Starcatchers 01 - Peter and the Starcatchers

by Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson

  “Why are we being so careful?” Peter asked. “There’s nobody here but us.”

  “That’s true now,” said Molly. “But somebody may come, and I don’t want them taking our water.”

  When she was satisfied that the barrel was hidden, she and Peter set off inland. They soon found themselves struggling up a steep mountainside, thick with vegetation—trees, vines, bushes bearing large, sweet-smelling yellow flowers.

  Insects hummed around their ears; birds twittered and screeched in the tree canopy above them. At times the vegetation was so thick Peter couldn’t see Molly a few feet ahead of him; at times he couldn’t even see his feet. He wondered if there might be snakes—it certainly looked as though there might be snakes—but he did not voice this thought, as he didn’t want Molly, forging resolutely ahead, to think he was scared.

  After about forty-five minutes of hard climbing, they emerged onto an open, rocky plateau, from which they could look back and see where they’d been. They were several hundred feet up now, looking down on the lagoon where Peter had come ashore; Peter could see the gouge in the sand they’d made when they dragged the water barrel up the beach.

  To the far right-hand side a ridge jutted into the sea, separating Peter’s lagoon from another, shallower one, with a wide beach that…

  What was that?

  “Molly!” said Peter, pointing toward the far lagoon. “Look!”

  Molly squinted, shading her eyes.

  “It’s a boat!” she exclaimed. “A little boat, and…people! I see three…four…five of them!”

  Peter strained to make out the distant, dark shapes on the white beach. “It looks like four smallish ones, and one biggish one!” he said. “Oh, Molly, d’you think it’s James and them?”

  Molly studied the shapes some more.

  “Yes,” she said, “it’s definitely them, and a crewman—I believe it’s your friend, the big one.”

  “Alf!” said Peter, his heart soaring. Even Alf was alive! “Let’s go down to meet them!”

  “Yes,” said Molly, suddenly serious. “And we had better hurry.”

  Peter, hearing the change in her tone, looked at Molly, and saw alarm in her face.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “See for yourself,” she said, pointing off to the left.

  Peter looked, and saw it instantly: a ship, heading straight toward the lagoon where he’d come ashore.

  A black ship, flying the Jolly Roger.

  CHAPTER 35

  INTO THE JUNGLE

  “C’MON THEN, LADS,” said Alf, trudging up the beach. Behind him, walking single file and glancing nervously at the line of palm trees ahead, were James, Prentiss, Thomas, and Tubby Ted.

  “Sir,” James asked, “what’re we going to do?”

  “We’re going to look for water,” said Alf.

  “And food?” said Tubby Ted.

  “Water first,” said Alf. “We can go days without food.”

  “We can what?” shouted Tubby Ted.

  “Keep your voice down,” said Alf. “We might have company on this island.”

  “Wh…What kind of company?” asked Prentiss.

  “I dunno,” said Alf. “But some of these islands is inhabited by savages.”

  The word hung in the air. Savages.

  “Sir,” Thomas said, “are savages bad?”

  “Not all of ’em, no,” Alf answered. “Some are just, what’s the word, primitive. Like big children.”

  “What about the others?” said Prentiss.

  “Well,” said Alf, “I’ve heard stories about sailors who were shipwrecked on islands just like this, and the savages come and grabbed ’em and put ’em in a big pot.”

  “Wh…Why did they do that?” asked Prentiss.

  Alf stopped, looked back. “Why d’you think?” he said.

  “Y…you mean they…they ate them?” said Prentiss.

  “Like a Christmas pudding,” said Alf, resuming his trudge toward the tree line. The boys were quiet now, thinking unpleasant thoughts, except for Tubby Ted, who was torn between unpleasant thoughts and pudding.

  They reached the palm trees and explored the area a bit—that is, Alf explored the area, with the boys staying as close as possible to his reassuring bulk. They found nothing of interest: no water, no food, no footprints.

  “That’s it, then,” said Alf. “We’ll have to go in there.” He nodded toward the green wall of vegetation covering the mountainous slope rising away from the beach. The boys peered apprehensively at the impenetrable facade of the jungle.

