The Not-so-Jolly Roger (3 page)

Suddenly Sam spoke up. “But we can’t fight you.”

The pirate squinted up into the trees. “What’s that? What do you mean you can’t fight? Why in Hades not?”

“We can’t fight you because ... uhh ... because we’d lose our Magicians’ License,” said Sam.

“What?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” said Fred. “We’re magicians—magicians from another time, and it’s against Magic Rules for us to mess with anyone because we are so powerful.”

“Magicians, eh?” The pirate itched his chin with the barrel of his pistol. “I’m a bit of a magician myself. See that coconut? I’ll make it disappear.” He fired his pistol. The coconut Fred had been sitting behind exploded in a shower of milk and shredded coconut.

The giant pirate laughed a scary, crazy laugh. “Now get your magic selves down here where I can see you.”

Sam and I started down as fast as we could.

“Thanks, Sam,” I said.

“And you best have some stronger magic than that,” he yelled, “or you’ll be disappearing, too. Har, har, har.”

“Thanks a whole lot, Sam.”

At ground level, the guy looked even bigger, meaner, and uglier than from above. He did have some smoking rope hanging in his hair. He did have pigtails in his beard. And he did have crazy-looking red eyes. The pirate slung his pistols and looked the three of us over with those eyes. He lifted Fred’s hat from the sand on the tip of his cutlass and jabbed it at him.

“So you three pips are magicians from another time, are ye?”

He stared at Fred in his baseball uniform. Thin wisps of smoke curled up around his three-cornered hat. “And does everyone dress this funny in your time?”

Fred pulled on his hat and muttered, “Look who’s talking.”

“What was that, lad?”

“Oh, I said ... enough talking.”

“Right you are,” said the pirate, towering over us. “So let’s see some magic. Otherwise I might be thinking you were just spying on me and looking to steal a bit of me buried treasure.” He smiled his nasty smile again. “And if I thought that, I’d have to kill you right now.”

Fred gulped. “Uh.... Eenie, meenie, mynie, mo. Catch a pirate by the toe. If he hollers, let him go. Eenie, meenie, mynie, mo!” Fred pointed to Sam. “Sam will now show you his powerful magic!”

The pirate wasn’t smiling anymore.

Sam stepped forward on wobbly legs.

“Uh ... hi, there, uh ... Mr. Blackbeard,” said Sam. ,

The pirate’s dark face went suddenly white. “How do you know my name?”

“I read it,” Sam said.

“Where’s your crystal ball?”

“Oh, I don’t need one. I even know your real name.”

“Do you now?” Blackbeard looked around, then bent forward. “And what might it be?”

“Edward Teach.”

Blackbeard staggered back a step and looked over his shoulder. “The Devil you say. You lads are magic.”

My uncle Joe always says to work the crowd when you’ve got them believing. I saw my chance to impress Blackbeard even more with our “magic.”

“And what’s that in your boot?” I said.

The big pirate looked down and jumped. “What? What?”

I reached around his boot and held up a quarter.

Blackbeard snatched it out of my hand and gave it a close look. “What strange doubloon is this? That wasn’t in my boot before.”

Blackbeard stared at the quarter in his hand.

“You mean you lads can use your magic to pull pieces of eight right out of the air?”

“Oh, sure,” said Fred. “That’s nothing for powerful magicians like us. We could do that all day long.”

“Could you now?” Blackbeard looked us over carefully.

We took a step back.

“I could use a few mates with your talents.”

The three of us began to back away slowly.

Blackbeard slid his cutlass into his belt and put the quarter in his pocket. “Why don’t you join me aboard my new ship?”

“Oh, we’d love to, but I have a ... a ... a big history report due Monday,” said Sam.

“I call her the
Queen Anne’s Revenge.”
Blackbeard pulled another loaded pistol from his endless collection and pointed it between my eyes. “Do you think that’s a nice name?”

I looked down the barrel of the biggest pistol I’ve ever seen.

“That’s a very nice name,” I said.

“Its previous owner ran into a bit of trouble ... if you know what I mean.”

Sam looked down the length of the cutlass. “I know what you mean.”

“Would you like to join me on board then?”

Fred looked at Sam and me.

“We’d love to.”

We marched down to the rowboat—the pirate ship anchored in the bay before us; Blackbeard, his loaded pistols, and his awful voice behind us.

“Pirates didn’t really make guys walk the plank, did they?” asked Fred.

“Nah, that’s just in the movies,” I answered, hoping it was true.

“Heads up, lads,” yelled Blackbeard.

We grabbed the rope ladder and flattened ourselves against the side of the
Queen Anne’s Revenge.

A blindfolded man fell past us. He landed with a splash and then disappeared beneath the waves.

Fred turned as white as the guy’s blindfold.

“Blast it all,” growled Blackbeard. “If that sea-rat crew of mine walked all the prisoners off the plank, I’m going to have to cut off some heads. Up you go, lads.”

We climbed up the side of the ship so fast we didn’t even have time to be afraid. But there was plenty of time for that once we climbed over the rail and stood on deck. Because there, eyeing us like hungry sharks, were at least a hundred black, white, and every different shade of brown, pirates.

I didn’t see any wooden legs, earrings, eye patches, or hooks. But I saw as many daggers, knives, swords, cutlasses, and pistols as you’d ever want to see.

The owners of this dangerous collection of hardware and the three of us stood frozen, staring at each other wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Then Blackbeard jumped over the rail behind us.

“Israel! Israel Hands!”
yelled Blackbeard. “You scumbucket, low-life, fish-bait son of a wharf rat first mate—what in the name of the Devil’s hind end is going on here?”

A long-haired pirate stepped forward. “Just a bit of fun to pass the time, Captain.”

“Bit of fun?!”
yelled Blackbeard. “You bilge water-brained idiots! Those prisoners were worth their weight in gold ransom! You just walked a fortune off the plank for a bit of
fun?!
”

Blackbeard stomped back and forth. He slashed the air with his cutlass, and swore a five-minute string of curses (too nasty to be written down in any book) at his first mate and crew.

“And now I might ask you barnacles for brains—where might we find our next treasure?”

The first mate and the wild band of cutthroats looked at their feet.

Fred, Sam, and I did our best to shrink into the background.

Blackbeard drove the point of his cutlass into the deck with a loud
thunk.

Blackbeard looked out over his crew.

Then he smiled that devilish smile.

“I’ll tell you where we get treasure, mates.”

The crew looked up.

“I’ll tell you where we get more treasure than a king’s ransom, more treasure than El Dorado, more treasure than all the gold on these Seven Seas.”

“All right,” said Fred. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Blackbeard pulled his cutlass out of the deck and pointed it at us. “There.”

We gasped.

The crew murmured.

“Who’d pay anything for those three?”

“They look sickly to me.”

“That’s one’s a prisoner. Look, he’s still got a number on his shirt.”