بخش 08

CHAPTER 35

INTO THE JUNGLE

“C’MON THEN, LADS,” said Alf, trudging up the beach. Behind him, walking single file and glancing nervously at the line of palm trees ahead, were James, Prentiss, Thomas, and Tubby Ted.

“Sir,” James asked, “what’re we going to do?”

“We’re going to look for water,” said Alf.

“And food?” said Tubby Ted.

“Water first,” said Alf. “We can go days without food.”

“We can what?” shouted Tubby Ted.

“Keep your voice down,” said Alf. “We might have company on this island.”

“Wh…What kind of company?” asked Prentiss.

“I dunno,” said Alf. “But some of these islands is inhabited by savages.”

The word hung in the air. Savages.

“Sir,” Thomas said, “are savages bad?”

“Not all of ’em, no,” Alf answered. “Some are just, what’s the word, primitive. Like big children.”

“What about the others?” said Prentiss.

“Well,” said Alf, “I’ve heard stories about sailors who were shipwrecked on islands just like this, and the savages come and grabbed ’em and put ’em in a big pot.”

“Wh…Why did they do that?” asked Prentiss.

Alf stopped, looked back. “Why d’you think?” he said.

“Y…you mean they…they ate them?” said Prentiss.

“Like a Christmas pudding,” said Alf, resuming his trudge toward the tree line. The boys were quiet now, thinking unpleasant thoughts, except for Tubby Ted, who was torn between unpleasant thoughts and pudding.

They reached the palm trees and explored the area a bit—that is, Alf explored the area, with the boys staying as close as possible to his reassuring bulk. They found nothing of interest: no water, no food, no footprints.

“That’s it, then,” said Alf. “We’ll have to go in there.” He nodded toward the green wall of vegetation covering the mountainous slope rising away from the beach. The boys peered apprehensively at the impenetrable facade of the jungle.

“But, sir,” said Thomas. “What if there’s savages in there?”

“We got to chance that,” said Alf. “If we don’t find water, we’ll die, and then the crabs’ll eat us just as sure as savages would.” He started forward, shoving his big frame through a thick mass of vines. They closed behind him like a green curtain, and suddenly he was out of sight. His muffled voice came back to the boys.

“You lads coming?”

The boys looked at one another, all thinking the same thing: they didn’t want to go into the jungle, but they also didn’t want to be separated from Alf. James, grimacing, pushed his way through the vine curtain, followed reluctantly, but very closely, by Prentiss, Thomas, and Tubby Ted.

As the vines closed behind them, they found themselves in a world quite different from the brilliantly sunlit beach. The sun barely pierced the thick tree canopy above them, its light weakened to a kind of green dusk. The vegetation around them was so thick that they could see no more than a few feet in any direction, and sometimes not even that. There was no path, no opening, only the random riot of the vines and trees, and within a few steps James could not be sure which way they had come from, and which way they were going.

What was more alarming was that he also did not see Alf.

“Sir?” said James. “Sir?”

“This way!” came Alf’s voice, even more muffled now, more distant.

“Coming, sir,” said James, pushing in the direction he thought the voice had come from.

Behind him, Prentiss said, “I can’t see anything.”

“Nor I,” said James.

From the rear, Tubby Ted said, “There could be anything in here with us, and we wouldn’t see it. There could be lions.”

“Don’t be stupid,” said James. “There’s no lions.”

“How d’you know that?” said Tubby Ted.

‘“Cause it’s an island. Lions don’t live on islands.”

“There could be gorillas,” said Tubby Ted.

“What’s gillas?” said Prentiss.

“Gorillas,” said Tubby Ted. “Big hairy jungle things. They swing through the trees and grab you and take you to their nests.”

“Gorillas don’t have nests,” said James.

“ ‘Course they do, you git,” said Tubby Ted. “Why d’you think they live in trees?”

James could not think of a good answer to that. He glanced up at the tree canopy, thick and dark and close.

