Starcatchers 01 - Peter and the Starcatchers

by Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson

  Stache watched it disappear, then looked at his men, who were looking back at him with expressions ranging from concern to outright terror.

  “All right, men,” he said. “It’s a crocodile. You seen crocodiles before.”

  “Not flyin’, we haven’t,” said one of the men. “Nor a flyin’ girl, neither.”

  It was an unheard-of display of impudence, but Stache saw that the man spoke for the others. Fearing a mutiny, he forced his voice to stay calm, asking the man, “What’s your name, son?”

  “Simons,” said the man.

  “Simons,” Stache said gently, making a mental note to kill Simons when he was no longer needed, “I admit it ain’t usual to see a flyin’ croc. Nor a flyin’ girl. But I know what’s do in’ it. It has to do with this treasure we’re after, see? It has a great power, it does, the power to make people fly, and more. Power is better than gold, men. Much better than gold. With the power this treasure gives you, you can have all the gold you want for the takin’. That’s what we’re after, men, and once we gets that trunk, you’ll all be sharin’ in it.”

  And if you believe that, you’re as stupid as you look, he added to himself.

  He saw he had the men’s interest now, having brought their minds back to the treasure, having shown the connection between it and the things they’d seen. He pressed his advantage.

  “Now, look,” he said. “That old croc is gone now. And them savages is run off into the jungle, most of ’em, except that old man out there. There ain’t nothin’ between us and that wall, and there ain’t nothin’ behind that wall now except children. And I got a feeling the treasure’s right near by them somewhere. It’s right here, men. Right in our hands.”

  The men were nodding. He had them now.

  “All right then,” said Stache. “Grab your swords and…”

  He stopped, seeing the expressions on the men’s face suddenly change as their gazes shifted to something behind him.

  He whirled, looked, and cursed.

  Now the children, holding hands, were rising slowly into the jungle sky.

  CHAPTER 54

  SLANK’S PLAN

  “PORT,” SLANK SAID. “NO, port is left, idjit! That way!”

  Little Richard—who, despite years at sea, could never get the port-starboard thing straight in his mind—corrected course.

  The huge man was rowing the dory, with Slank in the stern. They were towing Black Stache’s longboat, in which sat the battered wooden trunk.

  Little Richard, at Slank’s order, had carried the trunk from the cave. He’d been reluctant at first—fearful of following the she-fish, and in severe pain from the two gaping bite-wounds they had inflicted. But when he touched the trunk, his mood changed almost instantly: a feeling of warmth, of well-being, of joy flooded his battered body. And there was more….

  “D’you hear that?” he’d said to Slank, as he slung the trunk—it felt almost weightless—onto his shoulder.

  “Hear what?” asked Slank.

  “Bells,” said Little Richard. “Y’don’t hear ’em?”

  “No,” said Slank, eyeing Little Richard sharply.

  But as they had trudged out of the cave, Little Richard still heard the bells, and when they reached the mouth, he noticed something else: the pain from his wounds was gone. He looked down at his forearm, and grunted in surprise.

  “What?” said Slank.

  “Look,” said Little Richard, pointing to his arm.

  Slank looked. The wound was gone. Where minutes ago there had been mangled flesh and oozing blood, there was only unbroken skin.

  “My leg, too!” said Little Richard, feeling the back of his thigh.

  “Put down the trunk,” said Slank, sharply.

  “But…”

  “Put it down now,” said Slank.

  Little Richard trudged to the beach and set the trunk on the sand. As he released it, the sound of bells faded, died. He reached his hand back toward it….

  “Leave it alone!” said Slank. Reluctantly, Little Richard withdrew his hand.

  “I’ll stay here with the trunk,” said Slank. “You go get the boats. Row the dory back here, and tow that pirate’s longboat with you.”

  “Why don’t we just carry the trunk to the boats?” said Little Richard. “I don’t mind carrying it.”

  Because I don’t want you touching it, thought Slank, but all he said was: “Get them boats NOW!”

