Time Villains Series, Book 1

by Victor Piñeiro

  “Blackbeard!” Ahab yelled, crushing the chalk in his hand. “I told them a thousand times, never trust a pirate. Well, now we have some work to do.”

  Ahab marched over to the helm of his ship deck and grabbed his rugged captain’s hat. Then he walked to the chalkboard and took down the giant harpoon that he had on display. Finally, he yanked off his leg—it was fake?—to reveal an ancient-looking peg leg. “Let’s find our principal,” he growled. Brady and I took a second to recover—standing in front of us was a two-hundred-year-old raging sea dog. “But first, let’s get Frida and Vlad.” Hey, that was our plan!

  We raced to Ms. Kahlo’s classroom, but all Ahab had to do was knock with a strange rhythm and she was in the hall in seconds, ready to tussle with some pirates. Brady and I must not have looked like the cleanest, most well-rested siblings of all time. She did a double take, then gave us a big, warm hug. “I’m so glad you’re not hurt.” Then she got that intense Ms. Kahlo look on her face. “It’s time to show that pirate why you don’t mess with the faculty here.”

  “Um, Ms. Kahlo,” I said, raising my hand dumbly. “I don’t know if we’re a match for fifteen pirates, but I think we know someone who is. Where can we find…” I cleared my throat. “Don Quixote?”

  “Don Quixote?” she replied, like I’d said a hilarious joke. She and Ahab gave each other a look and started cracking up.

  “Did somebody call Don Quixote?” a voice behind me boomed. It was a tall guy in a full suit of medieval armor, steel helmet and everything, carrying a huge lance. I jumped up and cheered. Our knight! We were going to be okay! But why did I recognize that voice, and why did it not exactly fill me with confidence? The knight opened the visor of his mask. “Hola, Javier,” Señor Q said.

  Señor Q? I felt all my hope and confidence deflate. “Watch out, mi amigo!” he yelled, slamming his visor back down and raising his lance. “There is a troll attacking you!” He charged at something behind me with his lance and I spun around. Blackbeard summoned a troll? With a crash Señor Loco speared some kid’s art class sculpture. It shattered on the floor as Q’s lance hit the lockers behind it and he went flying.

  “Ay, Señor Q, not again,” said Ms. Kahlo, rubbing her temples.

  “There’s no time for your shenanigans, Q,” Ahab spat. “We must get Vlad and find Gale!”

  Just then we heard some gruff voices around the corner and ducked into Ms. Kahlo’s classroom, Señor Q crawling in behind us, his armor clanking way too loudly.

  “Don’t worry, Ed. When we find the principal, and I’m made first mate in this new world, I’ll dub you my first mate. First Mate’s Matey. It has a nice ring to it, no? Hey, wait a second. Swords out. Do ya hear something?”

  We froze in place. I swallowed my breath as I heard them draw their swords. They were probably two feet away from us, on the other side of the stairs. I could smell them. So that’s what death smelled like. Basically like sewage wrapped in steaming hot garbage. It made sense, I guess. I didn’t expect death to smell like cupcakes and unicorns.

  “Nothing to hear but your loud breathing, Tom. Maybe it came from over there.”

  They headed down the hall and turned the corner. Then I heard my new favorite voice say, “Excuse me, are you gentlemen lost?”

  “Um…um, n-n-no, ma’am! We were just heading to, er…to meet with a teacher. I think her room’s right over there!” Scurrying footsteps got quieter and quieter, and then some familiar footsteps approached us. Cleopatra practically floated into the classroom. Brady hugged her and we quickly explained the situation. The teachers all bowed or got on one knee as she nodded regally. Then we all dashed down the hall to find Ms. Vlad.

  Ms. V was already standing outside her classroom, with a scowl that made all of her other scowls look like smiles. “I knew this would happen. Let’s go wipe the smile off that pirate’s face.”

  We set off for the pool at full speed, Señor Q’s clinking armor and Cleopatra’s clanging jewelry making us sound like a really bad marching band. I did the math in my head. One ninja, one warrior queen, a sea captain, an artist, a wannabe knight, a ten-year-old piano prodigy, and three kids up against fifteen of the deadliest pirates known to man. I still didn’t like those odds.

  “Have any of you heard of a book called Molly Cat?” I asked loudly as we ran. Everyone turned to me and shook their heads. “There’s a teacher here from a book called Molly Cat. Ring a bell?” Nothing but blank stares.

