Starcatchers 01 - Peter and the Starcatchers

by Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson

  Molly felt it. “Don’t let go!” she shouted.

  But Peter couldn’t help it; he felt his grip weakening.

  “Hang on!” shouted Molly. “Just a bit more!”

  But Peter couldn’t hang on. He felt his cold fingers separate, and suddenly he was falling again. He heard Molly shout his name, but before she got it all out he was plunged into the cold sea again. He managed to struggle to the surface and get his head up for an instant, then felt himself hurled violently forward, tumbling like a leaf in a windstorm, over and over, and then he slammed into something, then again, then again, scraping against his face….

  Sand.

  He got his feet under him, only to be knocked down and rolled by another wave, then another and another. On hands and knees now, he crawled forward, until finally, finally, he escaped the clutching waves. Still on hands and knees, he heaved up what seemed to be an impossible amount of seawater. When he could heave no more, he tried to stand, but found that he was too weak. He put his head down on the sand and, as the surf thundered behind him and the wind howled above, Peter fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 31

  THE LAGOON

  NOT FAR FROM WHERE PETER LAY UNCONSCIOUS, a lagoon connected to the sea. It was, in good weather, a beautiful place—a near-perfect semicircle of flawless white sand, perhaps a mile across, bordered by a curtain of tall, graceful palms. In the center of the curved beach lay two dozen or so massive, sea-smoothed boulders, some of them the size of a sailing ship, forming a hulking jumble of rock that stretched from the trees into the blue-green water. Behind the beach the island rose steeply to a ridge several hundred feet high, jungle-thick with vegetation, forming a curved green wall that cut the lagoon off from the rest of the island.

  The lagoon teemed with life—turtles, jellyfish, crabs, and vast schools of lavishly multihued fish. Normally these creatures were sheltered from the surge of the sea by a coral reef; it ran across the mouth of the lagoon from one side to the other, with only a small break in the center, through which the tide flowed in and out.

  But the low reef was no match for the waves churned up by this storm. Every few seconds, a towering wall of wind-driven water rose high over the reef and broke upon it with a thunderous crash, sending a surge of churning, foaming water rushing high onto the beach, then back toward the sea, leaving the surf-scrubbed beach empty for a few seconds, awaiting the next incoming surge.

  But one of the waves left something behind: the trunk. It happened to tumble ashore in the center of the beach, becoming wedged in the sand at the base of one of the massive round boulders. The waves had taken their toll on the old wooden box: there were several cracks now, one perhaps a quarter-inch wide. As the waves washed over the trunk, water seeped into the cracks, and then back out.

  The water seeping out was glowing—a soft, greenish-gold glow, the color of fireflies. The glowing water behaved oddly; it remained next to the trunk, swirling and spiraling around it, somehow unaffected by the push and pull of the raging wave-water rushing past.

  In time, as the storm began to subside, a large, sleek fish with a silver body and a bright green tail glided near, and then into, the glowing seawater. It stopped there, hovering; it did not leave. Soon it was joined by another, similar fish, and then another; they, too, remained in the glowing water, unable, or unwilling to leave. They stayed there for hours, their fins barely moving, their gills working. At times the water changed colors that changed and shifted—now one color, now another, now many colors, an underwater rainbow.

  And then…the fish began to change.

  CHAPTER 32

  THE WRECK

  OF THE NEVER LAND

  ON THE HEAVING DECK of the Never Land, James, huddled with the other boys, watched in despair as the pirates leaped back onto their sleek black ship, taking a few prisoners—the lucky ones, thought James. Then the pirates cut themselves loose from the old tub.

  As the ships separated, the Never Land was seized by a huge wave and heaved violently skyward. James felt the deck tilt sharply. He then fell, hearing the screams of the other boys— Prentiss, Thomas, and, loudest of all, Tubby Ted—as they, too, lost their footing on the sloping, slippery deck.

