Wrong Place (Really) Wrong Time Page 3
“Yes! These scarves will automatically change the clothes you’re wearing to those of another time period, to help you blend in. They’ll also enable you to understand and communicate in whatever language is being used. They’re invaluable, really. And for this mission, I’ll feel safer knowing you have them with you, even though yours are in beta phase, which means we’re still testing them.”
“But we can’t wear them!” Patrick exclaims. “The pirates would take one look at us and think we were wackos in these nutty scarves.”
Ms. Tremt ignores the implied insult and says, “That’s why I had them made out of special nano-fabric, which is invisible to everyone except your fellow time travelers and compresses into a small ball. You can keep them in your pocket. Then, in an emergency, just wrap one around yourself, and you’ll instantly blend in. No one will see the scarf at all. And, if you take them off, boomf! You zip right back to the present if you’re wearing anything invented after the time period you’re visiting. You can’t bring anything from the future into the past. Or, at least, that’s the idea.”
“Then how come we can see your scarf?” I ask. I’ve never heard of invisible scarves that are only invisible to some people. Although I’ve never heard much about real time travel either, come to think of it. Ms. Tremt is like a pioneer.
“Mine are extra special,” Ms. Tremt says. “The ones I’m giving you are the new student model.”
“Oh, okay, then,” I say, tucking a small ball of scarf into my pocket. Patrick does the same thing.
“Are you ready?” she asks.
I look at Patrick, and he looks at me, and we both sort of shrug. I do feel authentic in my stinky pirate gear. And with the scarf in my pocket, I feel like I have a little bit of extra luck with me too.
“We’re ready,” I say.
“The time is now one p.m. Remember, you can only stay for three hours,” Ms. Tremt warns. “If you stay longer than that, you can’t travel back. Your time window closes.”
“Got it,” Patrick and I reply.
Ms. Tremt grins and opens The Book of Memories. She writes Luis Ramirez and Patrick McMann. Immediately the book sparkles, and the words Where would you like to go today? appear on the title page, just like in her demonstration. Ms. Tremt holds the pen for a moment, then writes, February 1698, the Quedagh Merchant.
“The Quedagh Merchant!” I say. “Awesome!” I turn to Patrick to explain. “It was a rich Indian cargo ship, loaded with silks, spices, and gold. Kidd and his crew captured it, then sank their own ship, and set sail on the Quedagh back to the Caribbean with all of its treasure.”
“So there’s actual treasure on the ship?” Patrick asks. “Wow, that really is awesome.”
“Stay clear of the treasure,” Ms. Tremt warns. “If you appear too interested in it, the captain might get worried you’re thieves, and trust me when I say you won’t like what pirates do to thieves.”
“Yes, Ms. Tremt,” Patrick and I reply in unison. Ms. Tremt explains that The Book of Memories will start to glow when we have exactly ten minutes left in the past. We will need to find a private place to let the book grow and jump back into the present.
The book is still sparkling and shimmering, only now it’s starting to grow. Ms. Tremt holds it up against the wall as it grows into a huge tableau, just as it had earlier with Michelangelo. Only this time I see a giant wooden vessel with billowing sails, and I can hear the shouts and laughter of men on board. Not just men, pirates.
For a second, I doubt myself. Did I just make the stupidest decision of my—
BOOMF!
I feel a jolt, and suddenly Patrick and I are standing on the deck of the Quedagh! There are men everywhere, manning the sails and rigging, carrying ropes, doing chores. The sea air is invigorating, and I lay my head back and close my eyes just to take it in. I can’t even smell Patrick and myself anymore because we’re out on the ocean, and its salty, bracing smell is completely overpowering.
In fact, I realize this is the first I’ve ever really been out on the ocean. I’ve been on some powerboats on rivers, or lakes, but I’ve never been on a real ship, let alone an old-fashioned wooden merchant ship in the middle of the ocean, with nothing around us but miles and miles and miles of water. The sight is amazing. Patrick is taking it all in too, and he looks over at me and grins, getting into the spirit of the adventure. The ship rocks and rolls with the movement of the water, and I bend my knees slightly so I can keep my balance. How do sailors and pirates sleep on ships? It must be impossible. This thing is moving constantly. It’s like being on roller skates and going up and down hills, except that I’m standing still.