Prentiss caught the glance, and his eyes followed it. “Why do the gil…gorillas, why do they take you to their nest?” he said.

“You don’t want to know,” said Tubby Ted, meaning, of course, that he was about to tell them. “They crack open your head like a coconut. Then they feed your brains to the baby gorillas.”

Prentiss and Thomas looked horrified.

“They do not,” said James.

“Yes they do,” said Tubby Ted. “And then they take your eyes and they…”

“Shut up,” said James.

“I want to go back to the beach,” said Prentiss.

“Me, too,” said Thomas.

“We’re not going back there,” said James. “We’re staying with Alf.”

At that moment, all the boys had the same thought: Where was Alf?

“Sir?” called James. “Sir!”

There was no answer.

“SIR! CAN YOU HEAR ME, SIR?”

Nothing.

Now they were all shouting, as loud as they could, but nothing came back to them but the hum and whine of unseen insects.

“I want to go back to the beach,” repeated Prentiss.

“All right, then,” said James. “We’ll go back to the beach, and we’ll…we’ll wait for Alf. When he sees we’re missing, he’ll come back and find us.”

“If the gorillas don’t get him,” said Tubby Ted. “Or us.”

“Shut up,” said James. “All right, we’ll…”

James looked around him. In every direction, he could see perhaps six feet; in every direction, everything looked the same.

Which way is the beach?

James looked around for a moment, feeling the weight of the other boys’ eyes on him.

“All right, then,” he said, shouldering his way through the vegetation. “This way.”

The unyielding jungle made the going tiring. The weariness James felt in his arms and legs was worsened by the feeling—growing stronger in his gut each minute—that he had gotten them seriously lost. He couldn’t tell if he was going in a straight line; he sometimes had the feeling he was walking somewhere that he’d already been, but there was no way to be sure in the unrelenting sameness of the jungle. Behind him, he heard Prentiss and Thomas crying softly, and Tubby Ted’s labored breathing as he struggled to keep up.

Tubby Ted’s too tired even to talk, James thought. That’s one good thing come of all this.

As they walked, James regularly shouted for Alf, but there was no response. Every few minutes the boys stopped to rest, and James would try to cheer up the others. But more and more he saw hopelessness on their faces, as well as growing exhaustion on Tubby Ted’s. More and more, James had to speak sternly to get them moving again.

He struggled to stay calm, but, as he stumbled forward through the clinging vines, the fears were multiplying in his mind: what if they were still lost when night fell? It was dark enough now, but…he shuddered at the thought of being surrounded by this jungle in pitch blackness.

“ALF!” he shouted, for the hundredth time, and for the hundredth time he got no answer.

“All right, then,” he said, stopping again. “Let’s rest here for a bit.”

He turned reluctantly, not wanting to see the disheartened faces of the others, but feeling the burden of command. I wish Peter were here.

Behind him, Prentiss and Thomas were sitting in a dense growth of low ferns on the jungle floor, their heads down. Tubby Ted was…

Tubby Ted wasn’t there.“Ted?” said James. “TED! D’YOU HEAR ME? TED?”

Nothing.

“Wasn’t Ted right behind you?” James asked Thomas, fighting to keep the panic he was feeling out of his voice.

“He was, last I looked,” said Thomas.

“When was that?” said James.

“I dunno,” said Thomas. “A few minutes ago.”

“You didn’t hear anything?” said James.

“No,” said Thomas, sobbing now. “What if a gorilla got him?”

That got Prentiss crying, too.

“Stop it, you two!” said James. “Now, listen. It wasn’t any gorilla. Tubby Ted probably tripped and fell, is all. We have to go back and find him.”

“I don’t want to go back,” said Prentiss. “I just want to get out of here.”

“Me too,” said Thomas. “I’m not going back where there’s gorillas.”

“There’s no gorillas!” said James.

“You don’t know that,” said Thomas. “You don’t even know where we are. I’m not going back.”

“Me neither,” said Prentiss.

“All right then,” said James. “All right. You stay here. I’m going to go back just a few steps and have a look.”

