Lewis’s legs felt wobbly as he climbed the stairs to Libertalia that night. The pirates must have heard his whole conversation with Abbie. They must have heard him tell her that Shornoway was haunted. Would they be angry?

They turned out to be much more interested in the dog.

“Best to keep dogs out of here, lad,” said Moyle, nodding sagely. “Dogs can feel things what humans miss.”

“Can’t keep no secret from a dog,” agreed Jonas.

“Nor from a rat!” added Jack, sniffing at Lewis’s clothing.

What upset them much more was the news about Shornoway.

“Nawww!” groaned Crawley, rearing back in disbelief. “We saw them reely-statey people with our own eyes today when they pranced theirselves through this tower. We didn’t like a hair of them, lad, not a hair! And now they’re going to tear down Shornoway? A lovely manse like this? Why, it’s practically new!”

Adam nodded. “I remembers like yesterday when they put in the windows. All these high ones here, and them others downstairs with the stained and leaded glass. Pretty as a cathedral! It were the grandest house on the whole coast.”

“Still is,” said Bellows loyally. “There ain’t no call to tear it down. Better we tears off the heads of those reely-statey people. That’s what I thinks!”

“Aye,” growled Jack. “Tear off their heads!”

“Aye! Aye!” cried the others.

Lewis couldn’t help being sympathetic, but he felt obliged to step in. “There will be no tearing off of heads. This is the twenty-first century. We don’t do that.”

“We don’t do that,” imitated Jack in a high, mincy voice.

Hoping to distract them, Lewis opened Treasure Island. Within minutes, they were transported to distant Southern Seas. The ship had reached the island now, with its thundering surf and its windless, sweltering heat. Reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s words, Lewis was as captivated as the pirates.

But the longer he read, the more he wished it were him on that island. Jim Hawkins had problems, true, but bad as they were, they didn’t seem nearly as complicated as his own. And now he had Abbie to worry about, too—a girl whose main talent was talking! Would she keep his secret?

And would he have to talk to her now at school?

He didn’t. The moment Lewis stepped through the doors of Tandy Bay Elementary, shyness enveloped him like an old familiar cloak. His habit of ducking people was so strong that even if Abbie had wanted to talk to him, she wouldn’t have had a chance.

Lewis watched her, though, especially when she was with friends. Was she telling? If so, surely they’d be staring at him—a boy who had ghosts in his house. But his classmates continued to ignore him.

For the next week, heavy rain kept Tandy Bay students inside. Lewis hid in the library during breaks. He discovered some new books about pirates in the non-fiction section. One even had a page about Libertalia.

The rain also saved him from Seth, who came into the library only when he had to. Still, Lewis couldn’t avoid him entirely. One morning, when Ms. Forsley’s back was turned, Seth stuck his foot into the aisle as Lewis passed, sending Lewis crashing onto a small, awkward girl named Charlene. Lewis grabbed Charlene’s shoulder to steady himself, and his face nearly touched hers. The other kids laughed—it must have looked like kissing. Charlene looked ready to cry.

Abbie passed back a note. Why do you let him?

Lewis bristled. What did she know, anyway? He was actually getting off easily with Seth these days.

The library was like a cocoon. He hoped the stormy weather would last. As long as it rained, he could let himself relax—which he did, with the result that he was completely unprepared for what happened next.

It was early on a Friday morning. Announcements droned through the classroom speaker. Abbie gazed out the window. Lewis, bored, wondered about the painted sticks that held her hair in a knot at the back of her head. Were they chopsticks?

Suddenly, Abbie stiffened. Her eyes opened wide.

Lewis followed her gaze to the window. At first, he didn’t see anything. Then, in the lower right corner, he spotted a flash of neon orange.

A shiver ran through him. He knew that color. Crawley’s new baseball cap!

No, he thought, closing his eyes. Hearing a gasp behind him, he looked again, in time to see the captain’s ravaged face appear in the classroom window, the peak on his cap dripping with rain. Seeing that he’d caught Lewis’s attention, Crawley winked—which, in his case, meant closing his only working eye. The missing eye was now covered by his new eye patch, which he had adopted with great pleasure after Abbie’s visit.

Someone near Lewis laughed nervously.

Ms. Forsley glanced up from her attendance book. “Abbie? Is there a problem?”

Abbie shook her head. Ms. Forsley returned to her task.

Glancing out again, Lewis froze in horror. Standing beside Crawley, looking frightened, was Barnaby Bellows. He was drenched to the skin in an undersized yellow sweatshirt, and he clung to the captain’s arm as he squinted through the window. Both pirates were searching for—Lewis suddenly understood—him! Crawley was pointing and speaking. Lewis couldn’t hear the words, but he could guess. Lookee there, Bellows. There’s the lad at his schoolwork. Ain’t he a sight?

The room filled with whispers and titters as more kids spotted the strangers. Bellows’s size alone was enough to draw gasps, not to mention his skin color. Fear had given his skin an eerie, greenish glow.

“What’s going on?” Ms. Forsley glanced around, then turned to the window.

Gone.

No, thought Lewis, overwhelmed by a feeling of doom. Not gone.

Still out there.

Hiding. Waiting.

He held up his hand.

