by Jon Scieszka
On and on boasted Rolf. Had my master not been out visiting Madame du Keating’s fancy house that Sunday, he’d have clapped this ponce and sent him tumbling arse-over-teakettle into the night.
I myself had darker plans. Seeing that the young man was unused to drink, I kept his mug full as he kept on about his skills on the tennis lawn, his ability to understand the language of horses, his keen sense of smell. When he admitted he had no money for yet another, he offered to barter a bottle. “I’m an accomplished artist—I’ve got a pin-sharp eye for details.” I gave him more drink in exchange for a charcoal sketch of my likeness.
“Grateful to you, mate. Pity you can’t be my steward on the ship,” slurred Rolf, his last words before he dropped his sketching coal and fell into a dead sleep. I lost no time. I hauled Rolf to the cellar, stripped him of his clothing and implements, stabbed him in the heart, then thrust his bloodied body, headfirst and still warm, into Master’s barrel of stout, locking it fast and hiding the key. My last slaughter, I swore to myself. Bludmoore would have to enslave another soul to muck his stable and butcher his livestock.
Then I buttoned on my new worsted suit, checked my new pockets for my new papers of passage, and left.
I’d never been chancer, because I’d never had a chance. Now my future stretched in a tightrope before me. Straightaway, I put as much distance as I could between my crime and myself, not stopping until I’d arrived at the city’s outskirts. I cowered under the wharf with other ragged folk, waiting out the black hours. Just before dawn, my cap set low, I completed the distance to London Port, where the Charming Molly was docked.
She was a beauty, with fore and main masts square-rigged, built of pale metal and copper fastened. She was my mistress and my salvation. I’d escaped my master’s bullwhip, I’d dodged the hangman’s noose, and if I succeeded in this journey, I might call myself free.
I could not write, so merely made an “X” on the ship’s outbound manifest. The quartermaster inscribed the rest:
Thaddeus Elijah Rolf.
Over and done, with not a body on board to know that my face told a different tale than my name.
I’d found a net of horehound drops in Rolf’s hold-all, and I struck up quick friendships by offering them around as I boarded the ship. I approached the ship’s master, Captain Wright, with my most convincing manner. Wright accepted me on the spot—but it wasn’t until the boat was towed out of the Catwater into the Sound, far away forever from Mr. Bludmoore and the Ruddy Duck, that I found I could breathe easy.
My new master was a man of few words, but he soon took a shine to me. There wasn’t a job I wouldn’t do: swabbie, rigger, chamber-pot emptier, mender, and message-deliverer. I was first on-deck by morn and last to my berth at night, never seasick, and hearty all day on my diet of fish if we caught any, tack if we didn’t. The work was as brutal as any of my days at the Ruddy Duck, but there was fresh air, no whip, and the promise of a loving uncle at the end of the journey. It seemed, for a time, I could count myself lucky.
It wasn’t more than a week passed before First Mate Endicott recommended promoting me to deckhand.
“A sailor without a tattoo is like a boat without anchor. Surgeon Clarke will ink you, so none will mistake you for a landlubber,” Endicott said as he showed me the artistry that bound his own wrists. “I’ve got more than a few—each with its own meaning. Soon, you shall too. You’re a fine young seaman, Rolf.”
“Thank you, sir.”
From above, I heard the mournful call of an albatross.
But now was not the time for guilt.
Late that evening, a squall blew up. Waves tossed the Molly so fierce that below-line was mayhem, souls wailing in fear and misery, among a tumult of falling crates and trunks. I joined the crew above-deck, working hard hours to fasten the battens. I was jolted awake in my berth before the sunrise to a sharp cry that I took for one of the frightened passengers.
But no, this cry was my own.
Blistering pain seared both my wrists—what dread affliction was this? By dawn, I saw the truth of this horror—not boils, not some strange flesh-rot, but an intricate tattoo of rope, the very image of Endicott’s ink.
How had Surgeon Clarke kept me sleeping as he performed the job? I didn’t feel drunk or drugged, only weak with pain.
“Play your games, Sawbones,” I muttered as I unrolled and buttoned my cuffs. “I’ll pay you no mind, and you’ll soon tire of them.”