  When Little Richard returned with the boats, Slank loaded the trunk into the trailing longboat, then climbed into the dory and ordered Little Richard to row them back to the pirate ship.

  Slank was feeling very, very good about the way things had worked out. First, and most important, he had the trunk. He had the trunk.

  He also had the longboat, which meant Black Stache was now marooned on the island. Slank smiled.

  The fool pirate. He never really knew what he was after. Nor who he was up against.

  Slank’s plan now was to return to the pirate ship and have Little Richard toss most of the tied-up crew overboard, keeping just enough men—he’d need only two or three—to sail the ship at pistol-point. And when he got where he was going, he’d get rid of those as well. And of course the idjit Little Richard, who knew too much now.

  Yes, things were looking very, very good, Slank thought. Even the night was pleasant. The sun was down now, and a full moon had risen; it hung low over the lagoon, looking impossibly large in the cloudless sky, as though it had drawn closer to Earth to get a better look at this strange island. The light shining from it was bright enough to cast shadows, bright enough that Slank could easily see the deserted beach, and the palm trees beyond, and the dark mass of the mountains.

  It was bright enough that, if Slank had been looking at the water behind the longboat, he would have seen something else.

  A trail of bubbles, following them.

  Getting closer, and closer…

  CHAPTER 55

  A CLOSE CALL

  “HANG ON!” SHOUTED PETER.

  “I’m scared!” whimpered Prentiss, looking down as they soared over the wall. “I don’t want to fall!”

  “You won’t fall,” said Peter. “You’re flying!”

  And they were, all of them. Molly was first, followed by Peter, who was holding the hand of Prentiss, who was holding the hand of James, who was holding the hand of Thomas, who was holding the hand of Tubby Ted, who was holding the huge hand of Alf, who hated heights and had his eyes tight shut.

  Moments earlier, just after Mister Grin had floated out of the cage, Peter, urged on by the hovering Molly, had each of the others touch the glowing sphere in his hands. Then he’d snapped the locket shut and ordered them all to hold hands as they began to rise.

  Peter, the only boy with flying experience, followed Molly, gently towing the others over the wall. As they cleared it, he looked down nervously, concerned that the Mollusks would use their spears to bring them down. But the surprise appearance of the flying Mister Grin had plunged the tribe into disarray. The only one remaining by the wall was the old man, Fighting Prawn. He stood still, watching, expressionless, as Molly, then Peter and the others, floated into view in the now-moonlit sky.

  Peter’s eyes met the old man’s.

  “I told you,” Peter called down. “There’s magic.”

  Fighting Prawn said nothing, only stared back at Peter. Their eyes remained locked for a moment more, then Peter’s attention was drawn away by Molly’s shout.

  “Peter!” she said. “We must get back to the beach before it wears off! This way!” She turned and swooped low over the dark jungle.

  “All right,” Peter said to Alf and the boys. “We’re going to follow Molly. You need to lean forward, like this.” He leaned, and his pull on the others increased.

  “Not me,” said Tubby Ted, looking down nervously. “I ain’t leanin’.”

  Alf, likewise, remained rigidly vertical, petrified with fear. Prentiss and Thomas were still too stunned to respond. B
ut James—good old James—was leaning. With his help, Peter was able to get the little hand-holding clot moving—slowly at first, and then picking up speed—across the clearing, and then over the treetops.

  Peter’s eyes probed ahead over the moonlit treetops, trying to make out Molly’s distant, swooping form. Thus absorbed, Peter didn’t notice that, as they left the clearing, they passed directly over Black Stache and his pirate crew. He didn’t see Stache raise a pistol and aim it straight at Peter’s heart.

  It would have been an easy shot, and Stache came this close to pulling the trigger. But much as he wanted to kill the boy, he wanted even more—having seen its power—to find the trunk, and he was sure the boy would lead him to it.

  Only a few yards away, Fighting Prawn was thinking precisely the same thing.

