Captain Firebeard's School for Pirates: Pirate School Book 1

by Chae Strathie

  CHAPTER 7

  Getting hold of a mysterious treasure map is one thing . . . cracking a top- secret code that has foxed pirates for hundreds of years is quite another.

  Jo squinted at the map. Tommy scratched the back of his head. McBeaky tried peering at it upside down.

  Wobbles didn’t like the look of it so he hid under a hat.

  Flash flew round it five times then pecked it for good measure. Since it was now out of the frame and flattened out on a desk, all this did was give Flash a sore beak and a headache.

  Only Milton looked relaxed about the whole thing. And Milton

  looked relaxed.

  He leaned back in a chair and smiled.

  “What are you looking so happy about?” asked Tommy. “We’ve got a code to break and you’re not being much help.”

  Milton winked at him.

  “Winking won’t do any good,” said Jo. “Solving. That’s what we need.”

  Milton yawned.

  “That slippery sea monkey knows something,” said Tommy. “Look at his face!”

  said Jo.

  “What do you know?”

  Milton got up and crossed to the desk where the map lay.

  “The code,” said Milton triumphantly, “is easy. You just have to know how to read it.”

  Everyone gazed at the random symbols, letters and numbers below the map.

  “Nope,” said Tommy eventually.

  “Not seeing it.”

  “Not. A. Thing,” murmured Jo.

  Milton pointed to the first set of symbols.

  “Look,” he said. “The letter S plus a picture of a tail with the letter T scored out. What does that make?”

  “My head hurt?” said Jo.

  “It makes the word ‘sail’ once you add it all together. Then there’s a number two – ‘Sail to…’. Do you see?”

  “Ahhh, I get it now,” said Tommy.

  “Let’s work out the rest.”

  (Turn to the back of the book to see how Tommy, Milton and Jo cracked the code!)

  “We’ve done it!” yelped Jo. “Milton, you’re a

  Tommy high-fived a beaming Milton. Even McBeaky seemed impressed.

  “Now all we need to do is get to Skull Island,” said Tommy.

  Milton’s face fell. Solving the code was the easy part – going on a risky mission to a mysterious island was a whole different kettle of fish fingers.

  “There’s only one way to get there,”

  said Jo. “Follow me.”

  Milton rolled up the map and they scurried out of the room and crept past the sleeping teachers.

  Up the stairs they went, out on to the deck. Then they made a beeline for the ship’s wheel.

  “I’ll untie the rope and you steer,” said Jo to Tommy. “Milton, you keep lookout.”

  “A-are you sure about this?” stammered Milton.

  As Jo leaped away to untie the ship from the dockside, Tommy positioned himself gingerly behind the big wooden wheel. It was almost the same size as him. He’d never steered a ship before. Suddenly this pirating business seemed extremely real.

  Even Jo felt a bit nervous – although she’d never have admitted it.

  The sound of a heavy rope splashing into water could be heard, and then the boat slowly began to move.

  “Hoist a sail, Jo!” hissed Tommy as quietly as he could.

  A moment later one of the sails rose up the mast with a rustle.

  A gust of wind caught it and it billowed, sending the ship surging forward … straight for a tugboat.

  “Oh, crabsticks!” yelped Tommy as he yanked the wheel hard.

  It was as heavy as could be, but he just managed to brush past the tug’s bows with a catfish’s whisker to spare.

  “That was close,” he chuckled.

  A wooden cruise-liner that was ten times the size of the Rusty Barnacle blasted its horn not far from Tommy’s head as they skimmed just inches apart, blowing him clean off his feet.

  When he got up off the deck his hair was sticking straight up in the air.

  “Pay attention!” said Jo.

  Thankfully the din didn’t wake anyone below deck and Tommy managed to steer the ship in a wobbly fashion towards the open sea.

  “That’s more like it,” said Tommy, trying to stand in an impressively piratey way and gaze ahead with his hand shielding his eyes – even though it was night-time and there was no sun.

  “What’s that funny noise?” said Milton.

  Sure enough there was a strange bumping and scraping sound behind the boat.

  Jo dashed to the stern of the Rusty Barnacle.

  “Did anyone raise the anchor?” she shouted.

  “Errr,” everyone said at once.

  “That’ll be why we’re currently dragging thirteen lobster creels,

  five rowing boats and a very upset fisherman behind us then,” she said. “Oops. No. Scratch that. The fisherman’s gone. Sorry, sir. Hope you catch a mackerel soon.”

  Tommy shrugged. There was nothing they could do now.

  “Look,” said Milton. “We’re past the harbour walls.”

  “Next stop, Skull Island,” said Jo.

  “Booty ahoy!”

  CHAPTER 8

  The Rusty Barnacle didn’t go near whirlpools much any more – mainly because bits tended to fall off it when it did.

  But that night it was heading for the biggest of the lot.

