Attack of the Jack Read online

  Above me, Salty and Pepper, Madeline, and Shawn were all shouting at once. Clinging to the ladder, I watched the chimp sit up in the small boat.

  Chuckles pulled himself toward the back of the boat. He grabbed the oars on both sides of him.

  And as we all shouted for him to stop, he leaned forward and began to row.

  Then, suddenly, we all were quiet. All gazing down at the deep green waters. All watching in horror as Chuckles rowed merrily away in the only lifeboat.

  Shawn grabbed my hands and helped pull me off the ladder, back onto the ship. My legs were shaking so hard, I could barely stand. I grabbed the railing to hold myself up.

  The bow of the ship tilted up as the stern sank lower. We huddled at the back, getting closer and closer to the water.

  “We … we’re stuck on this sinking ship,” Shawn whispered.

  I put a hand on his shoulder. His whole body was shaking. His teeth were chattering. Ocean spray splashed over us. The sound of the waves grew louder as we sank lower and lower, closer and closer to the churning sea. Our black sails whipped angrily in the blowing wind.

  Salty Magee raised a hand to get our attention. “Don’t panic, everybody. No reason to panic.”

  “Why shouldn’t we panic?” Pepper asked. “I think we should definitely panic.”

  The ship jerked hard. Icy water splashed over us.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Salty said. “Okay. Go ahead and panic, everyone.”

  “What about the raft?” Madeline chimed in. “Don’t we have a life raft on board?”

  “Of course we do,” Salty replied. “I should have remembered. We have a raft down below. Our lives have been saved!”

  He dove for the stairway and disappeared below. Shawn and I gripped the rail with both hands. Our shoes were slipping and sliding on the deck as the ship tilted higher. I knew that in a short while, we would slide into the sea.

  “Wh-what’s taking him so long?” Shawn demanded.

  Salty climbed back on deck, shaking his head. “No raft,” he said. “The hold is filled with water. But there’s no raft down there. Nothing.”

  I let out a long sigh.

  “Well … we could make a raft,” Madeline said, stepping up to him. “If we have a saw, we can cut a raft big enough for the four of us. We can cut it out of the deck.”

  “Good idea,” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” Pepper said.

  “Find a saw in the supply cabin,” Madeline told Salty. “We don’t have much time.”

  Salty turned and ran across the tilted deck. I stepped up to Madeline. “That was a great idea,” I said. “You—you’re making sense,” I blurted out.

  She brought her face close to mine and whispered: “I’m not really crazy, Violet. It’s all an act. I act like this so Jack the Knife and the others won’t put me to work. I don’t want to be a pirate like them. Safer, you know.”

  I realized my mouth was hanging open. Shawn was staring at her, too.

  All an act. Well … she was a good actress. She had everyone fooled.

  We cried out as the ship lurched again. I heard a cracking sound—and saw the rail on the deck wall crack and splinter. Glass shattered. The black sails flapped louder on their tilted masts.

  Salty came running back to us. “We don’t have a saw,” he reported. “So we can’t build a raft.” He squinted at Madeline. “Any other ideas?”

  Before she could answer, there was a deafening craaaash. One of the masts toppled over. The sails plunged into the waves, and the whole mast broke off and disappeared into the sea.

  Cracking sounds … shattering glass … wood breaking … crunching … The deck shot away, tilted up, and we were standing on air.

  I grabbed onto Shawn as we went flying, flying, then dropping, dropping … hurling straight down … into the water, both of us screaming all the way.

  The slap of the water cut off my scream. My body plunged under the surface, and I sank with my eyes wide open. The icy chill of the water paralyzed me. I felt as if I’d sink forever.

  I finally remembered that I had arms and legs. Fighting the cold and my panic, I shot my arms out and began to kick. My shoes were heavy under the water, and I kicked slowly, painfully, twisting my head up and reaching with both hands for the surface.

  My head bobbed over the rolling waves, and I gasped for breath, my chest about to burst. The cold of the water sent chill after chill down my body. My clothes weighed me down. I felt as if I weighed four hundred pounds!

