A Perilous Journey of Danger and Mayhem #2, page 10
“Oh, take the parkas too!” Cassandra called.
“Right!” Nellie ducked back for the sack of winter wear and hefted it to Emmett.
“And the jerky!” Molly shouted.
Nellie and Emmett both shot her looks of disbelief.
“It’s good jerky!” Molly yelled.
With a huff, Nellie tossed the dried meat bundle to Emmett, and Robot rose into the gradually dying winds. He set the boy down on the deck of the AquaZephyr and returned for Molly.
“Please don’t drop me,” she said as they soared twenty feet above the waves. “I can’t swim.” Robot set her down next to Emmett and floated away again.
There was no one in sight.
“Do you think Bell and his crew are inside?” asked Molly. “Or did they all get swept overboard? And this ship is ours now?”
Emmett raised a dubious eyebrow.
“Which would definitely be the worse option!” she added quickly. As the moonlight became brighter, she could see working machinery all up and down the deck—cranking metallic arms and spinning gears the size of wagon wheels. Molly began to feel as if she were one of the miniature figures on the ceiling of the Inventors’ Guild Hall.
She looked down toward the ship’s bow. Every few yards some structure or other rose from the deck, like houses in a waterborne village. She tried to guess the purpose of each, based on all the seafaring books she’d read. There was the forecastle, where the crew generally slept. And the wheelhouse, from which the captain would steer the vessel. And, well, probably some closets or something. She wasn’t sure. There were a lot of them.
Robot appeared twice more, dropping off Nellie, who immediately took back her notebooks, and finally, Cassandra.
Molly peered down over the rail to see the Whizz-tastic Wave-Pummeling Poseidon Puncher punch its final wave and disappear below the surface. She sighed. “Two boat rides, two shipwrecks.”
“. . . telling you, we definitely hit something!” a man’s voice yelled from somewhere within the ship.
“Check it out,” another voice ordered.
There was a rumbling as a hatch opened and several burly, bearded men climbed up onto the deck. The men spotted their surprise passengers and froze in place, as the voice of Alexander Graham Bell called from below. “So, what did we hit?”
“We’ve, uh, we’ve been boarded,” one of the sailors shouted down to him. There was a pause, during which no one seemed to know what to say or do, then a flurry of activity from below. They could hear a frantic rustling of papers, as Bell muttered, “Pirates? In this day and age? With all I’ve been through, I have to deal with pirates now?”
“It’s not pirates!” one sailor yelled.
Bell’s commotion stopped. “Not pirates? Then who could have—?” He climbed from the hatch and his eyes landed on Molly.
“Hiya, Belly-Boy.”
Bell fainted.
12
Sirens and Sea Dogs
THE FOLLOWING DAWN, as the castaways sat at a table in the AquaZephyr’s mess hall, Molly tried to remind herself about the positives of their new situation: beds, bathrooms, coffee! Plus, the larger ship cut much more smoothly through the waves and had less of an eggbeater effect on their insides. Oh, and new dry clothes! Men’s clothes, yes—but dry men’s clothes. Molly thought her mother looked charming in white sailor’s pants and blue peacoat. While Molly herself was thrilled to be in trousers, she could have done without the puffy-sleeved, wide-collared shirts that she and Emmett had been given, but she hoped that their identical outfits might help them feel more like a team again.
But even with all of these improvements, it was hard for Molly to overlook one major negative. They’d officially lost their chance to beat Bell to the Pole. Yes, they were now a part of the man’s polar expedition whether he liked it or not, but even if they stood by his side at the Pole, she knew their names would end up nothing more than footnotes in the story of his grand achievement.
But, hey, she thought, at least they weren’t at the bottom of the ocean with the MOI’s poor boat.
The kitchen door swung open and the aroma of grilled fish filled the room.
“Hallo, hallo!” said a smiling, red-cheeked man with a cheery Scandinavian accent. “I am Lars the navigator, and I come to say good morning to our special guests!” Lars had lumberjack shoulders and a curly golden-blond beard. He wore a red knit cap and a faded blue coat that had likely seen decades of salty ocean air. “I am also Lars the cook!” He laid down plates of fish and rice before Molly, Cassandra, and Nellie.
