by Maggie Allen
“Down!” Jenny tackled her to the ground, a rush of air passing over them. Nicole looked up just in time to see a dark shape soaring into the distance, rising higher and—
“Turning! It’s turning!”
The purple-eyed thing screeched, swooping back toward Nicole and Jenny. They scrambled to their feet and ran.
“Split!” Jenny yelled, pushing Nicole away. They dove and rolled in opposite directions, the dark thing coming down like a giant scythe to scrape the grass between them.
Nicole sprinted off, her heart pounding. Was Jenny okay? She checked over her shoulder and ran right into something.
Oof! She fell. Rolling onto her belly, she saw a pair of hooves before her.
“Careful, lass! It’s dangerous out here.”
Nicole looked up. The red-bearded man was like any other adult she’d ever seen, except—hooves! The legs coming out of his ragged shorts were thin but toned, and their color reminded her of the dark, polished dresser in her parents’ bedroom.
“Don’t worry,” the man said. “Cap’n Mard’s here!”
He pulled a weird-looking pistol from his holster and fired at the far-off flying thing. Nicole expected a bang and some smoke, but instead there was a static-crackle and a flash of orange light.
Two more hoof-footed people in ragged clothes came to Captain Mard’s side. All three fired laser-shots at the swooping shape. It kept its distance, diving at something in the field.
“Jenny!” Nicole said. Jenny screamed something back, just as the shape lifted her from the ground.
Nicole ran after the retreating sky-thing, her shouts competing with the sounds of laser-blasts and beating wings. Jenny’s screams faded into the distance as the dark shape carried her away.
Nicole stumbled to a halt. The laser-fire stopped. Captain Mard came up to her.
“Do you have the disc, lass?”
“It took Jenny! We have to find her. We have to—”
Captain Mard knelt and held her by the shoulders, looking into her eyes. His hands were weird: only three fingers on each, plus a big bony hook growing out the back of the left one.
“Calm down, lass. We can find your friend. But we’ll need the disc.”
Nicole sniffled, her eyes wet. “The doubloon?”
“Yes—I suppose that is how it looks. Do you have it?”
“Jenny does.”
“Bah! No matter. We can still get your friend back. I just need to know where you got the doubloon.”
Nicole pointed toward the neighborhood, half-lit with the glow-sticks and flashlights of trick-or-treaters. “Miss Arney’s house.”
“Very well. To Miss Arney’s house!”
Captain Mard insisted they go to the back door instead of the front. Miss Arney answered, still wearing her devil costume.
“Nicole!” she said. “Where’s the rest of your group? And who’re these gentlemen?”
“Something took Jenny. We need your help!”
Miss Arney looked the group over, her dark eyes framed by strands of graying brown hair. She seemed to realize this definitely wasn’t a Halloween trick.
“Come in,” she said. “I’ll get some drinks.”
They sat in the kitchen. The porch light was off and Miss Arney ignored the doorbell. She stared into her tea, digesting Nicole’s story about the doubloon.
“That wasn’t supposed to be in the sack,” Miss Arney said. “I don’t know how it got there.”
“Doesn’t matter now,” Captain Mard said. “We just need to know where you found it.”
Miss Arney scratched at a brown stain on the tablecloth, her eyes glazed by memory. “It happened a few months ago,” she said. “I was hiking in the hills when I came across an overgrown path I’d never noticed before. The sun was getting low, but I decided I could spend a few minutes exploring. At the base of a pine tree, I found the doubloon.
“It was beautiful,” she said, her face alight with wonder. “And halfway to my car, it got even better: I found the switch that lit it up. It was so gorgeous I didn’t even look away until I heard the screech.”
Nicole shivered. She knew that screech all too well.
“Something huge soared overhead, scraping the treetops. I flicked the doubloon off to kill the light and ducked into a bush. I squatted there for a long time, holding my breath and watching the sky. Everything was calm and quiet, and then, wham! The thing landed in a clearing, maybe fifty feet away. There wasn’t enough sunlight left for me to make out its shape, but I heard it sniffing about. I held my breath and didn’t move a muscle. Eventually, the thing screeched and took off. When it seemed safe to come out, I ran to my car and drove home.”