  The salt water burned my eyes. I swallowed a mouthful and started to choke. Paddling furiously, I kept my head above the surface. “Shawn? Shawn?” I tried to shout his name, but my voice came out weak and muffled by the rush of tossing waters.

  Frantically, I spun around. “Shawn?”

  I didn’t see him. I saw pieces of the boat floating on top of the water. Chunks of the masts. A black sail. Boxes and chests and chairs from the cabins down below.

  “Shawn?” My voice cracked with terror. “Where are you?”

  A wave tossed me backward. I hit something hard.

  “Hey—!” a voice cried out.

  I spun and saw my brother, his blond hair matted against his head, his eyes wide with terror, paddling hard, struggling to tread water as the waves pushed us one way, then the other.

  “Shawn—you’re okay!” I choked out.

  “Violet—” I couldn’t hear what he said. I knew that Shawn wasn’t a very strong swimmer. I wrapped my hands around his waist and tried to hold him above the surface.

  “We—we can’t hold on much longer,” Shawn said. A wave tossed us into the black sail floating on the surface. The sail sank slowly, silently. I held on to Shawn, and we bobbed away from it.

  I pointed. “Look. The ship is gone. It’s under the waves. Where are the others? Where are Madeline and Salty and Pepper?”

  Shawn didn’t seem to hear me. His whole body shuddered under the water. “We … we’re going to drown,” he murmured.

  “No,” I said. “Hold on, Shawn. Keep kicking. Hold on.”

  I tried to sound courageous. But I knew Shawn was right. There was no way we could survive for long.

  I held on to Shawn as a strong wave swept us forward. The sun was nearly down. I saw ripples of red light in the darkening water. The sky above us was gray with heavy, low clouds.

  I spun in the water—and screamed when I saw Madeline and Salty and Pepper. They appeared to be floating on the surface of the water. Sitting up and floating toward us.

  I blinked and blinked again. I knew I was seeing things. My terror was causing me to imagine them floating on the ocean crests.

  But no.

  They began to wave their arms and shout at us. And I saw they weren’t floating by themselves. They were sitting on a square piece of the deck. They had a raft after all!

  Salty and Pepper reached both hands down and grabbed Shawn under the shoulders. “Would ye like a ride?” he shouted. “Plenty of room for all.”

  Shawn scrambled onto the small raft. Then they pulled me on after him.

  For a long moment, we all sat staring at one another. Shawn and I were breathing hard, water rolling down our faces. I shivered and hugged myself. The air had grown cold with the sun nearly down, and my soaked clothes pressed against my skin.

  “The Jolly Sea Scab is at the bottom of the sea,” Salty said. “She was a good ship.”

  “No, she wasn’t,” his other head replied. “She sprung a leak and stranded us here.”

  “She was a good ship in her day,” Salty said.

  Pepper muttered something I couldn’t hear over the rush of wind and the steady wash of the waves.

  “The deck made a good raft after all,” Madeline said. She leaned back, pressing her hands on the wood planks behind her. “We didn’t have to saw it. It broke into the perfect size.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Salty said, shaking his head. “Look around. Nothing but ocean for miles. No other ship. No one to save us.
”

  “We can’t give up,” I said. “Maybe—”

  “We’re going to freeze to death,” Salty said. He shuddered.

  “No, we’re not,” Pepper chimed in. “We’re going to starve to death.”

  “Freeze to death,” Salty insisted.

  “Starve to death,” Pepper said.

  “Freeze to death!”

  “That argument is not going to help us,” Madeline said. “I don’t care which one of you wins. You’re not being helpful.”

  The two heads stared at her. “What would be helpful?” Pepper asked.

  “This will,” Madeline replied. She reached into a deep pocket in her skirt and pulled out a silvery pistol. She raised the gun in front of her.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Salty cried. He raised his hands above his head as if in surrender.

  “I—I knew you were crazy, Mad Madeline,” Pepper sputtered. “But I didn’t think you were that crazy.”

  “Put it down! Put it down!” Salty cried. “What do you think you are doing?”