“Isn’t there any for Emmett?” asked Cassandra.
“Oh, I have something special for the little man,” Lars said. “This dish here is just for the lovely mermaids we have plucked from the sea, eh?”
Molly bristled, but wasn’t going to turn down the first fresh food she’d seen in days.
“Mermaids? Hmph. Sirens, more likely,” grumbled a second sailor, who slammed open the mess hall door and went to sit by himself. He could have been Lars’s evil twin—just as wide and brawny, but with a deep scowl, a forehead like a cracked, neglected sidewalk, and the kind of dark, wiry beard you wouldn’t be surprised to find a rat nesting in.
Lars waved him off. “Icepick, these people are guests,” he said. “Be nice.”
“Icepick, huh?” Emmett whispered to Molly. “Seems like a nice guy.”
“Icepick is first mate, second mate, head fisherman, and chief engineer,” said Lars. “He might look dangerous . . .”
“But?” Emmett asked after a few seconds.
“But what?” said Lars.
Across the room, Icepick noisily sucked the meat off of some fish bones and grumbled something under his breath. Or maybe he was trying to speak clearly and the words just couldn’t make it through his beard. It was impossible to tell.
“Are there many of you on this ship?” Nellie asked.
“Oh, no, Mr. Bell has just a three-man crew,” said Lars. “Four if you count my nephew, Roald, the cabin boy. He’s quite the secrety one, that Bell. He doesn’t want too many people knowing his business, so he takes only those of us who can perform multiple jobs. I am also Lars the dance instructor.”
“Interesting,” Nellie said. She covertly scribbled into the notepad on her lap as Lars returned to the kitchen.
“Hmm, people who can do more than one thing,” Molly said in a sharp whisper. “Unlike some reporters who can’t even help someone dying in a typhoon because they’re too busy taking notes!”
“I was distracted,” Nellie snipped back, glancing across the room to make sure Icepick wasn’t listening. “And shush—they don’t know I’m a you-know-what. Besides, I helped when you said something.”
“I could have been sucked into a whirlpool by then! That’s twice now you’ve left me hanging in a bad situation because you were—”
“Because I was getting the story,” Nellie hissed. “That’s what I’m here for. You’ve got your risky, convoluted plan and I’ve got mine. If I succeed in mine, it’ll benefit you in the end. So maybe you should just stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”
“Except you’ll get a much better story if we succeed in the end,” Emmett added.
Nellie chewed a piece of fish and thought. “Fine. I’ll lend assistance where possible, but understand that my duties as a journalist will always take priority.”
“Just as my priority will always be my family,” said Cassandra. She was about to add more when Lars came back from the kitchen.
He set a plate down before Emmett and the boy leaned as far from it as he could without falling from his chair. The snaky, crinkle-skinned thing curled on Emmett’s plate glared up at him with sinister yellow eyes. It was like an evil wizard had turned a chain of sausages into a monster. “I’m afraid my breakfast might eat me.” He tentatively touched his finger to the edge of the plate, as if the charred fish’s fangs might snap at him. “Why did it have to be an eel?”
“No eel,” Lars chuckled. “Just some delicious barracuda for our tough little man, eh?”
“Uh, yeah, that’s me—your classic tough guy.” Emmett looked like his seasickness had returned. As soon as Lars was back in the kitchen, Molly swapped plates with Emmett. The look of relief on his face made her think he might finally have forgiven her everything.
A few minutes later, with the last bite of barracuda in her mouth, Molly stood up. “Okay, let’s go find Bell,” she said. “Now that our two expeditions are combining, we need to be very specific about our roles in this whole foofaraw. I’d personally like to get it in writing that, as the shortest person here, I be in the front of any group photos.”
“We certainly have a lot to discuss with Bell,” Cassandra said as the others rose. “But I think it’s best if I speak to him alone first. This might be a sensitive conversation and we wouldn’t want to overwhelm the man.”
