats for a while, and if that don’t improve your attitude, we’ll give you another taste of Little Richard’s lash—only this time he won’t be so gentle.”

Slank glared around the deck. “Anybody else having thoughts of leaving?” he said. The sailors, avoiding Slank’s stare, busied themselves with their work.

“I thought not,” said Slank. “Now, get this bag of lice out of my sight.”

As the sailor was lifted, still moaning, and hauled below, Slank resumed his supervision of the gangway crew. “READY!” he shouted. “HEAVE TO!”

The sailors grunted, and the gangway was raised up off the wharf and slid back onto the deck. Slank gave the order to cast off the lines. The bow, pushed by the tide, began to slowly swing away from the wharf. No getting off the ship now.

Peter glanced up again at the girl. She was still watching him. If not for her warning, it would have been his ankle snared by the whip, and his bruised body being hauled off the brig. He nodded to the girl, just a bit. It was the closest he could come to thanking her.

The girl nodded back, her face serious, but her eyes betraying a hint of amusement. And then, to Peter’s surprise, she walked over to the short set of ladderlike stairs that led from the aft deck cabins to the main deck, collected her skirts into a fistful of fabric, and descended.

The stout woman leaned over the rail and called after her. “Miss Molly! Miss Molly!” But the girl paid no mind. She walked up to Peter, who made himself as tall as he could. They were just eye to eye.

“Thinking of leaving us, were you?” she asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peter said.

“Don’t you?” she said, smiling now.

“No, I don’t.”

“Good,” she said. “Because it would be a shame to miss a voyage aboard such a lovely ship as the Never Land.”

The stout woman leaning over the upper rail snorted, making a noise like an irate duck.

“Lovely ship, indeed,” she said. “It’s a floating stinkhouse, is what it is, pardon my French. And barely floating at that.”

“That’s Mrs. Bumbrake,” said the girl, still looking straight at Peter. “She’s my … governess.”

“Your father buys us passage on a garbage scow,” said Mrs. Bumbrake, “but does he sail with us? Oh no. Not him. He sails on the Wasp, the finest ship in all of England.”

“I’m sure Father has his reasons,” said the girl.

Mrs. Bumbrake made the duck sound again.

“My name is Molly Aster,” the girl said to Peter. “What’s your name?”

“Peter,” he said.

“What’s your last name?

“I don’t know,” he said. It was true. Back at St. Norbert’s, he’d once asked Mr. Grempkin what his last name was, and Grempkin had boxed his ear and told him it was a stupid question. Peter never asked again.

“Well, Mr. Peter Nobody,” said Molly, “do you know how old you are?”

“How old are you?” said Peter.

“I’m twelve,” said Molly.

“I’m thirteen,” said Peter.

“Wait,” said Molly. “I just remembered. Today is my birthday. I’m fourteen.”

Peter frowned. “Wait,” he said. “If you were twelve, and today’s your birthday, you’d be thirteen.”

“Not in my family,” said Molly. “In my family, we only celebrate even-numbered birthdays.”

Peter was impressed. He’d never thought of that.

“I just remembered something myself,” he said. “Today is also my birthday, and I am now”—he paused dramatically—“sixteen.”

“No,” said Molly. “Too much. I’ll accept fourteen. We’ll both be fourteen.”

Peter thought about it.

“All right, then,” he said. “Fourteen.”

“So, Mr. fourteen-year-old Peter Nobody,” said Molly, “why are you going to Rundoon?”

“What’s Rundoon?” asked Peter.

Molly laughed. “You really don’t know?” she said.

“No,” said Peter.

“Well,” said Molly, “you’ll know soon enough, because that’s where this ship is sailing. My father is to be the new ambassador there, in the court of His Royal Highness, King Zarboff”—she held up the three middle fingers of her right hand—“the Third.”

“The daughter of an ambassador!” said Mrs. Bumbrake. “And he puts us on this seagoing dirtbucket, pardon my French.”

“What kind of a place is Rundoon?” asked Peter.

Mrs. Bumbrake made the duck sound.

“Not a terribly pleasant one, I’m afraid,” said Molly. “The people are nice enough, but the king is not nice at all.”

“The king?” said Peter.

“His Royal Highness, King Zarboff the Third,” said Molly, and again she held up three fingers. “He’s a bad man.”

“What do you mean, he’s bad?” said Peter. “And why do you hold up your fingers when you say his name?”