  I was holding my breath, my eyes on the pistol. Shawn had backed up to the edge of the raft.

  A wave lifted us, carried us for a bit, then lowered us down hard.

  Madeline grinned at Shawn and me. Then she turned to Salty, who still had his hands raised in the air. “It’s a flare pistol,” she said. “It’s not a gun.”

  Both Salty and Pepper let out sighs of relief. They lowered their hands to the wooden raft.

  “I grabbed this when the ship was going down,” Madeline said. “I’m going to send up a flare. It will burst open, bright red against the gray sky. If there’s a ship around anywhere, they’ll see it. And they’ll come rescue us from this flimsy raft.”

  Salty and Pepper both cheered. “Yes. Do it! Do it!” They both cried.

  “Someone will see it,” I said, trying to sound brave. “I know they will.”

  “Okay. Here goes.” Madeline raised the flare gun above her head. She pointed it straight up at the sky.

  The trigger made a loud click as she pulled it.

  I raised my eyes to see the flare spread light over the sky.

  But nothing happened.

  Madeline kept the flare gun raised high. She pulled the trigger again.

  Nothing.

  She let out a groan and lowered the gun to her lap. “Guess it got wet,” she murmured, shaking her head. “It doesn’t work if it’s wet.”

  The four of us sat staring at the flare gun in her lap.

  Finally, Salty broke the silence. “That was our last chance,” he said.

  The sun dropped quickly. The sky grew as black as the waters that surrounded us.

  The four of us sat hunched close together, hugging ourselves for warmth. There was no room to stretch out or lie down. Salty tried pushing his legs straight out, and his boots trailed in the water.

  Madeline’s head was down, and her hair covered her face. I couldn’t tell if she was sleeping or not.

  Shawn leaned his head against my shoulder and shut his eyes. My teeth were chattering. I tried to think warm thoughts. I thought about a sandy beach in sunlight. And about big steaming bowls of chicken soup.

  It actually helped a little.

  The raft slid up and down on the waves. The ocean was pretty gentle, but I still felt as if I was riding an endless roller coaster. My stomach growled. I lowered my head and shut my eyes, but I knew I couldn’t sleep.

  This is the worst night of my life, I told myself. It can’t get any worse than this.

  That’s when I felt a hard bump. Something jolted the raft, lifting it off the water.

  “Huh?”

  “What’s that?”

  All four of us were alert now, gazing around frantically.

  Another hard bump sent the raft sliding off a wave. I gripped the planks, pressing my hands into the wood. My entire body stiffened in fright.

  “Sh-sharks,” Shawn stuttered.

  Another bump made me scream.

  Madeline placed a hand on my shoulder. “Let them have their fun. They’ll swim away soon. Sharks never stay still.”

  “But what if they’re hungry?” I demanded.

  “Don’t put your hands or feet in the water to find out,” Salty chimed in.

  Another bump from under the raft made us all scream.

  I bounced hard. Shawn grabbed me and held on to my arm.

  “Does anyone know the Pirate’s Prayer?” Pepper asked. “I’d like to say the Pirate’s Prayer now.”

  “There’s no such thing,” Salty said.

  “Too bad,” Pepper said. “This would be a good time for it.”

  I was gritting my teeth so hard, my jaw ached. I hugged myself tightly, as if that could keep me safe. I squinted into the black water, trying to see the shark that kept attacking us.

  But it was too dark to see anything. Too dark to see where the water ended and the sky began.

  I’m not going to cry, I told myself. For one thing, it was too cold to cry. I imagined my tears freezing, turning to ice on my cheeks.

  I have to be brave for Shawn.

  He clung to my arm, his head down, his shoulders trembling.

  “The shark is gone,” I whispered. “Shawn—do you see? It’s not bumping the raft anymore.”

  He didn’t raise his head. “That’s good,” he whispered. “But Salty and Pepper are right. We can’t survive out here.”

  I wanted to reply with something cheerful or optimistic. But I couldn’t think of anything. So I just patted his arm and stayed silent.