  Grown men screamed as well, as the ship reached the top of the mountain of water and began to slide down the other side, faster and faster, tilting now at an impossible angle. The Never Land broke apart, whole sections of the deck tearing loose, the masts splintering like twigs. A crewman was pitched, screaming, into the sea; he was followed by another, and then another. James felt himself sliding, with the other boys, toward the ship’s downside rail, toward the angry sea, all of them flailing desperately, trying to grab on to something. By the look of things, James knew that soon enough there would be no ship at all.

  “Here, lad!” boomed a voice from behind him. “Over here!”

  James turned his head and saw the big crewman—Peter’s friend, Alf—holding out a massive hand. James grabbed hold of it, and felt himself hauled away from the rail. The big man managed to rescue the other boys as well, hauling them toward him, somehow keeping them all from sliding off the ship.

  “Hold on to each other, lads!” he shouted. “There’s a dory this way!” He jerked his head toward the stern. “Hurry!”

  Clinging to each other, Alf and the boys half crawled, half stumbled to the stern, where a battered dory tumbled back and forth on the deck, held tenuously on to the deck by a frayed line.

  “Get in, lads!” shouted Alf, untying the line. “I’ll put you over the side!”

  Prentiss and Thomas clambered into the dory, but Tubby Ted pulled away, screaming, “I’m not getting in that little boat!”

  “HURRY!” bellowed Alf. “The next wave puts us on the reef!”

  “GET IN!” shouted James, grabbing Tubby Ted’s shirt and yanking him, so that they both fell backward into the dory. James’s head slammed against the side. Momentarily stunned, he felt Alf shoving the dory, then heard shouts and screams as another huge wave rose high over the ship and crashed onto the deck, sending the dory shooting overboard, and at the same time dashing the Never Land against the reef, instantly splintering the old ship into hundreds, thousands, of pieces.

  The dory capsized the instant it hit the water, but somehow the four boys managed to hang on, scrambling out from under, clinging to the little boat’s rough bottom. James looked frantically around for Alf, but saw only barrels and pieces of wood, shards of the ship, tossing in the churning sea.

  For an hour, two hours, they clung to the side of the little boat as the sea swept it one way, then another, rain pounding down on them; the smaller boys crying; James trying to comfort them. At last the rain stopped, and the waves diminished, although the sea was still rough. The sky began to clear, first to gray, then to a bright blue. And still the little boat drifted, drifted…

  And then…

  “What’s that?” Prentiss said.

  James looked where Prentiss was pointing, and saw it, looming on the horizon. “Something big,” he said.

  “That’s a mountain,” said Prentiss.

  “Land!” shouted Thomas.

  “Is there food?” asked Tubby Ted.

  “Start kicking!” James ordered.

  And they kicked, their excitement momentarily driving the fatigue from their limbs. They kept kicking, but after a few minutes their exhaustion started to return as it became clear they weren’t making much progress. The mountain looked as far away as before—maybe farther. The random, powerful thrusts of the sea were far more powerful than their puny legs.

  “We’ll never get there,” said Prentiss, sniffling. “We’re going to drown out here.”

  “No we’re not!” reprimanded James, but he feared Prentiss was right. He kept kicking, but, one by one, the others quit, too tired to continue. James saw now that it was no use: the mountain was at a different angle now; the sea was going to carry them past it. James closed his eyes, fighting tears, fighting despair.

  “Need some h
elp, lads?”

  The boys spun their heads so fast they almost lost their hold on the dory. There, behind them, clinging to a barrel, was Alf. Smiling.

  “What d’you say we go ashore, lads?” he said.

  “We can’t, sir,” said James. “We’ve been trying, but we can’t.”

  “Let old Alf give you a hand,” said the big man, letting go of the barrel and swimming to the bow of the dory. “Where’s that line…ah, here we go.”

  With practiced sailor’s hands, Alf quickly tied the line around his chest.

  “Hang on,” he said, pushing off and swimming, with clumsy but strong strokes, toward the island. The boys felt the dory moving, and hope returning.

