The Pirate Who's More Terrified than Ever

by Annabeth Bondor-Stone

  The light bulbs in Margo’s head were starting to dim. “I . . . I don’t know.” She leaned against the barrel of oversize fish flakes, and she slid down to the floor next to Shivers. The expression on her face fell like October leaves. “This is all my fault.”

  “No, it’s all my fault,” said Shivers.

  “No, it’s all both of your faults,” said Albee.

  Margo put her head in her hands. “All I ever wanted was to go on adventures and sail the high seas and be brave. And look where that’s gotten me. There’s a sea monster about to make a salty snack out of my entire town!”

  Shivers’s gaze sagged to the floor. “I’m the reason Captain Crook knows about Cheese Curd Night. I’m the one who couldn’t stomach the Sea Tea. Margo, you could have stopped Captain Crook and saved your town if you had a real pirate for a friend. Captain Crook was right. I am just a landlubber in funny pants.”

  Margo looked at Shivers. She thought about all the adventures they’d shared. There were a lot of them. Four, to be exact. And none of them would have been possible without Shivers. Who better to face your fears head-on with than someone whose head is full of fears?

  Margo jumped to her feet. “Shivers, forget what Captain Crook says! You might not be a normal pirate. Well, guess what? I’m not a normal kid! If you belonged in the sea where pirates belong and I belonged on the land where people belong, we wouldn’t even know each other. And if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that we belong by each other’s sides.”

  Shivers arched his eyebrow. “You mean it?”

  Margo nodded. “We’ve only known each other for a week,” she said, grabbing Shivers’s hand and pulling him to his feet. “But it’s been a really long week.”

  “It has, hasn’t it?” Shivers cheered. “Margo, you’re right. I always want to be by your side. I just wish both our sides were outside of this closet.”

  Margo looked around the cramped room. “Well, maybe we could feed the giant fish flakes to Albee until he’s strong enough to fight the sea monster.”

  Shivers shook his head. “Margo, if there’s one thing I learned from the year I only ate pastries, it’s that flaky foods don’t make you stronger.”

  Suddenly, they heard the bolt on the outside of the door click. The door swung open. Spitball leaped inside.

  “AAAAGGH!” Shivers screamed. “She’s gonna flush us all down the toilet!”

  “Quiet!” Spitball whispered. “Did ye get the key?”

  “Huh?” asked Margo.

  “The key!” Spitball said, glancing nervously behind her to make sure no one was watching. “From the Bermuda Triangle!”

  Shivers and Margo looked at each other, stupefied.

  “How do you know about the key?” said Margo.

  “Because I wrote the message in the bottle!”

  “You?” said Shivers. “How did you fit your hand in there?!”

  “I wrote it before I put it in the bottle!” Spitball said, exasperated. She stuck out her grimy hand. “Quick! Give me the key!”

  Margo reached for the key, but then, in a flash, Captain Crook appeared in the doorway. “TRAITOR!” he snarled, grabbing Spitball and holding his sword to her throat.

  Spitball looked pleadingly at Shivers and Margo. “Ye have to unlock the—”

  Captain Crook clapped his crooked hand over Spitball’s mouth. “That’s enough out of you. And you can forget about that raise! You’ll be sinking instead!”

  Spitball let out a muffled cry and struggled to free herself, but it was no use. Captain Crook was too strong. He glared at Shivers and Margo. “Now you two have really gotten yourselves into a jam.”

  While Shivers was seized with fear, Margo seized the opportunity to escape. “Speaking of jam . . .” she said. She grabbed a jar labeled WEASEL’S JELLIED FISH off the shelf. She threw it to the ground, and it shattered at Captain Crook’s feet, spraying sugary fish bits everywhere. He leaped backward in disgust. Margo grabbed Shivers’s hand and Albee’s bag, and then ran straight out of the closet.

  “That took guts,” said Albee. But nobody was listening.

  Captain Crook tossed Spitball into the storage closet and slammed the door. “Get back here!” he called after Shivers and Margo.