  “But, sir,” said Thomas. “What if there’s savages in there?”

  “We got to chance that,” said Alf. “If we don’t find water, we’ll die, and then the crabs’ll eat us just as sure as savages would.” He started forward, shoving his big frame through a thick mass of vines. They closed behind him like a green curtain, and suddenly he was out of sight. His muffled voice came back to the boys.

  “You lads coming?”

  The boys looked at one another, all thinking the same thing: they didn’t want to go into the jungle, but they also didn’t want to be separated from Alf. James, grimacing, pushed his way through the vine curtain, followed reluctantly, but very closely, by Prentiss, Thomas, and Tubby Ted.

  As the vines closed behind them, they found themselves in a world quite different from the brilliantly sunlit beach. The sun barely pierced the thick tree canopy above them, its light weakened to a kind of green dusk. The vegetation around them was so thick that they could see no more than a few feet in any direction, and sometimes not even that. There was no path, no opening, only the random riot of the vines and trees, and within a few steps James could not be sure which way they had come from, and which way they were going.

  What was more alarming was that he also did not see Alf.

  “Sir?” said James. “Sir?”

  “This way!” came Alf’s voice, even more muffled now, more distant.

  “Coming, sir,” said James, pushing in the direction he thought the voice had come from.

  Behind him, Prentiss said, “I can’t see anything.”

  “Nor I,” said James.

  From the rear, Tubby Ted said, “There could be anything in here with us, and we wouldn’t see it. There could be lions.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” said James. “There’s no lions.”

  “How d’you know that?” said Tubby Ted.

  '"Cause it’s an island. Lions don’t live on islands.”

  “There could be gorillas,” said Tubby Ted.

  “What’s gillas?” said Prentiss.

  “Gorillas,” said Tubby Ted. “Big hairy jungle things. They swing through the trees and grab you and take you to their nests.”

  “Gorillas don’t have nests,” said James.

  “ 'Course they do, you git,” said Tubby Ted. “Why d’you think they live in trees?”

  James could not think of a good answer to that. He glanced up at the tree canopy, thick and dark and close.

  Prentiss caught the glance, and his eyes followed it. “Why do the gil…gorillas, why do they take you to their nest?” he said.

  “You don’t want to know,” said Tubby Ted, meaning, of course, that he was about to tell them. “They crack open your head like a coconut. Then they feed your brains to the baby gorillas.”

  Prentiss and Thomas looked horrified.

  “They do not,” said James.

  “Yes they do,” said Tubby Ted. “And then they take your eyes and they…”

  “Shut up,” said James.

  “I want to go back to the beach,” said Prentiss.

  “Me, too,” said Thomas.

  “We’re not going back there,” said James. “We’re staying with Alf.”

  At that moment, all the boys had the same thought: Where was Alf?

  “Sir?” called James. “Sir!”

  There was no answer.

  “SIR! CAN YOU HEAR ME, SIR?”

  Nothing.

&n
bsp; Now they were all shouting, as loud as they could, but nothing came back to them but the hum and whine of unseen insects.

  “I want to go back to the beach,” repeated Prentiss.

  “All right, then,” said James. “We’ll go back to the beach, and we’ll…we’ll wait for Alf. When he sees we’re missing, he’ll come back and find us.”

  “If the gorillas don’t get him,” said Tubby Ted. “Or us.”

  “Shut up,” said James. “All right, we’ll…”

  James looked around him. In every direction, he could see perhaps six feet; in every direction, everything looked the same.

  Which way is the beach?

  James looked around for a moment, feeling the weight of the other boys’ eyes on him.

  “All right, then,” he said, shouldering his way through the vegetation. “This way.”

  The unyielding jungle made the going tiring. The weariness James felt in his arms and legs was worsened by the feeling—growing stronger in his gut each minute—that he had gotten them seriously lost. He couldn’t tell if he was going in a straight line; he sometimes had the feeling he was walking somewhere that he’d already been, but there was no way to be sure in the unrelenting sameness of the jungle. Behind him, he heard Prentiss and Thomas crying softly, and Tubby Ted’s labored breathing as he struggled to keep up.