“I’m practicing,” said Molly. “If you don’t salute with these three fingers when you say his name, and he finds out, he has these very fingers cut off.”

“He does?” said Peter.

“He does,” said Molly. “There’s a shop in Rundoon that sells nothing but two-fingered gloves. Does a brisk business, too.”

“Oh,” said Peter.

“But that’s not the worst part,” said Molly.

“It’s not?”

“No. The king’s late father, His Royal Highness, King Zarboff the Second, was eaten by a snake.”

“So?” said Peter.

“It wasn’t just any snake,” said Molly. “It was the pet snake of His Royal Highness, King Zarboff the Third.” Both Molly and Peter held up three fingers this time.

“His snake ate his father?” Peter said.

“Yes, said Molly. “Somehow”—she arched her eyebrows knowingly—“the snake got loose in the father’s bedroom while he was sleeping. They say the son wasn’t a bit upset—didn’t even seem surprised—when it ate his father. And now, as king, he keeps the snake by his throne, and feeds it by hand.”

“What does he feed the snake?” asked little James, speaking up for the first time.

“And who’s this young gentleman?” asked Molly.

“He’s James,” said Peter. “And don’t ask him his last name, because he doesn’t know it either.”

“What does he feed the snake?” repeated James. “I mean, now that his father is gone.”

“Pigs, mostly,” said Molly. “But Father says that sometimes, if one of his servants has disappointed him, the king …”

“Molly!” interrupted Mrs. Bumbrake. “That’s enough!”

James was crying again. “Peter,” he sniffled, “I don’t want to go to where there’s a mean king and hungry snakes!”

“Here, now!” boomed an angry voice behind Peter. Recognizing the tone, Peter was already ducking before the “now” ended, and thus he received only a glancing blow from First Officer Slank.

“You runts ain’t supposed to be here!” shouted Slank at Peter and James. “This here is for first-class passengers. These here ladies …”

He glanced up toward Mrs. Bumbrake, whose skirts swirled in the wind, revealing a plump ankle, a pink flash of shin. Slank’s mouth went slack for a moment, then he smacked his lips. Mrs. Bumbrake blushed and tilted her head down, raising her eyes so she could bat them at the smitten Slank.

“… these here lovely ladies,” he said, turning back to Peter and James, “do not want to be bothered by riffraff like you.”

Molly said, “But they aren’t bothering us!”

“Forward with you right now!” said Slank, ignoring Molly and giving Peter and James a rough shove, so that Peter had to grab James to keep him from falling.

“There’s no need for that!” said Molly.

“All due respect, miss,” said Slank, “but I knows how to handle this here riffraff. We’ve had these orphan boys aboard before, and if you let ’em …”

“Orphans?” said Molly, her eyes widening. “These are the orphans?”

“Yes, miss,” said Slank. “We got five of ’em this voyage.”

Molly, somber now, stared at Peter.

“What?” said Peter.

“Oh, my,” said Mrs. Bumbrake.

“What?” repeated Peter. But Molly said nothing.

“Get moving,” said Slank, shoving Peter and James again. “And if you don’t want to feel Little Richard’s lash, you’ll stay forward until we reach Rundoon. After that, your sorry hides belong to Zarboff.”

Peter froze. “King Zarboff?” he said, slowly raising three fingers. “The Third?”

Slank laughed, pleased by the fear on Peter’s face. “Why, yes!” he said. “You didn’t know? You’ll be spending your days as a servant in the court of His Royal Majesty! He goes through a lot of servants, does the king. Seems we got to bring him a new lot every trip we make. So my advice is, step lively, unless you want to see his snake from the inside.” Slank, roaring with laughter, gave Peter and James another shove. The two boys stumbled forward, James sobbing. When they reached the bow, Peter turned and saw that Molly was still watching him. The Never Land’s sails were almost all hoisted now; the ship was moving out of the harbor. Peter glanced over the side at the dark water, gauging the distance to land, but he’d never tried to swim, and knew this was not the time or the place to learn. Besides, the way James was clinging to his shirtsleeve, if he went over the side they’d both end up drowning.

No, there was no escaping it now. They were on their way to Rundoon. CHAPTER 4

THE SEA DEVIL

FAR FROM THE WHARF, well across the bay and almost to the open sea, was a tangle of rocks so treacherous that no captain familiar with these waters would sail his ship there. Over the years, many ships had struck these rocks and sunk; they lay in pieces scattered everywhere, masts, bows, keels. It was the perfect place to hide a ship. Angels’ Graveyard, it was called, and it so frightened most sailors that they would not even look in that direction.