  They sprinted down the stairs, but they knew Captain Crook wouldn’t be far behind. They burst into the Harpoon Saloon, where Weasel was busy mopping the floors. He still had a lot of work to do. Shiver’s semidigested Sea Tea was everywhere—even on the sword-covered walls and the fishing nets that hung from the ceiling.

  When Weasel saw them, he gasped. “What in the name of smoked sardines are you doing down here?!”

  Margo snatched a sword from the wall and pointed it at Weasel. “Drop the mop. Or I’ll slice that weird beard right off your face.”

  Weasel’s mouth dropped open in surprise. He looked like he had been frozen in the middle of slurping up a spaghetti noodle. He let the mop slip from his grip, and it clattered to the floor.

  Margo picked up the mop and tossed it to Shivers. “Now I’ve got my favorite weapon, and you’ve got yours.”

  Shivers gave the mop a little hug—what he called a huglet. “It feels like I’m home,” he sighed.

  Just then a horde of pirates sprinted down the staircase.

  Shivers gulped. “Never mind. It feels like I’m on a scary ship and I’m about to get fed to a sea monster.”

  “There they are!” shouted the pirate with the wooden leg.

  “Shivers!” Margo cried. “Get to work!”

  Shivers plunged the mop into a bucket of soapy water and mopped like he’d never mopped in his entire life. Meanwhile, Margo sliced her sword from side to side, fending off the pirates as best she could. The sound of metal clanking against metal filled the air. She blocked a sword that was swinging at her head, then turned around and batted another one away from Shivers’s bunny slippers. Captain Crook pushed his way through the crowd until he reached Margo and swung his sword at her. Margo swung back, sending sparks flying.

  Captain Crook pointed at Margo. “Look at that, mateys! She thinks she’s a pirate!” He let out a chilling cackle and raised his sword above his head.

  “Okay! All clean!” Shivers announced.

  As Captain Crook brought down his sword, Margo jumped out of the way. He stumbled forward onto the soapy, wet floor. His heavy black boots slipped right out from under him, and his face smashed into the ground. As the other pirates rushed to help him, they got swept up in the suds and came tumbling down, too.

  Margo sliced at the ceiling and cut down the fishing nets, wrapping the pirates up in a snarl of salty knots. The pirates angrily tried to tear themselves free, but the more they fought, the more twisted and trapped they seemed to get.

  “Come on!” said Margo, leading Shivers around the pile of pirates and up the staircase.

  Shivers sprinted toward the Groundhog, but Margo grabbed his arm. “We have to go back to Captain Crook’s quarters,” she said.

  “Are you crazy?!” Shivers screeched. “We have to get out of here!”

  “Shivers, if we don’t figure out what the key unlocks, all of this was for nothing!”

  Shivers knew that Margo was right. They rushed back to Captain Crook’s quarters, and Margo jammed the key into the top lock on the wooden dresser. But it didn’t fit. She tried the next one. Nothing. One by one, she tried the key in all the other locks as fast as she could.

  “It doesn’t work in any of them!” she said, her voice cracking with panic.

  Just then, Captain Crook kicked open the door. Shivers had never seen anyone look so furious. He was sopping wet from the mopwater, there were pieces of frayed rope in his hair, and his unpatched eye was swollen from hitting the ground.

  “Didn’t you read the sign on the door?” he seethed. “COME IN IF YOU WANT TO DIE!”

  As he lunged forward, Margo ran to the back of the room and opened the porthole. “We have to jump!”

  “Margo, there’s a sea monste
r out there!” Shivers cried.

  Margo looked back at Captain Crook. “There are monsters everywhere, Shivers. Now, jump!”

  That was the sound Shivers made when he collapsed on the deck of the Groundhog. It was also the sound that seven gallons of seawater made when it spilled out of Shivers’s stomach.

  Margo looked down at him and shook her head. “You really need to learn to hold your breath.”

  Luckily, Janet the sea monster hadn’t spotted them as they made their way to the ship. Maybe she didn’t have very good eyesight. She definitely didn’t have very good hearing, since Shivers was screaming so loudly he sounded like a baby whale throwing a temper tantrum. It had taken all of Margo’s strength to keep Shivers from sinking as she pulled him to the Groundhog. Albee supervised.

  Shivers grabbed his stomach. “I think I swallowed a snorkel.”

