We Give a Squid a Wedgie

by C. Alexander London

  “Greetings, my friends!” Big Bart shouted, striding into the room with a grand gesture. He wore a red velvet coat and starched white shirt, with black breeches and black leather boots. He had an ornate sword tucked into his belt and a wide-brimmed hat perched on his giant head, just above a heavy black eye patch over his left eye. A huge feather billowed from the brim of his hat, and Dennis clucked into the room behind him wearing a tiny version the same hat, feather and all.

  “Is this better, Oliver?” Big Bart asked, removing his hat and making an elaborate bow. “Do I look piratical enough for you?”

  “Will you say arrr?” Oliver asked.

  “No,” said Big Bart.

  “What’s with the eye patch?” asked Celia.

  “It’s not easy putting a hat on a chicken,” said Big Bart.

  “Rooster,” corrected Celia, with a sarcastic smile.

  Big Bart snorted and put his hat back on. He strolled up onto the stage at the front of the ballroom, gesturing for Twitchy Bart to bring Corey up behind him.

  “My brothers from around the world!” Big Bart shouted, raising his arms in the air.

  “Don’t forget sisters!” someone in the crowd shouted.

  Big Bart dropped his arms to his side and nodded gravely. “Unfortunately, our dear Bonnie did not make it back from our latest adventure.”

  “What happened?” another pirate shouted.

  “Did one of the weaklings get her?” someone else called out.

  “Maybe they bored her to death!” Everyone laughed.

  “She had the idea that I was not fit to be captain,” he said, moving his head from side to side, scanning the room. “I wonder if anyone else shares that particular sentiment?”

  Silence. There was an uncomfortable cough. Big Bart raised one eyebrow.

  “No, no!” said the offending cougher. “It’s just my sinuses … I didn’t mean nothing by it!”

  Big Bart nodded at one of the scar-faced pirates, who grabbed the man and dragged him screaming from the room. His screams echoed down the hallway even after they’d closed the door again.

  “Moving on to new business!” Big Bart con­tinued.

  “I can’t believe this,” Oliver whispered to Celia. “Even pirates make speeches at these parties.”

  “Our hostages!” said Big Bart, and the room burst into cheers.

  “We love you, Corey!” a motley group of Samoan mercenaries shouted from the corner. Celia couldn’t believe how much these bloodthirsty pirates were like her sixth-grade classmates.

  “I’m happy to introduce a young man who really needs no introduction,” Big Bart continued.

  “Then why introduce him?” Oliver muttered.

  “At only sixteen, he has starred as a student ­superspy on Agent Zero and a love-struck vampire on Sunset High, and he created the award-winning reality show The Celebrity Adventurist. And I’m thrilled to tell you all that, in hijacking his boat, we have also captured enough pairs of his trademarked Corey Brandt’s Pocketed Pants for everyone!”

  Whoops and hollers swept around the room. Corey actually smiled, even though he had a knife to his throat. He just couldn’t help it.

  “I’m glad you like them, guys!” he said. “Please don’t kill me.”

  The pirates laughed.

  “Charming as ever, Mr. Brandt!” Big Bart patted him on the back. “We should get a fine, fine ransom for you. Or a good price from the organ harvesters.” The color left Corey Brandt’s face. “As to our other hostages, we have Dr. Ogden Navel and his two lovely children, Oliver and Celia!”

  Every eye turned to look at them as if they were pieces of meat in a butcher’s shop. One of the pirates even licked his lips.

  “We’ve all had a chance, I hope, to eat a little bit and to get to know our special guests,” Big Bart continued. “Before we make our demands known to Hollywood on behalf of Mr. Brandt, I suggest we make our way to the aft deck, where the young Navels will give us some spirited entertainment. I for one cannot wait to see who will join our crew, and who will walk the plank!”

  The room cheered.

  “I thought pirates didn’t really make you walk the plank,” Oliver gasped.

  “I guess they do,” said Celia. She turned to her brother as Big Bart stepped down from the stage. “Follow my lead!” she said quickly.

