You must forgive me at this point for skipping ahead in the narrative.

Or don’t. I don’t care much either way.

The next few days were busy but dull. The girl may have called for the adventure to begin, but in my opinion that was merely dramatic foolishness.

Jocelyn spent her time in the pirate village arranging for the delivery and loading of goods while Mr. Smee used the greater part of her inherited gold in order to procure a small, single-masted sloop. He insisted on spending a bit more to have the captain’s quarters redecorated, so as to be more fitting for a young Captain Hook. Jocelyn didn’t much care, as long as her cabin wasn’t pink.

With the ship secured and ready, Jocelyn appointed Smee bo’sun and tasked him with hiring the fiercest, bravest, and most experienced group of pirates in the village as crew.

Hiring a pirate crew sounds exciting, doesn’t it?

It wasn’t.

Smee’s hours were spent asking questions such as: “Tell me—and Johnny—about your last job. What were your reasons for leaving? What is your educational background? Has a disagreement with an employer ever led to dismemberment or disemboweling?”

See what I mean? Dull. Skipping ahead.

Jocelyn stood proud at the bow of her very own ship, still wrapped in the too-large embrace of her father’s red jacket. There was a gentle sea breeze blowing one unruly lock of hair about her face. If she had been able to see herself, the girl would have been surprised to notice she looked very much like the portrait of her father hanging round her neck. Jocelyn had an unmistakable tang of captainship about her.

It had only been a few days since her departure from finishing school, but she already felt as if her life there had been nothing other than a bad dream.

Except…she did miss Roger.

Jocelyn wondered if Edgar had been able to deliver her letter, and if so, had it been read?

Her fingers traced the cool metal of Roger’s compass, buried deep in her pocket, and she wished, not for the first time, that he had been able to come along. They were supposed to have an adventure together. That had been Roger’s promise, but Jocelyn felt as if she had broken it.

The girl forced her mind away from those thoughts and back toward the present. For as long as she could remember, Jocelyn had dreamed of captaining her own ship. As soon as Mr. Smee returned with the finest crew the Neverland had to offer, she would set sail, having nearly everything she ever wanted.

As if he had been summoned by her thoughts, Mr. Smee appeared. “Begging your pardon, miss, but I’ve done it. Your men will be arriving soon.”

Jocelyn was thrilled. “My own crew, at last! Quick, tell me, Smee, are they everything I had hoped for? Brave? Fierce as bloodthirsty dogs? Men my father would have been proud to call his own?”

Smee gazed out to sea, as though searching for something. “Well, er, that is to say…”

“All right, perhaps my father would not have been exactly proud; I’m sure he was a hard man to please. They are brave, though?”

“Brave? I wouldn’t exactly—”

Jocelyn interrupted. “Are they fierce and bloodthirsty?”

“Thirsty? To be sure. But, fierce? Well…that’s a mite strong—”

“I can scarcely believe it, Smee: Captain Jocelyn Hook is about to set sail with her own ferocious band of pirates. That crocodile doesn’t stand a chance. I’d wager a guess that even Blackbeard’s men at their best couldn’t hold a candle to the Neverland’s finest. Right, Smee?”

Smee continued staring at the horizon. He looked a bit ill.

“Smee?” Jocelyn’s triumphant smile withered. “Tell me—you have hired the best crew that could be found in the village, haven’t you?”

He dropped his eyes to Johnny Corkscrew in an appeal for help. None came. He cleared his throat and mumbled, “No, miss.”

“Oh. I would have liked the best, but…second best, perhaps?”

“Not exactly.”

Jocelyn began to worry. “Third? Fourth?”

Mr. Smee squirmed under her questioning. “No, miss.”

“Out with it, Smee!” she roared, sounding quite a lot like the prior Captain Hook. “What kind of crew did you hire for me?”

“Ah, well, strictly speaking, miss, as a matter of rank, your crew comes in squarely at sixteenth best in the Neverland.”

It was unfortunate news for Jocelyn that the Neverland hosted only sixteen available crews at the time. Every last one of them had turned up for the interview process, eager to sail under Hook’s flag and assist his heir in such an illustrious quest. However, each had promptly turned down the job upon learning that said heir was barely more than a child, and a girl to boot. Smee had only just managed to hire the last, and worst, crew that he interviewed: a motley assortment of characters desperate to make a name for themselves.

