X Marks the Spot

  “Cool fort,” I said. “You could probably defend this place pretty well—”

  “And we’ll probably have to!” growled the captain, running out to meet us. “Everybody get inside. Now!”

  Frankie turned to me. “It’s nice to know the captain hasn’t changed!”

  Huddled inside the log house we found the doctor, and three other sailors. They welcomed us with a cheer.

  “We thought you were lost for good,” said the doctor. “I knew in my heart that you didn’t join the pirates.”

  “We almost were lost for good,” Jim told him. “Silver and his men have taken down two of our sailors.”

  The captain nodded grimly. “They’ve taken over the ship, too. It was us against twenty. We escaped just in time, taking as many supplies as we could carry—”

  A couple more cannonballs crashed outside the fort, then the bombardment seemed to be over. At least for a while.

  When I got done crouching, and finally took a look around, it was plain to see that they really had brought everything they possibly could. There were rifles, sacks of pork, gunpowder, and biscuits.

  “I think we have another friend,” said Frankie, glancing at Jim and me. “We met him in the jungle, but he didn’t want to come in.”

  “His name is Ben Gunn,” Jim added. “He used to sail with Silver and Billy Bones, and Captain Flint, too. He was marooned here.”

  The doctor seemed especially interested in this information. “What sort of man is he? Is he, well, sane?”

  Frankie made a face. “He does seem a little flaky.”

  “It’s because he has no sunblock,” I said. “In fact, he doesn’t have much of anything. Being here for three years all by himself, with no friends, has made him sort of a bit strange. All the guy really wants is cheese.”

  The doctor laughed. “Funny. It sounded like you said cheese.”

  “I did say cheese!” I replied. “And so did Ben Gunn, about a thousand times. He said he had something valuable to share, but only if we came back with cheese.”

  “How odd.” Dr. Livesey then pulled a small silver box from his coat and popped open the lid. “I keep a pinch of Parmesan with me for just such occasions!”

  I blinked at the guy. “Dude, you are prepared!”

  All of a sudden, there came a cry from one of the men on guard. “Captain! Doctor! Come quickly!”

  We all rushed out to the walls and climbed to the top to see what the fuss was about.

  Frankie clutched my arm. “Devin—look!”

  A small white patch of fabric was waving from the midst of the trees. Then it slowly made its way from the woods to the clearing before the stockade.

  “It’s a flag,” said Jim. “The pirates are surrendering!”

  “Unless it’s a trick,” said the captain.

  Two men walked up to the stockade walls. Well, the one with the flag walked. The other did a sort of hopping motion. It was Long John Silver. On his shoulder sat that feathery parrot of his.

  While the captain and the doctor climbed down to the gate, Frankie edged closer to me, took out the book, and found the page where we were. She pointed to it.

  “Devin, this is fishy. I mean, look. We’re nowhere near the end of the story. The pirates can’t be surrendering this early. There’s too much story to come. Ten-to-one this really is a trick.”

  “Arrh, arrh!” Silver bellowed up the walls at us. “I be here to talk with you about striking up a peace!”

  “Strike! Strike!” shrieked the parrot.

  Just seeing Silver standing there made me nervous and afraid. I mean, here it was, daylight. The sky was getting brighter by the minute, and the tops of the trees shone rosily in the sun. But where Silver stood was all in shadow. There was a low, white mist streaming out of the swamp behind him. It all made me shiver.

  “Come forward, Silver,” said the captain firmly.

  The pirate hobbled and limped and nearly stumbled several times trying to get to the stockade, but, huffing and puffing, he finally made it. He stood across from the captain just outside the main gate.

  “Well, pirate,” snarled the captain. “What have you got to say?”

  “Arrh! The captain gets right to the point!” Silver said loudly, trying to laugh, but not being too convincing. “Well, then, here it is. We want that treasure, my men and I, and we’ll have it! But you have the map to it all.”

  “Well, so?” said the captain angrily.

  “So,” said Silver. “Give us the map and you go free.”

