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Second Star to the Fright

Page 1

by Vera Strange




  Copyright © 2021 Disney Enterprises, Inc.

  Illustrations by Jeff Thomas © Disney Enterprises, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney Press, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney Press, 1200 Grand Central Avenue, Glendale, California 91201.

  ISBN 978-1-368-05650-2

  For more Disney Press fun, visit www.disneybooks.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1: The Big Fright

  Chapter 2: Blasted Carpool

  Chapter 3: The Jolly Roger

  Chapter 4: Hooked

  Chapter 5: Scurvy Brat

  Chapter 6: Tick-Tock

  Chapter 7: Never Grow Up

  Chapter 8: Lost Boys Forever

  Chapter 9: Hook’s Revenge

  Chapter 10: Major Fomo

  Chapter 11: Hook’s Ghost

  Chapter 12: Yearbooks

  Chapter 13: All Hands on Deck

  Chapter 14: Captain James Hook

  Chapter 15: Ticket to Ride

  Chapter 16: Ahoy, Matey!

  Chapter 17: Walk the Plank

  Chapter 18: Second Star to the Fright

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  “Rise and shine!”

  Barrie’s mother’s voice echoed through the house, up the stairs, down the hallway, and through his bedroom door. “Time to get up for school.”

  How does she have vocal superpowers that could wake the dead? Barrie thought as he buried his head under his pillow. He cracked his eyes open and groaned when he saw the clock.

  “Not even six,” he muttered into his pillow, pressing his head into it. He grasped at the last fleeting tendrils of sleep and the exciting dream he’d been having, not wanting to forget it. He’d been trying to solve a mystery in a haunted cabin on a remote island, looking for a secret treasure. “It’s still dark outside. This is…child torture.”

  He flipped over and tried to bury his head deeper, knocking the pile of mystery books off his bed and onto the floor, along with the flashlight that he’d used to stay up late reading well past his bedtime. His eyes darted to one of the books on the floor. The cover read The Mystery of Cabin Island. Clearly, the dream was inspired by his late-night reading. He could tell the exact spot where he’d left off and fallen asleep from the deep crease in the spine.

  Barrie loved reading mystery books more than anything. He loved the way they made his heart thump in excitement as he read faster and faster, his fingers flipping the pages to get to the end and discover how the characters solved the case. In real life, he often found himself sneaking off to look for secret treasures and slipping down dark hallways and into places he didn’t belong. He wished his real life was as exciting as that of the band of sleuthing brothers from his books.

  Before he could remember if he’d solved the mystery and found the hidden treasure in his dream, the door to his bedroom burst open and startled him, making the whole thing evaporate from his mind.

  Bright, artificial light spilled in from the hallway, making his eyes tear up. He ducked under the pillow once more.

  “Is my little guy ready for a brand-new day?” Mom called in a singsong voice. “The early bird gets the worm!”

  Getting a worm? That’s how she was trying to motivate him to wake up?

  Barrie couldn’t understand how anyone could be this cheerful so early, let alone on a school day. It was one of life’s greatest mysteries, even more than the ones in his books.

  “I’m up…I’m up…I swear,” Barrie muttered. He tried to sound convincing.

  But even he knew he’d failed.

  “Don’t make me come back up here,” she warned, shifting into her stern mom voice like she’d flipped a light switch. It was another one of her superpowers. “You’re almost twelve now,” she went on. “You know what that means.”

  “Uh, what?” Barrie said, his voice muffled by the pillow that was keeping the light from searing his eyeballs. He lifted his head and tried to pry them open again. His mom looked blurry.

  “Old enough to get yourself up for school,” she finished. Her gaze darted to the pile of books and the flashlight on the floor. Busted. “We’ll discuss that later. Now get up!”

  Before he could respond, Barrie heard her footsteps retreating across the carpeted hall, then her rapping on his sister’s door.

