It did not take long for Roger and his fantastic Neverland map to find a safe place for the Hook’s Revenge to lie low. While en route, Jocelyn sat atop the poop deck at the aft of the ship, her legs dangling through the railing, heels drumming the rear timbers. The starry sky was spread out above her, the cold, dark sea beneath. She might have felt lost in all that vastness, had Roger not been nearby, taking a turn at the wheel. The rest of the crew were scattered below on the main deck, too keyed up from the evening’s dangers to think of sleep.

Jocelyn pulled her spyglass from the pouch at her waist where she kept it, along with a few other important things: flint and steel, a claw from the Neverland crocodile, two unusually pretty rocks, and a phoenix tail feather she had found on the island. The girl scanned the waters behind them, searching for any sign of Krueger’s ship, Calypso’s Nightmare.

“How far are we from that hidden cove you found, Mr. Navigator?” she asked Roger.

The boy consulted his map, holding it up to one of the ship’s lanterns. He checked what he saw against his pocket compass. “Not far now, Captain. We should be there within the hour—provided the Neverland doesn’t decide to turn it into a cape or peninsula.” He grinned at Jocelyn, clearly caught up in the adventure of it all.

She felt the same spark of excitement for a moment, but it fizzled. “I hate that we are hiding from Krueger like a pack of cowards.”

“I know.” Roger took another look at his map and compass, and, apparently satisfied that the ship was on course, abandoned the helm to come sit next to her. “But maybe you are looking at it the wrong way. We’re not hiding; we’re exercising stealth. Once we are settled in a secure place, away from any distraction Krueger may provide, we’ll be free to solve that clue your father left on the map.”

His words cheered the girl. That’s right—she was no coward! She was simply focusing on getting what she wanted. Jocelyn thought back to the advice she had received from her mother—or at least the spirit of her mother—before she fought the crocodile: Decide what you want. Believe you can have it. Don’t let anything get in your way.

The girl wanted her father’s treasure. It was the key to the future she planned for herself and, since she was Hook’s only heir, it was her birthright—not only the treasure itself, but the getting of it. This was her adventure. She wouldn’t let Krueger, or anything, keep it from her.

She bumped Roger with her shoulder. “Thanks. I can always count on you to help me feel better.”

He winked at her. “That’s what best friends do. Now, have you given any more thought to what that clue might mean?”

She repeated the words they had seen float to the surface of the map: “‘You will not find the treasure lying safe within its place until you find the key that lies behind my face.…’” She shook her head and frowned. “I have no idea, but I’m going to ask Smee his opinion.”

Mr. Smee had sailed with Jocelyn’s father for years and was still deeply mourning his loss. Better than anyone Jocelyn had met on the Neverland, he knew Captain Hook.

Roger tapped her locket. “Maybe he has a portrait like yours hidden under his shirt.”

She giggled. “Either that or under his pillow. Since we don’t appear to be in mortal danger at the moment, perhaps I’ll ask him now.”

Roger resumed his place at the wheel as the girl got up to call Smee to the poop deck, but before she could, another pirate climbed the ladder and stood before her. The scowl on Dirty Bob’s face could have curdled milk, if his ugliness hadn’t already done the job.

He removed his sterling-silver double cigar holder—a gift from Jocelyn to apologize for smashing his pocket watch—from the corner of his mouth and tapped the ash to the deck. “I’ve a thing or two to say, Cap’n.”

She placed her hands on her hips and glared up at the pirate. “I have some things to say to you as well, Bob, but I’m busy just now.”

Jocelyn tried to step around him, but he blocked her. “This won’t take more’n a minute,” he said. “I don’t like what we’re doing here. Real pirates don’t turn tail and run at the first sign of trouble. And they don’t hide, neither.”

The girl stood a little straighter and glared a little harder. “We aren’t hiding. We are using stealth!”

Roger nodded in agreement.

“Besides that,” Jocelyn went on, “I had to protect the map, not that I asked your opinion on the matter.”

“Oh, yes, the map. The map that you can’t read.” He softened his voice a bit. “Unless yer visit to the mapmaker proved to be successful?”

Jocelyn caught Roger’s eye and gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Between Dirty Bob’s surliness and Nubbins’s earlier blabbing, she didn’t feel it was wise to share what they’d learned with the entire crew. “Not just yet,” she said, “but we’ve made some progress.”

Bob’s voice resumed its surliness. “Progress!” he scoffed. “In the meantime, you’ve not a sliver of gold left to line your purse.”

“She has you to thank for that!” Roger spoke up.

“That’s right!” Jocelyn agreed. “What were you thinking, Bob, goading those men into attacking the crew?”

“Goating? I did no such thing! There wasn’t a single goat there.” He spat on the deck, next to his growing pile of ashes. “And as for the fighting, your men need the experience. It’s not good for them to be so weak. It goes against the Pirate Code.”

Jocelyn’s hand strayed toward the map in her pocket. “The code? Like on the map?”

“Not like on yer map.” Dirty Bob let out an exasperated huff. “You don’t know what the Code is? The Custom of the Coast?”

Jocelyn shook her head.

“The Jamaica Discipline? The Charter Party? The Code of Brotherhood?”

The girl shrugged. She didn’t know a thing about it, which truly was a gross oversight on her part. I’m sure it was mentioned a time or two in her adventure books, but she often skipped over the least bloody parts—not that I much blame her for that.

Dirty Bob threw up his hands. “I knew when ye signed me that you and yer men were a bit green, but by thunder, I never woulda guessed you don’t even know what the Code is!” He caught Roger’s eye. “I’ll bet the boy knows, though—don’t you, boy?”

Roger gave Jocelyn an apologetic look. “I did hear my father say a thing or two about it. Yes.”