Jocelyn stood at the top of the gangplank as her men boarded the ship. Smee was on hand to make introductions and provide commentary. The first to arrive was One-Armed Jack.

The girl wondered at his unusual name. Unless her eyes were deceiving her, he had two good arms (though under her gaze he quickly tucked one inside his shirt), yet here he was introducing himself and saying, “Happy to meet you, Cap’n. I’d offer to shake your hand, but as I’ve only got the one, and it being full o’ me gear…”

Jocelyn thought to question his strange behavior, but she noticed Smee shaking his head. Instead she said, “Welcome aboard, Jack. You may stow your things below deck.”

As One-Armed Jack walked away, carrying his trunk in one hand and scratching his hindquarters with the other, Jocelyn turned to Smee and demanded, “What was that about?”

He ducked his head and replied, “Begging your pardon, miss, but your men have some…how shall we put this, Johnny? Some unusual characteristics. You see, they’ve not had much experience. Not like your regular crews. None of them have even been in a real battle, but that doesn’t stop them from wishing they had, so they, ah, pretend.”

“That’s ridiculous. Anyone with eyes could see that that man has two arms. How can he get away with pretending he doesn’t?”

Mr. Smee looked away, watching another pirate limp his way up the gangplank. “Ridiculous, yes, well, it might be a mite ridiculous—yet they all go along with it. You see, if, say, Jim McCraig with a Wooden Leg here,” he motioned to the man boarding the ship, “was to point out that Jack had two arms, then Jack could say that Jim doesn’t really have a wooden leg; he’s only got a corroded old sliver in his big toe. See there, that’s what causes the limp. So aye, it may be silly, but, begging your pardon, it works, see.”

At this point Jim McCraig with a Wooden Leg reached the deck. When he addressed his new captain, though, Jocelyn was hard-pressed to decipher much of what he said. His words appeared to be a delinquent cousin of English—faintly familiar, but mostly jumble and noise. She leaned over to Smee and whispered, “Is he pretending to have something wrong with his tongue as well?”

Smee whispered back, “No. In this case something really is wrong with his tongue: he’s Scottish. I believe he just introduced himself.”

Jocelyn turned back to Jim, considering. “Mr. McCraig, I see that you are missing one of your limbs. I hope its absence will not cause you to be lax in your duties, for I plan to run a tight ship and have no room for those who are unable to pull their own weight. You will be required to do as much as a sailor with two good legs.”

The man replied with another enthusiastic string of gibberish. Smee translated: “He says it won’t hold him back. Matter of fact, might be dead useful at times. Jim can tell when a storm is brewing by the phantom itch where his meat leg used to be.”

“Very good, Jim. Be sure and let me know if that happens.”

The crew was rounded out by the arrival of Nubbins, the cook, and Blind Bart, the ship’s lookout. Nubbins was the only crew member with a real battle wound. Smee explained that the man had lost his left thumb in an unfortunate cooking accident, but claimed that it had been bitten off by a giant squid. Nubbins liked to brag that he’d gotten his revenge by transforming the creature into a delicious dish of calamari with capers—served cold, of course.

Blind Bart seemed an unusual choice for lookout, as he wore patches over both eyes. His reasoning here was elegantly simple: if one eye patch made a pirate look fierce and dangerous, two would make him look doubly so. (The man also had a fear of drowning—an unfortunate quality in a sailor—but as even the stupidest toddler knows, covering your eyes makes you invisible. Thus, if the ocean couldn’t see him, it couldn’t get him.) Though her pirates were certainly odd, Jocelyn was in no position to turn even a single one away. She was running with a skeleton crew as it was. Her ship would need every man to do his part.

The young captain called her men together before they left the harbor. “Let the dreadful crocodile beware, for I now christen this ship the Hook’s Revenge. Hoist anchor, find the eye of the wind, and let’s be under way!”

The crew cheered. Mr. Smee cried. One-Armed Jack clumsily raised a black flag emblazoned with the image of a large red hook. The ship’s sails filled with wind, and she proudly set out to sea.