“It didn’t chase you?” Nicole asked.
“No, but that wasn’t the last I saw of it. A few days later I turned the doubloon on again. I figured I was safe at home, right? Wrong: before long I heard the screech, out in the hills. I switched the doubloon off and peeked out my window. The sun was low, but there was just enough light to see something circling the sky: a black shape against purple clouds.” Miss Arney rubbed her arms like she’d suddenly gone cold. “I never turned the doubloon on again.”
Captain Mard wagged a finger at his crew. “I knew we were close. Should have kept poking around those hills when we picked up the signal. Miss Arney, can you take us to where you found the doubloon?”
“Shouldn’t we let the police take care of this?”
“Believe me, my men can handle that beastie better than anyone else.”
Miss Arney chewed her lip. “Okay, how about this: I’ll draw you a map, but then I’m calling the police.”
“Fair enough.” Captain Mard handed her a napkin, and she started sketching.
“There,” she said, sliding the map across the table. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to use the phone.”
Miss Arney left the kitchen. Captain Mard turned the napkin in his hands, tilting his head to the side. “Do you know where this is?” he asked Nicole.
“Yeah. Jenny dragged me up there once.”
Captain Mard nodded sharply. “A moment, please.”
He exited the room. Jenny heard a brief zapping sound and a yelp. Captain Mard came back with Miss Arney in his arms, sleeping peacefully.
“Don’t suppose you know where her bedroom is, do you?” he asked. “I’d like her to be comfortable when she wakes.”
“Did you hurt her?”
“Of course not! But I couldn’t risk the police fouling things up. If we’re going to save your friend and get that doubloon back, we’ll have to do it ourselves.”
Jenny helped Captain Mard find the bedroom. They set Miss Arney down, pulled a blanket over her and left the house.
The group walked back to the field where Nicole and Jenny had activated the doubloon. Captain Mard led everyone behind some trees, where a long silver ship stood.
“Wow!” Nicole said. “It’s like a boat, but without the sails. Are you guys pirates or something?”
“Ha!” Captain Mard said. “Pirates—I like that. But no, we’re aliens.”
Aliens! Real-life aliens. And Nicole had thought this Halloween couldn’t get any weirder.
A gangway descended from the side of the ship. Everyone climbed aboard, where more of Captain Mard’s crew waited.
The ship’s engines fired up, but they didn’t sound like any engines Nicole was used to. They made a sort of swooshing sound, like waves brushing the shore.
The ship rose above the trees and lurched forward. Nicole stumbled, and Captain Mard laughed.
“Need to work on your sky-legs, lass!”
Nicole latched onto a post in the middle of the deck. Her parents had tried to make her go on a hot-air balloon once, which sounded like the scariest thing ever. This was somehow worse.
“Something wrong?” Captain Mard asked.
“We’re going to crash.”
Captain Mard laughed. “There’s nothing to fear, lass. Think of it this way: if we were in danger, wouldn’
t my men be panicked?”
“I guess.”
“So look around.”
All across the deck, space-pirates were laughing and playing board games. A group at the far end performed something like a sea shanty on strange instruments. No one seemed to care they were flying.
“Go along,” Captain Mard said, moving toward a staircase in the floor. “Have a look around while I take care of some things.” He went below the deck.
This wasn’t Nicole’s idea of a good time—it was more like Jenny’s. Her cousin would’ve been right at home, running across the ship, shouting orders like she were a sea captain.
Of course—that was it! To forget about how high she was, Nicole just needed to pretend this was a seagoing ship. After all, Jenny was always telling her to use her imagination more.
Nicole closed her eyes. She listened to the accordion-style sea shanty and the churning-wave sound of the engines. She felt the ship moving as if it were rocking on the water, and she even thought she smelled salt on the air.
Everything came together in her mind. She was on a real pirate ship, sailing under a gorgeous starry sky. Waves lapped against the hull, while far-off dolphins breached and cackled in the dark.