  Margo raised the Groundhog’s sails and looked back at Captain Crook’s ship. She narrowed her eyes at the lock on the flag. “What does the key unlock?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” Shivers said hopelessly. “Maybe Captain Crook has a secret diary somewhere.”

  “Well, there’s only one thing we can do now,” said Margo. “We have to warn everyone at Cheese Curd Night that they’re about to become sea-monster snacks!”

  As the ship raced toward New Jersey, Margo found her backpack below the helm, just where she’d left it. Margo never felt right without her backpack. It was like a shield for a knight, a badge for a policeman, or an Albee for a Shivers. She took out the message in a bottle, which was now a message in a backpack, and examined it. “I can’t believe Spitball wrote this.”

  “I know!” said Shivers, padding up the stairs to the captain’s deck. “The most evil and disgusting pirate we’ve ever met was actually trying to help us?!”

  “Turns out she’s not so evil after all,” said Margo.

  “But she flushed Albee down the toilet! We had to scour the sewers to find him!”

  “Which led us straight to the message in a bottle! Don’t you see, Shivers? Spitball had to flush Albee so we would find out about Captain Crook’s plan! She couldn’t have told us about it while he was standing right there!”

  Shivers put his hands on his hips. “So I look like someone who would jump straight into a sewer?”

  “No, but you do look like someone who would do anything to save his friend.”

  “Wow,” said Shivers, taking it all in. “She sure seemed evil to me.”

  Margo shrugged. “I guess things aren’t always what they seem.”

  “You’re right,” Shivers said thoughtfully. “I learned that when I went to the post office. I couldn’t find a single post in there!”

  Margo parked the Groundhog just where Shivers liked it—on the sandy shores of New Jersey Beach. By now, the last rays of sunlight had slipped past the horizon, and the moon was rising in the sky, casting a pale light across the ocean. The beach was totally deserted. Everyone in town was already getting their cheese on at the pier.

  When Shivers, Margo, and Albee arrived at Cheese Curd Night, the entire pier was covered in brightly lit booths, games, and carnival rides. There were rows of stands serving up curded cheese of all kinds—fried, baked, and Albee’s favorite, buttered.

  “Mm, buttered cheese.” Albee drooled. But nobody could tell because really, he was always surrounded by drool.

  Margo stood on her tiptoes to see above the crowd. She spotted a booth up ahead where a man in a purple top hat was holding a microphone, guessing people’s birthdays.

  “Let’s get to that microphone,” she said.

  They started weaving their way through the dense crowd. Margo recognized a few of her classmates and even saw her teacher, Mrs. Beezle, chowing down on some chocolate-covered cheese curds. The Roy Scouts were there, too. They were lined up at the edge of the pier to make sure no one fell off. Shivers had never been anywhere so noisy in his entire life. Everyone was talking and laughing, and every few seconds there were shrieks of excitement from the carnival rides.

  Shivers shuddered at the sight of the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Ferris wheel. “Are those designed to torture people?”

  “They’re rides, Shivers. They’re supposed to be fun,” said Margo.

  “What about that?” Shivers pointed to the end of the pier, where a giant pirate-ship ride was swinging back and forth. “It’s like they’re trying to get seasick on purpose!”

  “Some people like getting seasick,” Margo explained.

  Shivers held Albee’s bag up to his face and shook his head. “The world is a strange place, Albee.”

  Margo and Shivers ran past the line of carnival games, where people were competing for oversize stuffed animals and giant neon sunglasses. There was even one game that was handing out goldfish in plastic bags as prizes. Albee was appalled.

  Finally, they made it to the birthday-guessing booth.

  The man tipped his purple top hat to them. “Well, hey there, kids! Do you want me to guess when you were born?”

  “We need to use your microphone,” said Margo.

  “Sorry, this microphone is for birthday guessing only.” He turned to Shivers, put his fingers on his forehead and closed his eyes. “Let me guess . . . your birthday is . . . not today.”

  Shivers gasped. “How did he know?!”

  “We don’t have time for this! Give us the microphone!” Margo said, grabbing the cord.