“No!” said Prentiss. “You’ll get lost!”

“I won’t,” said James. “I’ll be careful. Just a few steps. Stay right here. Don’t move, you understand?”

Prentiss and Thomas nodded. James edged past where they were sitting and pushed his way back in the direction they’d come from. He followed the broken leaves and branches, walking for perhaps a minute. Then he paused and shouted: “TED! TED! ANSWER ME, TED!”

Nothing.

James looked back and called: “PRENTISS! THOMAS! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

“Yes!” The two voices were muted, but not far off.

James decided to backtrack a little farther. Just a few more steps. He pushed on a short distance, then shouted again.

“TED! TED, IT’S JAMES! CAN YOU HEAR ME? ANSWER ME!”

Nothing.

Not daring to venture any farther away from Prentiss and Thomas, James turned back. He trudged a few yards and shouted: “PRENTISS! THOMAS!”

Nothing.

James’s spine went cold.

“PRENTISS! THOMAS! THAT’S NOT FUNNY! ANSWER ME!”

Nothing.

Now James was running, stumbling forward, shouting. In a minute he reached what he judged to be the place where he’d left them.

There was nobody there.

Maybe it’s the wrong place.

But it wasn’t the wrong place. He could see two flattened areas in the fern patch, where Prentiss and Thomas had sat. This was where they’d been.

“PRENTISS! THOMAS! ANSWER ME!”

Where had they gone?

Alone now, no longer trying to hide his fear, James whirled in circles, shouting, looking, shouting, looking, but seeing only the dark green blur of the jungle. Finally, exhausted, he dropped to his knees, then onto his stomach in the thick, soft ferns. Then he put his face in his hands and cried—big, chest-wracking sobs—until he couldn’t cry anymore.

He lay there, face in hands, trying to imagine that he could wish everything away, so that when he opened his eyes, it would all be gone—the pirates, the shipwreck, and especially this awful jungle. Gone. Everything gone but his friends.

But when he opened his eyes, the jungle was still there, surrounding him with its ominous, gloomy silence.

Now, as James’s eyes adjusted, as he raised his face from the ferns, he saw that there was something else, right there in front of him.

Two pairs of very large, very brown bare feet. CHAPTER 36

GETTING CLOSE

MOLLY AND PETER FOUND IT TOUGH GOING; the lower they descended on the mountain slope, the denser the vegetation, until they almost felt as though they were swimming in it, rather than walking through it.

With visibility limited to only a few feet, and with no way to take their bearings, they couldn’t be sure if they were still going in the right direction. As the mountain slope became more gentle, they had trouble determining which way was downhill. They found themselves stopping more and more, unsure which way to go.

“Let’s yell for them,” said Peter. “They can’t be far off now.”

“No yelling,” Molly said. “There are pirates about, and for all we know there may be others here as well.”

“What others?” said Peter.

“I don’t know,” said Molly. “But I’d prefer to find out about them before they find out about us.”

And so, having determined—they hoped—which way was downward, they pushed on. Impossibly, the jungle grew even thicker; there were times when Peter, only two steps behind Molly, could not see her. That was why, when he pushed through a particularly lush curtain of hanging moss, he bumped into her back.

“Oof,” he said. “Sorry. I…”

“Shhh,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “Listen.”

Peter listened. He heard nothing.

“What?” he whispered.

“I heard somebody shouting,” she said. “From that way.” She gestured in roughly the direction they’d been walking.

“Shouting what?” said Peter.

“I couldn’t make it out,” she said. “But it wasn’t a man’s voice. It was a boy’s.”

“That’s them!” said Peter. “H—”

He was stopped from shouting by Molly’s hand clapped over his mouth.

“Shhh,” she said, then removed her hand.

“But why?” whispered Peter.

“Because,” said Molly, with exaggerated patience, “as we were discussing one minute ago, there are pirates about.”

“But they’re nowhere near here,” said Peter.

“You don’t know that,” said Molly.

