Time Chasers #3, page 4
“Excuse me, sir?” Viv said.
“Four tickets to the disco club, please!” Ray said.
“Hi there. Please ignore my friend,” Viv continued. “We’re looking for my dad. Any chance you’ve seen him?”
“A lot of people have parents in there, little flower child,” the man said, examining her strange apparel. “What’s with the square threads?”
He pointed at the temporal transporter hanging around her neck.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” Viv said, tucking the futuristic device under her shirt and out of view. She pointed to the sidewalk chalkboard sign.
“What’s the Ernest?” Viv asked.
“You don’t know? It’s far out!” he said, blowing out a ring of smoke. “The grooviest drink of the year, man! And I should know. I created it!”
“You’re the bartender here?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes! Outta sight, right?”
“Why’d you name it ‘the Ernest’?” Viv probed. “That’s my dad’s name! He’s the guy we’re looking for!”
“Oh! Far out, man!” the bartender said, leaning even farther back against the wall. “Now that you say it, you do look a little like him.”
“So, you’ve seen him?” Viv asked, a glimmer of hope sneaking into her voice.
“Yeah, I’ve seen him! Ernest is one cool cat. Shows up here every now and then. I named the drink after what he orders: a special kind of cocktail. The secret?” The bartender leaned down until he was at Viv’s height and whispered into her ear. “It’s got vintage rum in it! A stellar spirit all the way from 1744.”
He straightened up and pulled off his sunglasses for a better look.
“That’s where I’ve seen that necklace before! Ernest wears the same one every time he comes in. It’s totally radical!”
So he still has his temporal transporter. Maybe we can use that somehow to find him.
“But poor Ernest never sticks around for too long. Seems like he’s in some sort of trouble,” the bartender continued.
“What do you mean?” Charlotte asked.
“This weird group of guys always barges in and seems to chase him out.”
“Weird guys? Weird in what way?” Viv asked.
The bartender looked up and down at the strange gaggle of kids in front of him.
“A bit weirder than you,” he said. “Everybody always makes fun of me. They say I’m making up stories. But I’ve seen ’em. The man sends his spies all over the place looking to cause trouble.”
“Could you describe them?” Viv asked.
The bartender tapped on his cigarette and brushed a drop of sweat from his brow.
“You kids sure are asking a lot of questions. You’re not working for the man, too, are you?”
“Do we look like we’re working for the man?” Charlotte crossed her arms.
The bartender looked over their modern clothes.
“Actually, yes. Yes, you do.”
“Sir, I promise you,” Viv said. “I’m just a kid looking for my dad. Nothing else. No funny business.”
The bartender snuffed out his cigarette on the building and brushed his hands off on his pants.
“Well, you didn’t hear it from me,” he said. “But here’s the skinny: Seems that every time Ernest comes around looking for a drink, he’s followed. A group of three, all dressed in these dorky robes. One boy, one man, and an older geezer. Seems like Ernest must owe them money or something.”
Wait, what the heck?
“A boy, a man, and an old geezer?” Viv asked.
“With all the man’s spies runnin’ around these days, ya never know. Seems like your dear old daddio might be on the lam,” the bartender said. “Anyway, I gotta peace out back to the bar. You little flower children be careful out there.”
And with that, he turned on his heels and walked into the lively establishment.
“Well, now what?” Charlotte asked.
“You heard that guy!” Viv said. “My dad likes vintage rum from 1744. Maybe that’s one of the points in the loop!”
“We’re leaving already?!” Ray complained.
“Sorry, Ray,” Viv said. “We gotta catch up to my dad.”
“But my tummy just settled down!” Ray said.
“Do you have any better ideas?”
Viv led her friends back to the alley where the time machine was parked, being sure to hop over the pile of puke on the sidewalk. A few rats scurried by as they made their way past a row of dumpsters. Viv jumped into the open time machine and motioned for her friends to follow. Charlotte and Elijah hopped in right behind her, but Ray rubbed his hands together nervously in the alleyway.