  “What about my parley?” Dr. Navel demanded of Big Bart as he passed. “The Pirates’ Code is very clear that when parley is requested, the captain must promise the safety of—”

  Big Bart waved his hand in the air, and two of the scar-faced pirates grabbed Dr. Navel and gagged him with an oily cloth. He squirmed and struggled.­ One of the pirates flashed his big knife and Dr. Navel slumped where he stood. The pirates had to hold him up. He’d passed out again.

  “Really, Dad?” Celia sighed.

  “Are you ready to duel?” Big Bart asked the twins. “I am so excited for one of you to join my crew. I promise it will be wonderful. All the junk food you can eat, your own television in your cabin, murder and mayhem whenever you want it.” He leaned in to whisper to them. “And, of course, if you happen to lead me to this island you’ve been searching for, well, maybe I will spare your ­father’s life.”

  “I thought you lost the vote,” said Oliver. “Your crew didn’t want to look for the island.”

  Big Bart’s eyes narrowed at him. “Sometimes my crew doesn’t know what’s in their best interests.”­

  “We have one condition,” said Celia.

  “A condition?” Big Bart turned to her. “You are a feisty one, Celia! Perhaps I’ll be rooting for you instead of your brother.”

  Oliver was too nervous to be offended.

  “Whoever wins,” said Celia, “takes responsibility for our father. He doesn’t get thrown overboard no matter what.”

  “That is very sweet,” said Big Bart. “But I don’t know. We were going to shoot him out of a big slingshot. The boys really were looking forward to it.”

  “If we don’t duel, then your boys don’t get a show,” Celia said. “And I’d hate to be the captain of a ship filled with bored pirates.”

  Big Bart’s eyebrows smashed together on his forehead as he considered the little girl in front of him. For a second, Celia thought he might smash her with his giant fists.

  “Fine,” he said. “I would never have thought you were such a daddy’s girl. Now come on. You two have to pick your weapons! The show’s about to begin!”

  He ushered Oliver and Celia, dressed in their ill-fitting formal wear, out of the ballroom toward the glaring sunlight and the chanting of a hundred pirates who wanted some bloody entertainment.

  “How will we lead him to the island?” Oliver wondered. “We don’t know where it is.”

  “I do,” said Celia. She slipped the compass from her pocket and showed it to Oliver.

  “So you have to win then,” Oliver said. “You’ll be able to save Dad.”

  “No.” Celia dropped the compass back into her pocket. “We’re all going together. I have a plan.”

  “You do?”

  “Just think,” Celia told her brother. “What would Mom do?”

  “Oh no,” groaned Oliver, because he had some idea what their mother would do if she were here. And it wasn’t going to be pretty.

  23

  WE DO THE DUEL

  “NOW, I WANT A GOOD, dirty, unfair fight,” said Twitchy Bart. “Is that clear?”

  Celia nodded.

  Oliver nodded.

  They stood across from each other on a large stage at the back of the ship. Corey and Dr. Navel were being held just off to the side of the stage, where everyone could watch them watching the battle. The sea sprayed and roared ten stories below them as the cruise ship sped through the waves. The twins faced the crowd of pirates.

  They couldn’t see much in front of them because of the blinding lights, but if they shielded their eyes they could make out arena-style seating in a semicircle around the stage, which rose high above t
hem. Hundreds of scarred faces and malevolent eyes glowered down at the twins.

  “Better not to look,” whispered Celia.

  Oliver nodded. His palms sweated on the grip of the heavy baseball bat they’d given him for bludgeoning his sister.

  She held a metal golf club for smashing his brains in.

  “Here are the rules,” said Twitchy Bart. “When Big Bart says go, you hit each other until one of you loses.”

  “Loses what?” asked Oliver.

  “Your life!” Twitchy Bart smiled.

  “That’s the only rule?” Oliver gulped.

  “We’re pirates.” Twitchy Bart shrugged. “We don’t have too many rules.”

  “My fine gentlemen!” Big Bart strolled onto the stage in his full pirate regalia, which is just a fancy way of saying costume. Dennis clucked at his side. “I won’t waste words with long speeches and grandiose proclamations!”

  “Yeah, right,” said Celia.