  “Wrong!” I shouted down from the wall. “We heard what you’re planning. We were in the apple barrel and heard every single word. You’ll strike us down as soon as we hand over the map!”

  “Strike! Strike!” shrieked the parrot again.

  Silver glanced up at me slowly. He rolled his eyes from me to Frankie to Jim and back again. Those eyes were as cold and steely as a sharpened cutlass.

  “So, it’s that way, is it?” he said. “Well, I suppose I know where I stand.”

  “You don’t stand,” said Frankie. “You lean.”

  “And you shall fall,” added Jim, gritting his teeth.

  “Look here,” said Silver. “You give me that chart and as I’m a man of my word, I’ll give ye all some treasure and put you on the next ship we see!”

  The captain burst into cold laughter. “Now, hear what I say. Lay down your weapons and let me take you prisoner and—as I’m a man of my word—I’ll see to it that every last one of you is brought to justice!”

  Silver’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “So, you’re taking a hard line, are you? Then, listen to this! Before the hour’s done, we’ll destroy your stockade. And all of you will be food for my parrot!”

  The bird ruffled its feathers. “For me! For me!”

  With that, Silver flung the white flag to the ground and he and his pirate flunky stumbled off and disappeared among the trees.

  The captain wasted no time. “We shall be under attack in minutes, my mates. We must defend our house against pirates! Doctor, you take the north side. Jim take the east side. Frankie, Devin, the west side. Squire, you are the best shot—”

  “Of course I am!” said the squire, grinning.

  “Take the front gate,” the captain went on. “Together, we shall defeat these pirates, or die trying!”

  I looked at Frankie as we scaled up to the highest part of the western wall of the stockade. “It looks like we’re in for a fight, Frankie, whether we like it or not.”

  “Let’s just hope we don’t get hurt,” she said.

  “I was thinking the exact same thing!” I said.

  There was a sudden crack of a pistol shot.

  Instantly, we heard the hurried crackling of leaves and snapping of twigs and branches from every side.

  “Here they come!” called the squire.

  The captain turned to us. “People, defend our stockade as if it were your home!”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” we all cheered.

  It was a fierce fight. While the captain and squire and the others shot their muskets and pistols, Frankie and Jim and I threw whatever we found at the pirates. We bonked them on the head with biscuits and dried peas. They kept shouting for us to stop, but we wouldn’t.

  “Ooof! Ouch! Hey!” the pirates yelled as we pummeled them. In a flash, two had tripped to the ground, clutching their arms and feet.

  “Score two for the good guys!” I shouted.

  “Yahoo!” Frankie shouted.

  Meanwhile, the grownups were having a regular battle. Actual gunshots were whizzing and pinging wildly all over the place.

  “Hey, Frankie,” I said, just as I hurled a bunch of pork bones at a couple of nasty pirates, “can you and I get hurt in a book? I mean, like the other characters can? If we can’t, maybe we should be taking more risks.”

  Frankie ducked just before a shot flew past her ear and struck the log house.

  “I don’t think I’ll take that chance!” she said, hea
ving a fistful of old peach pits down at the attackers.

  Trying to escape our rain of terror, the pirates ran around to the other side and headed for the back door, but the squire and doctor were ready for them with more than dried fruit and stale veggies.

  Gunshots crackled and smoked from inside the stockade, and the pirates went running and limping back into the woods.

  “We won!” I cried. “Yahoo! Yay!”

  But Jim had a dark expression on his face.

  “What is it?” asked Frankie.

  Jim pointed, and we saw that even though we’d won, we still had suffered. The three of us were okay.

  But two of our sailors were actually dead.

  And brave Captain Smollett was wounded.

  Chapter 14

  “Don’t fuss over me!” the captain protested, clutching his wounded leg. “We still have a job to do.”

  The doctor was very upset. “This must end!” he growled as he patched the captain’s wound. “To fight over money? Treasure? No, this terrible war must end!”