I move to the edge of the ship to look over the side when I feel a giant hand on my shoulder grab me and turn me around.
It’s Captain William Kidd! I’m looking right up into his face, and he looks nothing like his pictures. The ones I’ve see online are just sketches or portraits, with him in his fancy gentleman’s clothes and wig. But this is Kidd at sea, and he’s in a dirty jacket and breeches, a real pirate hat on his head and a real sword by his side. A sharp one.
He doesn’t look happy to see me.
“Who are ye and what are ye doing on me ship?” he growls. “Tell me quick, lad, before I throw ye overboard.”
Kidd stares down at me, his large, hairy, pirate-y hand on my neck, and I know that it’s up to me to save us. I have to think quickly and come up with one heck of a story, like Rafael always tells me I do.
Beside me, Patrick says nothing, but his face looks sick with worry. It gives me an idea.
“I’m sorry, Captain,” I manage to sputter out. “Me and old, uh, Patrick, here are the new kitchen lads ye brought on in, uh, Madagascar. But we’re seasick, ye see, so we’ve been hidin’ down below, waitin’ for our bellies to stop quiverin’.”
I thank my lucky stars I reread part of Treasure Island last night and hope I sound like I belong on a ship. Robert Louis Stevenson better have gotten his details right, or I’m going overboard.
Kidd is silent for a moment, studying me, so I add, “We just came up on deck to get a bit of fresh air, as we’re feeling a wee bit better.”
Patrick jumps in. “We’re ready to get to work now, Captain, if ye wish.”
He sounds so perfectly in character that I want to give him a hug. Patrick McMann, Secret Pirate.
Kidd gives us both a shove in the back, not gentle, but not rough either, and snarls, “Argh! Get to work, then, laddies. And don’t let me catch ye again, standing around with your hands empty, staring up at the sky. Plenty o’ work on this ship, ye hear?”
“Yes, Captain!” we both shout, and I lead Patrick toward the hole in the deck where we’ve seen men coming up and down the ladder that leads below.
“Nice work!” Patrick whispers to me as we scoot down the ladder into a dark hallway. “How did you come up with that story about being seasick so fast?”
“Easy—I looked at your face, and you looked like you were about to puke.”
I flash him a smile as we make our way down the hallway. In the enclosed area, I can smell our clothes again, along with possibly hundreds of other bad smells. How do these pirates stand it? Do they stay up on deck on all day?
We walk right into what looks like the kitchen, which is small, with an old woodstove and shelves filled with square, wooden plates. There’s a wizened old man there, dressed in an outfit very similar to ours, and he’s drinking something from a dirty silver cup, and grumbling.
“Hello,” I say boldly. “We’re the new, uh, kitchen lads, but we’ve been seasick since we left port. Captain Kidd told us to report to ye and, uh, help out.”
“Eh?” the man replies, cupping a hand behind his ear. He looks at us blankly.
I repeat the story, making motions that we’ll help him. He seems to be half deaf, because he finally just swats a hand at us and shrugs.
“Fine, then,” he says. “Time to make supper. Ye run to the hold and bring up bags of tack, cheese, and salted beef.”
“Uh, yessir,” Patrick replies, standing up straight, as if he were about to salute. I do the same, and we scamper off to find the hold.
Luckily, all the books I’ve read about pirates taught me a few things about pirate ships. The stern, or rear of the ship, has four decks and houses the captain’s quarters. The bow, the front of the ship, is the front deck, which is usually a bit higher than the rest of the top deck, to give the sailors a good view. Most of the crew have their sleeping quarters there. Some sleep in hammocks slung from the ceilings. Then below there is the kitchen, or galley, where we just were.
“The hold should be at the very bottom of the ship,” I tell Patrick, as we quietly set off down below to find it.
“Will any treasure be in there?” he asks.
“Maybe, maybe not. It might be in the stores, by the captain’s quarters. Although it’s not like we can carry around trunks of gems or silks without being caught.”