  “Whoever survives this ordeal shall be our newest crew member, joining the great tradition of the piratical life. I know he doesn’t look like much, but perhaps this young lad here with the skinny arms and the glum expression is the next Barbarossa! Perhaps this young lady, though she be not so pretty and not so smart, will grow into the next Anne Bonny!”

  “Hey,” Celia objected, but Big Bart kept his back to her.

  “Either one will lead us to a treasure greater than old Captain Flint’s pieces of eight, greater than Sir Walter Raleigh’s El Dorado.”

  “Been there, not so great,” muttered Oliver.

  “Unlimited gold!” declared Big Bart. “Jewels and rubies! Wealth beyond compare!”

  “Now he’s just making stuff up,” whispered Celia.

  “What if all we find is giant squid?” Oliver whispered back.

  “He’ll be mad,” whispered Celia. “But we’ll be out of here long before then.”

  “And all that treasure shall be ours!” Big Bart yelled.

  The crowd roared. They gave him a standing ovation, which he, ever the showman, encouraged.

  “Didn’t you and Bonnie vote against that?” ­Oliver whispered to Twitchy Bart. “You know, before he threw her overboard … what happened to your pirate code?”

  “Hush up, you,” said Twitchy Bart, scratching nervously at the back of his neck. “The captain knows what he’s doing.”

  “Who says the winner will help him?” Celia prodded. “What if he or she doesn’t know where that island is?”

  “Well, he or she better figure it out,” said Twitchy Bart. “Or the crew’ll tear he or she apart, right along with Big Bart. Pirates is fickle folk.”

  “Fickle?” Oliver wondered.

  “Easily changing their loyalty,” said Celia.

  “I guess I should have known that one,” said Oliver, raising his eyebrows at his sister and glancing at Corey.

  “That is so unfair,” said Celia.

  “Hey, kids!” said Twitchy Bart. “Stop fighting.”

  “Hey, kids!” Big Bart turned to them, dropped his arms, and backed to the side of the stage. “Start fighting!” he shouted.

  They stood facing each other. Celia glanced back at her father and Corey. They both had knives to their necks. Big Bart nodded toward them and dragged his index finger across his throat, making it quite clear what would happen if the twins didn’t give his crew a good show. Celia shuddered to think of Bonnie, drowned at the bottom of the ocean.

  “I have a plan,” she whispered through clenched teeth to her brother. “Take a swing at me.”

  “What?” said Oliver. “I can’t take a swing at you!”

  “Do it!” she said.

  “I can’t hit you with a bat!”

  “You know you’ve always wanted to!”

  “Thinking it is different than doing it!”

  “Just think about how I treated you!”

  “I forgave you already!”

  “Well, unforgive me!”

  “Do something!” a man yelled from the crowd.

  “I’m bored!” yelled another.

  “This is worse than the news!” yelled a third.

  “If you don’t swing at me, I’ll swing at you,” said Celia.

  “Don’t you dare,” said Oliver.

  “I have to,” said Celia. “Just jump left when I swing.”

  “Wait, your left or mine? Or stage left? Which way is tha—AH!”

  Celia swung at Oliver. He jumped backward and felt the breeze as the golf club whizzed just in front his nose. The crowd roared.

  “Now swing at me!” Celia commanded.

  Oliver closed his eyes, wound up, and swung the bat. It was a lot like playing baseball at the playground. He never opened his eyes when he swung then either. And just like at the playground, his swing caught nothing but air.

  “Somebody hit somebody!” pirates jeered.

  “Boooring!” others yelled, and it turned into a chant. “Boooring! Boooring! Boooring!”

  Big Bart looked furious, his jaw clenched and his fists balled.

  “I command you two to fight each other!” he yelled. “Or I will feed you, your father, and even Corey Brandt to the sharks.”

  “We are fighting!” yelled Celia.

  “We’re just no good at it,” said Oliver. “It’s like gym class!”

  “You want us to fight?” Celia yelled, and tightened her grip on the golf club. “Fine!”

  She stretched the golf club out in front of her and started spinning faster and faster, getting as much momentum as she could. If she hit Oliver like that, it’d be lights out for good. He backed away one step at a time, wondering what his sister was up to.