She opened her eyes. One slow step at a time, she moved to the rail and looked out. Down below, the trees were bare. Except they weren’t trees: they were kelp, drifting on the seafloor. And the tiny town in the distance, full of twinkles from flashlights and porch bulbs, was actually a merfolk village: the trick-or-treaters there dressed as sharks and got sunken treasures instead of candy. Nicole smiled at the thought.
The ship sailed toward the hills. Nicole gazed into the imagined underwater world, her trance broken by a series of barks.
A dog! The space-pirates had a dog! Nicole ran down the stairs into the bowels of the ship, following the barks through dim, narrow corridors. After a few turns she saw an open door up ahead, on the right, an orange light coming through. Something snarled from within.
“Quiet down, you brainless beast!” It was Captain Mard’s voice, and it was followed by a crackle of electricity. The barking stopped, replaced by a whimper.
Captain Mard exited the room, closing the door and mopping his brow. He deactivated his electrified baton and stowed it in a secret panel on the wall.
“Ah!” he said, noticing Nicole down the hall and smiling. “Glad to see you’ve left your post.”
“Were you hitting that dog?”
Captain Mard laughed. “Oh, that was no dog. Just a simple beast from a planet you’ve never heard of. We’ve got a pair of them in there, and the bigger one acts up whenever it hears our favorite song. Now come along, lass—we’re surely close to the hills by now.” He draped a hand over Nicole’s shoulder and guided her down the hall. Something whimpered softly behind them.
The ship landed in a clearing on the wooded hill. Everyone disembarked and Captain Mard addressed the crew.
“Weapons ready, boys!” There was a rattle of metal as the dozen space-pirates checked their armaments. Some weapons emitted a high-pitched whine as they powered up, while others sounded like traditional Earth-guns being cocked. One space-pirate pointed his pistol skyward and shot a bright plume of flame into the night, nodding to himself in approval.
Nicole led the way. They climbed a slope and came to a wall of bushes, taller than the tallest space-pirate. She pushed twigs aside and ventured into a narrow, tree-strangled path.
It was dark and eerily quiet. Nicole struck up conversation to break the silence.
“Your doubloon isn’t really a coin, is it?” she asked. “It looked like a computer or something.”
“Very observant!” Captain Mard said. “The doubloons are data discs. Each contains the genome of an alien species—all the information our machine needs to create life.”
“Do you have one for humans?” Nicole asked. “Can you make people?”
Captain Mard laughed. “Don’t you worry, lass. We only deal in exotic beasts. Galactic circuses pay out the nose for attractions from other solar systems.”
Nicole thought about how poorly most Earth circuses treated their animals. Then she remembered the thing on the ship, getting zapped by Captain Mard’s baton. It made her want to hug her dog.
The trees became less dense and everyone was able to stand straight. Nicole slipped around a rock the size of a recliner, brushing ferns as she passed.
“Why’d you come to Earth?” she asked. “Are you here for more animals?”
“Ha! Far from it. If people saw Earth animals, they’d come looking for Earth. My crew’s the only one to stumble across this rock, and we’d like to keep it that way. Unknown planets are nice places for conducting business.”
“If no one knows you’re here, how’d you lose your doubloons?”
“One of the beasties we cooked up got away. Darned rascal snatched the doubloons on his way out.”
The sky thing! Nicole thought. With its purple-marble eyes and terrible screech. The thing that had Jenny. Gosh—she hoped her cousin was okay.
The trees thinned enough to reveal a cloud-striped sky. Ferns and shrubs gave way to dirt and fallen pinecones. Nicole led everyone uphill.
“I think we’re almost there,” she said. “I haven’t been this far before, but—Jenny!”
The pirate-costumed girl stopped in her tracks. She flipped up her eye patch, spotted the group and came skipping down.
Nicole charged uphill and threw her arms around her cousin.
“You’re alive! How’d you escape?”
Jenny pulled back from the hug. “Escape? Oh—it’s not like that. I’m just exploring. Gerald’s super nice.”