“Come on!” Viv beckoned.
“I don’t know, guys,” Ray said. “Maybe we should just wait here until your dad comes back?”
“We have no idea when he could loop back to this point!” Viv said.
“You wanna spend a few years with your new friend there?” Charlotte asked, pointing toward the ground. Down by Ray’s feet, a little rat chewed at his shoelaces.
“AGH!” Ray said with a flailing kick. “Okay, let’s go!”
Ray hobbled into the time machine and shut the doors behind him. Viv scrolled down on the trackpad through the time loop until she landed on the coordinates for the point in 1744.
“There!” she said. “Looks like our next destination is loaded up.”
“But how do we power up the time machine without the control panel at the base?” Elijah asked.
A beeping came from each of their necks. Viv reached into her shirt and pulled out the necklace. The green digits on their temporal transporters flashed in a rhythmic tempo.
“Maybe . . . ,” Viv said, turning the dial on her necklace until the numbers matched up to the coordinates on the dashboard.
Elijah and Charlotte followed suit, but Ray was hesitant.
“Come on, Ray!” Viv said. “We’re wasting time!”
“I don’t know, guys,” Ray said. “I have a very delicate disposition—”
“RAY!” everyone shouted together.
“Okay! Fine!” Ray turned the dials on his transporter until they lined up with everyone else’s. All of a sudden, a crackle of electricity passed through the interior of the time machine.
“Aw geez, here we go again!” Ray cried out.
The roar of the time portal blasted through the machine again, pulling the four kids into their next chrono-gateway.
CHAPTER SIX
Viv did a somersault off the top of the pile. Her arm felt like it had been asleep for hundreds of years. Ray somehow ended up on the bottom of the stack again, with Meekee even more squished beneath him.
“Meekee!” the little alien cried out, squirming beneath him on the floor of the time machine. The steam collected in a huge pool on the ceiling.
“Are we dead?” Ray asked, holding a hand to his head.
“Shh. Do you feel that?” Viv said.
Beneath their feet, a slight swaying tilted the entire time machine back and forth. Left and right.
“Are we . . . still traveling through time?” Ray asked.
Ray looked just as sick as before. The queasiness was even starting to get to Viv. She examined the dashboard one more time, making sure that the geographical coordinates and the chronological coordinates all still matched.
It looks like it worked.
“It almost feels like we’re on a . . . ,” Viv said.
She pulled the lever by the door, and the steel slats slowly slid open.
“Boat.”
Just outside the doors of the time machine, a horde of pirates pointed a myriad of weapons directly toward the pack of shivering kids. Muskets, sharpened bayonets, and what looked like a hundred rusty swords all inches from their faces.
Behind them, a wooden mast extended toward a bright blue sky. Fluttering in the breeze was a black flag adorned with a foreboding sigil: a green, bony seahorse.
A heavily bearded man tottered forward from the huddle of ramshackle sailors. His peg leg matched the old wood of the deck, a prickly-looking dark cedar. He wore a leather tricorn hat littered with singed holes.
“Arr, matey! Don’t ye move a muscle!” he called out through gnarled, rotten teeth. Viv could smell his stinky breath from ten feet away.
The kids put their hands up defensively. A bright red macaw sat on the man’s shoulder, staring with beady eyes at the kids as they raised their hands in surrender.
“I be the cap’n o’ this here vessel,” he said. “An’ ye lily-livered bilge all be uninvited guests on the Em’rald Lady.”
“Are they speaking English?” Ray whispered.
“Aye! I be speakin’ English, ye landlubbin’ knave! An’ me hearin’ be jolly, too! Speak, ye!” the captain commanded.
“SQUAWK! Speak, ye!” The parrot on his shoulder echoed his words with a shrill screech.
There was a stunned silence until . . .
“Meekee?” the little alien pipped in response as he took his spot atop Ray’s shoulder.
“Meekee, no!” Ray tried to push the little alien back down into his shirt pocket. But it was too late. A wave of gasps washed over the slack-jawed crew.
