Port of Spies

by Brian James

  We searched the cargo hold and all the cabins. We even searched Captain Stinky Beard’s cabin by peeking through the windows at the back of the ship.

  We searched the crow’s nest and the quarterdeck. We even searched the poop deck. That was the hardest searching, because we couldn’t stop giggling. That deck is one funny deck.

  We searched all day long, and by bedtime, we were really tired.

  “Arrr! I’m tuckered out,” I said as we headed to our quarters.

  “Aye, me too!” Aaron said. “I just hope Inna doesn’t keep us awake with her snoring!”

  “I do not snore!” Inna said.

  We all rolled our eyes. Inna might be one of the smallest members of the crew, but she was the loudest snorer on the ship! But we were all too sleepy to argue with her.

  Vicky jumped onto her bunk and put her head down. Aaron climbed onto the bunk above hers and did the same. Inna had her own bed and she climbed into it.

  I had the other top bunk, and Gary’s was under mine. He used to have the top one, but he kept rolling off, so we switched.

  “Good night, mates,” I said as I climbed up.

  “Good night,” they mumbled.

  I put my head down on my pillow and closed my eyes. I was just about to set sail for dreamland when Gary’s head popped over the side of my bed.

  “Pete?” he said, tapping me awake. I opened one eye to look at him. “I think that stowaway mouse has been sleeping in my bed.”

  “Aye? Why do you think that?” I asked.

  “Because my pillow and my blanket are missing,” he said.

  I rolled over and peeked down at Gary’s bunk. “Shiver me timbers!” I said. Not only were Gary’s pillow and blanket missing, there were also oatmeal crumbs on his bunk!

  “Arrr! What’s all the shouting about?” Vicky asked.

  “Aye! I’m trying to get my beauty sleep,” Inna said.

  “It’s the stowaway! He’s been sleeping in Gary’s bunk!” I shouted.

  Aaron leaped from his bed ready to fight. “Arrr! Where is the slimy stinker?” he shouted.

  I shrugged. “Gone,” I told him.

  “What should we do?” Vicky asked.

  “Should we tell Rotten Tooth?” Gary asked.

  “Blimey! He won’t believe us!” Aaron said.

  “Aye, Aaron’s right,” I said.

  “Aye?” Aaron asked. He wasn’t used to anyone but himself saying he was right. But this time he was positively correct.

  “Aye,” I said. “We need to catch this spy by ourselves. We need proof.”

  “But how are we going to catch the spy?” Gary asked.

  “With a really good plan,” Inna said.

  “Aye!” we agreed.

  “But what is the plan?” Gary asked.

  “The first part of the plan is to go to sleep,” Inna said. “Then we can think of the second part of the plan in the morning.”

  I yawned. That sounded like a good plan to me.

  Before going back to bed, we put our hands in a circle and said our cheer. “SWASHBUCKLING, SAILING, FINDING TREASURE, TOO. BECOMING PIRATES IS WHAT WE WANT TO DO!”

  We all climbed back into bed.

  I put my head down again and closed my eyes.

  “Psst! Pete?” Gary whispered, poking his head up again. “Can I share your pillow?” he asked. “And your blanket?”

  “Sure thing, matey.” I yawned. “Sharing is what best mates do best.” I rolled over and Gary climbed up to my bunk. Then I was finally able to get some shut-eye.

  Chapter 8

  Pirate-Proof Plan

  As soon as the sun woke up, so did I. But it wasn’t the sun that made me open my eyes. I woke up because of the loud noises under my bunk.

  THUMP! CRASH!

  I sat right up.

  “It’s the stowaway!” I shouted.

  Aaron and Vicky sat up, too. Inna pulled back the pink curtain that hung around her bed. We all looked around, but we didn’t see an intruder.

  “Arrr! It’s only me,” Gary said as he stood up and put his glasses back on. He’d fallen off the bunk again.

  “Great sails! We should’ve known,” Aaron said.

  “Aye,” Inna said. “But now that we’re all awake, we should think of a way to catch the real stowaway.”

  “Aye!” the rest of us agreed.

  Then we all started thinking as hard as we could. But our stomachs all started to grumble. So none of us could think about anything except breakfast.

  “Avast! That’s it!” I said. “The stowaway must be hungry, too. If we leave food in here and set a trap, we can catch him!”