  “Rita, that means you, too,” Mom continued. “You’re even worse than your little brother.”

  Oh, good. If she was going after Rita, that would buy him a little time. He tried to snooze a bit more, but he could hear her raised voice reverberating through the house.

  Ever since Mom got downsized from her job as a copy editor at a magazine last month and started freelancing from home, she’d been more stressed than usual. Dad had picked up more shifts at the power plant where he worked as a civil engineer, but it didn’t make up for the lost income—or so Barrie had overheard when he’d been practicing his sleuthing skills. Apparently, freelance magazine work was scarce right now, and even Barrie could see the bills were piling up on the kitchen table. Just last night, his parents had been arguing about it, and he hadn’t even had to snoop to hear that conversation. He’d been reading in bed when he was supposed to be sleeping, and they’d gotten loud enough for him to take in every word.

  “You just had your sixteenth birthday,” Mom yelled at Rita, her raised voice forcing him to finally, truly wake. “You can pitch in and help out more. Oh, and don’t forget. Starting today, you get to drive your brother’s school carpool.”

  “Ugh, don’t remind me,” Rita complained. “Him and his goober friends are gonna smear hazardous waste all over my back seat.”

  “That was our deal, remember?” Mom said. “I took you to get your license. You can drive the carpool.”

  “Fine, but I need the bleach wipes,” Rita griped. “Like a whole canister to decontaminate my car.”

  “Please, don’t be so melodramatic,” Mom said with an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been driving you both around for years. How do you think I feel?”

  “Have you seen the bathroom after he showers?” Rita said. “And what’s that smell that leaches out of his closet?”

  “Fine, you make a good point,” Mom said finally. “I’ll leave the wipes out in the kitchen. Which reminds me…a new list of chores is waiting for you down there—including cleaning the bathroom.”

  “Anything but the bathroom,” Rita said. “Please have mercy on my soul!”

  Barrie forced himself out of bed. It wasn’t like he was going to get back to sleep now with Rita moaning and wailing at the top of her lungs. If he’d learned anything about what happened when you became a teenager, it was that everything turned into a huge drama.

  A few weeks earlier, Rita had been gifted a blowout sweet sixteen party, complete with a DJ and dance floor. But ever since her birthday, all his parents could talk about was how she needed to “grow up” and “pitch in more around the house.”

  Being almost twelve was bad enough, but turning sixteen looked even worse. What happened when you became an actual adult?

  Growing up is the worst, Barrie decided, pulling on jeans and a sweatshirt. He missed being a little kid, when he could watch cartoons and play all day and didn’t have to get up early for school.

  He patted down his curly hair, trying to tame it into submission, and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. He had chubby cheeks, still f
ull of baby fat and dotted with freckles. His eyes were hazel, a mixture of brown and green; that he liked. But basically, he looked like any ordinary twelve-year-old.

  Well, almost twelve-year-old.

  “I wish I could stay a kid forever,” he whispered to his reflection.

  As he got dressed, he caught a whiff of his closet and scrunched up his nose. Okay, maybe his sister did have a point about the smell. Of course, his mom had told him like a bazillion times to clean it out, but he always seemed to have better things to do, like play video games or skateboard in the park with his friends or read his pile of mystery books.

  He could worry about having a clean closet when he got older, couldn’t he?

  Barrie slammed the closet door and grabbed his backpack, then bounded downstairs to the kitchen. He was still half asleep, but luckily, he could navigate his house on autopilot. They’d lived there since he was born.

  Before he could pour himself cereal or sit down at the table, Dad caught his eye. That pile of bills sat next to him and somehow looked even taller than it had last night.

  “Did you finish your homework?” his father asked.

  Another terrible thing about growing up. Homework. Every year, it got harder and took longer, too. He was one week away from graduating from elementary school and moving up to sixth grade. The graduation ceremony was next Friday. He’d be attending New London Junior High School in the fall. But first, he’d have a glorious three months of summer break, where he didn’t have to worry about anything other than being a kid and having fun.