  “The title was also in another language,” Brady said. “The letters didn’t even make sense, they were curvy and squiggly and had dots on them.”

  “Probably Arabic,” Ms. Kahlo said between breaths. She furrowed her brow like she was solving a crossword puzzle. “Molly Cat—the Mu’allaqāt! Mr. Antar!” she yelped, snapping her fingers. “Our high school poetry teacher. He would be very helpful right now. How did you know that? Forget it, there’s no time. Ahab, I’ll ask the office to page him and catch up with you in a minute.” A famous poet? Fat lot of good that was going to do us.

  We hit the high school and raced down a stone spiral staircase that got darker and darker as I got dizzier and dizzier. Finally we got to the bottom. Finistere’s basement. It was time to get our butts beaten by pirates.

  35

  Finistere’s pool is in the castle’s basement. (Do castles have basements? Well, it’s underground.) It’s humongous, it’s lit by torches on every side, and it’s got to be one of the raddest pools out there. It feels like you’re in a dungeon or a secret underground lake. The walls are all rocky and cave-like and the ceiling is super high, so the sounds echo wildly down there. When you cannonball from the diving board it sounds like an actual cannonball firing. And the water in the deep end is so deep, no kid has touched the bottom.

  Once we sprinted down the practically endless stairs, there was a short hall that opened up into the pool area. Ahab took the lead, dashing in as he yelled, “Surrender, you cowardly pirates! From the heart of the inferno we’ve come to destroy you! For hate’s sake I spit my last breath at you. I will sink your coffins to the bottom of the pool!” Wow, I knew Ahab was intense, but this was next level!

  As we rounded the corner I expected to see one of two scenarios:

  1. Hanzō laying waste to fifteen pirates as Kid Mozart and Wiki cheered him on.

  2. Hanzō, Kid Mozart, and Wiki break-dancing around a bunch of tied-up pirates, with 3. Hanzō doing a five-minute-long headspin as Blackbeard cried.

  Not even close. We all skittered to a stop so quickly I almost fell into the shallow end of the pool. Right smack in front of us, so impossibly enormous that I got chills staring up at it, was a pirate ship floating in the giant pool. And not just any enormous pirate ship—the Queen Anne’s Revenge—the most infamous pirate ship of all time. We’d read all about it in the library. One hundred feet long. Three hundred tons. Forty cannons. This was the frigate that gave sailors nightmares, that made people shudder when they heard its name, that caused terror when it was spotted at sea. And I could see why. It was gigantic, menacing, and packed to the brim with cannons. And did I mention it was MASSIVE?

  Pirates lined the edge of the ship—way more than fifteen of them. There must have been fifty or sixty of every shape and size, but all terrifying. Where did they come from?

  “So glad you could make it!” Blackbeard cackled. He was standing at the edge of the ship with a sword pointed at Principal Gale, who was walking the plank. Hanzō, Wiki, and Kid Mozart were tied up behind him. “You’re just in time!”

  “You’re making a huge mistake,” Gale called out to Blackbeard.

  “I am? No, I’m afraid you made the mistake. You should’ve let me use the bell. Making that decoy wasn’t easy, and for that you will pay. My crew will get some real satisfaction sabotaging this ‘perfect’ school you’re so proud of. Isn’t that right, boys? We’ll burn it to the ground!”

  The pirates ch
eered and Gale’s eyes looked like they lit on fire. “Never,” she said in a deadly whisper that carried across the pool. Then she locked eyes with Ms. Vlad and nodded.

  Ms. Vlad took a few steps back from our group and looked over at Brady and me. “Did any of the pirates have long-range weapons? Like guns or bows and arrows?” Brady and I shook our heads. I definitely hadn’t seen any. “Good,” she said. Then she took a running start, jumped into the air, and transformed into a giant bat, shrieking wildly as she thrashed through the air toward the pirates. I knew she was a vampire! I knew it! I couldn’t wait to rub it in Wiki’s face for the rest of his life…if we lived past today.

  “Okay, team,” Cleopatra said, picking up a sword a pirate must have dropped. “While she’s causing a distraction, let’s get on that ship and vanquish those pirates.” The teachers roared their approval and raced toward the ship. Ms. Kahlo looked at us and motioned firmly for us to stay. Fair enough. We watched the teachers race up the gangplank, harpoon, cutlass, and lance raised above them, yelling wildly as they joined the fray.

