Neville edged further along the hallway, stepping as quietly as possible. He could hear snoring coming from nearby and the sound of muttering.
‘You should have seen it,’ came a voice from the next room. Neville could see light spilling out from underneath the door. ‘They believed me hook, line and dunker.’
Neville frowned. That was Grandma Jaundice’s voice. He crept up to the door and pressed his eye to the keyhole. Inside, he spied Jaundice sitting at a table with Old Barnacle, Mumps and one or two other crew-members. Jaundice had changed out of her prison uniform and was now wearing a fancy troll-sized frock coat and thigh high, skrunt-skin boots. She even had a big hat with a weird-looking feather in it.
‘Those little whelps actually think I’m goin’ to save their family from Great Gurty!’
Neville’s jaw dropped. That glumping old gonker had tricked them! What was he going to do? He wished he knew where Rubella was.
‘WHATCHA GOT PLANNED THEN, CAPTAIN?’ Old Barnacle yelled, gripping on to his ear trumpet.
‘SHUT UP!’ Jaundice snapped. ‘Someone will hear you.’
‘OH, SORRY!’ Old Barnacle said just as loudly.
‘Everyone knows the stories of the wondersome troll treasure that was buried in Gurty’s belly,’ said Jaundice. ‘Years ago, Sir Arthritis III sailed a hoard of left socks into that honking great fish and no one has ever managed to get them out.’
‘WHY NOT?’ shouted Old Barnacle.
‘Because Great Gurty is so lazy, only coming to the surface once in a blue mook.’
‘Are you sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’?’ said Mumps. He kept whizzing in and out of view as his chair shot across the cabin and back again with the rolling of the waves.
‘That gundiskump will have a nice taste for overlings by now,’ sneered Jaundice. ‘I say we use the boy as bait to get Gurty to swallow us. Then, once we’re inside, we dump Nev and the chunky sister with the rest of their family and sail out with the treasure. Agreed?’
‘Agreed!’ the others said in unison.