But there was a ship in there now, amid the huge rocks, long and low, black as coal, with three masts pointing toward the sky like skeleton fingers. On the foredeck stood two men, one squat and one tall.

“Can you see her?” said the squat man. He wore a striped shirt and blue wool pants that didn’t quite reach his ankles; his blistered bare feet were dark as tar.

“Not yet,” replied the tall man, squinting through a spyglass. He was a strikingly unpleasant figure, with a pockmarked face and a large red nose, like a prize turnip, glued to his face. His long black hair, greasy from years without washing, stained the shoulders of the red uniform coat he’d stolen from a Navy sailor on the high seas, just before escorting that wretched soul over the side of the ship. He had dark, deepset, piercingly black eyes, overshadowed by eyebrows so bushy that he had to brush them away to see through the glass. But his most prominent feature was the thick growth of hair on his upper lip, long and black, lovingly maintained, measuring nearly a foot between its waxed and pointed tips. It was this feature that gave him his name, the most feared name on the sea: Black Stache.

“There’s a hunk of worm food in the way, the Never Land,” he said. “What kind of fool name is that for a ship?”

“It’s a fool name, all right,” said the squat sailor.

“Shut up,” said Black Stache.

“Aye, Cap’n.”

Black Stache moved a few steps to his right, then squinted through the glass again.

“There she is!” he said. “The Wasp. Clear as day. Now, that there is a rival worthy of the Sea Devil. So she thinks she can sting us, does she? Outrun us?”

He laughed, and so did the squat man, and so did the dozen or so pirates within earshot, though they didn’t know what they were laughing at. The crew of the Sea Devil understood: if Black Stache laughed, you laughed. If he snarled, you snarled. If he breathed in your direction, you ran for cover. “Ratbreath,” his sailors called him behind his back. It was said that he liked to eat vermin raw, with a touch of sea salt.

When Black Stache had heard enough laughter, he raised his arm, and the crew quieted immediately. He turned to the squat man, who had been the Sea Devil’s first mate for a year now, the longest anyone had ever gone in that position without being heaved overboard by the captain.

“We’ve got the Ladies ready, don’t we?” asked Black Stache.

“Aye, Captain, we do at that.”

“Then we’ll just see who’s the faster ship, won’t we, Smee?”

“Aye, we will, sir,” said Smee, “if the Ladies hold.”

“The Ladies” were Black Stache’s secret weapon—a special set of sails he’d had the ship’s sailmakers make, using patterns that Black Stache had obtained from, of all places, a ladies’ corset maker. Though they had not yet been tested at sea, Black Stache was convinced that his invention would revolutionize the pirate industry. He was saving the Ladies for just the right moment, when he was heading downwind, closing on his prey for the kill.

“They’ll hold,” he said. He spat on the deck, then turned to the sailors gathered near.

“We’ll see who’s the fastest ship afloat, eh men?” he said. “And when we do, the Wasp won’t be floating anymore!”

The sun-bronzed pirates cheered, and not just because they had to. They knew there would be treasure on board soon, with a share for them. Black Stache saw the greed in their eyes.

“Treasure, lads!” he shouted. “The greatest treasure ever taken to sea!”

The pirates cheered again, louder this time.

“Or so some have said,” said Black Stache, and he turned to stare at a cage on the main deck. There was a man inside the cage, a uniformed sailor. He huddled in a corner, shaking at the sound of Black Stache’s voice.

“And if this scurvy dog is wrong,” said Black Stache, his black eyes boring in on the terrified prisoner, “then he’ll wish he’d never been born, that I vow.”

“The treasure’s on the Wasp. I promise,” cried the prisoner. “I heard it with me own ears.”

“It’d better be,” Black Stache said. “Or I’ll wear them ears on a necklace.”

Ignoring the man’s whimpers, Black Stache turned and raised the glass to his eye again.

“They’re hoisting sail,” he said. “Making to catch the tide. Tell the men to make ready to follow.”

Smee relayed the order, and the pirates swung smoothly into action. They didn’t look pretty, but they were an efficient crew, well trained by the whip.

Black Stache ignored them, his gaze still aimed through the glass.

“You’re mine, Wasp,” he mumbled on foul breath, a rare smile on his thin lips. “You, and everything you hold. Mine.”