  CHAPTER 56

  CAPSIZED

  THE FIRST TIME THE DORY LURCHED, Slank assumed it was a wave, although if he’d looked around, he’d have seen that the lagoon was dead calm now, its smooth surface turned silver by the brilliant moon rising in the east.

  But Slank wasn’t paying attention to the water; his eyes were locked on the trunk resting in the longboat being towed by the dory.

  The next time the dory lurched, Slank blamed Little Richard’s rowing.

  “Stop that!” Slank complained.

  “If you’d stop shifting your weight, sir,” Little Richard said, “we’d make smart time to the ship.”

  “I ain’t shifting nothing,” Slank said. “It’s your…”

  But before he could finish, the longboat rocked violently, nearly taking on water as the trunk slid to the side. Alarmed, Slank lurched to his feet, nearly swamping the dory. He would have gone overboard if Little Richard hadn’t turned and grabbed him. Slank lunged for the line and tried to pull the longboat—and the trunk—toward him, but it didn’t move.

  “Give me a hand, here!” he shouted to Little Richard.

  The big man slid next to Slank and leaned over the transom of the dory, which, because of the weight of the two men, was now nearly submerged. The men jerked back suddenly as a hideous gaping mouth of razor-sharp teeth shot, hissing, from the water.

  “It’s them mermaids!” shouted Little Richard, as he and Slank tumbled backward in the bouncing dory.

  The creature came down hard, her teeth sinking into the transom; she twisted her head viciously and tore off a half-moon-shaped piece of wood, leaving a jagged half-moon-shaped space, through which water began to spill. As she disappeared, another she-fish attacked to starboard, and then another to port, the two rocking the boat in a deadly game of seesaw. Slank rose, trying to scramble away from the she-fish closest to him, only to be smacked hard from behind by the powerful tail of the other, propelling him over the side, his yell for help cut off when he plunged beneath the surface of the lagoon.

  Slank’s sudden departure left the dory unbalanced, and before Little Richard could correct it, the she-fish capsized the boat, dumping the big man into the lagoon as well.

  The two men thrashed to the surface, struggling to stay afloat in their heavy clothes, weighed down by swords and pistols that they quickly jettisoned and let sink to the bottom.

  The water boiled ominously around them. Little Richard screamed as he was bitten on his right leg, then his left.

  Slank, paddling furiously, managed to get to the longboat. As he grabbed the gunwale, he felt the searing pain of teeth sinking into his thigh. He let go of the boat to strike at his attacker, and as he did, the longboat went over, and the trunk tumbled into the lagoon, where it…

  …floated.

  Slank lunged for it, but missed. It was moving. Sitting atop the water surface, barely an inch of it submerged, the trunk turned left, paused, then right, and finally moved off briskly back toward the island, leaving a V of ripples, like a long, fading arrow in the silver lagoon. In the middle of the V rose parallel lines of bubbles.

  Little Richard sputtered to the surface, bleeding, cursing.

  “Here,” called Slank, and Little Richard paddled over. They clung to the longboat, which was lying hull-up in the water.

  Slank lifted his head and squinted across the lagoon. The watery arrow, led by the slowly shrinking trunk, was heading back in the direction they’d come from, back toward the she-fish cave.

  “You think you’ve won, do you?” muttered Slank. “We’ll see about that, ladies.”

  “What are we going to do?” said Little Richard.

  In answer, Slank pulled out his locket, then said: “How are you with heights?”

  CHAPTER 57

  AN OLD FRIEND

  PETER AND THE OTHERS just made it to the beach. The starstuff began wearing off while they were still over the jungle; for a few moments, Peter thought they would be plunged into the thick, dark vegetation underlying the moonlit tree canopy. He didn’t relish the thought of being lost in there at night.

  But with James’s help, Peter was able to drag the little hand-holding group of reluctant fliers into one last swoop-and-soar, and this time, as they reached the apex of their upward curve, he heard Molly just ahead, shouting and pointing, and then saw, to his great relief, the white of the beach, looking like snow under the startlingly bright moon.

  “Hang on!” he shouted. “We’re coming down over there.”

