Maggie & Abby and the Shipwreck Treehouse

by Will Taylor

  Her heart was pounding. This was the moment of truth. If this didn’t work, she’d be stranded in the palace with her arms full of loot. She opened the chest and pushed hard on the back panel, the special secret panel made from the very same wood that had given them the Island Door to start with. The panel opened, and the carpet and treasure slipped through, and Emily followed, closing the trunk after her.

  And there she was, standing on the stump on her own dear island just as if she’d grown there, surrounded by treasure. And there was the Ship Door, gleaming in the moonlight, and Emily sang her very favorite pirate chantey as she stepped triumphantly through to rejoin her crew.

  The pirates held a monumental party all that night and all the following day. They drank the cider, ate the food, and sang songs celebrating the whole new way of life opening before them. No more robbing poor sailors, no more pushing and shoving, no more risking nasty bruises. Just sailing and singing and stealing beautiful treasures from overstuffed palaces. The stars blazed in the sky, then the sun, then the stars again, and they were the happiest pirate crew in all the world.

  A few days later, when they had recovered from the party, Emily asked for volunteers to begin building a little palace of their own on the island, so they could store all their fine new things.

  Emily also decided it was too risky having the Palace Door standing around on the deck of the ship. What if someone went through it by mistake? So she had the door moved to the hold belowdecks, and she purchased a fine-carved lock and key and locked the door tight in its frame, placing the new key on a ring at her belt.

  And so the crew settled happily into their new life as palace pirates, and between the ship and the island, Emily had everything she ever wanted. The split in her heart was healed. Every few months they would dig up another tree, place another door in the hold, and plant another piece of furniture in another fine and famous palace. Their home on the hospitable little island became more and more comfortable and lavish, and the legend of the unknown ambassador with her ring of keys grew and grew among the rich and powerful. As did the legend of the Palace Pilferer. Emily had been spotted more than once in her second disguise, and her shadowy crimes and impossible escapes were becoming so legendary that a rough WANTED portrait of her hung in every town square along the coastlines of Europe.

  “Hang on a second,” I said, raising my spoon to interrupt. I spread my own handful of flour on the counter. “They took down another whole tree and made the trunk into a door they kept on the ship”—I drew a rectangle—“and that door led to a piece of furniture made from the tree’s stump and roots.” I drew a circle. “And they used that to sneak into the palaces. Only there was no way back, so they also gave the furniture a secret panel thingy made from the trunk of that very first tree you told me about, leading to the Ship Stump on this island. So all the furniture had stump parts so you could get there from the ship, and trunk parts so you could get back to the island, and from there back to the ship. Loop complete.”

  I looked down at the disaster area of lines and squiggles I’d drawn in the flour.

  “Did I get that right?”

  “Yes,” said Antonia. “But I hope you’ve got more talent at dusting than you have at flour drawing. Here,” she suddenly called down the kitchen, “it’s not ready yet, love!”

  I looked where she was yelling. Ariadne was standing on the far end of the counter, settling her feathers, watching us.

  “What the . . . ?” I glanced over at the heavy double doors. They were definitely still closed. “How did she get in here?”

  “I told you. She always finds her way wherever she wants to be. Come back later, dear,” Antonia called, waving a hand. Ariadne gave a grumbly cluck and sat down. “All right,” said Antonia. “But you’ll be waiting awhile.” She turned back to our cereal project and went on with her story.

  So, Captain Emily and her crew had loops to palaces all across Europe and were getting richer and happier every day. But the end was drawing near. There were only so many mature trees on the island to build furniture with, and the time came when they had used up all but one. One bright autumn morning they threw a grand party and took down the final tree, and the ship’s carpenters—who were very skilled by that time—crafted its trunk into the Last Door, which Emily outfitted with the finest lock money could buy, and its roots and stump into something they had never attempted before: a beautiful sofa, wrapped in velvet of green and gold. And Emily presented it to the most famous, rich, and powerful person she could think of: the young king of France.

  I almost knocked my entire bowl of chicken feed off the counter. Could she possibly mean—?

  That night, while her ship waited in the harbor, Emily went through the Last Door and made her first visit to the final palace. The beautiful sofa, she discovered, had been placed in the king’s own private salon, which she took as a good sign. And when she stepped out into the palace and discovered it was opulent and lush beyond her wildest dreams, she knew that she’d been right. Almost waltzing through the shadowy halls, she gathered a spectacular, dizzying collection of loot. When she finally returned to the private salon, she shoved everything through the hidden panel in the back of the sofa, and was so pleased with her work that she indulged in a short rest, stretched out with her feet up on the luxurious green and gold velvet cushions, whistling sea chanteys.

  Finally she slipped through the secret panel, stowed the treasure in their island palace, and leaped triumphantly through the Ship Door, only to find her crew in a state of severe anxiety.

  The crew had received a visit from a Royal Navy harbor inspector while Emily was away. The ship had been thoroughly searched, and many awkward questions had been asked about the hold full of locked doors and the unclear origins of the ship itself.