  “Uh, yeah mostly,” Barrie said, fudging. The truth was…he hadn’t done any of it. He’d just gotten so caught up in his new book. He’d have to try to copy off Michael and John, his best friends. He just hoped they had actually done the homework and not goofed off like him.

  “Well, if we find out you didn’t,” Mom chimed in cheerfully, “you’ll get grounded again.” She took a sip from her giant cup of coffee.

  Barrie eyed his parents over the breakfast table. They both looked…tired.

  Despite them insisting that waking up early was a good thing, they both had dark circles under their eyes and chugged coffee like their lives depended on it. Even now, his mom was downing her fresh cup in a few swallows. Her coffee intake had definitely risen since the layoff and transition to working from home, and the living room had become her de facto office. It was covered in random pieces of paper and draped with power cords for various electronic devices. Everything had changed, and not for the better.

  “Just wait for high school,” Rita said in a snarky voice, pouring a bowl of healthy cereal and adding almond milk. “It gets a lot harder. You’ll have even more homework—plus algebra.”

  The way his sister pronounced algebra made it sound like a curse word. His eyes darted to her backpack, slumped by the front door. It was overflowing with thick textbooks.

  “Uh, I’m not even sure what that is,” Barrie said, bypassing the healthy options and pouring himself a bowl of his favorite sugary cereal with a friendly-looking cartoon pirate gracing the box. “Fractions are bad enough.”

  “It’s like fractions times a million,” Rita said, aiming her milk-encrusted spoon at his face. “Trust me, you’ll hate it—”

  “Rita, don’t scare your little brother like that.” Dad cut her off, slurping coffee. “Algebra is great fun.”

  Rita looked horrified. “Uh, how is algebra fun? Are you losing it? Nobody likes algebra. It’s like a scientific fact. They’ve proven it in actual studies.”

  “Right…let’s see…things we couldn’t do without algebra…” Dad mused. “It’s how we got to the moon.”

  Barrie shot his father a skeptical look. He knew for a fact that parents lied to kids a lot. Like white lies. Little lies. It was almost like they didn’t want kids to realize the truth about what it was really like to grow up.

  “The moon?” Rita said with a snort. “Uh, that’s the best you’ve got? Can algebra get me out of carpool, too?”

  “Rita, we discussed this already,” Mom called from across the kitchen, shooting her a chastising look. “We had an agreement, remember?”

  But then she brightened and tapped the family wall calendar. “Excited for your birthday next week, Little Guy?”

  She pointed to the square for Monday. On it was a crude drawing of balloons and a birthday cake, along with the scrawled words:

  The week was packed with other appointments, including his graduation ceremony on Friday, which promised to be excruciatingly boring and feature a cameo by his annoying aunt Wanda and twin cousins, who were both drooling, snotty toddlers.

  But then there was also the one thing that he’d been looking forward to for months. His eyes locked on the square for Tuesday, and he felt a rush of excitement jolt through him.

  “Yeah, how would you like to celebrate?” Dad chimed in. “I mean, besides going to the Lost Boys concert with your friends on Tuesday night and rocking out.”

  Barrie cringed when his dad said rocking out. Somehow it sounded cool when his friends said that kind of stuff. But not when his father tried it.

  The Lost Boys were their favorite band. His parents had gotten him a ticket as a gift for his birthday and agreed to extend his curfew since he was turning twelve and graduating from elementary school. Michael and John had also convinced their parents and scored tickets to the sold-out concert. They were all going together. It was like some kind of sign—his favorite band coming to town the day after his birthday. Barrie couldn’t wait.

  “Let’s see…oh, I know!” Dad went on, tapping at his tablet with great enthusiasm. “What about a family trip to the maritime museum this weekend?”

  His father smiled at him expectantly. Barrie frowned, fiddling with his spoon. While not as bad as algebra, that didn’t sound like much fun.