  Suddenly it got super noisy—clangs, shrieks, screams, thuds. I was worried, because the teachers were still outnumbered ten to one. I motioned to Brady, and we raced over to the ship, heading nervously up the gangplank, afraid of the scene we’d see on board.

  It only took a second to realize that the pirates were winning. The teachers were putting up a good defense, with Cleopatra playing general while Ahab kicked some serious pirate butt, but it would only be a few more minutes until Blackbeard’s crew captured all of the teachers. There were just way too many pirates. How could I help? I scanned the scene desperately.

  On the other side of the ship, Hanzō, Kid Mozart, and Wiki struggled with their ropes. Wiki motioned for Brady and me. The pirates were definitely way too focused on the teachers to notice us, so we snuck around the epic fight and headed toward them. When we got there, we started looking for the knots to untie them.

  “What happened? The world’s greatest ninja got captured by pirates?” I asked Wiki.

  “No way—Hanzō practically beat their butts with one hand tied behind his back. But then Blackbeard put his blade to my neck and he had to drop his sword and surrender. The crew found Andy and dragged him over to Blackbeard, who forced me to ring the bell a million times, summoning these maniacs. And the ship. We’re doomed. This is hopeless.”

  “Not yet,” said Hanzō, who had somehow freed himself from his ropes. He pulled a dagger from his belt and then freed Wiki and Kid Mozart. “Stay here where it is safe,” he said, and then did a double backflip into the middle of the brawl, immediately knocking down pirates left and right.

  “Well, that almost evens the odds,” Wiki said, staring at Hanzō in awe. Then he looked back at us. “But it won’t be enough.” He was right. Ahab and Hanzō were both taking down a lot of pirates, but more just seemed to sprout up all the time. “Also, why is Señor Q wearing armor?”

  “Remember Don Quickie?” Brady sighed. “That’s him. He’s apparently the worst knight of all time.” Señor Q was wrestling loudly with the ship’s mast, convinced it was a huge snake. He screamed at it in Spanish as three pirates surrounded him, scratching their heads. “We need one more hero. One who isn’t completely out to lunch.”

  Then we heard the horse. It was galloping at full speed and the sound was getting closer, the hooves clanking on the stone floor and then stomping on the gangplank. We all turned our heads just in time to see a knight in glittering, flashy silver-and-gold armor raising an enormous spear above his head. “The cavalry has arrived!” he yelled, and charged his horse right into the middle of the fracas.

  “Antar!” the teachers yelled, getting a second wind now that a real knight was on their team. The pirates all looked terrified, and the faculty used it to their advantage. Hanzō and Ahab were knocking out three pirates a second, and Ms. Kahlo and a now-human Ms. Vlad were tying them up at Cleopatra’s command. Antar jumped off his horse and slashed through their ranks like a hurricane. Brady cheered loudly as Wiki and I just watched, jaws dropped. If you’ve never seen a famous ninja or knight at work, I highly recommend it.

  Two minutes later the teachers were all lined up in a row with Principal Gale at the front. They were facing down Blackbeard—and behind him his pirate friends were all writhing on the floor, tied up.

  “Drop. Your. Sword.” Principal Gale said it firmly and fearlessly. It sent shivers down my spine. What a principal.

  Blackbeard smiled. Uh-oh.

  “Drop my sword? Gladly.” He lifted the sword up high and made a big show of dropping it. “What’s that line again? The pen is mightier than the sword?” He pulled a feather out from behind one ear. “I agree completely. You should have asked me to drop my feather.”

  Then he calmly walked over to his captain quarters, opened the door, and pulled out a tied-up teacher.

  Jekyll.

  Everyone looked confused, especially Jekyll, until Blackbeard tickled him with the feather.

  “You call yourself a pirate?” Ahab asked Blackbeard. “What nonsense is this?”

  Blackbeard held up one finger of his left hand as he tickled with his right. “Wait for it…”

  Jekyll laughed and laughed and in between laughs gasped, “Stop! Please! Please don’t!”

  “Stop it!” Principal Gale yelled. She motioned to her teachers. “Get him.”

  All at once Jekyll’s body began bulging—first his chest and his arms grew to monstrous size, then his legs, and finally his head morphed into the beast we were all hoping we’d never see again.