By midday, the swells had moderated, the ship steadied course, and while I was sure Clarke had marked me for ill-use, I did not confront him. I attended my duties, which now included caring for the sick, as a dread outbreak of smallpox was the latest of the ship’s afflictions.
Over the next days, three babies were lost, all quickly committed to the deep, and soon sea burials became the norm, as the pox was followed by a scourge of ship-fever that took two more children’s lives, along with Middy Daniels and Surgeon Clarke himself, poisoned by the care of his patients. Sailors began to mutter of a curse on the ship.
By the fog of morning, I woke to a smarting pain, as if a cat had clawed at me all night; now my skin bore an anchor on my right arm and a swallow on my left. I was becoming a canvas of false boasts. How could this be the surgeon’s doing? Clarke was dead and gone. This had to be the work of a savage spirit. My sleep, if it came at all, was a torment, plagued by nightmares of a cloven-hoofed creature rising up from the mist and snatching me down to a watery grave.
The ship was accursed—this was the whisper from crew to passengers, and it seemed most miserably proven when we learned that pretty songbird Jane Swiggum, the ship’s favorite, had died of the ship-fever in the night. That morning, passengers stole onto the blustery deck for the reading and hymns.
With a heavy heart, I helped fellow deckhand Middy Boyd throw over the girl’s mattress and bedding, then her wrapped body, into the dark Atlantic.
As the crew shepherded mourners back down to the safety below-deck, I felt a sudden stick of the needle, this time in my waking hours, at the core of my gut—and with this pain, a feverish revelation:
I am the curse of the Charming Molly.
“This storm might blow up to a gale by midday,” called Endicott. “Rolf! Boyd! You’ll need to repair the mainsail quick.”
Even in wind and rain, I was nimble, and I climbed the rigging quick as a squirrel, but as I drew the mending needle through the cloth, the sight of it made me nauseated. I heard his voice: “I’ve got a pin-sharp eye for detail” and I could hardly get the job done before I descended all a tremble.
“By God!” Eyes wide in shock, Endicott stabbed his finger at me—“What devil has possessed you, Rolf? Your arms are covered in—” before fate and the heavens opened, and in the next blustering wind, the boom came loose and swung around so hard it killed Endicott on the spot. In the havoc that ensued, my own pain intensified, my belly stung by a thousand hornets. I slunk below, leaving the others to dispose of Endicott’s body.
“This ship’s demon will be the end of us,” muttered Old Pete that evening as he ladled me a supper of maggoty flour soup. His milky eyes rolled in their sockets. “I might have lost my sight, but that don’t mean I can’t feel its wrath.”
I crawled to the fo’c’sle like a rat to its den, hiding from my captain, and spent the next hours wincing from the savagery that spread across my chest and belly. I could not see the mutilation, only, eventually, its result, rolling across my flesh in a myriad of greens and reds, a large dragon.
“Thaddeus Rolf,” I whispered. “I know this is your handiwork.”
Perhaps I always had.
Later, I stole back to the main berth, dug into my hold-all, and forced myself to extract Rolf’s sketching pad. I might have left his body to pickle in a barrel of ale, but he was not done with me. Among his sketches, I now saw he’d drawn page upon page of tattoos, presumably intended for his own skin—designs I now wore. The final portrait was of Rolf himself, his eyes black as a goat’s,
his mouth twisted in mockery. I threw the drawings overboard and watched them float atop the swells until they were sucked under.
That night, as the ship bucked like a horse, I lay whimpering, for now it was my back shredded in agony. From shoulder blade to shoulder blade, a fully rigged ship—I knew this without having to see it in the cracked mirror of the captain’s stateroom.
For the first time, I was too ill to leave my pallet.
“If it’s the pox you’ve got, don’t breathe on me,” growled Boyd, soused with drink, delivering me with a bruising kick in the ribs from his hammock above.
But I did not die. Curled up in my berth, I was a helpless victim of the ghost infesting my skin. My body, no longer in rude and ruddy health, was now left to live or die with the other invalid emigrants. But after land was sighted, Captain Wright came below and informed us that the weakest would not be allowed off, but sent back to the Old Country. This was the final blow.