  The grown-ups made sure that the dead sailors were buried respectfully in the stockade yard, but wouldn’t let Frankie and Jim and me help. It was a dark moment for us, not to mention the poor characters who had died.

  “Devin, I don’t like this,” Frankie said, wiping away a tear. “I mean, I know it’s easy for an author to say somebody died. It’s just words. But when you’re really into a story—and how much more into it can we be?—it means more than just words. These are people. When they die, you get sad.”

  “I know how you feel. I want to cry, too. But we have to keep going. We can do it. We have to do it. There’s more story to go, and we have to see it through.”

  Frankie looked at me, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Okay, but we have to stick together.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said.

  After the burials, Dr. Livesey seemed deep in thought. Finally, he plopped his hat over his head, stuffed the treasure map in his pocket, took a musket, and went to the front gate. “The rest of you stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Wait, doctor,” said Frankie, “what if the pirates are still out there?”

  Without answering, the doctor strode out of the stockade and set off quickly through the trees.

  “He’s taking a big risk going out there,” I said.

  “I bet he’s going to see Ben Gunn,” said Jim.

  “Ben Gunn?” I said. “I hope he packed his cheese!”

  Jim chuckled, then said he was going to check up on the wounded captain.

  I turned to Frankie. “With everything else going on, let’s not forget the green feather. We still have to find it or we probably can’t go home. Maybe we can get Jim to help us search. Starting right here in the stockade. That feather has to be somewhere.”

  “Good idea,” said Frankie. “Let’s talk to him.”

  But Jim wasn’t with the captain. We found him near the biscuit barrel, stuffing his pockets with the dry, tasteless things.

  “Hey, that’s our breakfast,” said Frankie. “Not to mention our lunch and supper. What are you doing?”

  “The doctor is on a mission,” said Jim. “Now it’s my turn.”

  That was when we noticed that not only had Jim packed a wad of biscuits, he’d also packed two pistols.

  “Whoa, dude, what’s your big plan?” I asked.

  Jim peered through the gates into the jungle. “Ben Gunn said he built a little boat. I’m going to find it and sail out to the Hispaniola.”

  “That’s nutty. The pirates have the ship now,” I said.

  Frankie stuck her nose in the book. Suddenly, she gasped. “I can’t believe it. You don’t mean—”

  “I do!” said Jim. “I mean to take over the ship!”

  “Whoa, danger, danger!” I said. “Pirates! Guns! Kids! Not a good mix! Let’s look for soft feathers instead —”

  “Devin, wait,” said Frankie, pulling me aside. “Emergency huddle.”

  “I’ll say, emergency,” I said. “We have to stop Jim—”

  “We can’t,” she said, pointing to a page in the book. “He has to do this.”

  I stared at her, then at the words on the page. “But he’s just a kid going up against a pirate ship! Alone!”

  Frankie shook her head. “Devin, look at him.”

  I looked. Jim was still peering out the gate at the deep jungle beyond. When he turned to look back at us, there was a gleam of mischief in his eye that was all about adventure. Fine. This was an adventure story and he was one of the main people in it. But there was something else, too. Jim had seen his father die. Then Billy Bones. He’d seen poor Tom get the crutch in his back. He’d seen other good men fall to the pirate attack. He was close by when the captain was shot.

  Jim stood there now as if he knew what he had to do.

  “I’ve been reading,” said Frankie. “You know what’s happening to Jim? He’s being brave. He’s getting courage. He’s being tough in the face of danger. He’s not the scared little kid carrying trays at his mother’s inn anymore. Jim is, well, growing up.”

  I blinked. “I sure hope that never happens to me!” Then I sighed. “But I know what you mean. This is Jim’s big moment. And I know the drill. He leaps into danger and maybe even saves the day.”

  “And?” said Frankie, starting to grin.

  “And … we follow him?”

  “We follow him,” she said.

  I took a deep breath. “Okay, we follow him. So, what are we waiting for?”

  Frankie smiled big. “Devin, you’re one of the best characters I know!”

