As soon as the Hook’s Revenge reached open waters, Jocelyn ordered her crew to gather on the main deck. “All right, you dogs, we are on an important and dangerous mission. As you know, my father, Captain James Hook…”

All the men shuddered.

“…is dead, viciously slain at the jaws of the Neverland’s crocodile. It is my duty—nay, my privilege—to avenge him. Who is with me?”

The crew whooped and hollered “Aye, aye, Captain!” (With the exception of Smee, who was still happily sobbing into his handkerchief.) Jocelyn felt heartened by their enthusiasm. With such spirit on her side, defeating the crocodile should be easy. She imagined how it might play out:

Jocelyn’s men would be gathered behind her, cheering. She would stroll up to the beast and tap it on the shoulder.…Do crocodiles have shoulders? They must; they have arms, don’t they? Or are they all legs?

She tried to remember what, if anything, she had read about crocodile anatomy. Nothing helpful came to mind. Making a mental note to look through her books, Jocelyn continued with her fantasy.

Shoulders or not, she’d tap it somewhere, and say, “Excuse me. You may remember eating my father, Captain Hook? I’m here to avenge his death. Farewell, hideous beast.” Then she would poke the creature with her sword and it would die. With its dying breath, it would say:

“CANNONBALL!”

Cannonball?

Jocelyn drew her attention back to the deck. It was in a state of utter pandemonium. A line of men had formed at the plank. They were using it as a diving board, hence the “cannonball” that had interrupted her daydream. A dripping-wet One-Armed Jack, apparently forgetting his missing arm, climbed up the anchor chain. Near the middle of the deck, as far as possible from the water, Blind Bart was trying to start a game of Marco Polo.

Smee was still crying.

The air was filled with shouts of me hearty, arr, and bucko as the men all tried to outpirate each other. Jocelyn needed to gain control before the crew tore her ship apart. She clapped her hands. She whistled. She stomped her foot. Nothing happened; the crew hardly noticed her.

“Attention on deck! The next to speak out of turn will…will walk the plank!” That did no good. With the exception of Bart, they all wanted to walk the plank.

“Settle down or I’ll keelhaul you!”

The only response she received from that was a chorus of “Me first!”

Jocelyn wondered what her father would think of her crew and felt ashamed. She climbed to the poop deck so as to tower over the foolish men below her. “Listen up, you miserable powder monkeys!” she roared. “Shut up and be still, or face my wrath!” The girl truly had no idea what her wrath might be, but neither did her crew. The men gave her their attention.

“We’re sorry, Mother,” she heard one of them say.

“Mother? Mother! Which of you dogs dares to call me mother?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “I am not your mother. I am your captain, and you would be wise to address me as such. We have no need for a mother on this ship. I have lived my entire life without one, and I never missed a thing. Are we clear on the matter?”

The crew nodded, wide-eyed, at their fierce captain.

“Men,” Jocelyn went on in a slightly calmer tone, “while your enthusiasm is not wholly unappreciated, your behavior is not befitting your station. This is no pleasure cruise! We must find and kill the Neverland’s crocodile. Any more of this foolishness and I will cast anchor in ye!”

Smee applauded wildly, looking fit to burst with pride. The rest of the men reluctantly joined in.

Jocelyn continued her speech. “The crocodile is dangerous. It is wily. We will need all our wits about us. We will need courage. We will need…” She stopped to consider what else would be necessary. “We will need to find it. Does anyone know where the beast lives? Mr. Smee?”

“No, Miss Captain, I’m afraid I don’t. We used to know it was around by the ticking clock in its belly—at least until the end.” He took off his spectacles and wiped his eyes. “The croc’s clock stopped ticking for a time, you know. That’s how the beast was able to…to do what it did to the poor captain. But it started ticking again soon after. Maybe we’ll hear it somewhere.”

Nubbins timidly raised his hand. “Cap’n Jo? I’m not sure of the truth of this, but someone from my dinner club—er, I mean my drinking, cussing, and carousing club—arr!”

The other men shouted “Arr!” in reply.

Jocelyn glared at them until they looked away, ashamed.

Nubbins went on, addressing his feet. “This fellow from my club went out to Salmagundi Island to gather cuttings of wild lavender, uh, to brew into a sort of, um, flower whiskey—potent stuff, it is. So he went out to gather the lavender and as he rowed away, he heard a ticking sound coming from one of the island’s sea caves. Scared him something terrible; thought it was a bomb, he did. Might not a been, though, right? It could be the croc’s on that island.”

The increase of pirates in the area since Captain Hook’s death had led to a need for more places to bury treasure and maroon people. To fill that need, the Neverland had broken off some pieces of itself and sent them out into the sea to form a smaller chain of islands. Salmagundi was the largest and most popular in the chain.

Blind Bart spoke up. “If there is a clock to be heard anywhere on, around, above, or below there, I will hear it.” (As he was unable to rely on his sense of sight, Bart made up for it with extraordinary hearing.)

No one had any better ideas on where to find the beast so Jocelyn set their heading for the long voyage to Salmagundi Island in order to look—or listen, as it were—for the crocodile.

“Tonight we feast!” Jocelyn called to her men.

Nubbins looked over the galley stores and whipped up a delightful meal: tarragon-scented salt pork with sauerkraut and hardtack topped with lime-ginger crème. One-Armed Jack passed out beverages, managing quite well with his one arm by switching to the other whenever he tired.

Jim McCraig sang, surprising Jocelyn and the rest of the crew with the clarity of his words. In song, strangely enough, his bizarre accent became quite easy to understand:

Yo ho ho and a bottle o’ rum,

My mum thinks I am jist a bum,

She hoped I’d become a social worker

But I’m a sailin’ mad berserker.…

I’ll ne’er go home again! Yo ho!

She can’t make me go home again!

It was the best party Jocelyn had ever attended. She ate with her fingers and threw her scraps to the floor. She danced on the table, soaking her skirts with grog and gravy. She sang along with her men, her sweet voice matching theirs in enthusiasm (and surpassing them in pitch), and found herself heartily agreeing—she never wanted to go home again either. The pirate life was even better than she had dreamed.