I had come too far. I would get off this ship, or die trying.
“Sir, I am much recovered,” I called. My voice was ragged, my body so weak I could hardly stumble to a stand, and so I made myself crawl on hands and knees above-deck. In the light of a noonday sun I had not seen in weeks, my body was a tapestry of ink: a pig on my left foot and a rooster on my right, my knuckles scraped with letters, and a dagger in a jagged cut across my heart.
Old Pete was first to turn on me.
“Drown that one! Drown him like a rat!” he called. “It was the bounder, Thaddeus Rolf, who was the devil among us! Rolf, the curse of the Charming Molly!”
All able bodies seized me, hauled me bowside, and chucked me over the ship into the harbor. I was a London tavern boy who’d never learned to swim, and now, finally, the water had me in its power. The promise of death, that cold eternity to end my present sorrows, was as terrifying as it was intoxicating—until I could hear shouts from above, and my flailing hand knocked into a pole.
“Catch hold of the net, boy! Catch hold!”
I grasped and held, and was towed in to the dock, where I climbed the stiles, coughing, waterlogged, my brain a confusion and shock of what almost had been. A crowd had gathered dockside—to gape and gawk at my freakish markings, I assumed. But it seemed the sea had washed away my secrets.
Those who had seen, now only swore they had, but had to question their eyes. For not a single tattoo appeared on my skin.
“Thaddeus Rolf. You belong to me now.”
There was no mercy in the hard face of my rescuer, whose hand still grasped the net that had reeled me in.
“Uncle?”
“Uncle . . . and master. Paid the captain for your passage, fair and square. There are papers to prove it. Whatever curse you brought onto that ship, I’ll deliver a penance twice as harsh,” declared Würtemberger. “It was my sister’s wish you journey here, but not mine. From this moment on, you’re a bound-out. You’ll work in the slaughterhouse of my farm for the next seven years to square your debt with me. Are you listening, boy?”
Papers to prove it. Papers I could not read. I had journeyed ten weeks and over three thousand nautical miles, but I had escaped nothing.
From above, I heard the mournful call of an albatross.
DISAPPEAR!
BY R.L. STINE
My name is Mark Martindale, but my magician name is Magic Marko. Yes, I’m one of those weird kids who is totally into magic and magicians and tricks. Someday, I’m going to be a famous magician and amaze millions of people. I’m serious.
Magic can be surprising and puzzling. This story is about the day I discovered magic can also be terrifying.
My plan to be a great magician started when I was ten, and my uncle Andrew gave me a big suitcase filled with magic tricks. Uncle Andrew is my only fun relative. I have a ton of aunts and uncles, and whenever I see them, all they want to talk about is my height.
“Wow, Mark, look how tall you’re getting!”
“Mark, you have grown so much since I saw you last time.”
“Mark, you’re going to be a basketball player. I know it.”
Why are they always so surprised that I grew? Did they all expect me to shrink?
Andrew is my only uncle who never talks about my height. He and Aunt Laura live in Florida, so we see them only once a year. They always bring a huge crate of Florida oranges. I guess they think we can’t get oranges here in New Jersey.
But they are totally cool. And two years ago when they came to our house, Uncle Andrew pushed this huge suitcase into my hands. “I had one of these when I was a kid,” he said. “I spent hours and hours with these tricks. Bet you will, too.”
“Wow, thanks!” I couldn’t hide my excitement.
The front of the suitcase showed an old-fashioned-looking magician with a black mustache, a long black-and-red cape draped around his shoulders, and a tall shiny top hat on his head. He waved a magic wand in one hand, and the words Presto Change-O! were in a balloon pointing to his grinning mouth.
At the top of the case were the words: 100! MAGIC TRICKS! 100!
And at the bottom, in bold black type, it read: AMAZE YOUR FRIENDS! ASTOUND AUDIENCES! EASY TO PERFORM—IMPOSSIBLE TO FORGET!
“What’s that?” My little brother Kevin bumped up between Uncle Andrew and me and grabbed the suitcase.
“Get off that!” I cried. His hands were wet and sticky from eating a Florida orange. “Look—you got sticky stuff on my magic case.”