  Emily was angry, but she grew even angrier when she checked the pockets of her Palace Pilferer outfit and realized that the key to the Last Door, which had not joined the others on her ring of keys yet, was missing, and she would have to go right back to the palace to find it. The head carpenter put a hand to his mouth when he heard this, looking horrified. Under his captain’s glare, he revealed that he had clicked the lock on the Last Door shut when the harbor inspector came aboard, for fear she might be discovered.

  Emily put a hand to her mouth too, as what that meant hit home: with no key, her door to the final palace was sealed forever. The locksmith had promised the lock was unpickable, even by the world’s best thieves, and she couldn’t very well take the whole door into his shop and ask for a replacement. He would talk, and then other people would talk, and then there would be investigations.

  So there was nothing to be done. Emily had had one solitary night to pillage the richest, most decadent palace she’d ever seen, and there was no chance to try again. Her heart ached thinking of all the lovely treasures she’d left behind, but one night would have to be enough.

  Emily ordered the ship be made ready to sail. She was just giving the order to cast off when there was a cry from the docks. The Royal Navy harbor inspector was back, and he had reached the top of the gangplank before anyone could move. He stood, frozen, staring at Emily in her Palace Pilferer outfit, then pulled out his sword and roared.

  A quick-thinking pirate managed to knock him into the sea, but the alarm had been raised, and the crew had to scramble to cut the mooring lines and get the ship underway. Emily looked back as they cleared the harbor. The entire French Royal Navy was on their tail.

  And so they ran; first for days, then for weeks. They didn’t dare head back to their secret island while the navy pursued them, and for all their efforts, they could not shake them. They crossed the sea, and the well-equipped navy followed. They sailed down the southern tip of the Americas and up the other side, and while the smaller navy boats were forced to turn back, the biggest and strongest of the ships still dogged them.

  It was lucky for the pirates they had the island to return to for food and fresh water and a rotating vacation schedule, o
r they never would have made it as far as they did. The Royal Navy could not understand how their prey was able to maintain such a journey on such a modest ship, how they still had the heart to sing chanteys to the stars at night, or how they always had fresh eggs to hurl when their pursuers got too close.

  Finally, in the cold waters of the North Pacific, the last two navy ships—the biggest and strongest, and by that time, the angriest—caught up with them and shot them so full of holes, the pirates began to sink.

  But Captain Emily and her crew had thrown a strategy party and worked out a plan. They brought up the doors for the best palaces from the hold and one by one sent them back to the island. They got most of them through before the hold was submerged, and as the waves finally began lapping around their ankles, they all prepared to return to the island themselves, leaving behind the ship that had carried them so far.

  It was only then that Captain Emily realized there was a terrible flaw in their escape: with no lock to close the Island Door, the whole sea would rush in when the ship sank. It would come pouring through forever, roaring out of the Island Stump like a volcano, sweeping away everything they’d built and them along with it. There was only one solution: someone would have to stay behind and destroy it.

  So, as was a captain’s duty, Emily prepared to go down with the ship. She forced her crew through the door at sword point, until only her faithful first mate stood beside her. Captain Emily looked into her friend’s eyes, which were full of tears. “It’s up to you now,” she said. “Keep the crew safe. And look after the Palace for me. And if you ever get the chance, pay another visit to Versailles—and this time, get their full attention!”

  And before the first mate could say a word, Emily shoved her ring of keys into his hands, pushed him through, and slammed the door shut. With the frigid waters of the North Pacific biting at her ribs, and the horrible creaks and dying groans of her ship tearing at her ears, Captain Emily Fairchild smashed the doorframe with a hammer, cracking it to smithereens, saving the others and dooming herself to the waves.

  The crew huddled together on their island and wept. Their captain was gone, their ship was gone, and the life they’d known was over. But they were safe, and they had the hospitable little island, and they had their beautiful palace home and the looped doors they’d saved, which still led to fine palaces full of food and clothing and gold.

  They mourned their captain for weeks and months, but day by day they carried on, and their lives on the island became happy and full, though they never again found the heart to return to the tumbling waves of the sea.

  Eleven

  Abby

  Three completed cookie sheets of chicken feed later, Antonia and I sat down for lunch in front of the fireplace and the portrait of Captain Emily. Antonia had replaced the wilted flowers around the portrait with the fresh ones from that morning, and I’d helped her prepare big bowls of panzanella—toast and tomatoes and basil and onions all tossed together in olive oil and salt. It was delicious, but there was so much intel thundering through my brain I barely noticed it.

  Because I knew everything now. Everything.

  I knew how the magic in the pillow fort networks had started, and where the First Sofa came from. I knew the history of the Oak Key in my pocket, and how the locked door it went to was left to sink with Captain Emily’s ship. I knew how it drifted around the cold waters of the North Pacific until a storm washed it up on Orcas Island, where it became the trapdoor of the Shipwreck Treehouse.

  I knew how falling through that door had looped me to le Petit Salon, dumping me under the First Sofa, trapped up against the coffiny wooded slats by my backpack. I knew that all my flailing had cracked open the hidden panel in the First Sofa, and how that panel had looped me to the stump on this island. I knew the whole story. I knew more than Antonia, more than Ben, more than Maggie.

  I knew more about all this than anyone else in the whole world.