  It took a good hour more; Alf had to stop and rest repeatedly. But finally they were close enough to the island to see trees, and then a beach; and in another few minutes Alf put his feet down and stood, and the boys cheered in gratitude—to Alf and the Almighty, in that order—as he dragged the tiny boat across a shallow lagoon to the edge of the beach.

  James jumped off and ran onto the sand, falling on his knees.

  “We’re safe!” he shouted.

  “I hope you’re right,” said Alf.

  The boys looked at the big man.

  “What d’you mean?” asked Prentiss. “Aren’t we safe here?”

  “That depends,” said Alf.

  “Depends on what?” asked James.

  Looking off into the dense jungle, Alf said, “On who else is here.”

  CHAPTER 33

  LAND HO!

  THE JOLLY ROGER PITCHED AND HEAVED in the rolling seas as sunrise broke in a cloudless sky, the storm now past. A shifty fog had settled in the wake of the storm. The Jolly Roger cut in and out of it, like ducking behind a curtain.

  Black Stache, still wearing the British captain’s uniform, climbed onto the deck, with Smee following closely behind. Stache rubbed the weariness out of his eyes and released a ferocious belch. Then he froze as an opening in the fog gave him a clear view starboard. At that moment, the shout came from the crow’s nest.

  “LAND HO!”

  “ALL HANDS ON DECK!” Stache hollered, and the disheveled crew, sleepless after a nerve-wracking, storm-tossed night, stumbled onto the deck in ones and twos. They smiled at the welcome sight of the mountainous island, its lush greenery beckoning.

  “HEAVE TO, MEN!” shouted Stache. “HOIST THE MAIN AND HARD TO STARBOARD! FRESH WATER AND COCONUTS WITHIN THE HOUR!”

  The sailors cheered, setting eagerly to work as Smee, needlessly, repeated the orders.

  The Jolly Roger quickly drew close to the island, rounding a point of land that opened onto what looked like a fine lagoon anchorage. Stache raised his spyglass, scanning for rocks or reefs ahead, and saw none; he then aimed the glass at the beach.

  A line of footprints in the sand!

  “Smee,” he said. “Ready a landing party at once.”

  “Shut up, so I can hear!” Slank kicked Little Richard, who was snoring at the top of his sizeable lungs.

  Little Richard snorted awake, a line of drool from his chin to the floor of the cage where he and Slank were locked in the lowest hold of the Jolly Roger. The cage was the ship’s brig, but it had also been used as a livestock cage; in fact, Slank and Little Richard were sharing it now with a pig and a cow, neither of which seemed happy with its new cellmates. The two animals huddled together by the cell door, opposite the two men.

  Because of the livestock, the brig had reeked when the men were thrown inside; but the stench was even worse now, because Little Richard had been sick in the storm.

  “What is it?” said Little Richard, sitting up.

  “Quiet,” said Slank. “They’re shouting.” He pressed his ear to the low, damp ceiling, concentrating, then: “They’ve spotted land!”

  “Land?” said Little Richard. “But we’re a thousand leagues from nowhere.”

  “Must be an island,” said Slank. “Time for us to get off this ship.”

  “How?” said Little Richard, looking at the iron bars surrounding them. “We can’t bend these.”

  They’d tried that during the night—both of them gripping a bar and straining against it with all their might. But even Little Richard’s massive muscles were no match for the brig’s bars.

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Slank. “Give me your belt.”

  “My belt?” said Little Richard.

  “Just give it to me,” snapped Slank, taking off his own belt. He joined the two belts, then, standing next to the cow, passed the belts around two of the iron bars of the cell door. The cow shifted nervously, trying to move away, but Slank grabbed the rope around its neck and quickly tied it to the belts.

  “Do you see now?” Slank asked.

  “All’s I see is a cow tied to the cage,” said Little Richard.

  “To the cage door,” corrected Slank. “When the cow jerks away, it’ll yank the door open.”

  “But what’s going to make the cow jerk away?” asked Little Richard.