“So what?” He rubbed his hand on the case again and laughed.
Kevin can’t help it. He’s only seven. He’s the younger brother, so he always wants whatever belongs to me, and he always tries to mess it up.
Yes, he’s a pain. But Mom says my main job in life is not to get angry at Kevin. Even when he’s a beast. She says my job is to take care of him.
Dad agreed with her. “Being the younger brother is a tough job, Mark,” he said. “You wouldn’t like it.”
“But it’s a tough job being Kevin’s older brother!” I said.
For some reason, that made them both laugh.
“Let’s take a look at what’s inside the case,” Uncle Andrew said. He helped me carry the big suitcase to the dining room table. “See if we can figure out some of the tricks.”
“Can I do tricks, too?” Kevin asked. He stepped hard on my sneaker and tried to trip me. That’s one of his favorite moves.
“Kevin, you have a very important job,” I told him. “You will be the audience. That means you have to watch every move.”
He nodded. He seemed okay with that.
Uncle Andrew had some trouble opening the case, but finally, the latch popped open, and we pulled up the lid. My eyes bulged when I saw all the trick supplies inside. Decks of cards, colored balls, ropes, handcuffs, wands, flowers, and even a stuffed rabbit.
Kevin grabbed for a set of little red balls, but I shoved his hand away. “You are the audience, remember?” I told him. “That’s an important job.”
I lifted a flat top hat from the the case and popped it with my fist. It snapped into place, tall and shiny. Then I removed a fake black mustache. I raised it to my nose.
“You don’t need those,” Uncle Andrew said. “Set them aside. That’s too old-fashioned. Magicians don’t look like that anymore.”
I laughed. “What do magicians look like?”
“Like you,” he said.
I pulled out a thick book. On the front, bold black letters read: TOP SECRET! For the Magician Only!
“That’s the instruction book,” Uncle Andrew said. He took it from my hands and flipped through it. “You’ve got to be careful and hold on to this, Mark. It tells you how to do every trick from one to one hundred.”
My heart was pounding. I don’t know why I found this so exciting, but I did. Maybe I was born to be a magician. I didn’t get this excited about sports. Or video games. Or cheeseburgers. Or anything.
“Let’s try a trick,” I said, gazing at the colorful equipment jammed inside the case. “We’ll
start with Number One. I’m going to learn them all, one by one.”
Uncle Andrew laughed. I knew he wasn’t laughing at me. He was happy that his gift was such a big hit.
I turned to Trick Number One in the instruction book. Then I pulled out three plastic cups with lids. I pulled off the lids. Each cup had a little red ball at the top.
“This is a disappearing ball trick,” Uncle Andrew said, reading the instructions. “Put the lids back on. The next time you lift the lids, the red balls will be gone.”
“Let me try it,” I said. I glanced at the instructions. Then I placed the lids over the three balls. “Ready? Here goes,” I said. “Watch carefully, Kevin.”
I lifted the lids and the three balls had vanished.
Kevin let out a cry. “Good trick!”
Uncle Andrew and I exchanged glances. We both knew how the trick worked. It was totally easy.
“Hey—” I shouted to Mom, Dad, and Aunt Laura in the den. “I can do magic!”
“Show us,” Mom called.
“Let’s try Trick Number Two,” I whispered to Uncle Andrew. “Find the ace of hearts in this deck of cards.”
I pulled out the deck and shuffled through it. Every card in the deck was an ace of hearts. Awesome.
“Hold the deck upside down,” Uncle Andrew said. “Don’t let anyone see the cards.”
I ran into the den to show off the card trick. “Hey, look. I’m going to try to find the ace of hearts in this deck. Shuffle the deck. Go ahead. Shuffle it as much as you want.”
Everyone was totally amazed when I pulled out the ace of hearts.
And that’s how I got hooked on magic.
From that day on, I spent all my spare time up in my room with the case of tricks. I was obsessed. I was crazed. I was nuts. I went through the instruction book, and one by one, I tried to learn all one hundred tricks.
At school, I brought in tricks and performed for my class. I did my Magic Marko act for the whole school at the annual talent show.