  “Good thinking, Pete,” Vicky said.

  “Aye! We can set up a trap with rope and use a blanket as a net. That way, when the stowaway grabs the food, the trap will go off and swoop him up in the blanket,” Inna said.

  We all agreed that Inna’s plan was unsinkable.

  We hurried to the mess hall. I could sniff out that we were having oatmeal. “That’s perfect,” I said. “We know that the spy likes oatmeal.”

  We all gobbled down our grub. Each of us saved a few spoonfuls, and we spooned that into one bowl. Then we sneaked the bowl back to our quarters. It was a ship rule that no food was allowed out of the mess hall, but this was important.

  Lucky for us, Vicky knew all about setting traps.

  She tied one end of the rope to the bowl using a special slip knot we’d learned in Pirate School. Then we swung the other end over the roof beams. We knotted four more ropes to that one rope, one for each corner of the blanket.

  “When the bowl is picked up, it will set off the trap,” Vicky said. “The blanket will swoop up in the air like a net . . . then WHAM! Gotcha! ”

  The sun was getting brighter outside the porthole.

  “We’d better hurry on deck for school before Rotten Tooth comes looking for us!” I said.

  We ran up the galley stairs to report for duty. We hoped we’d have that spy trapped by the time we came back!

  Chapter 9

  Trapped!

  “Arrr! Ye barnacles better start paying attention!” Rotten Tooth growled. He was trying to teach us how to spot reefs. Only we were all too busy thinking about our trap to concentrate.

  “Aye aye!” we said.

  “That’s more like it,” Rotten Tooth said. Then he pointed out to sea. He said that the color of the water warned pirates of reefs.

  “Do you think the spy is trapped yet?” Vicky whispered.

  Rotten Tooth stopped talking and glared at us. “Spotting reefs might just keep ye pups from sinking to the bottom of the sea one day,” he sneered.

  “Aye aye!” we said.

  When Rotten Tooth wasn’t looking again, I leaned over to Vicky. “Spotting spies might keep us afloat, too,” I said.

  “ARRR! That’s it! Ye have sunk your own ship!” Rotten Tooth barked. “School’s over! Go to your quarters and don’t come out till grub time.”

  Most of the time, being punished made us frowny. But this time it made us smile, because our quarters were exactly where we wanted to go!

  We did our best to hide how happy we were. We pretended to mope until we got to the galley stairs. Once we were out of Rotten Tooth’s sight, we let out a loud “Hooray!” and skipped to our room.

  Then I made a shh noise and sneaked over to our door.

  Vicky sneaked behind me and Aaron sneaked behind her.

  Inna sneaked, too. But she covered her eyes with her fingers in case there was something creepy in the net.

  Gary didn’t sneak at all. That’s because Gary is a loud sneaker, and this was a job for quiet sneaking.

  “Blimey!” I said. “The trap worked!”

  “Aye!” Vicky shouted.

  The blanket was hanging from the roof beams and something was wiggling inside.

  Aaron grabbed a broom from the closet. “Arrr! I’ll swashbuckle the spy with this!”

  “Arrr! Maybe we should peek to see what it is first,”
I said.

  “Aye, it might just be somebody clumsy like me,” Gary said.

  “Well, let’s find out, buckoes!” I said.

  Aaron gripped the broom tighter.

  Vicky and Gary held their breath.

  Inna covered her eyes tighter.

  I started to untie the knot.

  Then . . . THUMP!

  The blanket fell to the ground and opened.

  “ARRR!” I screamed.

  “AHHH!” the spy screamed back.

  We all blinked and rubbed our eyes. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing! Our friend Jack from King’s Island was standing in our quarters!

  “What in the name of the seven seas are you doing here?” I asked.

  Just then a heavy hand came down on my shoulder and I made a double gulp!

  “Arrr! That’s what I would like to know!” Rotten Tooth growled. Jack trembled with fear. Rotten Tooth could be one scary pirate if he wanted to.

  “But . . . but . . . how did you know?” I stuttered.

  “The cap’n ordered me to keep my eyes open for anything suspicious. And ye kiddos were acting mighty suspicious this morning,” he said. As mean as he was, that Rotten Tooth sure was one clever pirate!

  “What’s going to happen to me?” Jack asked.

