Explosive Adventures (5 page)

Sam made his way back along the deck and peered in through the galley door.

It was dark inside, and it took his eyes a few minutes to get accustomed to the darkness, but when they did he saw Lucy and Hermione sitting at a table, each polishing a pan.

“Psst!” said Sam. “Lucy! Psst!”

Lucy turned round and saw her brother at the door.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “Mrs Bert’s not here. You can come in.”

Sam ran into the galley and told the two girls what he had seen.

“But how did he get there?” asked Hermione. “Did one of the pirates bring him?”

“No,” said Lucy. “They just ignored him. I think that he must have jumped over on to their ship without their seeing him.”

“Well, what are we going to do?” asked Sam. “If the pirates find him they might do something terrible. They might make him walk the plank or something like that.”

“We’ll smuggle him into our cabin,” said Lucy. “They probably wouldn’t find him there. Can you get him, Sam?”

Sam said he would try. He had an idea which he thought might work, and when he went back out on to the deck, the first thing he did was to walk over to one of the rails and look out to sea. After a while, he put his hand up to shade his eyes, as if he was trying to see something. Then, when he thought the time was right, he shouted out at the top of his lungs, “Ship ahoy! Coming our way fast!”

The pirates all sprang to their feet when they heard this and rushed over to where Sam was standing.

“Where?” shouted Tommy. “Where did you see this ship?”

“Over there,” said Sam, pointing into the distance. “Over there! Look, I think that’s its mast.”

“Can’t see a thing,” snapped Charlie.

“The boy must have sharp eyesight,” said Tommy. “Are you sure you saw a ship?”

“Yes,” said Sam. “There it is! Can’t you see it?”

“Go down and fetch Captain Bert,” said Tommy. “Tell him there’s a ship coming our way. We’ll keep watch up here.”

Sam slipped away from the pirates, who were all peering off into the distance with such interest that they would never
notice what he was doing. Returning to Biscuit’s hiding place, he picked up the dog and ran back to the galley. Lucy and Hermione were still alone, and they took Biscuit from Sam and spirited him away to their cabin.

Sam now went down to Bert’s cabin and knocked on the door. Bert’s rough voice told him to enter, and when he went in, he found Bert and Stinger sitting round a table, drinking rum and playing cards.

“There’s a ship coming our way,” said Sam, saluting Bert as he spoke. “Mr Tommy said I was to warn you.”

Bert and Stinger dropped their cards and pushed Sam out of the way as they
rushed up to the deck. There, after a ten minute search of the sea with the telescope that Bert had stolen from Captain Foster, the pirate captain shook his head.

“You were right to raise the alarm,” he said to Sam, patting him on the head. “Even if it’s been a false one. You’s got the making of a pirate, so you have. You work hard and one day you’ll get a full-time job in the pirate trade, won’t he, Stinger?”

Stinger tried to smile, but it came out all wrong. “Yes,” he said. “As long as no sharks eat you before then, you’ll probably grow up into a good pirate.”

With these encouraging words, the two pirates returned to their game of cards, and life on the pirate ship went back to normal. The children, though, were all thinking of one thing. If Biscuit was on board, then Captain Foster would have had nobody to help him. And that meant that he could still be tied to his chair, with his boat drifting hopelessly at sea. They would have to do something soon, as there was not much time.

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Lucy’s Great Idea

The pirates were so pleased with all the hard work which the children had done that day that Bert agreed to let them stop early and have some time together on the deck before dinner. This was a mistake on Bert’s part, because this was their
chance to discuss what they could possibly do to get out of their terrible plight.

“We could try to take one of the rowing boats,” said Sam. “We could lower it over the side and row away in the dead of night.”

Lucy shook her head. “Not a good idea,” she said. “We’re too far from land by now and we wouldn’t stand a chance of getting anywhere.”

“We could put a bottle over the side with a message in it,” ventured Hermione. “Somebody might pick it up and come to our rescue.”

Again Lucy had to pour cold water on the idea. “It could be years before anybody
found it,” she said. “That would be far too late.”

They were silent for a moment. Then Lucy smiled. “I’m beginning to get an idea,” she said. “If you want to get the better of somebody, what do you do?”

She looked around for an answer, but nobody could think of anything to say.

“You think of their weak points,” said Lucy. “And what are the weak points of these pirates?”

“They’re greedy,” said Sam. “Especially Tommy.”

“Yes,” said Lucy. “And did you see how those two with earrings ate – just like pigs? It’s disgusting.”