  “You’re going to milk it,” said Slank.

  “But I don’t know how to milk a cow!” said Little Richard.

  “Exactly,” said Slank.

  CHAPTER 34

  REUNITED

  PETER AWOKE FACEDOWN, with sand in his mouth and a bird on his head. When he spat out the sand, the bird squawked and fluttered into the air, landing a few yards away on the beach, disappointed at having lost its comfortable perch in Peter’s thick red hair.

  Still spitting sand, Peter stood unsteadily and looked around him, blinking, almost blinded by the glare of the bright sun on the white sand. The beach, curving gently around a deepwater lagoon, stretched out several hundred yards in each direction; ahead of him, maybe fifty yards away, was a line of palm trees; beyond that, the land rose steeply, thick with green vegetation.

  He looked at the bird, which was looking back at him.

  “Can you tell me where I am?” Peter asked.

  The bird said nothing.

  “I didn’t think so,” said Peter.

  He itched all over; he was hungry; his throat burned from swallowing seawater. He began trudging toward the trees. His plan was to climb into the hills, looking for a stream; there had to be water, he figured, with all this greenery.

  But he was still weak from his ordeal at sea, and when he reached the palms, he decided to rest a bit. He sat beneath a tree, his back against its rough gray bark, and closed his eyes.

  He opened them when he felt a shadow fall on his face.

  “Hello, Peter,” said Molly.

  “Molly!” said Peter, scrambling to his feet. “It’s you!”

  This immediately struck Peter as an exceptionally stupid thing for him to have told Molly, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s me. Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” said Peter, brushing some sand off his clothes. “I’m fine. And I…That is, you…I mean, you…” He stammered to a stop, his face red.

  “What is it, Peter?”

  “I mean, thank you, Molly. For saving me.”

  Molly took a step forward and put her hand on Peter’s arm. This felt absolutely wonderful to Peter; he cast his eyes down, lest she see the effect she was having.

  “Peter,” she said. “It’s I who should be thanking you. You helped me when I desperately needed help. You got the trunk off the ship. You risked your life for me. The least I could do was try to keep you from drowning. I’m only sorry I let you fall…”

  “That wasn’t your fault!” said Peter. “I couldn’t hold on any longer.”

  “After you fell,” she continued, “I began to descend, and fortunately the wind drove me onto this island, not far from here. I’ve been searching since then, hoping that you were…I mean, I was so worried, Peter, and when I saw you against the tree, I…”

  Now it was Molly’s turn to cast her eyes downward.

  After an awkward silence, Peter said: “Have you seen a stream? I’m aw
fully thirsty.”

  “No stream, not yet,” said Molly. “But I think I’ve found water.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “On the beach, just a bit that way,” said Molly, pointing. “There’s a barrel; it looks like a water barrel from the Never Land.”

  “The Never Land,” said Peter, suddenly remembering. “Do you think it was…I mean, James and them, do you think…”

  Molly’s look was somber. “I don’t know, Peter,” she said. “All we can do is hope they’re all right. But for now we need to look after ourselves.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Well, for starters we should get that water barrel off the beach, before the tide takes it back out to sea. We’ll need it if we can’t find any other water. We’ll also need to find food, sooner or later. And most important, we need to look for the trunk.”

  “Really?” said Peter. “You think it could have ended up on this island?”

  “The barrel ended up here, didn’t it?”

  “True,” said Peter.

  “Let’s go get that barrel,” said Molly. “Then we’ll climb this hill and have a look ’round at what else is on this island.”

  The barrel was heavy; it took all their strength to roll it up the beach. It was sealed with a thick cork stopper, which Peter managed, with considerable effort, to dislodge by banging it with a sharp piece of coral.

  The water was warm and brackish, but they both drank greedily. Then, at Molly’s insistence, they dragged the barrel into a depression in the land, and covered it with fallen palm fronds. Then she made them back away from the hidden barrel, using fronds to sweep away their footprints.