  “Never!” said the top-hatted man, holding on tight. “I’m nothing without my microphone! How will people know that I have a psychic gift?!”

  Margo started playing a heated game of microphone tug-of-war with the man, when suddenly she heard an all too familiar voice behind her.

  “Margo! What are you doing?” Police Chief Clomps’n’Stomps barked.

  Margo whirled around. “Dad! I need the microphone to warn the town about the pirate attack!”

  Clomps sighed. “This again? Margo, how many times do I have to tell you? Pirates don’t attack people on land.”

  “Captain Crook and his crew do!” said Margo, pointing at the horizon. “Look!”

  Clomps turned around and saw Captain Crook’s ship heading straight for the pier. Clomps’s face crumpled with concern.

  He grabbed the microphone from the man with the top hat. “Attention, everyone! Pirates are attacking the pier! I repeat, pirates are attacking the pier!”

  Everyone in earshot burst out laughing.

  “Good one, Chief! We all know pirates don’t attack people on land!” said a man waiting in line for cheese.

  Clomps rolled his eyes. He knew there was only one way to get these people off the pier. He sighed. “We’re out of cheese curds!”

  Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing.

  There were shouts of “How is that possible?!” and “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer!!”

  In an effort to beat the traffic, the whole town began running back toward the land. But as they neared the pier’s exit, they were faced with a line of swords. Captain Crook’s crew was blocking the way out. They had snuck onto the pier for a surprise attack.

  Weasel was at the front of the pirate horde. He held his sword high above his head and shouted, “Hand over Shivers and Margo, and nobody gets killed!”

  The pirate with the wooden leg whispered something in Weasel’s ear.

  Weasel cleared his throat. “Sorry . . . Hand over Shivers and Margo, then everybody gets killed!”

  The entire pier plunged into a panic. Everyone screamed and ran around like chickens with their heads cut off—or chickens whose heads were about to be cut off.

  Shivers’s scream was the loudest of all. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!”

  “There he is!” said Weasel. He advanced toward Shivers, his sword shimmering in the moonlight.

  But then, three oddly dressed people leaped in front of Shivers. There was a woman in pink sweats, a man in a business suit, and a teenage boy in a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops. Weasel’s beard brist
led in surprise. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Tilda,” said the woman in the pink sweats. “Prepare to be tormented!” Then she pulled out a giant sword.

  “Mom?!” said Shivers. He looked more closely at the man in the business suit. “Dad?!” He turned to the boy in the Hawaiian shirt. “And . . . Brock?!”

  “Hello, brother!” said Brock.

  Sure enough, it was Shivers’s entire family. They drew their swords and stepped in front of Shivers, Margo, and the people of New Jersey.

  Shivers was stunned. “So your pirate mission was coming to Cheese Curd Night?!”

  “That’s right! We come to Cheese Curd night every year! But we never bring you along because we know it would make you C-sick,” said Bob.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” said Margo.

  “So we can blend in!” said Tilda, pointing to her pink sweat suit. “We spent all day finding these disguises!”

  “Even Great Uncle Marvin is here!” said Bob.

  Great Uncle Marvin, the crankiest pirate in the Eastern Seas, stuffed a spoonful of cheese curds in his mouth and mashed his gums together. “Leave me out of this!” he squawked.

  Shivers noticed Uncle Marvin was wearing his usual striped pirate sweater. “Where’s his disguise?”

  “Right here!” Uncle Marvin said, holding up a bingo card. “They dressed me up as an old man.”

  Surrounded by the choppy ocean on three sides and bloodthirsty pirates on the fourth side, the people were starting to panic.

  “What are we going to do?!” cried a man from the crowd.

  “We’re surrounded by danger!” a woman screamed.

  “I should have stayed home and fried my own cheese!” called someone from the back.

  Tilda turned to Margo and Shivers. “Margo, as the bravest person here, you need to get the people to safety. Shivers, you go with her. We’ll fend off the crew.”

  “But Mom!” said Shivers. “These are the roughest, toughest pirates in the Seven Seas!”

  Bob took one look at Weasel and sneered. “Pirate Code breakers? They’re not real pirates; they’re just a bunch of sealubbers in funny pants.”