Viv stepped in front of Ray, guarding the sight of Meekee from all the prying eyes.
“Ernest,” she said slowly. “Do you know a man named Ernest? We’re looking for him.”
“Aye? Ernest?” the captain said, squinting around at the other sailors. The man to his left gave a suspicious scowl.
Viv took a step forward, prompting another ripple of prodding swords straight to her throat. She gulped down a wad of spit.
“Yes. We’re looking for—”
“Ahoy, matey!” Charlotte said, sliding in front of Viv.
“Char, what the heck are you doing?” Viv hissed.
“Let me handle this.” Charlotte cleared her throat and spoke with her booming Frank voice. “Avast, ’ave ye spied a swashbuckler by the name o’ Ernest Becker?”
The captain raised his bushy eyebrow. A bug crawled out of his hat and disappeared into his tangled, shaggy beard. Viv tried not to cringe.
“Ernest Becker, ye say?” he said, stroking his beard. He reached down and scratched an itch on his peg leg. “Wha’ interests ye about dis Ernest Becker?”
“He been missin’ fer a long time. ’Ave ye spied ’im?” Charlotte asked.
The captain took a few paces forward, his peg leg rapping against the ship’s deck with every limping step.
“Let’s say I ’ave spied this here Ernest Becker . . . ,” the captain said. “An’ let’s say, fer instance, ’e left a scroll ’ere fer anybody lookin’ fer ’im.”
He left a scroll? Did he know we’d be coming?
“A scroll?” Viv asked. “If you could give us the scroll, we’ll be on our way!”
“But the riddle remains,” the captain continued. “Wha’ good does it do me t’ give it t’ ye?”
“Are ye lookin’ t’ make a trade?” Charlotte asked.
“Aye, s’pose I be,” the captain said.
“What be it that ye want?”
“ ’Ow about that there fancy ship ye used t’ board us?”
Charlotte looked back at the time machine.
“Sorry, we can’t give ye dis . . . uh . . . ship, matey. We be needin’ that there vessel to sail homeward.”
The captain stroked his beard again. “Ye’ve gotta funny-lookin’ parrot there,” he said, pointing straight toward Ray’s shirt pocket.
Meekee growled at the pirate.
“Aye, he’s a mighty rare bird,” Charlotte said with pursed lips.
“Tell ye what,” the captain said. “I’ll give ye the scroll if ye give us the three-eyed green parrot.”
“SQUAWK! Green parrot! Green parrot!” the red macaw on his shoulder cried.
“Meekee no parrot! Meekee no parrot!” Meekee said.
The captain bent down right at eye level with Ray.
“Aye, and ’e chatters, too. Betcha ’e would fetch a high price o’ gold doubloons at the market.”
Charlotte considered it for a few moments and then stuck out her hand for a shake.
“Sounds like ye got yerself a bargain, matey!”
“What?!” Ray shouted, pulling Meekee closer to his chest. “Charlotte? No way! No WAY! We are not trading Meekee!”
Before he could protest any further, Charlotte plucked Meekee out of Ray’s hands and mouthed the words trust me to Ray.
“Ray!” Meekee said, reaching out all four of his little legs toward his best friend.
“Meekee!” Ray cried out, tears beginning to sting his eyes.
The captain perched Meekee on top of his open shoulder. Instantly, Meekee swung a little green punch at the macaw behind the captain’s head.
“SQUAWK! Bad bird! Bad bird!” the parrot screeched.
The captain let out a hearty guffaw. “Yarr! A feisty one! I jus’ might keep ye fer meself!”
Charlotte snapped her fingers. “Aye, ’ow ’bout that there scroll?”
Ray sniveled behind her. The captain nodded and gave a snicker to his crewmates. He reached into his coat jacket and pulled out a dripping clump of folded paper.
“What the—?” Charlotte cried, carefully unfolding the wafer-thin wad. Viv, Elijah, and Ray crowded around to read it. The ink on the paper ran slick with seawater. A series of dribbling numbers leaked across the page.
