Legends of the Ghost Pirates (12 page)

“Don't try and walk away from me, Fisher
Shoemaker.”

I look at her and shrug my shoulders. “What do you
mean? I'm just trying to find our way back to the treasure.”

“Something’s going on. And I bet I'm not going to
like it,” she says as she points to me then Jo who's far enough
back she can't hear us.

“Going on? I'll tell you what's going on. That
cousin of yours has been doing nothing this whole trip but giving
me a hard time. Doesn't matter what I do, she'll find something to
make fun of me.”

“That's not it. There's something else going on; a
girl can sense these things.” Sara stops walking, crosses her arms
and turns back to Jo. “What's going on with you and Fisher?” she
demands.

That same sly smile breaks out across Jo's face.
“Nothin’. I was just curious why y'all are going out. So I had to
see if the Yankee's a good kisser.”

“So you
kissed
him!” Sara erupts. She spins
around and stares at me with cold eyes. “And you let her!”

Jo interrupts, “He's not too bad, but he could use a
little work. I'd be happy to help you with that.”

Suddenly, out of Sara’s' mouth, comes a yell like a
volcano exploding, and in an instant she charges at Jo. The two hit
the ground with arms and legs flying at each other, both entangled,
as they roll back and forth across the path. In an instant I'm
standing over them trying to grab one or the other, but they're
rolling around too much.

At the top of my lungs, I yell, “Stop it! Stop it
right now!” It's no use, and I think that only encouraged them to
go at each other harder.

Suddenly there's a break in the action and I'm able
to grab Sara around her waist pulling her off of Jo. Luckily she's
small enough I can lift her. For a split second we are standing
there face to face, Sara's hair frees of her ponytail, flying
everywhere, then she squints at me like Clint Eastwood. “And
you...” Before I realize it, with both hands she pops me hard in
the chest knocking me to the ground. Lying on the ground I'm
stunned as I look up at Sara's angry face. She's not done with me;
not by a long shot. Quickly before I even know what's going on
she's on top of me, her knees pressed into my chest. I can't react;
I don't
want
to react.

“You like kissing her so much, are her lips
something like this!” Into my open mouth she jams a fist full of
dirt. With the back of my hand I wipe some of the dirt off my face.
Surprisingly, that's how I always imagined dirt to taste. She
climbs off, standing above me arms crossed. Slowly, I stand up too.
The three of us stand in a circle, just looking at each other. No
words are spoken. Sara marches off down toward the water, well off
the path, and sits on a rock with her back to us.

“Nice going, Jo,” I say shaking my head and then
turn away from her. I find a large rock closer to the water away
from Sara and also sit down.

What just happened? Everything was going so well, we
have just found the Old Man and we're gonna be rich, but now all
this happens. Why is Jo doing this to us? I pick up a rock and
fling it into the water scaring two seagulls who disappear into the
gray mist. Why'd Sara have to go and invite her cousin, anyway?

There's a wind shift and now the damp air is even
cooler. But the wind shift makes the fog even thicker. Even though
I'm not that far away from Sara I can barely see her. I look the
other direction for Jo and see her shadowy figure emerge and walk
back up along the path toward the north before fading into the fog.
Good. Maybe she’ll swim back to the mainland. But there's something
about the way she was walking that seemed strange. I just ignore
it, being glad she's gone at least for the moment.

“I guess I really did it this time,” Jo whispers
just to the right of my ear. Spinning my head around I see her
standing at the water’s edge looking at me with crossed arms. I
point back at the path, but no words come out of my mouth as my
confused brain tries to unscramble what it just saw.

“Aren't you going to say anything? Honestly,
Fisher,” Jo says and moves closer to where Sara is sitting. Sara
doesn't look at her though, and looks in the opposite
direction.

“Jo? That wasn't you on the path?” I call out toward
the two girls.

They both look at me strange, for a moment
forgetting about the situation.

Chapter 16

Ghosts in the Fo
g

I
ask again, “Jo, did you just
walk up the path?” She looks at me like I'm wearing a pink tutu.
But even as I say it, I know it would've been impossible for her to
circle around and end up down at the water’s edge.