  I smiled back. Then I turned to Jim. “I hope you packed biscuits for three. Because we’re coming, too.”

  Jim gave a sharp nod. “I’m glad. Let’s go.”

  Looking around one last time, he slipped through the stockade wall and ran toward the trees. We were right on his tail. Straight into the jungle we ran, making for the eastern coast of the island.

  By now, the sun was baking the woods and the breeze from the sea was wafting under the thick growth. When we broke through the last row of viney trees, we saw the sea lying blue and sunny all the way to the horizon, and the surf tumbling and tossing its foam along the beach.

  It was pounding just a tad louder than my own heart.

  As we rounded a hill, we finally saw it.

  “The Hispaniola!” whispered Jim.

  The ship was anchored a ways offshore. From its mast waved the pirate flag. A black flag with a white skull-and-crossbones on it.

  “They call that flag the Jolly Roger,” whispered Frankie, pointing to the words in the book.

  “It doesn’t seem so jolly to me,” I said. “In fact it sends chills up and down my spine.”

  When Jim saw the pirate banner, he grew angry.

  “I will make them eat that flag!” he snarled. “Come on!”

  For the next couple of hours, we rummaged around in the jungle trying to find the spot where we’d met Ben Gunn. Finally, we came upon a strange pile of branches in a small hollow not far from the water. We pushed it aside and there it was.

  Ben’s “boat,” if you could call it that, was a homemade thing if I ever saw one. It was totally lopsided, and the hull was made of bent sticks covered in some kind of crusty animal skin. It was way small, even for one of us, but Jim didn’t waste any time dragging the boat to the shore and into the water.

  The thing would barely keep afloat. This was a craft built by somebody who had obviously never tested it in actual water. First of all, the thing was shaped like a teacup. Second, it leaked all over the place. With all of us crowded into it, water sloshed in making a small pond around our ankles.

  But the worst part was how the thing was impossible to steer. Once we got out beyond shore, the waves just pushed us where they wanted. When we finally realized we needed to paddle out with our hands, there came a sudden terrible scream from the ship.

  “Akkkkk!”

/>   Alongside the ship was one of the small rowboats. In the boat was Long John Silver himself. A couple of the pirates on board were leaning over the railing at him.

  But the scream didn’t come from any of them.

  The scream came from Silver’s shoulder, where that bright green-feathered parrot Flint was sitting.

  “That parrot!” I hissed to Frankie. “He’s really starting to get on my nerves.”

  “Quiet, now,” said Jim. “We’re nearing the ship.”

  Soon enough, Silver—and his parrot—were rowing back to the island, leaving only two or three buccaneers onboard. The next sound that came from the ship was a wobbly rendition of that old pirate favorite:

  “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—

  Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

  “That’s another thing!” I snapped. “Don’t they know any other songs? It’s always the same—”

  “Devin, shhh,” said Jim. “Listen!”

  The song ended abruptly and there was a sudden and tremendous noise of guns firing and cutlasses clanging.

  “They’re fighting among themselves!” said Frankie.

  “About the treasure, no doubt,” said Jim. “Now’s our chance. Let’s hurry and catch them unaware!”

  Paddling with all our might, we came up right alongside the ship. With one swift move, Jim severed the anchor rope, and the Hispaniola instantly started drifting in the current.

  “Grab for the rope!” Jim whispered.

  The shadow of the big ship swooped over us as the waves drove us toward it.

  “I can reach it,” said Frankie. She gave me the book.

  I stuffed it under my belt and held her steady.

  The minute the anchor rope whipped over us, Frankie jumped and grabbed it.

  “Got it!” she said. “Come on, you guys, climb up!”

  All three of us made like monkeys leaping up a tree. We hauled ourselves up the rope just as the Hispaniola sliced through Ben Gunn’s tiny teacup boat, sending it bubbling under the waves as if it had never been there.

  “There goes our escape route,” I said.

  Hand over hand, Frankie, Jim, and I wrestled with the twisting, whipping rope until we got to the top. We climbed over the railing and splattered onto the deck.