“No offense, Mother, but sensitive conversations are not your strong suit.”
“Nonetheless,” Cassandra said. “The rest of you go explore the ship. Get the lay of the land. Lay of the sea?”
“Well, I’m coming with you,” said Nellie, flashing her notebook. “For the good of the story.”
“I suppose I can’t stop you,” Cassandra said unhappily. “You two children, though . . . go have fun. But be nice to the sea dogs.” She and Nellie left the mess hall.
“I don’t trust her,” Molly said.
“Nellie or your mother?” Emmett asked.
“Right now, neither. I’m afraid my mother’s going to make all the wrong choices now that she’s being all parenty.”
“You mean like putting our well-being over fame and success?” Emmett asked.
“Exactly,” Molly huffed. “Whatever’s best for us is never gonna be the more exciting option!”
“I don’t know,” said Emmett. “Sometimes I feel like it might be refreshing to go, oh, maybe more than three months without danger and mayhem. And secrets.”
Molly furrowed her brow. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“Not yet. And sorry, but I’m going to give your mother the benefit of the doubt. It’s been nice having someone look out for me again.”
Molly gave him a sympathetic grin. “You’ve been thinking about your father a lot, haven’t you?”
“Well, not during the shipwreck. During the shipwreck I was mostly wondering whether the Caribbean had any man-eating eels. But pretty much every second up to and after that, yeah. It’s been hard to get him out of my head.”
“So we just need more shipwrecks.”
“Yeah, that’s the answer.”
“But seriously, we need a distraction. And since my mother’s not going to let us near Bell, I guess we might as well do what she suggested. I want to check on Robot anyway.” They’d instructed Robot to act like a normal, lifeless machine, lest Bell start tinkering with him.
Behind them, Icepick shattered his plate against the table. “Lars!” he yelled. “You let my plate get empty!”
“Let’s explore some part of the ship where he is not,” Emmett said. He and Molly hurried onto the deck and let the warm Caribbean sun wash over them. The feeling was glorious.
“You know, I could probably just stand here like this for a while,” Emmett said.
“I’ve got no problem with that,” she replied. They closed their eyes and leaned their heads back.
“You must be the children!” a voice shouted directly into their ears. Molly and Emmett jumped. A boy was standing between them. He looked to be a bit younger than them, with floppy blond hair, a sunburnt face, and a blousy collared shirt like theirs. “Uncle Lars said there were children. You must be them.” He shook both Molly’s and Emmett’s hands at the same time—vigorously, as if milking a cow.
“Thank you, Mr. Distraction,” Molly said, grinning at Emmett.
“No, I am Roald,” the new boy said. “I am from Norway. But I am from a lot of other places too, because I am a sailor. I sail places. It is very impressive.”
“Yes, um . . . very,” Emmett said.
“I am going to be the first person to step foot on the South Pole,” Roald said. “It is my destiny. Does that impress you? Do you appreciate a man who knows his destiny?”
“Man?” Molly said. “Who would this man be?”
“I am the man,” said Roald.
“How old are you?” Molly asked.
“Eleven,” said Roald. “Does that impress you? That I am eleven and I will be the first person to set foot on the South Pole? If that does not impress you, does this?” He began doing jumping jacks. After twenty, he stopped. “Now that you are impressed, what would you like to do with me?”
“I can think of a few things,” Molly said. She didn’t care how badly Emmett needed a distraction, she was already fantasizing about tossing Roald to the barracudas.
“Thanks, Roald,” Emmett said. “But I think we’re just going to give ourselves a tour of the ship.”
“Oh, I can give you a better tour than you can give yourselves,” Roald said. “I know a lot about ships. I have been sailing ships since I was two. How long have you been sailing ships?”
“Um, this is the third ship I’ve been on,” Molly said.
Roald put his hands on his belly and guffawed. “Only three ships? That is adorable.”
“Well, the first two sank,” Molly said. “So I’ve survived two shipwrecks. How many have you survived?”