“Who’s Gerald?”
“The big scary winged thing! Except he’s not actually scary. He just wanted his doubloon back.”
Captain Mard butted in: “Our doubloon. Where’s this Gerald character?”
Jenny pointed to a cave up the hill.
“Thanks, lass.” Captain Mard turned to his crew. “All right, boys—let’s do this!” They drew their weapons.
“Wait!” Jenny said, blocking their way. “You’re not going to hurt Gerald, are you?”
Captain Mard sighed, in the condescending-but-patient way adults sometimes do. He bent down to Jenny’s eye-level. “Gerald may seem nice, but he’s just a witless beast. And a thieving one, at that. You’re lucky he didn’t chomp you.”
“He’s not witless. If you’re taking guns up there, you’ll have to go through me.” She crossed her arms.
Captain Mard beckoned two of his men over. “Take them back to the ship. I don’t want anyone fouling things up.”
The space-pirates approached. One was bald except for a ponytail atop his head, while the other had a red complexion and a jaw so square he looked like a brick.
“Come along,” Ponytail said, taking Nicole gently by the arm. Brick got some resistance from Jenny, but she was half his size and couldn’t do much. They escorted the girls back to the path while Captain Mard’s group began their ascent.
“They’re not going to kill Gerald, are they?” Jenny asked.
“Not if they can avoid it,” Ponytail said. “We don’t have anything against him—we just want our doubloons back.”
Jenny let out a relieved breath, relaxing enough for Brick to let her walk freely. “I think we’re okay then. Gerald wouldn’t start a fight—he’s too cool for that. You’ve got to meet him, ’Cole. He’s like a pterodactyl, but all splotchy black and orange, with a huge crocodile tail. And he’s smart! He built a machine that lets him talk, and I used it to make my voice sound like a dinosaur’s. So cool.”
“Wait,” Brick said, stopping the group. “Did he build any other machines?”
“Sure. He’s got all sorts of junk up there.”
“Does he have anything with a slot the size of the doubloon?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
Brick rubbed his huge, square chin. He took Ponytail aside to confer.
�
�What’s the deal?” Jenny whispered to Nicole.
“The doubloons are data discs. They’re worried Gerald built a machine that can read them. I don’t like this, Jenny. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“We could jet now, while they’re talking.”
“We’d never outrun them. Just try to come up with a plan while we walk.”
The journey resumed. Nicole wracked her brain the entire way, looking for a plan that could set them free. What did she know about the space-pirates? They had hooves for feet and hooks on their hands; they played board games while sailing and treated animals poorly. But how could she use any of that? She squeezed her eyes shut. Think! There had to be something!
They reached the ship and ascended the gangplank.
“Any ideas?” Jenny whispered.
“No,” Nicole said. “I just—wait!”
They’d reached the deck, where Nicole saw the instruments the space-pirates had used for their sea-shanty.
“I think I’ve got a plan,” she said. “No time to explain. Just be ready when something happens.”
The space-pirates escorted them below the deck, into the narrow corridors. Nicole whistled a tune.
“Hey,” Ponytail said, “that’s our favorite song!” He and Brick started singing along, dancing as they walked, their hooves clopping against the metal floor. Before long, an animal’s barking carried through the ship.
“Miserable beast!” Brick said. “We’d better go quiet him down.”
They took a left into the corridor where the animal’s room was located. When they reached the door Nicole pulled the dragon figurine from her pocket, swinging it through the air and doing her very best to imitate Jenny’s bestial roars.
“What’ve you got there?” Ponytail asked.
“A game piece.”
“Really!” Brick said, exchanging an excited look with his partner. “From what game?”
“Jenny could probably tell you more about it.” She handed Brick the dragon. He examined it with the wonder of a kid who’d dug up buried treasure. Jenny, catching Nicole’s wink, made up all sorts of rules for a game she’d never played. Both space-pirates listened intently.
Nicole edged toward the wall, inching out of her captors’ vision. If she made any sudden movements, they might look her way, and they’d surely know what she was up to. One step at a time. Just a little closer . . .