“Oy, you scoundrel! This here thin’ be barely legible!” Charlotte complained.
“Aye! Din’t say it’d be a dry scroll!” the captain jeered. “Bit tough t’ keep anythin’ dry on a pirate’s ship!”
Charlotte fumed. She handed the scroll to Viv, and in one fluid motion, she lunged at the captain, swiping Meekee off his shoulder. The captain raised his sword higher in outrage, but before he could respond, a voice shouted from high above.
“AVAST!”
Every sailor snapped their head toward the sky. Viv squinted up at the hot Caribbean sun. Nestled in the crow’s nest high up in the mast, a scraggly pirate pointed his long, bony arm toward the horizon.
“INCOMIN’! OFF THE PORT SIDE!”
A high-pitched whistling sound pierced the air. Mere seconds later, a small, round object soared through the open sky, beelining straight toward the ship.
“Watch out!” Viv said, grabbing Elijah and rolling toward the starboard railing.
The cannonball smashed into the deck, sending splinters and shrapnel flying into the air.
Four of the sailors fell through the hole in the deck, right into the galley below. A load of sizzling gruel exploded from the massive vat burning on the coal stove.
“We be under attack!” the captain screamed. “Man yer battle stations! Load the cannons, ye lazy scallywags!”
The chaos scattered the ship’s crew across the poop deck. Charlotte and Ray tumbled forward toward the bow. Viv and Elijah scrambled to their feet and held each other in their arms.
Another enemy cannonball tore through the flag, ripping the green seahorse into pieces and leaving burn marks on the bits of fabric that remained.
Just one of those things could kill us!
Part of Viv wanted to reach out her arms, use her powers, and create a force field to protect them all. But with Elijah and Ray right next to her, the idea of revealing her alien side seemed worse than being hit by a cannonball.
I can’t. I can’t do it!
“Who’s attacking us?!” Elijah shouted.
Viv spotted a collapsible brass telescope rolling down the deck, and she darted over quickly to grab it. She lifted it to her eye and peered through the clouded lens, locking her sights onto the opposing boat looming on the horizon. The enemy ship’s deck was crawling with pirates. They scurried around like a colony of ants. But one shorter figure, standing as still as a statue on the bow of the ship, caught her attention—a young boy, no older than five or six, by the looks of him.
What the . . . ?
He was clothed in a long, white robe. Suddenly, despite being hundreds of yards away, the boy locked eyes with Viv through the telescope, as if he could see her, too!
“Agh!” she yelled, dropping the brass tube. The vintage glass shattered against the hard wood of the deck.
“CANNONBALL!”
Another lead projectile smashed into the side of the ship, delivering a devastating blow to the central mast. The skinny pirate who had been on lookout duty in the crow’s nest came tumbling down, barely catching his feet in a tangle of ropes, leaving his head dangling mere inches above the deck. The entire ship shook like an earthquake.
“Fire in de hole!” a fellow sailor called out. Eruptions blasted out of the gunports on the starboard side of the boat.
“Let’s get out of here!” Elijah shouted.
He grabbed Viv by the wrist and pulled her toward the time machine, which was now threatening to slide off the deck into the exposed hull of the ship.
Charlotte and Ray leapt over the fractured barrels of gunpowder and ducked under the falling sheets of the sails, making their way toward their only chance at safety.
That deadly whistle zipped through the air again. Viv’s head snapped up, pinpointing the fast-approaching projectile in the air.
It was a cannonball, and it was heading straight toward them.
“Viv!” Charlotte shouted. “Save us!”
No. NO.
In front of Ray? In front of Elijah?
“VIV!” Charlotte shouted.
There was no time to think. She had to make a split-second decision.
Her body, still exhausted and aching from her battle against the Chupacabra, fought to push her arms out in front of her. The power exploded from her hands. A green force field managed to catch the cannonball, slowing its trajectory in midair.