Peter, unable to think of a good answer, settled for looking annoyed.

“All right, then,” said Molly. “We’ll go toward the shout, but we’ll go quietly. Agreed?”

Peter said nothing. He wasn’t sure about taking orders from her.

“Good,” said Molly, moving again.

“You worry too much,” Peter said to her back.

She stopped, turned and faced him, her index finger pressed to her lips. And then he, too, heard it: voices in the distance…

But speaking a language he’d never heard before. Grunts and…clicks.

Whoever they were, they weren’t pirates.

Peter wasn’t sure they were human. CHAPTER 37

HEAVY LIKE A TRUNK

THE TOWERING MOUNTAIN OF ROCK AND JUNGLE, engulfed in soft white mist, rose before Stache’s vision like an altar.

“Beautiful, ain’t she?” Stache said, in a moment of uncharacteristic reverence. He jumped from the longboat into the now-gentler surf and trudged to the beach, his boots squishing wetly. Behind him, Smee and a dozen of Stache’s best men hopped out as well, and dragged the longboat up onto the white sand.

Stache, followed by the others, strode quickly to the line of footprints he’d seen from the deck of the Jolly Roger.

“Here they are,” he said. “Smee! What do you make of this?”

Smee came puffing up and examined the sand.

“Footprints,” he said.

“I know they’re footprints,” said Stache. “What’s between the footprints, Smee?”

“Ah,” said Smee, squinting. “Something’s been dragged.”

“Very good, Mr. Smee,” said Stache. “And how much does this something weigh?”

“Heavy,” said Smee.

“Yes, heavy.” Stache smiled, his twisted black moustache turning at the edges with the grin. “Heavy like a trunk.”

“A trunk!” said Smee. Then, after a pause, he said: “Say, Cap’n, wasn’t you looking for a trunk?”

“OF COURSE I AM, YOU SEAGULL-BRAINED CRETIN,” bellowed Stache. “THE TRUNK IS WHY WE’RE ON THIS BLEEDIN’ ISLAND!” Then, calming somewhat, he turned to the pirates and said, “Looks like we’ll be taking a walk through the jungle, men.”

“It looks a might thick, don’t it, Cap’n?” asked one of the pirates, hesitantly. “Could be all manner of snakes in there, waitin’ to chomp on our legs.”

“An excellent point,” said Stache. “That’s why you shall go first.”

The pirate’s face fell, but he dared not say any more.

“Now,” said Stache, looking at another of the men, and pointing to the footprints. “How many d’you figure?”

The man dropped to one knee and studied the sand.

“A bit confusing, it is,” he said. “Might be two. Might be four. And”—he turned and pointed to the pirates’ prints in the sand—” “I’d say they ain’t half the weight of us, neither, Cap’n. Children, I’d say.”

“Children,” said Stache, his face darkening. “That cursed boy.”

“But, Cap’n,” Smee said, “I don’t see how…In that storm…”

“It’s HIM,” thundered Stache. “Him and that girl. They’re on this island.”

“Yes, Cap’n,” said Smee.

Stache pointed to the man he’d designated as snake bait.

“Get moving,” he said, pointing up the beach at the waiting jungle. “We’ve got a trunk to find. And a boy to kill.” CHAPTER 38

THE TRANSFORMATION

IN THE LAGOON, THE FISH WERE STILL HOVERING. There were nine of them, all females, and for hours they had barely moved, other than to make small, efficient motions with their bodies to counteract the ebb and flow of the wave-surge, and thus keep themselves bathed in the glowing, green-gold water.

They hadn’t moved much, but they were changing. And fast. They still had their tails, though these had grown longer and more graceful. In their midsections, their bodies narrowed and their skin changed abruptly, from rough green scales to a white, fleshy smoothness. This fleshy, forward section now grew larger; a distinct head appeared, separating from the trunk by a slender neck. The eyes, originally on opposite sides of the head, moved closer together. The mouth became smaller, and a bulge of flesh started to protrude above it; ears were sprouting on each side of the head.