  Tubby Ted’s too tired even to talk, James thought. That’s one good thing come of all this.

  As they walked, James regularly shouted for Alf, but there was no response. Every few minutes the boys stopped to rest, and James would try to cheer up the others. But more and more he saw hopelessness on their faces, as well as growing exhaustion on Tubby Ted’s. More and more, James had to speak sternly to get them moving again.

  He struggled to stay calm, but, as he stumbled forward through the clinging vines, the fears were multiplying in his mind: what if they were still lost when night fell? It was dark enough now, but…he shuddered at the thought of being surrounded by this jungle in pitch blackness.

  “ALF!” he shouted, for the hundredth time, and for the hundredth time he got no answer.

  “All right, then,” he said, stopping again. “Let’s rest here for a bit.”

  He turned reluctantly, not wanting to see the disheartened faces of the others, but feeling the burden of command. I wish Peter were here.

  Behind him, Prentiss and Thomas were sitting in a dense growth of low ferns on the jungle floor, their heads down. Tubby Ted was…

  Tubby Ted wasn’t there.“Ted?” said James. “TED! D’YOU HEAR ME? TED?”

  Nothing.

  “Wasn’t Ted right behind you?” James asked Thomas, fighting to keep the panic he was feeling out of his voice.

  “He was, last I looked,” said Thomas.

  “When was that?” said James.

  “I dunno,” said Thomas. “A few minutes ago.”

  “You didn’t hear anything?” said James.

  “No,” said Thomas, sobbing now. “What if a gorilla got him?”

  That got Prentiss crying, too.

  “Stop it, you two!” said James. “Now, listen. It wasn’t any gorilla. Tubby Ted probably tripped and fell, is all. We have to go back and find him.”

  “I don’t want to go back,” said Prentiss. “I just want to get out of here.”

  “Me too,” said Thomas. “I’m not going back where there’s gorillas.”

  “There’s no gorillas!” said James.

  “You don’t know that,” said Thomas. “You don’t even know where we are. I’m not going back.”

  “Me neither,” said Prentiss.

  “All right then,” said James. “All right. You stay here. I’m going to go back just a few steps and have a look.”

  “No!” said Prentiss. “You’ll get lost!”

  “I won’t,” said James. “I’ll be careful. Just a few steps. Stay right here. Don’t move, you understand?”

  Prentiss and Thomas nodded. James edged past where they were sitting and pushed his way back in the direction they’d come from. He followed the broken leaves and branches, walking for perhaps a minute. Then he paused and shouted: “TED! TED! ANSWER ME, TED!”

  Nothing.

  James looked back and called: “PRENTISS! THOMAS! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

  “Yes!” The two voices were muted, but not far off.

  James decided to backtrack a little farther. Just a few more steps. He pushed on a short distance, then shouted again.

  “TED! TED, IT’S JAMES! CAN YOU HEAR ME? ANSWER ME!”

  Nothing.

  Not daring to venture any farther away from Prentiss and Thomas, James turned back. He trudged a few yards and shouted: “PRENTISS! THOMAS!”

  Nothing.

  James’s spine went cold.

  “PRENTISS! THOMAS! THAT’S NOT FUNNY! ANSWER ME!”

  Nothing.

  Now James was running, stumbling forward, shouting. In a minute he reached what he judged to be the place where he’d left them.

  There was nobody there.

  Maybe it’s the wrong place.

  But it wasn’t the wrong place. He could see two flattened areas in the fern patch, where Prentiss and Thomas had sat. This was where they’d been.

  “PRENTISS! THOMAS! ANSWER ME!”

  Where had they gone?

  Alone now, no longer trying to hide his fear, James whirled in circles, shouting, looking, shouting, looking, but seeing only the dark green blur of the jungle. Finally, exhausted, he dropped to his knees, then onto his stomach in the thick, soft ferns. Then he put his face in his hands and cried—big, chest-wracking sobs—until he couldn’t cry anymore.

