Tried to tell you, Pucci chortled on Zander’s shoulder. Tried to tell.
“Shhh,” we all hissed at him.
Joyce put her finger to her lips again and whispered, “I went to look for water and when I came back, six pirates were storming the beach and tying everyone up. There are more out in the harbor. I managed to stay out of sight, and they don’t know I’m here.”
“Unless Lazlo told them,” Sukey whispered.
“Unless Lazlo told them,” Joyce admitted. She was wearing her green bandanna tied pirate-style around her head again.
Zander craned his neck to try to see the beach, but we were still too far away. He silently pointed up the hillside and then pointed two fingers at his eyes—we needed to climb higher in order to see what was going on. Joyce nodded and we all crept up through the flowering bushes until we were up above the beach, behind a rocky outcropping, with a good view of the camp.
It was Monty Brioux.
I recognized his long red hair and purple cloak. And I recognized his shiny red alligator-skin boots. He had five pirates with him, three men and two women, all of them dressed in leather boots and bright Neo clothes, their hairlights and facelights blinking and flashing.
I counted four additional pirates on the deck of the catamaran out in the bay. I held up ten fingers and Zander nodded. They were ten to our five. Not good odds.
At the back of the beach, Monty Brioux stood before Leo Nackley, whose hands were tied together behind his back. Brioux was smiling broadly and training a huge chrome-and-brass pistol on him. Not far away, the three other pirates guarded Lazlo, Jack, and Kemal, whose hands were tied together like Leo Nackley’s. They were all lined up on the sand.
I carefully slid my spyglass out of my vest pocket and focused on Brioux and Leo Nackley, then pressed the button of the listening device. “—would be a fine thing, wouldn’t it, to ransom the famous Explorer Leo Nackley.” Brioux’s voice rang out of the tiny speakers on my spyglass, loud enough for all of us to hear. “I was hoping you had found the oil for me, but a hostage may do just as nicely. I wonder how much money BNDL would pay for you, Mr. N. We’ll find out once we sail back to St. Beatrice.”
“They’re on their way,” Leo Nackley said. “In fact, they’ll be here any minute and I don’t think they’ll be very happy to see you.”
Monty Brioux let out a loud laugh. “They’ll never make it. We’ll see them before they see us, and they’ll be sorry they ever sailed these waters.” He brandished his pistol in the air.
Now it was Leo Nackley’s turn to laugh. “You have no idea,” he told them, his pale face sweaty and exhausted. “They aren’t coming in a fishing boat.”
“Well, either way, we’re ready for them. You and your son will fetch a tidy sum. Now, sit there and don’t move.”
The two female pirates were standing closer to us and now Monty Brioux approached them. The first one was a short, wiry woman with spiky blue hair and a blue cape. She looked lithe and fast and had a little dagger tucked into her belt. The other woman was much taller, wearing a long dress that was tattered and dirty at the bottom. She had bright pink hair in tangled braids and a scowl on her face.
“All right,” Monty Brioux said in a low voice. “He says BNDL’s coming, so we’ve got to wrap this up. Bluebird: you, Rascal, and Hickory take the Nackleys out to the ship. I’ll stay behind to deal with the other two.”
“Okay, but what are you going to do with them?” asked the small blue-haired woman. When she turned my way, I could see a pistol holstered next to the little dagger and a Longsword jammed into the other side of her belt. She kept a hand on the pistol while she talked.
“What do you think?” Monty replied. “No reason to let them live. I’ll dump their bodies in the ocean and no one ever needs to know. We’ll tell the Nackleys we’re leaving them behind on the island so they don’t get too excited. Now go. Pearl,” he turned to the tall pirate with the braids, “you stay with me.”
Through the spyglass, I watched Bluebird walk down the beach toward the three male pirates who were guarding Lazlo, Jack, and Kemal near the tents.
“Hey, Rascal. Stop that,” she called to a tall man dressed in many shades of green. His kelp-green hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and his aqua leather boots reached up to his knees. He had Lazlo with his back against a palm tree, and held a wicked-looking dagger out in front of him, jabbing it into the tree, inches from Lazlo’s neck, again and again. Lazlo’s expression of terror seemed to strike the pirate as hilarious, and he laughed hysterically each time Lazlo flinched.
“Monty told you not to be an idiot,” Bluebird said, slamming the palm of her hand against his upper arm.
She pulled him away from Lazlo and through the spyglass, I could hear her whisper: “Monty wants to take your boy there and his father out to the ship. The other two are fish food, okay?”
“Okay.” He smiled and moved his feet in a happy little dance, as though the idea that he’d get to kill Jack and Kemal had made his day.