  So what the heck was I supposed to do now? It wasn’t like I could just tell Antonia about NAFAFA. I’d learned last summer that most grown-ups were pretty bad at believing there’s a global pillow fort network run by kids that they’re not allowed in.

  I chewed my panzanella in silence, listening to Ariadne’s chicken noises as she poked around the floor and to Antonia’s fork clanking against her bowl. I tried to make a mental note to tell my dad about panzanella when I got home—that was another fun word, panzanelllllaah—but my brain just laughed and went right on swirling like a Tilt-A-Whirl.

  Dad and Tamal would probably be too busy with all the new dishes they’d discovered on their honeymoon in Mexico to need any more, anyway. Tamal was a decent cook, but he was a seriously brilliant baker, even better than my dad. I’d known for sure they were in love when my dad let Tamal make cookies in his precious kitchen and only had two mini-freakouts. Tamal even taught Matt and Mark how to make his famous cinnamon rolls, and they were planning on practicing them while the rest of us were away.

  I smiled, picturing the state of the kitchen after that. Good thing half my dad’s cooking gear was already packed up. The twins had better make sure they had the kitchen spotless by the time he and Tamal got home.

  And they’d be home real soon if I couldn’t get myself off this island and back to camp. Even with Maggie playing defense, there was obviously only so long I could be missing before someone called in the authorities, and they would be sure to contact my dad.

  And the really real trouble was I was totally stranded. That locked door up on the beach wasn’t an option anymore. That had to be the Ship Door from the story, and the only place it would lead now was straight to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. And okay, that was a lot closer to Camp Cantaloupe than here, but still not anywhere I wanted to be.

  Good thing Antonia had arrived before I could pick that lock and doom us all.

  “Hey,” I said, pulling my brain back to the wonderland I was having lunch in. “Antonia. What happened to all those doors the crew saved?” Why hadn’t I thought of that right away? One of them must get me somewhere useful.

  Antonia frowned over her panzanella. “Now that really is enough, Abigail,” she said. “You know the answer to that. The others took them when they moved off the island. It was part of the compromise.”

  Shoot. Of course they took the looped doors with them. Shame I wasn’t whoever Antonia thought I was. Then I might know how to get unstuck from this place.

  Somewhere back in the Palace a clock chimed, then another, and another. Antonia looked up as though she was waiting for something.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  A loud clanging from the double doors echoed down the red carpet toward us.

  “I wonder who that could be,” said Antonia, looking at me very deliberately.

  “Huh?” I said. What did she mean who? That sound couldn’t have come from a person. The whole point of her story was that we were the only ones left on the island.

  Antonia set her bowl aside and got stiffly to her feet.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  It happened again. Antonia walked away down the main aisle, her feet brushing the carpet. I stayed in my armchair, staring, my brain barely registering what was happening. Was . . . was someone really knocking out there?

  I got up, hurrying after Antonia. She threw a half glance back at me as she reached the double doors. She turned the handle. She pulled.

  A woman was standing on the other side. A tall woman, maybe the same age as my dad, with a long, olive face, curly black hair pulled into a bun on top of her head, and dark eyes. She was wearing a navy blue Henley shirt and had a bucket of cleaning supplies in one hand, a mop and duster in the other. A ring of old-fashioned keys hung from her belt.

  “At last,” the lady said. “What took you so lo—”

  Her eyes found me, and she stopped midword. I couldn’t see my own face, because of course not, but it was a fair bet I looked just as sky-shatteringly shocked as she did.

  There were other people wa
ndering around here? This whole time?!

  “Well,” said Antonia, looking between us. “There’s obviously no need for introductions.” She turned to the woman. “As you see, dear, I won’t need your help this afternoon. Your young friend Abigail here will be helping me clean instead.”

  Twelve

  Abby

  Maybe I’d missed something important, but I for one thought introductions were totally necessary. Who was this lady in the doorway? Why did she look so horrified at the sight of me? And why did Antonia think we were friends?

  The lady stepped into the Palace, dumped her cleaning supplies right on the floor, and put her hands on her hips. “What is going on here, Mama?” she demanded. And suddenly the family resemblance was obvious.

  “Mama?” I rounded on Antonia. “You told me you were alone here! You said the others moved away from the island years ago!”

  “No, I said the others moved off the island years ago,” said Antonia as the new woman gaped at me. “You know perfectly well you all live under it.”

  “They . . . how can you . . . under . . . There are more people here?” I was spluttering worse than Samson that time he got into a bag of Pop Rocks.

  “Mama, I insist you tell me where this girl came from!” the lady shouted, stabbing a finger at me and actually stamping her foot. She looked furious, but also more than a little scared.

  “Do not take that tone, Helene,” Antonia said, squaring up to her daughter. They made a serious pair. “This girl comes from the Island Underneath.”

  “No, she does not!”

  “Of course she does!” They were face to face now. “She’s one of the children, on an early visit home from school. Clearly she decided to sneak up and explore the island when she thought I wouldn’t catch her, most likely on a dare.” Antonia looked me up and down. “I’d guess she’s Lyric and Caleb’s daughter. Though it has been a long time since I’ve seen her.”