“I still can’t find my dagger!” Edwin yelled. “Whoever took it had better fess up!”
Jem shook his head. “Good thing the animals are on our side. We are not ready for a fight.” He pictured the tree houses that should have been built already and the Lost Souls ambushing Captain Wallace from above. But then, Scarlet was right about not letting the pirates get close to the clearing. Perhaps he could build houses at strategic points along the trail, too.
Jem’s thoughts were interrupted by muttered curses in the bushes nearby. A moment later, Scarlet emerged, looking frustrated.
“Did you find Uncle Finn?” she asked.
Jem shook his head. “The pipe’s faulty. Doesn’t make a sound.”
“Well, now we’re in trouble,” Scarlet said. “I couldn’t find the pigs, either.”
“What about the monkeys?”
“I found some monkeys. But I’m pretty sure they don’t understand English.”
“Really?” Jem’s stomach tossed and turned as though he were on a ship instead of standing on solid ground. What were they going to do?
“Really. The one who borrowed my boots just ignored me when I asked him to give them back.”
“Wait a minute. You gave your boots to a monkey?” Jem asked, incredulous. “Why?”
Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. Scarlet pierced him with a cutlass glare, then stomped off. Jem sighed. If only Uncle Finn were there to help. And Thomas. The giant would give them the strength they needed to take on a shipload of cutlass-wielding pirates. He gulped. How on earth would they stand a chance?
The other Lost Souls looked as though they were wondering the same thing as they set off down the dark trail. It was the only one on Island X they knew fairly well, having followed it to the treasure in the first place. Out in front, Scarlet held a lantern brought up from the Hop, but near the back of the line, where Jem found himself, there was nothing but the odd firefly to light the way.
Over the past month, Jem had learned that the jungle was always much noisier at night than during the day. At night, it seemed as if every insect had something to say, and loudly. Some voices were high-pitched and squeaky and others deeper, like creaky wooden rocking chairs. Jem liked to imagine they were saying something like, “Dark tonight, isn’t it?” “Sure is.” “Hey, check out Mona’s web!” “Ooh. Nice work!”
But on this night, the chorus seemed quieter, as if even the bugs understood the seriousness of the situation. A few bats flapped low overhead, and Jem wished he were closer to Scarlet so he could ask if they were trying to tell her something.
“It’s too quiet,” Smitty said suddenly. “I think it’s time for…” And the Lost Souls’ unofficial lyricist broke out into song.
Off we go to face some swabs.
Can’t say that we’re scared at all.
Off to face old Captain Wall’ce
and we’re not scared.
They’ve got guns and cutlasses.
They’ve got broadswords and brute force.
They’ve speed, drive, and resolve.
But we’re not scared.
If they take us prisoner,
hang us from the mizzenmast.
If they make us walk the plank…
“Smitty!”
The songster looked up at his captain, who’d stopped marching and was staring at him in disbelief.
“Maybe something a little more…uplifting?”
Several wide-eyed pirates murmured their agreement.
Smitty shoved his hands in his pockets. “Everyone’s a critic.”
As they passed the pit of deadly striped vipers (the “ophidian aggregation,” as Uncle Finn called it), Scarlet slipped down into it to attempt to speak to the snakes. She emerged a few minutes later, shaking her head—apparently the snakes didn’t understand English, either. She peeled a small one off her ankle, tossed it back into the pit, and continued marching down the trail. The Lost Souls followed, quiet once more.
They arrived at the Boiling Lake in darkness so deep and thick that it hid the rising steam. The Lost Souls knew exactly where they were, though. It was impossible not to, with sweat dribbling down their faces.
“Stay to the right, crew,” Scarlet called. “The edge is just on your left.”
Jem shuddered, thinking of the long fall down into burbling water. Like falling into a giant pot of soup.
Soup. His stomach rumbled, and he wondered if anyone had thought to bring snacks. He certainly hadn’t.
The Lost Souls pushed on toward the nearby Valley of Simmering Streams. Even in the morning light, they’d barely be able to find one another in the steam rising from the Boiling Lake; the pirates would sneak right up on them before they knew it.