In an irritated tone, Sara says, “
Now
what
are you talking about?”

I scramble up over the rocks onto the path. “I think
I saw him.”

“Saw who?” Sara asks.

“Who do you think I'm talking about; the ghost of
Blarney Bart Bonney. The face in the window.”

“Oh, please,” Sara says. “Ever since we talked to
Gus Emery you think everything you see in the fog is Blarney Bart's
ghost. Gus Emery's just an old man trying to put a scare into you;
and it worked.”

“It was a figure floating down the path moving that
way.” I point in the direction we were headed.

“Well, what did he look like?” Sara asks, arms
crossed once again.

“I dunno. At first I thought it was Jo.”

Jo crosses her arms too. “Gee, thanks. Now you think
I look like an old scraggly ghost. I don't know why Sara puts up
with you.” Sara glares at Jo like she might shove her again, but
thankfully she doesn't.

“I just saw a figure moving down the path and I
thought it was Jo. I didn't really get a good look at him. It's too
foggy. He probably knows we're after his treasures.”

Suddenly, far off, we hear a loud clanking noise
like heavy metal striking something hard. All three of us stand
perfectly still not budging an inch.

“Come on,” I call to them. “I'll prove to you I saw
Blarney Bart.” Sara and Jo don't hesitate and follow me along the
path headed in the direction of the sound. After about ten minutes
of jogging along the path we come to a fork which we hadn't noticed
before.

“In this fog it's hard to say which way we came.” No
sooner are the words out of my mouth when there's a second metal
striking sound coming from the left. “This way,” I say and take the
left fork in the path.

Before long we are standing at the narrowest part of
the island. I'm not sure, but Damariscove Island could actually be
two islands at high tide. At the moment, because it
isn't
high tide, we could cross easily to the northern part of the island
if we want to.

“This is not where I thought we were at all,” I say.
The fog is still thick and almost everything disappears within only
a couple of feet in any direction. “The Old Man is back that way.”
I point behind us toward the right.

“We're here. Let's check out the north section of
this island,” Sara says.

“Why are we chasing a ghost?” Jo asks.

“Because Sara doesn’t believe I saw Blarney Bart.” I
lead on and work our way across the narrow rocky passage to the
north side of the island. Both girls follow even though the tension
between the three of us is like a dark cloud. It's getting later in
the day, and if it were clear, which it's not, the sun would be
setting soon. Instead, it feels like the gloom of fog is just
getting heavier and slightly darker. Once we're back in the scrub
brush there's barely a path that leads off to the right. We keep
following it even though we haven't heard the clanking noise in a
while.

I'm about to take a step around a large rock when I
see a faint glow up ahead. My heart skips. Slowly and quietly, I
put my hand up to stop the others and point in the direction of a
dim yellowish light. Every now and then the light flickers back and
forth.

“If that's a ghost, I'm outta here,” Jo says in a
loud whisper as she turns to go the other way.

Sara grabs her shirt a little harder than necessary.
“You're not going anywhere. What happened to the tough Jo that's
not afraid of anything?”

“I'm not afraid of anything—especially you.” Jo
pulls Sara's hand off releasing her grip from her shirt. “But the
exception is ghosts. I never mess around if there's a ghost
present.”

Normally I would agree with Jo, but I don't want
Sara to think I'm a kook who keeps thinking I'm seeing ghosts—but I
am.

“Let's move in a little closer,” I say quietly.
We're on our hands and knees crawling between low scrub bushes and
large rocks. When we're slightly closer I peer out from behind a
rock as Jo and Sara do the same.

My eyes go wide. I can feel Goosebumps building on
my arms. We can see the shadowy figure a little clearer. He's
wearing a red bandana over long hair, has a full scraggly beard,
and black pants. He has something long in his hands, but it's hard
to tell; a sword? Scattered across the ground are all sorts of
small crates. Probably more treasure that he's burying.

In a whisper, Jo says, “I've never been more
certain; that's a ghost of a pirate.”

I look at Sara whose eyes are big and her mouth is
wide open. She nods in agreement. “I don't know what to believe
anymore,” she says quietly. “This is all too strange.”