  36

  Hyde let out a monstrous howl. “YEEHAW! WOW, IT FEELS GOOD TO BE OUT OF THAT PUNY CAGE AGAIN! NOW WHO’S IN THE MOOD TO PARTY? AND BY ‘PARTY’ I MEAN, GET BEAT UP?!” he yelled, punching his fist into his other hand.

  Everyone took a few steps back, not sure what to make of the raging-but-smiley monster.

  “These teachers specifically requested a party, Mr. Hyde,” Blackbeard said calmly, pointing at the faculty.

  “AW, SHUCKS, REALLY? YOU GUYS REQUESTED A HYDE PARTY? I’M TOUCHED. NOW LET’S PARTY!”

  Hyde lifted a cannon over his head and threw it against the wall, shattering it. Then he did it again with another three cannons.

  “WOO! DO I KNOW HOW TO PARTY OR WHAT?”

  Everyone was still in shock over what was happening, and they were just standing there like idiots. Blackbeard didn’t waste a second. “Get your friends involved too!” Blackbeard yelled to Hyde.

  “OH RIGHT, HOW COULD I FORGET?” he yelled, leaping over to where the teachers were standing, frozen in shock.

  “IF THIS IS A POOL PARTY, WHY ISN’T ANYONE IN THE POOL? I’M SURE THE WATER’S FINE!”

  Before I had time to blink, Hyde started lobbing each teacher enthusiastically into the pool. It was a long way from the ship’s deck to the water, and he threw them hard—it sounded like a bad belly flop each time. I was worried they might be seriously hurt. Then Ms. Vlad turned into a bat and he head-butted her and threw her in too.

  “I JUST HEAD-BUTTED A GIANT BAT! HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!”

  In no time all of the teachers were off the ship, flailing in the pool below. Blackbeard pointed down at Andy. “Now destroy the table.”

  He looked back at his pirate friends. “Cross your fingers, boys. If this doesn’t send us back, nothing will.”

  “CANNONBALL!” Hyde yelled as he took a running start, jumped a hundred feet into the air, and cannonballed right onto Andy, shattering him into a hundred pieces.

  Blackbeard cackled loudly. “We’re free!”

  “PARTY’S OVER, EVERYONE,” Hyde growled. “NOW YOU’RE STUCK WITH US FOREVER!”

  “NOOOOOOOOO!” Brady let out an enormous scream, and I gasped loudly. Wiki just stared in shock.

  Andy. Destroyed. All hope was lost.

  I heard some deep rumb
ling below us as the floor shook. It felt like a little earthquake, but it only lasted a few seconds. How odd.

  Then Blackbeard noticed us at the edge of the ship and laughed. “Perfect timing, lads. Hyde, I promised these kids a spectacular death. Could you help me keep my promise?”

  “IT’S VERY IMPORTANT TO KEEP PROMISES!” Hyde yelled as he bounded over to us, scooped the three of us up, and leapt down to the pool’s edge. He shoved us all to the floor, hard. Then he grabbed Kid Mozart by his fancy shirt and lifted him up over his head. “NOW HOW SHOULD I KILL YOU? THERE ARE HONESTLY JUST TOO MANY CHOICES!”

  I had to do something.

  “Wiki!” I whisper-yelled. Wiki looked over at me, his eyes too terrified to process much. “You’re right next to Hyde. I need you to kick him in the butt.”

  “What?! Are you out of your mind?” He shook his head so hard I thought it’d fall off.

  “Wiki, for once in your life, you need to trust someone other than yourself. You need to trust me.”

  “No way. I mastermind the plans. This is life or death.”

  “No, this is just death unless you kick him in the butt right now. Wiki, trust me.”

  Wiki looked like he was fighting a battle in his brain.

  “OKAY, OKAY. HOW DOES THIS SOUND? I THROW A PIANO DIRECTLY AT YOUR FACE.” Hyde was looking for feedback, but Kid Mozart looked like he was about to die of fright. It was now or never.

  “Wiki, now! Now, now, now!” I yelled. Wiki took a deep breath, closed his eyes as hard as they’d shut, and kicked Hyde smack on his left butt cheek. Hyde dropped Kid Mozart and flung himself around. For the first time ever, he actually looked angry. Boy, was this a dumb idea.

  I waved. “I want to go first!”

  Hyde pushed me to the ground and put one huge hand on my chest, holding me down. “OOH, REQUESTS! OKAY, THEN, LET’S START WITH YOU. HMMM, HOW SHOULD I KILL YOU?”