“In the meantime, Rascal, don’t do anything stupid,” Bluebird said. We watched as she stepped over to the other two pirates, who were also guarding Lazlo, Jack, and Kemal. One of them was short and fat, with long red hair hanging loose to his shoulders. He wore glasses with blue lenses and a woven cap that he’d bent into the shape of a captain’s hat.
“Morris,” Bluebird barked. “You and Rascal are staying here to finish off the collateral once we’ve made the trade.” Then she grinned at the other pirate, a lanky straw-haired boy with a huge pistol strapped across his bare chest. She said to him, “This is your lucky day, Hickory. You and I get to take the most precious cargo out to the ship with Pearl and Monty.”
I turned and looked at the others to see if they’d heard everything. The expression on their faces told me they had. We all nodded and made our way back to the far beach to make a plan.
“If it were just the Nackleys, I’d be inclined to let Monty Brioux go ahead and ransom them,” Zander said, pacing around. “But you heard what they said about Kemal and Jack. We’ve got to do something.”
“But what can we do?” I said. “There are ten of them and five of us. And they have weapons and—”
We all looked down at the swords that Joyce still had tucked into her belt. She smiled and handed one to Zander. When he pulled it out of its hilt, it gleamed in the early sunlight.
He swung it at the low-hanging branch of a palm tree and it sliced the branch in two with a neat snick. Joyce pulled the other sword out of its sheath and got into her fencing stance, holding the blade out in front of her and swinging it a few times to test its weight. I knew it was heavy, but she wielded it gracefully. “Okay, Zander West, how are we going to do this?”
Zander thought for a moment. “We need a two-pronged attack,” he said. “From the water and from the woods on the sides of the beach. It’s the only way. We might have a chance at fighting them if we can trap them on the beach. Here.” He drew a little map in the sand, making an X to represent the zone between water and beach. “M.K., what do you think? Can Amy help us out from the water? She was pretty banged up.”
M.K. pushed her bangs out of her eyes and broke out into a big grin. “Of course she can! I may have to make a few adjustments, but I think she’ll be fine.”
“Great. Now, our only hope is to force them toward the water and then take them out one at a time. Joyce and I are handiest with the swords.” Sukey frowned and said nothing, and Zander went on, “It’s just true, Suke. If we needed a pilot, you’d be my choice all the way. But right now, we need to figure out how to make it so Joyce and I aren’t taking on all six of them at the same time. We need you and Kit to distract a couple of them and draw them away from their friends. This may be the most important part of the plan. There are more of them than there are of us, but we can even things up if we can attack while their attention is elsewhere.” He drew a little arrow at one side of his diagram. “Walk out onto the beach here as though you have no idea what’s going on, as though you were just out for a walk and you’re coming back. At least two of them will go for you. Hopefully they’ll just try to tie you up.”
“Hopefully?”
Zander waved the stick. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they won’t shoot you or anything. Once a few of them are occupied with you, then Joyce and I will come down on the other side of the beach and take out the other ones. Then we’ll loop back around and rescue you two. Joyce, what do you think? Can the two of us take on the remaining four pirates?”
Joyce took the stick from him and ran it along the diagram, thinking. “Or if we wait for the woman with the blue hair and the short one and the shirtless guy to get into the boats with the Nackleys, we’ll only have Brioux and the other man and Pearl to deal with. But I’m worried that if we wait that long, we’re putting Kemal and Jack’s lives in danger. Brioux has a pistol—when he sees us coming, he might decide to just get them out of the way. I think you’re right—we need to make our move. Zander and I will attack from the back of the beach. If we can drive them to the water, then M.K. can help take them out once she’s dealt with their ship. Kit and Sukey, you’ll need to untie the Nackleys and Jack and Kemal so they can help us. Okay?” We nodded.
Zander silently traced his stick across the map, making little arrows and lines. I figured that he was weighing the different options for the attack, thinking through all the possible outcomes.
“Okay,” he said finally. “It’s decided.”
M.K. got into Amy and we all helped to push the submersible back into the water. M.K. started the engine and we waved to her through the glass as she disappeared under the surface of the water.
Zander reached out to touch Sukey’s cheek, then patted me on the shoulder. “You guys okay? You know what you need to do?” We nodded. I didn’t like the way Sukey held his gaze a couple of seconds longer than she needed to.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s get going already.”
We walked silently along the path back to the beach. I was terrified, my heart beating, my hands shaking. When we reached the edge of the beach, Sukey squeezed my hand. “Think of it this way,” she whispered. “For the rest of our lives, we’ll be able to tell the story of the time we fended off a wicked band of pirates.”