“All right then, everyone knows except me,” Jocelyn snapped. “Perhaps one of you could fill me in?”

“I’ll tell you,” Bob said. “The Pirate Code is a code of conduct, a list of rules, so to speak. Each ship should have her own…” He gave Jocelyn a pointed look. She responded by yawning in his face. He scowled and continued: “But even if’n they don’t, there’s still a general sort of code that every pirate subscribes to. Things like ‘Every man is to obey his cap’n,’ ‘A pirate’s primary concern should be getting more gold, best if procured by theft and/or murder,’ and ‘No women or children are to be brought aboard the ship.’”

Jocelyn opened her mouth to object, but he plowed right on. “Now, since you’re the cap’n and all, an’ the daughter of Hook hisself, I looked the other way on that one. Maybe I was right to do it; maybe I wasn’t. But the others, those can’t be gone back on. Which brings me to my reason for coming to you: It’s time to go out, sack a ship or two, and fill our coffers. Your men need more experience fighting, and you need the money.”

Jocelyn was no fool. She knew that piracy meant stealing from merchant ships. But in the course of that, people often got hurt. Innocent people. Sailors—sailors like Roger’s father—sometimes didn’t come home because of pirates. Jocelyn had no desire for that kind of life. “I’ll have plenty of gold when we find the treasure.”

“But the Code—”

“I’m not interested in you, or some Code, telling me what I am supposed to be. If I wanted someone ordering me around all the time, I’d go home and spend my days at finishing school.”

“Cap’n—”

“That’s right, I am the captain. And your precious Code says you must obey me. You would do well to remember it.” Jocelyn took a step toward Bob, deliberately crowding him. He took a small step back. She might have been a young girl, but at the moment, every inch of her was a captain. “I’ve nothing more to say to you just now, but watch yourself, Dirty Bob.”

He tapped his ash to the deck again. “Aye, Cap’n,” he said, but his eyes held a challenge.

She looked at the mess with distaste. “You’ve just earned yourself extra deck-swabbing duty this week. You are dismissed.”

Without a word, Dirty Bob climbed down from the deck.

“That didn’t go so well,” Roger said.

Jocelyn sighed, removing her air of captainship as another might remove a hat. “I know. I hope things will settle down when we get the treasure hunt under way. Speaking of which…” She stepped to the front of the poop deck and surveyed the crew just in time to see Dirty Bob go below deck, slamming the hatch with a bang.

In the ship’s lights, she spied Jim McCraig seated nearby, his “wooden leg” propped up on one of the new dinghies Blind Bart had purchased in the pirate village. Jim was carrying on an ear-assaulting conversation with his parrot. Bart, presumably because of his sensitive hearing, had wrapped his head in wool blankets and climbed to the crow’s nest, where he was ever so gently pounding his forehead into the railing. One-Armed Jack had gotten his plunger stuck to the mizzenmast and was loudly appealing to Nubbins to set him free. Nubbins obliged by whacking the stick end of the plunger with a meat cleaver, freeing Jack from both his predicament and his substitute limb.

The girl had grown quite fond of her crew, but at times she wondered about them. For a bunch of grown men, they certainly acted like children.

Her eye found Mr. Smee, who was taking no notice of the shenanigans happening around him. He was calmly making his rounds, inspecting the ship’s sails.

“Mr. Smee, a word?” Jocelyn called.

The man gave her an injured look.

“I mean, Smee, get your scurvy-riddled carcass up here! I need to speak with you.”

Smee beamed. He clambered onto the deck as quickly as his portly body would allow. “Aye, Miss Cap’n. Happy to be of service. What can I do for you?”

“I have a question. When Roger and I visited the mapmaker, we learned something about how to find the treasure.”

“Ah, the treasure! Johnny and me, we wish we could be more help to you on that one, but the captain never let us know a thing about it. He didn’t want to have to kill us for knowing too much. Wasn’t that good of him?” Smee teared up, overjoyed at the memory of not being murdered.

Roger began to laugh, but a look from Jocelyn convinced him to turn it into a cough.

“Not killing you was good of my father,” Jocelyn said. “And good for him as well. He couldn’t have gotten by without you.”

Smee nearly burst his buttons, he was so swelled with pride (and a lifetime of extra dinner helpings).

“Still,” Jocelyn went on, “Roger and I think you might be able to help. There was a hidden message on the map, a clue to solving the code. We thought you might know what it means.” Jocelyn recited the clue for the man. “Do you have any idea what key he is talking about?”

“Behind my face…behind my face…” Mr. Smee scrunched up his own face, thinking.

“The part about a key is not likely to be a way to open locks, but instead, how to solve the code,” Roger said.

“Behind my face…” Smee’s cheeks grew red with effort. Jocelyn grew concerned.

“I’ve got it!” he shouted, and the girl’s excitement soared. “To my way of thinking,” he went on, “the key has got to be on the back of his portrait.”

Jocelyn’s excitement crashed to the ground. “We thought about that,” she said, “but there wasn’t anything there.” She opened her locket and held it up. “Unless you have another one?”

Mr. Smee barely gave it a passing glance. “If you don’t mind me saying so, miss, I didn’t mean that one. I was talking about the great one he had hanging over his bed on the Jolly Roger. The captain loved that painting with all his dark heart. He wouldn’t even let me dust it, ’cept for only once or twice a year. Too important to him to risk anything happening to it, he said.”

“That has to be it!” Jocelyn cried, nearly dancing with glee. “All we have to do is find that painting. The key to breaking the code is sure to be on the back. We’ll finally be able to read the map, and the treasure will be as good as ours!” But then the rest of Mr. Smee’s words caught up with her, and she frowned. “But Smee, where is the Jolly Roger? What happened to it after my father died?”

“I’m afraid only one person knows the answer to that, miss. You’ll have to ask Peter Pan.”