  Using an ancient sea chart he found at the bottom of the map chest next

  to the ship’s wheel, Tommy steered the ship in the direction of the Great Whirlpool. McBeaky read out directions while Tommy handled the huge wooden wheel.

  “After eighty waves go left at the next sandbank,” squawked the parrot.

  “Then veer right for ten leagues.”

  After a while a sound could be heard, even over the crash of the waves. It was a low rumbling, growling roar ... and it was getting louder.

  And

  “I think we might have arrived,” muttered Tommy.

  Milton let out a small shriek from his lookout post.

  “Yep,” said Tommy. “We’ve arrived.”

  The Great Whirlpool was as wide as a hundred football pitches and as deep as the ocean itself. At its centre was a great dark swirl, and all round its edges the sea churned and frothed like milkshake in a blender.

  Tommy tried desperately to steer around the whirlpool, but the Rusty Barnacle hurtled straight towards the raging waters.

  he shouted, “I’m not all that keen on treasure, now I think about it.”

  Milton screamed and pulled his stripy tunic over his face so he didn’t have to see what was going on. Jo gasped and clung to the rigging as the current dragged them into the vortex.

  Tommy shouted over the roar.

  The boat was sucked into the whirlpool. Round and round it went. Faster and faster. Great walls of water splashed over the hull, drenching Tommy, Jo and Milton and their parrots.

  “Och, I just had a bath last Tuesday!” grumbled McBeaky.

  The ship spiralled in a vast circle

  round the edge of the whirlpool. Any minute now they’d be sucked down into the inky blackness.

  “Look!” said Tommy, pointing at a shipwreck just visible in the distance. “Isn’t that the next point on the map?”

  As they whizzed round, Jo and Milton could just see an old ship jammed against a rock beyond the whirlpool.

  “We need to get out of this,” said Tommy. In a flash he had an idea.

  “Milton, Jo, parrots – come and help me,” he said. “I can’t turn the wheel by myself.”

  They rushed over and clung on. As the shipwreck came into view Tommy yelled,

  Everyone

  pulled as hard as they could, but the wheel didn’t budge.

  “Hang on,” said Tommy. “Where’s Wobbles?”

  Hiding in a teapot,” croaked Flash.

  The shipwreck came back round again.

  shouted Tommy. They all yanked hard.
Nothing.

  cried Milton.

  Suddenly, with a flap and flutter, Wobbles appeared and landed on the wheel.

  “Wobbles needs a hug,” he squawked at Milton.

  The weight of the trembling parrot

  was just enough to tip the balance and the wheel spun round. The ship lurched to one side and was launched out of the whirlpool at high speed.

  It flew high through the air like a boat-shaped jet plane, heading straight for the old shipwreck. Everyone closed their eyes.

  The Rusty Barnacle landed right on the end of the semi-sunken ship’s massive mast, which bent … and bent … and

  … until:

  It sprang back and hurled the ship across the sky to the right.

  yelled Jo. “This is the life. We’re sky pirates!”

  Despite feeling thoroughly sick, Milton was trying his best to cuddle Wobbles while reading the map, which was flapping and twisting in the wind.

  “If this is right, Skull Island should be just down th—”

  They landed in the sea again and came to a halt that sent them sprawling.

  When they picked themselves up they peered over the wheel.

  “Skull Island,” they gasped in unison.

  All was still once again … and the three friends smiled at each other when they heard a reassuringly loud snore echo up a hatch from down below. Thankfully the crew of the

  Rusty Barnacle were used to rough seas and stormy oceans, so they could sleep through anything.

  The only question now was how they were going to get from the ship to the island.

  They were racking their brains when McBeaky squawked,

  “This is no time for a snack,” said Tommy.

  McBeaky screeched

  again, flapping over to a barrel.

  Of course! Gumms had made the toughest spaghetti in the history of the universe for dinner. And there was a barrel-load right there on deck.

  “Come on,” said Tommy. “Let’s get tying and we can make a zip wire.”

  So they all delved into the barrel and began tying the rubbery spaghetti together to make a long rope. When they were done, they tied one end to the main mast and Flash took the other end in his beak and flew to

  the island where he tied it round a coconut tree.

  “Quick,” said Jo. “Let’s go before anyone wakes up.”

  They stood on the side of the ship and looped their neckerchiefs over the spaghetti rope. Then, one by one, they stepped off and swooshed down towards the beach. Even Milton didn’t hesitate, though he did keep his eyes shut the whole way.

  Or at least he would have if they’d actually made it the whole way.

  When they were halfway across, the spaghetti stretched, twisted … and then snapped altogether.

  The three children dropped like cannonballs towards the waves below.

  But instead of hitting the sea with a splash they landed upright, each standing on something solid.

  They looked down to discover they were hitching a lift.

  “Sea turtles,” laughed Tommy as he struggled to keep his balance.

  They skimmed towards the beach like surfers, crouching on the three great green shells as their parrots circled above their heads.

  When they reached the shore they hopped off on to the sand.