As they trudged on down the trail, Jem tried to distract himself by looking for details to add to his map. He noted a tree with roots as high as his forehead lying on top of the ground. He also noted that if he looked closely enough at the vegetation around him, dozens of tiny silver eyes would glimmer, then disappear.
He shivered. Perhaps this was best done in broad daylight.
Think happy thoughts, he told himself. Like Christmas pudding. Or booting a football clean past the goalkeeper in a tied game. Yes, that was good. Football matches rarely involved gleaming silver eyes.
He was so deep in thought that he didn’t notice they’d arrived at the Valley of Simmering Streams until Scarlet announced, “We’re here, crew.”
They huddled around her lantern. Away from the lake, the air felt much cooler, and the sky glittered with millions of stars.
“I think we should camp close to the trees in case it rains. We’ll take turns standing guard while the others sleep. Five patrollers at a time.” She tapped the closest five heads. “Spread out along the valley and keep your eyes up.” Scarlet gestured at the big hill in front of them. The pirates would have to climb up over the top before descending into the valley. The Lost Souls had slid down that very hill several times now. The slippery-slidey ride was always the best part of the trek into camp.
Jem found a dry spot on the ground near the edge of the trees and settled in, doubting that anyone would actually be able to sleep. If the moans and squeaks from the jungle didn’t keep them awake, the knowledge that they would soon have to face the pirates surely would. Back on the Hop, they’d at least had their black cloaks to protect them—the pirates and King’s Men had cowered at the sight of the little ghouls. But when Lucas had left, he’d blown their cover. Now his new crew knew that the Lost Souls were only children. They had nothing to hide behind anymore.
Jem leaned back on his elbows and looked up at the stars. He fell asleep trying not to think about how they reminded him of all those eyes in the jungle around him.
Jem awoke to a soft, steady clicking noise. He opened his eyes and for a moment assumed he was back in the clearing near the pool. Then he remembered and sat bolt upright. The stars had faded, and the sky was now a deep blue streaked with pink and violet. The clicking noise continued. Jem looked around for its source and found Emmett lying nearby, clacking his teeth in his sleep.
“Phew,” he breathed, then wondered why no one had woken him for his night-watch shift. He glanced around the valley and saw a few patrollers on duty: Liam was drawing in the dirt with a stick while Ronagh chirped at a bird in a tree. But where were the others? Scarlet had said five would be on guard at a time. Jem stood and surveyed the bodies asleep on the ground around him. How had they all fallen asleep? How had he managed to fall asleep? And where was Scarlet?
Then Jem looked up at the hill.
He gasped as he took in one of the most terrifying things he’d ever seen.
Three faces stared down at him over the crest of the hill. One was blockish with dirty-brown hair and a nasty grimace. The next one was small with a pointy rodent nose. And the third had a red bandana wrapped too tightly around his dark hair. Lucas Lawrence. The Dread Pirate Captain Wallace Hammerstein-Jones. And Iron “Pete” Morgan, the captain�
��s right-hand man.
The air was so still that Jem could hear Captain Wallace hiss, “Do you think he’s seen us?”
Lucas didn’t answer. Instead he hopped to his feet and waved at something behind him. Suddenly there were twenty—no, forty more pirates on top of the hill. Together they took a breath, then let out a big, bloodthirsty battle call.
“Everybody up! They’re here! The pirates are here! SCARLET!” Jem screamed.
The Lost Souls leaped up from the ground, hollering and fumbling for their cutlasses. The pirates atop the hill roared again, but Jem could barely hear them. His own cries of “Scarlet! Captain!” drowned them out.
He found Tim searching for his spectacles in the grass.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know!” Tim found the glasses and settled them on his nose. “What do we do?”
Jem had no idea. He looked back to the top of the hill. There seemed to be some delay. Pete and Lucas Lawrence looked like they were arguing, while Captain Wallace was flapping his arms like a crazed parakeet.