“This island is starting to creep me out,” I
say.

“If the ghost pirate is here,” Jo says, “then we
should sneak back to the Old Man, grab the treasure, and get the
devil outta here.”

“I don't know much about ghosts,” I say. “But can't
he just as easily materialize over there at the Old Man if he wants
to?”

“I dunno. But we shouldn't stay here any longer,” Jo
replies.

Sara just shakes her head, takes a heavy sigh, and
says, “Why don't we just forget about the stupid money. I don't
know what we're looking at, but whatever it is I've had enough of
this and I've had about enough of you two. Let's just get off this
stupid island and sail home.”

“That's a lot of money to just sail away from.” I
look at Jo and she nods her head in agreement. “We sailed all the
way out here, and we'll go right past the Old Man on our way back
to the boat, let's just grab the treasure and go.”

“I think he's right,” says Jo. “We can easily grab
it on our way back.”

I turn around and peek back over the rock at the
ghost. Through the mist it's hard to tell exactly what he's doing.
Jo and Sara also take a second look too.

Suddenly there's a loud clanking noise and the ghost
spins around and looks right at us. “Aaahhh!” he screams. Before I
even know what' happening, I've jumped up and run back down the
path at full speed with Jo and Sara in front of me leading the way.
The ghost pirate is after us! When we reach the Narrows we never
slow down and scramble across the rock as if it were solid
pavement.

“The Old Man?” I call out because we are back at the
fork in the path. The left trail goes to the Old Man.

“NO,” both girls say together never slowing down. Jo
leads us on the path to our dingy. These two girls are quick, and
I'm having a hard time keeping up. I look back over my shoulder;
there's no sign of the ghost following us. But in this fog he could
be behind us, but I'd never know.

When we're just about back to the dingy, our pace
slows to a fast walk. There's still no sign of any ghost behind us,
but then again if they float, or whatever ghosts do, how'd I ever
hear them?

It's getting darker out now, and standing over the
old leaky dingy shaking my head, I say, “I don't know how many more
times this thing will get us back and forth without sinking.
Hopefully one more trip.”

“Sara and I will keep bailing while you row,” Jo
says. “It'll be fine.” Sara squints hard shooting an evil look at
Jo. Sara's not over the kiss thing.

With Jo and Sara pouring water over the side and me
sitting in the middle rowing, we move across the water in silence.
Our sailboat can't be seen from shore in the fog, but about halfway
across, it materializes out of the gray. It's a good thing we got
to the rowboat when we did because soon it'll be too dark and we'd
never have found the sailboat.

Tonight, on the little sailboat, being here with the
other two feels very uncomfortable. Sara wants to hurt me, and who
knows what's going on with Jo. If I could be anywhere else away
from those two, I would. I think they feel the same. No one's
talking, and there's not very much eye contact. Sara heats up some
dinner for us, we eat in silence, and when we are done I crawl up
into the forward bunk hoping I might fall asleep.

But there's no way I'm gonna fall asleep after
today. Too many things happened. I can't stop thinking about the
face I saw in the window and then the shadowy figure we saw at the
north end of the island. It's certainly creepy, which makes me
believe even more that there must be treasure buried on this
island. And after my mind is done spinning around on thoughts of
treasure, well, there's what happened between Jo and me. Why did
she have to go and say something to Sara. It's like she wanted to
make her mad for no good reason. I'll never figure girls out.

* * *

This morning, the sun was shining brightly when I
woke as if the heavy fog had never happened. We decided that
because it's such a nice day, we'd go to shore one last time to dig
for the treasure. On a beautiful day like this there's no way a
ghost would be out haunting the island; it's just too nice. I'm not
sure that makes any sense whatsoever, but the girls agreed too. So
here we are, heading along the path one last time again to the
north toward the Old Man. This time we have a flash light and a
small foldaway shovel.

At the fork in the path I stop and look at the one
which leads to the second section of the island—where we saw the
ghost. “What do you think if we just take a quick look around where
we saw Blarney Bart last night before we head to the Old Man? I'm
sure he won't be out now.”