  He lay there, face in hands, trying to imagine that he could wish everything away, so that when he opened his eyes, it would all be gone—the pirates, the shipwreck, and especially this awful jungle. Gone. Everything gone but his friends.

  But when he opened his eyes, the jungle was still there, surrounding him with its ominous, gloomy silence.

  Now, as James’s eyes adjusted, as he raised his face from the ferns, he saw that there was something else, right there in front of him.

  Two pairs of very large, very brown bare feet.

  CHAPTER 36

  GETTING CLOSE

  MOLLY AND PETER FOUND IT TOUGH GOING; the lower they descended on the mountain slope, the denser the vegetation, until they almost felt as though they were swimming in it, rather than walking through it.

  With visibility limited to only a few feet, and with no way to take their bearings, they couldn’t be sure if they were still going in the right direction. As the mountain slope became more gentle, they had trouble determining which way was downhill. They found themselves stopping more and more, unsure which way to go.

  “Let’s yell for them,” said Peter. “They can’t be far off now.”

  “No yelling,” Molly said. “There are pirates about, and for all we know there may be others here as well.”

  “What others?” said Peter.

  “I don’t know,” said Molly. “But I’d prefer to find out about them before they find out about us.”

  And so, having determined—they hoped—which way was downward, they pushed on. Impossibly, the jungle grew even thicker; there were times when Peter, only two steps behind Molly, could not see her. That was why, when he pushed through a particularly lush curtain of hanging moss, he bumped into her back.

  “Oof,” he said. “Sorry. I…”

  “Shhh,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “Listen.”

  Peter listened. He heard nothing.

  “What?” he whispered.

  “I heard somebody shouting,” she said. “From that way.” She gestured in roughly the direction they’d been walking.

  “Shouting what?” said Peter.

  “I couldn’t make it out,” she said. “But it wasn’t a man’s voice. It was a boy’s.”

  “That’s them!” said Peter. “H—”

  He was stopped from shouting by Molly’
s hand clapped over his mouth.

  “Shhh,” she said, then removed her hand.

  “But why?” whispered Peter.

  “Because,” said Molly, with exaggerated patience, “as we were discussing one minute ago, there are pirates about.”

  “But they’re nowhere near here,” said Peter.

  “You don’t know that,” said Molly.

  Peter, unable to think of a good answer, settled for looking annoyed.

  “All right, then,” said Molly. “We’ll go toward the shout, but we’ll go quietly. Agreed?”

  Peter said nothing. He wasn’t sure about taking orders from her.

  “Good,” said Molly, moving again.

  “You worry too much,” Peter said to her back.

  She stopped, turned and faced him, her index finger pressed to her lips. And then he, too, heard it: voices in the distance…

  But speaking a language he’d never heard before. Grunts and…clicks.

  Whoever they were, they weren’t pirates.

  Peter wasn’t sure they were human.

  CHAPTER 37

  HEAVY LIKE A TRUNK

  THE TOWERING MOUNTAIN OF ROCK AND JUNGLE, engulfed in soft white mist, rose before Stache’s vision like an altar.

  “Beautiful, ain’t she?” Stache said, in a moment of uncharacteristic reverence. He jumped from the longboat into the now-gentler surf and trudged to the beach, his boots squishing wetly. Behind him, Smee and a dozen of Stache’s best men hopped out as well, and dragged the longboat up onto the white sand.

  Stache, followed by the others, strode quickly to the line of footprints he’d seen from the deck of the Jolly Roger.

  “Here they are,” he said. “Smee! What do you make of this?”

  Smee came puffing up and examined the sand.

  “Footprints,” he said.

  “I know they’re footprints,” said Stache. “What’s between the footprints, Smee?”

  “Ah,” said Smee, squinting. “Something’s been dragged.”

  “Very good, Mr. Smee,” said Stache. “And how much does this something weigh?”

  “Heavy,” said Smee.