“Let’s block the trail,” said Tim. “If we’re spread all over the valley like this, the pirates’ll just run by us and up the path.”
“Right. Of course.” Jem turned and sprinted through the crowd of Lost Souls, passing on Tim’s instructions. On the hilltop, Lucas threw himself down on his stomach and began to barrel headfirst down the mountain. Even from a hundred yards away, Jem could see the wild look on his face. One by one, the Dark Ranger pirates began to slide down the hill behind him.
“To the trail!” Jem called and made a dash for it.
“We’ve got them on the run!” Captain Wallace crowed. “After them!”
The Lost Souls halted at the mouth of the trail and looked back, puffing and shivering. It was a horrifying sight—dozens of pirates sliding down the hill, cutlasses clamped between their teeth. And one wicked boy out in front, hollering curses the Lost Souls had never even heard before.
“We’re in for it,” whispered Sam.
What would Scarlet do? Jem wondered. Before a raid, she always wished the crew a peaceful death rather than the nasty one that might well await them. But Jem didn’t think it was really the time for that. Lucas had slid to a halt at the bottom of the hill and was picking himself up, ready to charge.
Liam reached for his sister. “Get behind me, Ronagh!”
Emmett called, “It’s been jolly knowing you all!”
Just then, there was a loud crash in the bushes behind them.
“We’re here!” Scarlet hollered as she tumbled out of the bushes and onto her knees in the dirt. The Lost Souls let out a collective cry of relief as their captain, from down on all fours, looked up at the hill. Her mouth fell wide open, but whatever curses came out couldn’t be heard, for a pack of smelly wild pigs was galloping past her, followed by about a dozen scampering monkeys and a pandemonium of parrots. The entire brigade charged right to the foot of the hill as the pirates, who’d lost their cutlasses when their jaws dropped at the sight, dug their fingernails into the ground to stop their slide. Their battle cries turned to shrieks of terror as the pigs lowered their tusks and ran right up the hill, tossing pirates aside as if they weighed no more than small root vegetables. Even Lucas screamed as a cloud of rhinoceros beetles flew out of the jungle and swarmed around his head. The boy spun around and ran right back up the hill along with all the other pirates. Captain Wallace was long gone, leading the sprint back to the Dark Ranger.
Within moments, every pirate had disappeared. Their footsteps faded away until all was still again, and morning proceeded to dawn as usual on Island X.
Smitty was the first to break the stunned silence. “Hurray!” he shouted, raising his fists as if he’d just won a race. A few others joined in the cheering.
“The animals did come,” Liam cried. “Scarlet, how’d you do it?”
Scarlet finally got to her feet. “I searched for most of the night. They were downwind and hard to find. But I explained the situation, and they agreed it was important. On the way here, the pig chief rounded up some other animals to help out.”
“The rhinoceros beetles were a nice touch,” said Edwin.
“I am never eating meat again!” Ronagh vowed, and shook her finger at everyone around her. “No one is!”
No one argued. A few Lost Souls started to dance a victory jig. Others began to imitate the pirates upon seeing the animals.
But Jem stayed quiet. He couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if Scarlet hadn’t found the pigs and shown up at just the right time. And he could tell by the look on his captain’s face that she was thinking the very same thing.
CHAPTER FIVE
The path back to camp smelled of dirty socks and rotten cheese. But no one complained. All of a sudden, the smell of the wild pigs seemed quite tolerable indeed.
Every now and then Scarlet paused to channel the animals who’d chased away the pirates, but she felt nothing. Taking that as a good sign, she concentrated instead on what the flotsam the Lost Souls could do when the pirates returned—as they surely would.
Convincing the pigs to fight hadn’t been easy. Actually, finding the pigs hadn’t been a picnic, either. Scarlet had gotten herself hopelessly lost and would have likely still been wandering the jungle, sniffing for clues, if the island hadn’t taken pity on her and plopped her right in the middle of the band of pigs.