  “Arrr! Same thing that happens to all stowaways,” Rotten Tooth said. “You are going to walk the plank!”

  Chapter 10

  Sink or Sail?

  Rotten Tooth picked up Jack with one hand and carried him out of our quarters.

  “Stop!” Inna shouted. “He’s our friend!”

  “Gangway! He’s a spy!” Rotten Tooth said as he marched up to the main deck.

  Jack had saved us from the townspeople, so we had to find a way to save Jack.

  There was only one person aboard the Sea Rat who could make Rotten Tooth change his mind. So I raced off to the captain’s quarters to find Captain Stinky Beard. Aaron, Vicky, Gary, and Inna grabbed hold of Rotten Tooth’s legs to try and slow him down.

  “Cap’n! Cap’n!” I shouted as I rushed into his office.

  Captain Stinky Beard was sitting at his big desk, plotting our course on a huge map. He looked up when I burst in. “Arrr, what is it, my little shipmate?” he asked.

  “You have to come quick!” I said. “Rotten Tooth is going to turn one of our friends into shark bait!”

  I grabbed the captain’s hand and led him onto the main deck. Jack was standing on the plank, and Rotten Tooth was ordering him to march. The whole crew was gathered around to watch.

  “Hold it!” Captain Stinky Beard yelled out, and everyone turned to look. He walked over to the plank and demanded to know what was going on.

  “Arrr! These pollywogs caught a spy stealing supplies and now they want to save him!” Rotten Tooth said. “I told ye they were too softhearted to be pirates!”

  Captain Stinky Beard scratched his beard. “Hmm,” he muttered. “The pirate code does say all spies must walk the plank.”

  “But I’m not a spy!” Jack pleaded.

  “Aye! He’s not a spy at all!” Inna said.

  “Aye!” Aaron said. “He’s a landlubber we met on King’s Island.”

  “A landlubber?” Captain Stinky Beard said with a gasp.

  “Yep!” Jack said. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I just wanted to see what it was like to be a real pirate kid.”

  “Aye! It’s a true fact,” I said.

  Rotten Tooth groaned. “Arrr! Don’t trust him, Cap’n. He’s a spy, plain as day!”

  Captain Stinky Beard flashed Rotten Tooth a mean look. “Stow it,” he said. “If ye had listened to our little shipmates in the first place, ye would have found the boy before we left port. Now we have to figure out what to do with him.”

  “Please don’t make him walk the plank, sir!” we begged.

  “No, no!” said Captain Stinky Beard. “I’ll not have any kids walking the plank on me ship. He either stays or goes home.”

  Rotten Tooth leaned in close to Jack. “Arrr! I’m guessing you’re going to tell us how you’ll be wanting to stay here and go to Pirate School,” he said.

  But Jack shook his head. “No, thanks!” he said. “I just want to go home. Pirate life is too dirty. Plus, the food is terrible!”

  “All right, then, home it is,” Captain Stinky Beard said. “All hands, man the sails. Full reverse back to King’s Island!”

  Jack was saved!

  “HIP! HIP! HOORAY!” we shouted. Jack shouted it the loudest. Then he came over and thanked us for saving him.

  “Arrr! That’s what best mates do,” I said.

  Then Jack thanked the cap’n.

  Captain Stinky Beard patted him on the head. Then one by one, the crew returned to their duties. And when Captain Stinky Beard returned to his quarters, Rotten Tooth returned to being mean.

  “Ye sprogs better stay out of my sight!” he yelled. He was steamed that we had gone straight to the captain. “Ye will be getting extra rotten lessons for this!”

  When Rotten Tooth left, Jack apologized for getting us into trouble. “I hope you’re not mad at me,” he said.

  “Are you kidding?” Aaron said. “A swell adventure is always worth getting into a little trouble.”

  “AYE!” the rest of us agreed.

  Slowly the ship started to turn around and sail back to King’s Island. Jack promised us that when we got to port, he’d show us around. “If it’s okay with your captain,” he said.

  “I think it might be, as long as we ask him really nice,” I said. “Our cap’n is always fair.”

  “Aye,” my friends agreed.

  I kept my eye on the horizon. I couldn’t wait to get there and explore that place again. And this time, the only thing we’d have to shop for would be Inna’s shiny bracelet.