  As she spun, Celia tried to wink at Oliver, to send him a signal that it was time for her plan, but she couldn’t tell if he was getting it. She decided that winking wasn’t clear enough, so she tried nodding her head and shrugging while she spun, but still Oliver was backing away. She added a kick to her spin.

  “Why are you dancing?” Big Bart bellowed. “Attack!”­

  And with that, Celia let go of her golf club, sending it flying right into the men holding Corey and her father. The men ducked and fell away.

  “Now!” said Celia. “Run to the back!” She staggered, dizzy, over to pick up their backpack and get to her father. Big Bart charged after her and Oliver rushed between the pirate captain and his stumbling sister, swinging his bat the only way he knew how: wildly.

  The pirate crowd roared with rage. In seconds they were on their feet. They charged the stage.

  “I’ll get you for this!” said Big Bart. “You’ll never get off this ship alive.”

  “Come on!” Dr. Navel called out as he pulled the gag out of his mouth and grabbed his daughter by the hand. Oliver kept swinging his bat and backing away as Big Bart stepped slowly forward. Dennis charged at Oliver’s feet, pecking and clucking.­

  “Ow!” Oliver yelped and kicked. “Ow, ow, ow! Stop it!”

  “Hold on,” Celia told her father, and pulled away, running back toward Oliver. With one bold dive, she tackled Dennis and squeezed him to her chest.

  “Now back off!” she said. “Or this time the chicken gets it for real!”

  Big Bart stopped. He stuttered. He turned red. He looked, in a word, nonplussed, but he raised his arms for the onslaught of enraged pirates to stop.

  He exhaled slowly to regain his composure. Then he roared, “He’s! A! Rooster!”

  The other pirates yelled and waved their weapons in the air, not because they had strong feelings about the chicken versus rooster debate, but because they really liked yelling and waving their weapons. They were pirates, after all. Most days they just sat around watching television while they waited for wealthy ships to come by. This was a particularly exciting day for them. They had to get all the yelling and weapon waving done that they could. Who knew when they’d have another chance?

  Corey and the Navel family backed away to the stairs and rushed down belowdecks to hide in the labyrinth of loot
ed shopping plazas, empty casinos, and luxury spas the cruise ship would never offer to happy vacationers again.

  “That was wonderful,” said Dr. Navel. “You guys performed the Romanian Ruse flawlessly! Your mother would be so proud.”

  “It was Celia’s idea,” said Oliver. He smiled at his sister. She had saved them from the duel, just like she said she would. As far as annoying twin sisters went, he guessed she was the best one he could have. Celia shrugged. She didn’t know throwing a golf club at some pirates was a plan with name. It was just the first idea that came to her.

  “What now?” Corey panted.

  “We’ll get to a lifeboat and get off the ship,” said Dr. Navel. “Celia, don’t let go of that chicken. He’s our life insurance policy.”

  “Life insurance,” Oliver groaned. “Only Dad could make a daring escape from pirates sound boring.”

  Corey laughed. He thought Oliver was funny. Oliver started to think that maybe the star wasn’t such a jerk after all.

  “Bwak,” Dennis squawked as they ran through the maze of corridors inside the rusted pirate cruise ship.

  24

  WE GET SOME STATIC

  THEY RAN THROUGH the shopping mall on the ship, although all the store windows were smashed and all the merchandise was gone. They rushed through wide hallways, across balconies, past movie theaters and arcades. They saw piles of fake designer bags and illegally recorded movies stacked in corners and along hallways.

  “Pirates,” muttered Dr. Navel. “There’s nothing they won’t steal.”

  Corey Brandt’s smiling face watched over them from a billboard as they rushed into the TweenZone. Someone had scrawled graffiti across his forehead in Mandarin Chinese. Luckily, only Dr. Navel could read what it said and he was not about to repeat those words in front of his children.

  “I can’t believe they defaced my poster,” Corey lamented.

  “They were going to hold you for ransom and kill us,” panted Oliver. “And that billboard upsets you?”

  Corey shrugged. They ran through an emergency door and found themselves running through narrow service hallways. Someone had taken down all the signs. They didn’t know if they were running toward the sides or the middle of the ship. Every time they heard a noise in front of them, they would turn and run the other way.