  “We’re here!” said Jo as the turtles splashed away further along the beach. “Thanks for the ride!”

  “That was a close shave,” puffed Milton.

  “Now all we need to do is find that

  pear tree and the treasure is ours,” said Tommy.

  Milton pulled the map from his belt and unrolled it.

  The hunt was on.

  CHAPTER 9

  It’s not easy to tell different kinds of trees apart in the dark, which is why you never see tree-spotters out at night.

  Tommy, Jo, Milton and the parrots were finding that out the hard way.

  They came across a lemon tree, a mango tree and a peach tree. But no pear tree.

  “Have a look at the map, Milton,” said Jo. “What does it say? Are we close?”

  “I don’t know – it’s all dark and stuff,” said Milton. “I think it might be this one.”

  Tommy looked up at the tree.

  “I can’t tell what kind it is. I can’t see any pears.”

  “Throw a stick up and see if you can knock a pear down,” suggested Milton.

  So Tommy grabbed a piece of driftwood and hurled it into the darkness.

  There was a moment of silence, then:

  “What was that?” said Milton.

  “It’s definitely not a pear tree,” groaned Tommy. “It’s a coconut tree.

  All seemed lost, when just at that moment the dark clouds parted and a shaft of silvery moonlight shone down on the island.

  “I can see the map!” yelped Milton.

  “The pear tree is next to a huge rock shaped like a skull.”

  They looked up and down the line of trees. Nothing.

  “Where could it be?” said Milton.

  Right on cue a breeze rippled across the sea and blew among the palm

  leaves and vines. The undergrowth parted and two dark eye sockets peered out at them above a toothy grin.

  “There it is!” cried Jo. “The skull of Skull Island!”

  They ran over to it as the light from the moon picked out the unmistakable shapes of dozens of shiny green pears hanging from branches.

  “This is it!” yelped Jo. “The treasure must be near here.”

  They looked around. Now where would a pirate bury treasure?

  “I’ll bet it’s under the skull!” said Tommy.

  They didn’t have a spade, so they began digging with their hands. Even the parrots joined in, scooping tiny piles of sand with their beaks.

  Down they dug beneath the front of the skull, deeper and deeper, until only their heads could be seen bobbing up and down.

  “It isn’t here,” sighed Jo after a while. “This whole mission has been a big waste of time.”

  But just as she was about to climb

  out of the hole there was a clunk.

  squawked McBeaky.

  He had pecked something hard and wooden.

  Everyone scrabbled the sand away a bit more. And there, in the bottom of the hole, was a large wooden chest.

  “Treasure!” marvelled Milton.

  “Not just any treasure,” said Tommy.

  With an almighty heave the three friends wrenched the chest on to the beach.

  Tommy looked at Jo and Milton.

  “Who’s going to open it?” he said.

  “We should all do it at the same

  time,” said Jo.

  They huddled round it and put their hands on the lid.

  “Everyone ready?” smiled Tommy.

  The others nodded, their eyes gleaming with excitement.

  “OK. One … two … thr—”

  said a gravelly voice behind them.

  “I’m really, really hoping that was McBeaky doing a Captain Firebeard impression,” gulped Tommy.

  “Wasn’t me,” croaked McBeaky, who was sitting on his shoulder.

  They turned round very slowly. Standing there were all of the teachers

  and, in front of them, looking incredibly,

  smug

  were Spiky Spencer, Muttonhead Max and Greta the Grouch.

  “We told you they were up to no good, sir,” said Spencer. “Look at them, trying to steal the treasure. Little sea slugs.”

  “We were

  stealing it!” growled

  Jo. “We just wanted to prove we could find it and have a real pirate adventure instead of just learning about it in class!”

  Spencer, Muttonhead and Greta the Grouch snorted.

  “Well, you’ll be walking the plank

  now – right out of the school and back home,” sneered Spencer.

  Captain Firebeard took a step forward, his great beard glowing red in the moonlight.

  �
�I’ll be the judge of that,” he grizzled. “Looks like you sneaky sea urchins have been very busy while everyone was asleep, eh?”

  Tommy, Jo and Milton looked at their feet and mumbled, “Sorry, Captain Firebeard.”

  “Seems you managed to crack the code, too.”

  Milton beamed, then remembered he was in trouble and went back to looking queasy.

  “Well, I reckons you should open that there chest, now we be here and all.”

  The three children hesitated, but Sea Dog Steve nodded, so they crouched down and slowly lifted the lid. It opened with a creak.

  Inside was the most incredible pile of... “Paper?” said Tommy.

  “Where’s the treasure?” gasped Jo.

  “All that scary stuff for nothing,” groaned Milton.

  Captain Firebeard let out a wheezy chuckle.

  “Take a closer look, me hearties,” he said.

  The three peered at the sheets of elaborately decorated parchment paper.

  “You mean we’ve really passed our first Pirate test?” said Tommy, grinning as he caught the eyes of his two pals.