Ms. Forsley frowned. “Yes, Lewis?”

“May I please go to the washroom?”

She nodded.

He forced himself to walk to the classroom door. There was a splutter, then a squawk, from the speaker, and the announcements died. Once in the hall, Lewis broke into a run, slowing only when he reached the office. Some kind of commotion was going on inside. He quick-walked past and crashed through the heavy front door. Outside, he bent into a crouch to stay below the windows as he hurried along the front wall. Rain pelted his back and head. Rounding the corner, he saw the pirates—still peeking into his classroom, their backs turned.

They must have followed him to school. How many classrooms had they peeked into first? Were they the cause of the fuss in the office? He scrambled along the wall, staying low.

When he tapped Bellows’s arm, the pirate let out a yell that could have been heard in Shornoway. “GARRRRRR!”

“Shhhh!” hissed Lewis, waving both hands. “Be quiet! Captain Crawley, what are you doing here?”

Crawley joined Lewis in a crouch.

“Welllll,” he drawled, not the slightest bit concerned, “the boys was getting a mite nervy about leaving, so I thought it best to give them—just one at a time, like—a bit of practice. So as not to be such a shock when we leaves for good.”

“Shock?” cried Lewis. “Shock? What do you call this?” He waved at his classroom window. Then he glanced over his shoulder, wondering how long it would take for the principal to show up, followed by a posse of teachers.

“Don’t get yourself in a stir, lad. We’re just testing the waters, so to speak. Trying out these new garments. It’s a grand thing for Bellows here and—”

“Bellows?” said Lewis incredulously. “This isn’t for Bellows! This is for you, Captain Crawley, because you’re bored with staying home. You’re starting to enjoy being out in the world, aren’t you, now that you’re not so scared anymore? Bellows? Look at him. He’s a wet noodle!”

Barnaby Bellows, who had indeed been looking wilted and noodle-ish, drew himself up to his full eight feet. “Noodle?” he said.

Lewis was aware, in his peripheral vision, of faces in the window.

“Get down,” he begged Bellows. “Please! You shouldn’t be here. Go home!”

A cloud of stubbornness came over Crawley’s face. He rose and planted his feet firmly in the gravel. Beside him, Bellows crossed arms thick as tree trunks over his chest.

Ms. Forsley was in the window frame now. She was beckoning.

“Go!” Lewis told the pirates. “Now! Or …” He searched frantically for a threat. “Or I’ll stop reading Treasure Island. You’ll never know the ending. Ever!”

Their faces crumpled.

“Nah!” said Bellows, in disbelief.

Giddy with power, Lewis rose to his full height. “Go! I mean it. Now!”

The pirates lingered, uncertain. Then slowly they retreated across the playground, whispering and bumping into one another.

Lewis forced himself to look at his classroom window. They were standing there, watching. Everybody. His whole class.

He sighed heavily. Then he trudged back to the front door, shivering in his wet clothes. Mrs. Chan, the principal, was in her office, looking agitated. When she spotted Lewis, she called out. He broke into a run. Reaching his classroom, he burst through the door and slid neatly into his desk.

The only sound was his heart beating.

“Lewis?” Ms. Forsley’s voice was a few notes higher than normal. “May I speak to you, please?”

Legs shaky, he walked to her desk.

“Carry on with your work,” she told the class. Of course, no one so much as shuffled a paper.

“Lewis, Abbie says that man … one of those men … is your uncle. Visiting from Los Angeles?”

Lewis glanced at Abbie. He swallowed hard. “Uh, yes.”

“Well, I don’t know how they do things in Los Angeles, but here in Tandy Bay Elementary, we have rules about school visitors. If your uncle wants to talk to you, Lewis, if there’s some emergency—”

“No emergency,” Lewis whispered, but with the room so silent, he knew they could all hear. “He just didn’t understand.”

“I see,” said Ms. Forsley. “But, of course, you understand, Lewis, that you’re not supposed to leave the building without permission.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. He—my uncle—he gets it now.”

“I see,” said Ms. Forsley again, although it was clear she didn’t see at all. Her face was very pink. If it got any pinker, it would look like his. “Take your seat, Lewis.”

At that moment, Mrs. Chan popped her head through the door. She was panting, and it took her a moment to speak. “Everything all right here?”

Ms. Forsley cleared her throat. “Fine. I’ll explain later.”

Lewis slumped low in his seat, wishing he had the pirates’ gift of invisibility. As Ms. Forsley drew a diagram on the board, he had an itchy feeling, as if dozens of eyes were boring into the back of his head.

He turned.

Dozens of eyes were boring. The most obvious were Seth’s. His eyes were bugging out, the whites showing prominently.

Lewis turned away in a panic. But the thought that followed was simple and clear.

How could the other kids not stare? After what had just happened? He’d been arguing with two ghosts from the eighteenth century in full view of his entire class. What did he expect?

He took a deep breath. Then another. Catching his eye, Ms. Forsley asked him a question about the problem on the board. It was a yes-or-no question.

Lewis felt the familiar heat race through his body. He felt the red in his skin.

“Yes,” he said after a moment. His voice squeaked, but only a little. No one laughed.

He sat up straight. Took another breath.

The hot feeling eased.