  They just cleared the last set of palms—in fact, Alf’s feet brushed the highest one, sending a coconut thudding to the sand—and then they crash-landed onto the beach, tumbling and rolling a few yards from where Molly was waiting. They were at the edge of a sandy cove, bounded on either side by steep, rocky hillsides.

  For a moment, Alf, James, Prentiss, Thomas, and Tubby Ted stood speechless, brushing off sand and absorbing their disbelief at their flight, and relief at being on the ground again. Then the questions started.

  “How did we do that?” asked Prentiss. “How could we, I mean…”

  “And the crocodile!” interrupted Thomas. “How did…”

  “I’m hungry,” said Tubby Ted. “Is there any…”

  “And that thing!” said James. “That thing we touched! What was that? It felt so…”

  “It was the magic from the trunk, wasn’t it, lad,” said Alf. “You must’ve…”

  “Can we fly again?” said James.

  “Yes!” said Prentiss and Thomas, simultaneously. “We want to…”

  “All right, all right,” said Peter. “I’ll try to explain, though it’s a bit, um, strange. But first I have to…uh…Listen, just wait here a minute.”

  Peter walked to where Molly was standing, watching him, her expression blank as he approached.

  “You came back,” he said. “To rescue me.” He blushed. “I mean, us.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Molly didn’t answer.

  “But you said you couldn’t,” Peter said. “You said you had to get the trunk. You said that was the most important thing.”

  “It is,” she said. “And I should have left you. Now I don’t know how much starstuff I have left in that locket, and it’s night, and the pirates are on the island, and I fear they already have the trunk. It’s been moving Peter; I’ve felt it. Somebody has found it, and whoever it is won’t want us to have it. And now those natives will be after us, and that crocodile is loose somewhere, and…and I’m just afraid it’s hopeless.”

  Peter saw she was crying. He wanted to hug her, but he couldn’t, not with Alf and the others watching. He settled for patting her shoulder.

  “It’ll be all right,” he said. “We’ll find the trunk.”

  Molly forced a wan smile. “I appreciate that, Peter. I know you want to help. But at this point I honestly don’t know what to do.”

  “You say you can feel the trunk,” said Peter.

  “Yes.”

  “D’you know what direction it’s in?”

  “No, only that it’s moving.”

  “Well if it is, then somebody’s moving it, and perhaps we’ll
be able to see it. In the morning, we’ll climb that mountain again and have a look.”

  Molly nodded. “I suppose that’s as good a plan as any.”

  “In the meanwhile,” said Peter, “we need to get some sleep, if we can. We can set up a watch, in case somebody comes along. Or that thing.” He shuddered, thinking about Mister Grin.

  “All right,” said Molly, her spirits picking up a bit, now that they had a plan.

  “And I should give you this back,” said Peter, reaching for the locket around his neck. “You might…”

  “Did you hear that?” Molly said, her hand on Peter’s arm.

  “What?” said Peter. “I didn’t…”

  “Shhh,” hissed Molly. She cocked her head, listening, then smiled.

  “It’s him!” she said, tossing the words back over her shoulder, as she was already running toward the water.

  “Who?” said Peter, running to catch her. But her attention was focused ahead, and the sounds she was making were not intended for him.

  And then Peter saw a familiar shape—a blunt and grinning snout, sticking up from the moonlit wavelets perhaps ten yards offshore, clicking and chittering in return.

  “Ammm!” Peter shouted.

  CHAPTER 58

  CROSSROADS

  BENEATH A THICK TREE CANOPY ringing with monkey howls and other jungle sounds, Black Stache led his band of pirates, following a path that meandered in the general direction that the flying children—and Mister Grin—had gone.

  Smee, jumping at every sound, said, “Cap’n, what if that humongous flying lizard landed somewheres ahead, here?”

  “Weren’t no lizard,” said Stache, over his shoulder. “That was a croc.”

  “Whatever it was, Cap’n,” said Smee, “it might be up ahead here. Maybe we should…”

  He stopped, because Stache had turned, scowling.