The chief, a hairy barrel of a swine with wrinkly gray skin and an extremely long snout, had pulled back his lips and bared his pointy teeth when she began to plead her case. But they got on fairly well, she speaking aloud in English and he responding with easily read thoughts and feelings. He told her that while he knew the Lost Souls meant well, he wasn’t keen on approaching a bunch of pirates that might serve up his crew for breakfast alongside their eggs.
“Don’t do it for us,” Scarlet whispered so as not to wake the rest of the pack. “Do it for the island. We’re not just trying to protect the rubies. Everything on this island needs protecting—the trees and the aras and you, your band, and your children. If the pirates or anyone else get their dirty hands on this place, it’ll be the end of Island X.”
The pig chief snorted over this for a while, then woke his crew and gathered them for a meeting. After a great deal more grunting and a few clouds of seriously stinky air, the pigs turned to Scarlet, ready to follow her.
Never in her life had she felt so relieved.
As they’d crept through the darkness toward the valley, the chief had stopped here and there to recruit monkeys, parrots, and one very drowsy family of rhinoceros beetles. Scarlet considered asking the chief for tips on how to communicate with them herself but decided it wasn’t the time.
Now as she led her crew back up the trail to camp, she wondered how they’d stand a chance if the pigs were ever to tire of helping them—and rallying the other animals. Scarlet smiled at the memory of those wonderful rhinoceros beetles shaking off their sleepiness just in time to fly right up Lucas’s nose.
Then she frowned. Lucas would be back. And probably soon. She was in serious need of a plan.
By the time they reached camp, she was no closer to making one, and she was now also in serious need of a nap. Most of the Lost Souls seemed to agree; at least half headed right for their blankets and flopped face-first into the grass. The other half stumbled off to collect fruit and nuts for a midday meal. Scarlet yawned and decided that food could wait.
Halfway across the clearing, she stopped in her tracks. Someone was rummaging through the pile of belongings that marked her sleeping spot. Someone with a funny kink in his long black tail…
“MONKEY!”
She sprinted toward him. He looked up in surprise, shrieked, and dropped her cutlass. By the time she reached her things, he’d hightailed it into the trees.
“Honestly,” Scarlet panted. “You give a monkey a boot, and he wants an entire ensemble.” She checked to make sure nothing was missing, then curled up around every
thing she owned, determined to sleep with one eye open.
Scarlet woke from her midday nap rejuvenated and ready to talk to Jem. His tree house plan was really the only good one they had, so she knew she’d better encourage it and help it progress. She stood, picked a few blades of grass from her hair, and looked around. About half of the Lost Souls were gathered around the pool as if waiting for something. Scarlet headed over.
“What’s up?”
“It’s Smitty,” said Sam. “He’s got something important to show us.”
Scarlet crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh really?” She knew she’d been neglecting her crew a little lately, running after anxious wildlife, but she hadn’t expected them to start sharing important information without her.
Tim waved his arms and cleared his throat. “Attention, everyone,” he called. “Smitty here is about to introduce you to the key to our survival here on Island X.”
The key to survival on Island X! And no one had even bothered to wake her! Scarlet’s cheeks burned.
“Allow me to present the great island warrior…ahem…Runs with Daggers…and his faithful sidekick…Butternut!”
“What?” said Scarlet.
“Who?” said Sam.
Smitty pranced into their midst. A grass skirt hung from his waist, and two enormous leaves covered his arms like wings. His entire body still had a faint violet hue, and he’d painted his face with purple stripes and polka dots. He brandished a club at the spectators. A few Lost Souls gasped. A few more guffawed.
“I’m the fearless island warrior, Runs with Daggers!” Smitty cried. “And this is my sidekick, Butternut.” He looked around. “Hey! Where is he?”
There was a rustle behind a nearby tree, and Liam reluctantly stepped out. He was dressed in a similar costume, but wore half a hollowed-out squash on his head. Judging by the dark look on his freckled face, the uniform had not been his idea.
The Lost Souls stared for a moment, openmouthed, before bursting into laughter.
The Guardians of Island X Page 4