  “Uh, what’s a…maritime museum?” he asked cautiously.

  “Oh, it’s super exciting!” Dad said in a voice that made Barrie pretty sure that it was the exact opposite.

  His father pulled up the website on his tablet, then flipped it around for Barrie to see. Images of old ships flashed across the screen, under the heading “The New London Maritime Museum—Where History Comes To Life!”

  “It’s located out by the marina,” Dad said, tapping again at the screen. “It’s a museum dedicated to naval history.”

  “What’s that mean?” Barrie said.

  “It means boats, Goober,” Rita said snarkily. She loved showing off how much more she knew than he did.

  “And not just any boats,” Dad added, flipping through the website. “This museum specializes in pirate history.”

  He pointed to a ship with a black-and-white flag printed with a skull and crossbones. The name was painted across the hull in ornate script:

  Barrie studied the image, feeling unsettled. The skull seemed to stare into his soul.

  “You can even tour an old pirate ship,” Dad went on. “Doesn’t that sound amazing?”

  “Uh…maybe,” Barrie hedged, not wanting to disappoint his dad. But what he really wanted to do was to hit the skate park with his friends, not tour some boring old boat museum.

  His father was a big history buff. He loved anything tied to the past. But most of that stuff was just boring if you asked Barrie—or saw his straight B minuses on his history quizzes. It all happened a long time ago, so why should he care?

  “Great, then I’ll grab tickets,” Dad went on, oblivious to his son’s total lack of interest. “The whole family can go on Sunday. We can have some nice family time.”

  Now it was Rita’s turn to look stricken. “But I was supposed to see a movie with my friends—”

  “Rita, it’s for your brother’s birthday,” Mom said in her stern voice. “You can see a movie with your friends another time.”

  “Yeah, stop behaving like a kid and act your age,” Dad added with a frown.

  Rita flung her spoon down and pouted, but she knew better than to argue the point further
. That could only result in the worst-case scenario for any teen—losing car or phone privileges. Or worse yet, getting grounded.

  Mom ignored Rita’s silent temper tantrum, which happened on a regular basis, and turned her attention to Barrie.

  “Then, on Monday, you can have a party at the skate park with your friends after school,” she said. “On your actual birthday. How does that sound?”

  “Oh, I can?” Barrie said, perking up and feeling slightly better. “And I can still go to the concert on Tuesday, too?”

  “Yup, it’s not every day my little guy turns twelve. How about a cake?” Mom said, picking up her phone to call in the order. “What flavor?”

  “Triple chocolate fudge!” the whole family said in unison, then laughed. It had been Barrie’s favorite since before he could talk.

  “Good choice, Son,” Dad added, still chuckling.

  Even Rita couldn’t think of anything snarky or negative to say about chocolate.

  “Love you,” Barrie said with a grin. His parents really were the best, even if they annoyed him sometimes.

  He finished his cereal; then Mom informed them that they were going to be late for school. Still in a bad mood—though lately, that seemed to be her natural state—Rita grabbed her keys, backpack, and the canister of bleach wipes.

  “Come on, Goober,” she said in a pouty voice. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Barrie picked up his backpack and followed her toward the front door. He turned back to say goodbye to his parents. His father was still studying the maritime museum website.

  Suddenly, an image of a pirate flashed onto the screen—beady eyes, long black hair, and a thin black mustache. He sported a crimson jacket and large pirate hat with a fluffy feather sprouting out of the ornate ribbon.

  But that wasn’t what caught Barrie’s attention. Instead of a hand, his left arm ended in a silver hook. Barrie’s eyes darted to the bold headline at the top of the website: The Mystery of Captain Hook and His Missing Hand.

  It reminded Barrie of the mysteries in his books. Only, this was a real-life mystery.

  But before he could really consider it, Rita grabbed him by the backpack, dragging him through the front door.

 

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