Patrick looks at me oddly. “I wasn’t asking because I think we should take some,” he says. “I was asking so that we can avoid it.”
“Right, of course,” I say. What am I thinking? I was actually just considering running to the ship’s stores to steal a bar of gold or an ingot! I must be crazy. Treasure crazy.
Down in the hold, we find the bags of food and haul them back up to the galley. The cook shows us what to do, and we start setting out the strange, square plates for the pirates to come through and grab their supper. They’ll take the food up on deck to eat at one of the long tables set up there. Even after reading about pirate food, seeing it and touching it in person is worse.
Patrick can’t believe how hard the cheese is. “It’s like rocks,” he says, handing chunks of it to the men as they go by. “And t
he creepy crawlies coming out of the biscuits! They don’t seriously eat them, do they?”
I nod. “They do. They’re weevils—it’s protein. Otherwise the salted beef is pretty much all they have for protein, unless they have livestock on board.”
When everyone is served, the cook motions for us to go up on deck and eat with the men. I can’t wait to go, since the smell in the kitchen is even worse with the food around. Patrick and I each take a wooden plate up and sit down on the deck, since there isn’t room at the long tables.
“This is where the expression ‘three square meals a day’ comes from,” I tell Patrick. “They use square plates because carpenters make them on the ship, and the square shape is quick and easy to make. And they use wood because they won’t break if they get tossed around, like china.”
“How do you know so much about all of this stuff?” Patrick asks, nibbling carefully at a piece of the cheese. “No wonder you wanted to come here. I thought you really wanted treasure, like Ms. Tremt said, but now I think you’re pirate obsessed.”
“I am, I guess,” I say, laughing.
Patrick picks up his hardtack to eat next, and a pirate comes rushing over. “No, lad! Like this.”
He picks up the biscuit and thumps it hard against the deck’s floor. “Ye can tell how old it is by tappin’ it. If the bugs crawl out quick, and look fat and white, then there’s still some nutrition left in the bread. But if they come out slow and look old, then they’ve eaten all that’s good in it, and ye might as well turn it into a belt buckle.”
I look over at some of the men at the table. While some are eating, some are, in fact, carving their biscuits into belt buckles and their cheese into buttons.
I bang my hardtack onto the deck and a bunch of young, healthy weevils crawl out. The pirate smiles at me, half of his teeth missing, the other half worn down from eating such hard food, and he motions that I should go ahead and eat it.
Patrick looks horrified, but I force myself to put it to my lips and take the smallest, mouse-size bite. The men cheer and bang their cups on the table. “Welcome to the sea, laddies!” they shout.
Patrick does the same and he’s met with more cheers. He shoots a side glance at me, and we smile. Maybe the world has misjudged pirates. They’re not bloodthirsty scalawags! They’re decent men who have been roughed up by the hard life at sea, sleeping in a rocking hammock, never bathing, and eating this terrible, old, hard food. No wonder they aren’t as easygoing as everyone else. But they’re good guys underneath.
I breathe a sigh of relief that I didn’t pick us a death-wish adventure after all.
When the men are done eating, Patrick and I clean up the plates and scraps and return them to the kitchen. The old cook waves us off, and we leave the galley.
“That was fun,” Patrick says. “I thought this was going to be terrifying, but actually, these are nice guys. And being on a ship is neat! I want to write a paper about it for history class, but I guess that would be kind of odd, right?”
“I think so. I mean, how would you explain really knowing what it was like to be on a seventeenth-century pirate ship?”
“Good point.” Patrick scratches his head. “How much time do we have left? Maybe we should go back.”
“Sure.” Then, because I just can’t help myself, I say, “Let’s take one last look around before we go. After all, we’ll never get another chance to be on a ship like this.”
Patrick nods. I can see he’s curious what else we’ll find too. “Okay, just for a minute. I guess it wouldn’t hurt just to look.”
“Right, exactly.”