“And they’re lazy too,” said Hermione. “That’s why they’re pirates, rather than having an honest job.”

“Precisely,” said Lucy. “So we have a group of greedy, lazy pirates. At the moment, they’re in control of the ship, but we want to take over. So what do we do?”

Again, neither of the others could think of an answer. So Lucy had to explain her idea to them. When she had done so, nobody spoke for a few moments. Then Hermione stood up and clapped her hands together.

“That is a brilliant idea,” she exclaimed. “A wonderful, brilliant idea that is bound to work.”

“Yes,” said Sam, a little more hesitantly. “Very clever.”

That evening, while the pirates were having their dinner, Lucy went up to their table and said that she had an announcement to make.

“Oh yes?” sneered Stinger. “What could you have to say that would possibly interest us?”

“Maybe they’re going on strike,” said Tommy. “Maybe they’ve had enough.”

“Oh aye?” said Ed. “Well, if you don’t like your job, you can always leave the ship. And we’ll even provide a plank to help you on your way!”

The pirates all laughed at this joke, but Lucy did not mind.

“We wanted to do something for you,” she said.

The pirates became silent.

“Do something for us?” said Bert. “Well, that’s more like it, isn’t it? What would this thing be?”

“We want to cook you some popcorn,” said Lucy. “You see, this boat is full of popcorn, and we would like you to try just a little bit of it. We come from the Popcorn Islands, as you know, and nobody knows how to cook popcorn as well as a Popcorn Islander.”

The pirates looked at one another. Greed: they could hardly resist the thought of a popcorn feast. And laziness: somebody else would be doing it for them.

“Well, I must say you children isn’t too bad,” said Bert. “Why don’t you do that little thing for us. What do you say, men?”

The other pirates all nodded their agreement.

“Shall we do it for lunch tomorrow?” asked Lucy. “If you wouldn’t mind giving us the morning off work, we’ll get everything ready.”

“Naturally,” said Bert. “It’s all in a good cause, of course. But you’ll have to work twice as hard in the afternoon, mind you.”

Lucy left them to the rest of their dinner and went back to the others.

“It’s working,” she said. “They fell for it. Now all we have to do is get everything ready tomorrow morning.”

That night, as they lay in their hammocks – or on the galley floor, as the case may be – each of them thought of what was planned for the next day. It was a very daring plan, which might just work. Of course, if it didn’t work … Well, that didn’t bear thinking about.

The next morning Tommy accompanied the girls down into the hold of the pirate ship to get supplies of popcorn for the lunch.

“We’ll need a whole sack,” said Lucy, pointing to a particularly large sack of popcorn on top of all the others.

Tommy was a bit unsure, but his natural greed soon overcame his doubts.

“I suppose that’s all right,” he said, as he lifted the sack down on his broad shoulders and began to carry it to the galley. “I must say I can’t wait to taste some of this stuff. I hope it’s as good as you say it is, otherwise we shall all be very cross indeed and we may be tempted to throw you to the sharks.”

Sam was waiting for them in the galley. They had it to themselves that morning, as Mrs Bert saw no reason to cook if there
was going to be a popcorn feast for lunch. So the children did not even have to whisper as they made their preparations, and they were even able to bring Biscuit out of his hiding place to give him a chance to stretch his legs around the galley.

The first thing that they had to do was to move the cooking stove into the middle of the galley. This was not difficult, as the stove was on wheels, which could be locked into position once it was in the right place. Then, when the stove was ready, Sam and Lucy went off to the bathroom and carried back the large tin bath which the pirates used to wash in. This
was given a good scrubbing and placed on top of the stove.

“Now all we have to do is to pour in the oil,” said Lucy. “And then we can put the popcorn in.”

The children went to the galley cupboard and took out several large bottles of cooking oil. These were poured into the tin bath, where they made a greasy, golden pool.

“Now,” said Lucy. “Let’s pour in the popcorn.”

There’s a very large amount of popcorn in a popcorn sack, and when they had finished, the tin bath was filled to the very brim with raw popcorn.

Lucy stood back and inspected their work. “I think we’re ready,” she said. “Let’s put Biscuit back in the cabin and then we can sit down and wait until lunchtime.”

There was only an hour or so to go before lunch, but it seemed to the
children that the minutes were dragging by terribly slowly. Then, at last, the hands of the galley clock pointed to twelve o’clock and they knew that it was too late to back out.

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