“Too many to count,” said Roald. “I told you I have been sailing ships since I was two. Do you think a two-year-old can sail well? No. But I survived the crashes when most two-year-olds would not. That is why I am only eleven and I am on this expedition. I am a marvel of the sea.”
“You sure it has nothing to do with your uncle being the navigator?” Emmett asked.
“Let us begin the tour, no?” said Roald. He pointed to the door Molly and Emmett had just exited. “That is the mess hall.” He walked along the starboard deck, keeping his pointer finger very busy. “That is a railing, and on the other side of the railing is a little floaty ring to help drowning people. Those are some gears or something. Over there is a closet. And over here are a bunch of knobs.”
“What do the knobs do?” Emmett asked.
“Something important, I am sure,” said Roald. “Or maybe not. This ship is very different from the other ships I have been on. But please do not interrupt. Over here is a little chute that drops down to the laundry. And under our feet is the deck. That is a pipe of some kind. And that is a rope.”
Forty minutes later . . . “That is a porthole. And that is another porthole. And that . . . I think that is all for this side of the ship. Let us go to the port side!”
“Actually,” Molly interjected, “isn’t that the wheelhouse? Is that the captain in there? Can we meet him?”
Roald paused (something Molly had thought him incapable of doing). “I do not know. Captain Stone does not like people on the bridge other than himself or Uncle Lars. Because my uncle Lars is the navigator. He navigates the ship. He also fishes and cooks. And sings. But he does not do as many things as me.”
Molly struggled not to roll her eyes. She desperately needed a break from Roald’s tour. Plus, she’d never met a real sea captain before and was curious to see if he was anything like Captain Nemo from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. She stepped inside the wheelhouse.
The bridge of the AquaZephyr was loaded with far more gauges, buttons, and levers than the MOI’s tiny boat. Captain Stone stood at an iron wheel with his back to them, staring out through a window almost as big as those at the pickle shop. The captain’s long-tailed navy-blue coat stretched across his cinder-block shoulders nearly to the point of tearing. “Children,” he said in a deep, sonorous voice. Molly couldn’t tell if it was a greeting or a warning. Molly sidled closer until she was able to glimpse his thick, wiry brows, hawklike nose, and well-trimmed salt-and-pepper beard.
“Ahoy, there, Cap’n! I’m Molly Pepper and this is Emmett Lee.”
“Caleb Stone,” the captain said.
“Pleased to meet you.” Molly offered her hand, but the captain either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “So . . . you sail lots of boats before?”
“Yes,” the captain replied.
“More than Roald?” Molly asked with a wink.
Roald was about to say something when Captain Stone answered, “Yes.”
“You ever drive a fancy spider-boat like this before?”
“No.”
“But you definitely know how, right?”
“Yes.”
“’Cause the last ship I was on sank.”
“I saw.” It was hard to tell, but Captain Stone might have been getting annoyed.
“You know, I think the captain might be busy,” Emmett interjected.
“I am,” said the captain.
“Emmett would know,” Molly said. “His father was a sea captain too.”
“Um, we don’t have to talk about that.” Emmett tugged Molly’s sleeve.
“Fine,” said the captain.
“Hey, Roald,” Emmett said. “Let’s finish that tour.” That told Molly how much Emmett really wanted to leave.
The three children stepped back outside.
“That is a bucket,” Roald immediately said.
Molly ignored him. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought up your father,” she said to Emmett.
“It’s okay,” Emmett replied. “I think I just don’t mix well with silent, stoic types. Although I don’t really mix well with energetic, talkative types either.”
Roald had continued walking and was already halfway down the port-side deck, but they could hear him trailing off in the distance. “. . . and this is a thing that gets really hot to melt ice or something. And that is some seagull poop. Over here is the lounge, and there is the brig. And that—”
“Did he say brig? As in a jail?” Molly said.
“For when we find Rector,” Emmett guessed.
Molly’s mouth formed a little O as it dawned on her that they’d forced themselves into both of Bell’s missions: finding the South Pole and capturing Ambrose Rector. She hadn’t really wanted anything to do with that second one.