  How did we survive that dreadful night?

  I don’t know. I must have fallen asleep somehow. When I opened my eyes, a red ball of a sun was climbing the purple-pink sky. Beams of light trickled through the ocean waters.

  I blinked myself alert. My arms and legs felt stiff. My hair had matted over my face.

  I brushed it away—and saw a sailing ship in the distance.

  “Hey—!” I gave a hoarse shout. My throat was still clogged from sleep. “Hey—look!”

  Madeline raised her head and turned toward where I was pointing. Salty and Pepper had been snoring loudly together. They coughed themselves awake and stared at the ship.

  “It has black sails!” Shawn exclaimed.

  “Another pirate ship!” Salty cried. “Come to rescue us.”

  “Does it see us?” Pepper demanded.

  The two-headed sailor jumped to his feet. He began shouting at the ship and jumping up and down.

  “Easy! Easy!” Madeline warned. “You’ll tip us over!” But she jumped up and began waving both arms frantically at the approaching ship.

  The black sails seemed to grow larger as the big ship broke through the waves, sweeping toward us.

  “We’re going to be saved!” I cried. “I don’t believe it. It’s coming to rescue us!”

  Shawn and I cheered as the hull of the ship bounced in the water. White waves rolled off the pirate ship’s sides as it picked up speed.

  Salty and Madeline were still on their feet, waving wildly to the ship.

  “They see us!” Salty cried. “Yes! They see us!”

  “No, they don’t!” Pepper shouted. “They don’t see us! Look out!”

  Pepper was right.

  I gasped in horror and grabbed on to Shawn. “They don’t see us! They’re going to crash right into us!”

  I hate when that happens. When a ship crashes into you and you drown instantly. Don’t you hate that, too?

  Thank goodness the story doesn’t end here. I don’t think that ending would make a splash with anyone. Haha.

  What do you think happens now? I don’t know. I get a SINKING feeling when I think about it. Haha.

  I’ve got one thing to say to Violet and Shawn—You shoulda brought a towel!

  Hahahaha!

  A deep shadow covered us as the hull of the big pirate ship rose, sending up tall waves. A frothy white-capped wave leaped high, then came sweeping forward.

&nbs
p; I held on to Shawn with both hands. The wave crashed over our tiny raft, sending it toppling over. Shawn and I flew into the air. I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out.

  I smacked the surface of the water hard, then sank into the cold. My mouth was still open. I swallowed a mouthful and started to choke.

  I forced myself to the surface, still coughing. I wiped water from my eyes and searched desperately for my brother. I saw the raft—empty now—being carried away on the waves.

  And then I saw Shawn, paddling frantically, waves pushing him one way, then the other.

  “Shawn—” I tried to call to him. But my throat was still clogged with salt-thick ocean water.

  The pirate ship bobbed beside us now, and I saw something fly off the deck. It floated up, then hit the water beside us.

  It was a net. A wide fisherman’s net. The opening spread in front of us, and Shawn and I dove into it.

  A few seconds later, our traveling companions, Madeline and Salty and Pepper, joined us, thrashing their arms and legs, eager to be pulled up to safety.

  The net lifted us out of the water. We bounced off one another, moaning and groaning, gasping in breaths of fresh air. “So this is what it’s like to be a tuna fish,” I said.

  Shawn didn’t smile. He was concentrating on staying on his hands and knees as the net rose higher and swung us onto the ship’s deck.

  We landed hard on the wooden planks. I landed on my side, and pain shot up and down my whole body. I breathed steadily, waiting for it to fade.

  I wasn’t about to complain. We were alive. Back onboard a ship. I thought we were safe.

  I didn’t know that we were still in horrible trouble.

  The black sails rippled overhead and the ship rocked gently over the low waves. Sailors surrounded us. They pulled us out of the heavy rope net.

  I know that it’s not right to judge people by their looks. But these men were mean looking. Frightening. Tough. Their beards were long and their hair was wild. They had tattoos of anchors and mermaids over their arms. Their uniforms were stained and torn.