On the trunk, the dorsal fin now shrank, absorbed by the body, while the pectoral fins stretched longer, with the ends splaying into distinct fingers of tissue.

These creatures were not human; their features were still crude, their flesh startlingly white, their eyes, huge, shining, almost luminescent.

No, they weren’t human. But they were no longer fish, either. And with each moment, as their bodies became less fishlike, so did their brains. No longer were they “thinking” only in simple survival urges—move, eat, fight, flee. Now their thoughts were far more self-aware and complex. And, more and more, these thoughts centered on the cause of their wondrous transformation.

They were thinking about the trunk. CHAPTER 39

ESCAPE

LITTLE RICHARD WAS DRENCHED IN MILK, and the cow was none too happy. But the iron brig door hung open.

“Good job,” said Slank.

“Next time, you milk the cow,” said Little Richard.

Slank led the way quietly out of the cell. A few yards away was another cell; in it lay Mrs. Bumbrake, sound asleep, snoring. Slank barely glanced at her as he led Little Richard through the ship’s stores. They entered a narrow corridor, where Little Richard’s huge bulk touched both walls; then they came to a ladder, which led up to the Jolly Roger’s galley.

The ship’s cook never saw them coming. He became aware of them only when he felt Little Richard’s enormous paw pick him up by the neck and toss him casually down the ladderway, like a sack of flour.

With that taken care of, Little Richard, always hungry, grabbed a loaf of bread and stuffed it, whole, into his mouth.

Slank, meanwhile, looked for weapons, grabbing several knives, and handing Little Richard a massive iron skillet.

Thus armed, they headed back toward the ladderway. Slank knew that, with Stache gone, the crew would be slacking. Most likely the only man awake would be the lookout.

“You head straight to the crow’s nest,” he whispered to Little Richard. “Bonk him on the head quietly.”

Little Richard nodded. They poked their heads out into the fresh salt air. Sure enough, the crew was sprawled helter-skelter on the deck, snoozing in the sunshine. Nothing moved but a scrawny red chicken.

Little Richard pushed past Slank, and, with astonishing stealth for his bulk, slipped over to the mainmast and began to climb. A minute later, Slank heard the thonk! of the skillet. The lookout was now napping as well.

With a kitchen knife, Slank quietly cut some strips of sailcloth and lengths of rope. Then he and Little Richard took care of the rest of the crew, one by one: the big man would clap his huge hand over a sleeping pirate’s mouth, holding him firmly while Slank quickly gagged and bound him.

When the pirates had all been subdued, Little Richard, feeling prankish, hoisted and slung them over the main boom, like human laundry hung out to dry. There was dark fury in the eyes of the pirates, thoroughly humiliated by being taken prisoner, without a fight, on their own ship, by two men.

But there was nothing the pirates could do. They weren’t going anywhere, and Black Stache no longer had any backup from his ship.

While Little Richard was hanging the laundry, Slank located four pistols and two swords. Then, with the pirates watching sullenly, Little Richard single-handedly lowered a dory—normally the job of four men—over the starboard rail, where it couldn’t be seen from the island.

Little Richard climbed over the rail and slid on a rope down to the boat. As Slank prepared to do the same, he turned toward the glaring pirates, blew them a dainty kiss, and shouted, “Ta ta, ladies!”

Turning his back to them, he reached beneath his shirt and pulled out a gold locket, checking to be sure the chain was intact. He replaced it, grabbed the rope, and slid down to the boat, where Richard was already at the oars. Slank cast off; Little Richard dug the oars into the water and gave a mighty backward heave; the dory shot forward. Slank reached down and touched the blade of his sword; a thin line of blood instantly appeared on his thumb.

Nice and sharp.

As they rounded the stern of the Jolly Roger, the island came into view. The longboat Stache had used to go ashore was pulled up on the beach, but there were no men in sight.

“Take us straight in,” Slank commanded, his hand on the sword handle. “We have an appointment with Mr. Stache.”