What I don’t tell him is that what I really want to do is try to sneak down to the hold or the captain’s quarters and see if I can find a piece of treasure. I had been making excuses the entire time we were in the kitchen, but I kept being called back every time I tried to sneak away. I want to find something really small, like a single doubloon, that I can tuck in my pocket and bring back to the present as proof to show my brother. And if I happen to see a map of where Kidd plans to hide the treasure from this ship, then so be it. . . .
I lead us slowly toward the stern of the ship, where I know Kidd’s room will be. As we near the door, I pause, listening. There’s no sound coming from inside or anywhere near it, so I take a chance and lead Patrick into the room. It’s empty! And it’s without a doubt the coolest place on the ship.
Since the Quedagh is a merchant vessel, which is massive and designed to hold a lot of cargo, Kidd’s quarters are impressive. They are nicely furnished, with a bed, a desk, and a table and chairs for about six people. There’s a stack of books and other interesting things lying about. But it’s his desk I want to investigate.
I inch toward it, and Patrick grabs my arm. “We’ve got to get out of here, Luis. I’m sure Kidd’ll be back soon, and if he catches us . . .”
I shake his hand off. I’m not going to miss my chance. This is why I came on this adventure to begin with! Not to serve drinks and weevily bread. “He’s probably up on deck with the men,” I tell him. “This’ll just take a second. I want to see where this ship is heading.”
On top of the desk is a detailed map of the Indian Ocean, with arrows and ships and routes drawn all over it. I can’t figure out what it all means exactly, except that it seems to be a record of which ships they spotted while in the Indian Ocean, possibly where they overtook the Quedagh.
I open up a few drawers, hoping to find something else, but only find more maps of the tip of Africa, routes to England, et cetera. No maps of the United States, which is where historians are nearly certain he put most of the Quedagh’s treasure. Although it’s possible that Kidd originally planned to put it somewhere else and changed his mind later, when he got back to the British colonies in North America and found out he was wanted for piracy. He doesn’t know that yet, and won’t for a few more weeks.
Patrick is standing nervously against the wall, keeping a lookout. The ship pitches back and forth as the ocean gets a bit rougher, and he accidentally slams his shoulder into a picture hanging on the wall by the door. The picture falls to the floor with a bang!, revealing a small hidden door behind it.
“Holy hardtack, Patrick! You did it!” I yell, running over. I reach up to open the little door, positive it contains all of Kidd’s secrets. Why else would a pirate have a hidden cubby in his office?
Inside, I see a single rolled-up scroll. It’s the treasure map! I know it. I can feel it in my bones. I reach inside and pull out the scroll, realizing as I do that it’s got a thin, nearly invisible string tied around it, and as soon as I pull it out, there’s a strange noise, like a whiiiiiiiiissssst!
“Get back!” I shout to Patrick, and we both leap away from the wall. At that exact second, a butcher knife falls from the ceiling and buries itself in the floor. If we hadn’t moved, I would have lost my hand!
“It’s a pirate booby trap!” I exclaim, delighted. I’ve always wanted to see one, and now I have. I’m not even scared, because I’m so excited to have the map in my hand and my hand still attached to my body. “This is awesome.”
“Umm, maybe we should go? Like, right now?” Patrick suggests tersely, his face red.
“Yes,” I say. “Good idea. Get the b—”
But my words are cut off as Captain Kidd storms into the room, takes one look at me holding his map, and grabs us both roughly by the neck.
“THIEVES!” he shouts, and all at once, the pirates on the ship start yelling.
Kidd and another pirate, who came running as soon as Kidd started shouting, drag us up to the deck, where Kidd begins to question us in front of the crew as if we were on trial or something.
“Are ye English spies, then?” Kidd asks, leaning in close to my face.
His breath and his body both smell terrible, despite him being slightly cleaner and in nicer clothes than the other pirates. The fumes are clouding my brain and I can’t think. He wrenched the map out of my hands as soon as he caught us, so I didn’t have a chance to glance at it. If only I’d gotten one quick look! I could have at least found a landmark or a town name. Now my chances of finding treasure are ruined.
“Tell me who ye are!” he growls.
“We’re not spies!” Patrick declares, and I’m amazed at how cool he sounds. “We’re, you know, kitchen lads.”