The Troublemakers’ cutlasses fell, along with their faces.

They had approached the distant Splendora with the same relish as scrumpers sneaking through an apple orchard with eyes on a ripe round fruit. However, as they stole closer, they glimpsed the flash of fire, heard the report of cannons and saw the tallest mast fall into the sea.

‘Someone else got to her first!’ gasped Dagger Dauntless.

By the time the Troublemakers reached the ship, ready to make the trouble they were famous for, the Splendora was a smouldering wreck, half sunk in the churning waves. A distant ship was shrinking on the northern horizon.

Thorn Lawless cursed. ‘The Splendora was full of fine Venetian lace! It would have been perfect for our next batch of Trouble! I was going to sew Turbidus seeds into the shawls and send them in time for Lady de Sneer’s next tea party!’

‘We should go aboard and see if there’s anything left,’ Never suggested. ‘To scavenge.’

Thorn spat on the deck. ‘PAH! Like vultures gathering scraps after the battle.’

The crew rallied round Thorn, making sympathetic piratical noises.

But Dagger Dauntless did not. She pushed her way through to the rail to gaze at the smouldering ship being rocked in a final lullaby by the sea. She stared at the charred deck, the shattered rigging, the cannon-scarred hull.

No survivors.

Then she saw a red word scrawled across the deck. It sent a cloud across the blank blue sky of her mind. She had seen this before: a name painted on a different sinking ship.

‘We did this!’ Dagger Dauntless cried, turning to the Troublemakers.

‘How could we have done this?’ Thorn sneered. ‘We saw it happen!’

‘But … but the Troublemakers are the ones r-responsible,’ Dagger stammered. ‘That’s what everyone says …’

She trailed away uncertainly as Thorn fixed her with those fiery eyes.

‘Who’s everyone?’ Thorn whispered. ‘You don’t know anyone, Dagger. Except us.’

‘The Troublemakers are to blame …’ Dagger insisted. ‘Look!’

She pointed at the word, a red smear on the blackened deck. Several pirates muttered uneasily as they saw their own name on the ruined ship, like an artist’s signature proudly scrawled across a picture of pure destruction.

Dagger’s hat was beginning to make her head very hot. It was too heavy, crushing the thoughts trying to grow in her mind. She tried to pull it off, yanking at the buckle under her chin, but Thorn held it tight to her head.

‘Are you with us or against us?’ Thorn growled.

‘With you,’ Dagger said.

Thorn stared so hard that Dagger was sure she was trying to see her thoughts through her eyes.

Dagger looked back at the shipwreck, simply to escape the extreme discomfort of being stared at by someone with flames where their pupils should be.

She saw a movement in the water, near the stern. There was someone clinging to a piece of the shattered mast … No! There were two people.

‘Survivors!’ Dagger yelled, pointing. ‘Floating on some wreckage!’

‘Fish ’em out!’ Never commanded.

Soon there were two human-sized sausages wrapped in sailcloth wriggling at the feet of the pirate queen.

She poked one with her toe and it called her a rude word.

The other one thrashed around, nearly wriggling itself right off the deck into the sea, but Thorn put her foot on it.

‘We’re getting into the business of kidnapping, aren’t we?’ Thorn Lawless grinned. ‘Finally guilty of what we’ve always been accused of.’

‘Lmm ooua sss!’ the wordier sausage demanded.

‘Turn ’em loose,’ Thorn ordered. Then she added in a louder voice, ‘ANY TROUBLE AND YOU CAN SKEWER ’EM!’

The Troublemakers unrolled their prisoners so quickly they were sent tumbling across the deck. The boy sat up indignantly, staring around, and the girl leaped to her feet at once, looking a little dizzy.

‘It’s them!’ the boy yelped. ‘My plan worked!’

Dagger frowned at them both. Fuzzy thoughts were forming on the horizon of her mind like clouds in vague shapes.

‘What have ya done with Cordelia Hatmaker?’ the girl demanded, staring fiercely up at the craggy form of Vinegar Jim.

Thorn Lawless let out a nasty laugh. Dagger joined in with the laughing, as it helped to chase the clouds out of her head. All around her, the Troublemakers snickered.

‘Don’t laugh at us, Troublemakers!’ the boy said stoutly. ‘We know you’ve got her somewhere. We demand to be taken to Cordelia right this minute!’

Dagger felt a strange prickle every time she heard the name Cordelia. It sounded like a good name – a bright, magical, valiant name. The kind of person it would be good to be.

She was about to ask these two children about the sort of person who belonged to a name like Cordelia, but, before she could, Thorn stalked up to them.

‘Oh, I’ll take you somewhere right this minute,’ she sneered mockingly, flashing her dagger so it swam like a poisonous silver fish in front of the children’s faces. ‘The BILGE!’

The boy’s face broke open into a growl that was mostly teeth, but the girl staggered sideways in fright, plunging her hands into her pockets as though she was trying to make herself as small as possible.

‘N-not the bilge!’ she cried.

In a cascade of shimmering drops, something showered from her pockets and spilled on to the deck.

‘Oh NO!’ she wailed. ‘My sweets!’

The Troublemakers suddenly had diamonds in their eyes.

‘SWEETS!’ they roared.

The deck was a mad scramble of pirates as the Troublemakers lunged for the sweets. Dagger chased a skidding sweet across the planks. Skirmishes broke out as Troublemakers fought over the sweets and stuffed them into their mouths.

Dagger dived through a pirate’s legs, trapped a sweet under her hand and held it up to the light. It was an amber nugget with an S etched into it.

She crammed it in her mouth. It tasted bland and blameless.

But around her the Troublemakers were making dreadful faces and groaning.

‘UUUUGH!’

‘SO BITTER!’

‘IT’S A TRICK!’

‘WE’VE BEEN POISONED!’

Dagger sucked her sweet curiously while her comrades clutched their throats and spat slimy nuggets on to the deck.

‘I’VE BEEN A BAD BOY!’ Never wailed.

‘STEALING IS WRONG!’ Tabitha wept. ‘AND WE’VE DONE SO MUCH STEALING!’

‘WE’VE MADE SUCH TROUBLE!’ Jim moaned.

‘STEALING AND ROBBING AND THIEVING!’ Billy pounded his chest.

The Troublemakers were a-frenzy, clutching their faces in shame, bent double with remorse. Even Thorn Lawless’s face was puckered, as though all the sharp things she had ever said were bitter in her mouth.

‘AND LOOK WHAT WE DID TO CORDELIA!’ Annie burst out.

Dagger swung round – that name again!

‘Where is she?’ Goose yelled.

‘Take us to her now!’ Sam demanded.

Goose and Sam – those were the names of the boy and the girl! But how did Dagger know that?

She could feel thoughts growing in her mind, trying to climb out of the dark. She peered at Goose and Sam, pulling the buckle under her chin, her hat getting heavier every second.

Goose and Sam stared back.

‘Cor?’ Sam whispered.

Dagger knew these two people in front of her – they were important. They were very important. They were friends.

The fire in Dagger’s wits and the clammy coldness of the hat were fighting a fierce battle, lashed tight together. She was rejecting the forgetting; something erupted like an oak tree from the middle of her mind.

It grew, spreading its branches in a sudden sunlight of remembering. She could feel the hat coming apart on top of her head: it burst at the seams, feathers fell away, Rockface Barnacles tumbled in chunks around her shoulders.

‘It’s ME!’ Dagger yelled. ‘I’M CORDELIA HATMAKER!’