Remarkable (13 page)

“And I say we eat now or I bust both o’ yer noses!” Jeb snarled. It was a persuasive argument, and Ebb and Flotsam followed him meekly as he stormed off into the nearest restaurant.

Jeb, Ebb, and Flotsam had not spent much time on land, but in their limited experience, they’d come to understand that business owners were usually appalled and unnerved to discover they had pirates for customers. They didn’t mind this, of course, because pirates enjoy being unnerving and appalling.

But they themselves were unnerved and appalled when they walked into Remarkable’s House of
Otherworldly Pizza. Madame Yvette Gladiola not only didn’t seem to mind pirates, she even appeared to have been expecting them.

“We wants some food and we wants it now,” Jeb growled at her as he smashed his fist on the table.

Madame Gladiola didn’t so much as flinch. “Of course you do. I have foreseen it. Your pizza is just coming out of the oven.”

“What do ye mean? We hain’t even ordered yet,” Ebb said. “How do you know you made us the kind o’ pizza we like?”

“I know all and I see all, of course. You want a super deluxe supreme with extra artichoke hearts, a double serving of anchovies, and no onions.”

“But I love onions,” Jeb snarled.

“I’m sure you do. But I have also foreseen that eating onions will give you a tummy ache that will keep you up half the night.”

“Oh, right. I forgot that onions don’t always agree with me innards.”

While they were speaking, Flotsam sat down at the table and studied the milk carton that Lucinda had given them.

“This ain’t such a bad idea. We could get our own milk cartons to hand out.”

“And where do ye propose we get a good photo of our fine captain?” Ebb asked. “Since he be so miserably camera-shy.”

“We don’t need a stinking picture,” Flotsam said. “This ’ere missing musician looks a fair bit like him. Alls we needs to do is steal them milk cartons from that young lassie and then draw a mustache and pirate hat on his wicked mug.”

“Pah!” Madame Gladiola said as she brought the pizza over to the table. “Those worthless milk cartons.”

“And what be wrong with milk cartons?”

“Milk cartons do not know all and see all. Milk cartons cannot foretell the future. The Save Ysquibel Now! Club could have spent its money much more wisely, if you ask me.”

“How’s that?”

“They should have hired a psychic—one with great powers and tremendous talent. And if you’re sincere about finding your captain, you will heed my advice.”

“Why should we be listenin’ to the likes o’ you?” Flotsam grumbled.

“Because I am the greatest and most talented psychic in the world,” Madame Gladiola informed him. “And if you cross my palm with silver, I shall reveal all.”

* * * * *

When Madame Gladiola divined the future, she did not use a crystal ball. Instead, she rubbed her shiniest pizza pan with a thin coat of olive oil and looked deeply into its reflective surface.

“Are ye sure ye know what ye be doing?” Ebb asked her. “A pizza pan seems too ordinary to—”

“Shhh,” Madame Gladiola told him. “I will not be able to glimpse your destinies if you doubt my talents.”

She stared at the pizza pan again and began speaking in an unearthly voice.

“O mighty spirits,” she intoned, “we call on you to give answers to those who seek them. We call on you to help these three fine gentlemen find the pirate captain they seek.”

The pizza parlor was filled with silence.

“It ain’t working,” Flotsam said grumpily. He was starting to think this was the worst idea they’d had since trusting Captain Rojo Herring when he said he was going on a short walk and would be right back.

“Perhaps the spirits need more encouragement. Perhaps if you could explain why it’s so important for you to find your captain, the spirits will take pity on you.”

“Bah,” Flotsam said rudely. But Jeb took her request seriously.

“Life on board our ship was all pleasantlike with that captain o’ ours. We ne’er had to work too hard.”

“And we didn’t ’ave to follow orders unless we felt like it,” Ebb added. “It ain’t always like that, you know. With most captains, it’s all ‘hoist this, swab that!’ And if ye don’t do it all johnny-snaplike, they’ll crack you like a clamshell.”

“And then some o’ the captains be worse than that, even,” Flotsam admitted grudgingly. “Some o’ them expect ye to work from dusk ’til dawn and would feed you to the sharks if ye gave ’em any lip about it. But not the one we ’ad. With that captain, we always ’ad lots o’ time to sunbathe, play shuffleboard, and make fizzy drinks with plenty o’ ice and little paper umbrellies.”

The candles on the tables of the restaurant flickered once, twice, and then three times. It might have been a gentle breeze, or it might have been something else.

“The spirits have heard you.” Madame Gladiola told them. “They are now ready to speak.”

The pirates and the psychic joined hands in a circle around the table. Madame Gladiola peered into the pizza pan.

“Reveal to us, o mighty spirits, how destiny shall deal with these three sailors as they search for what they have lost.”

Her eyes rolled back into her head as she went into a trance. She muttered, “Ah-ha, I see, it is preordained then,” in an eerie whisper as she rocked back and forth in her chair.

The candles flickered once more, then their flames all went out. Madame Gladiola unrolled her eyes and looked at the three pirates.

“The answers you seek have come to me—even though I do not entirely understand them.”

“Wot’s that supposed to mean?” Flotsam demanded.

“I have foreseen that you will not need to trouble your-self anymore with your search. Even as we speak, a mighty captain is taking the first steps toward finding you.”

“Mighty? That be overstating things a bit.”

“I also see visions of a clock, or maybe a watch. And the number three. Does this mean anything to you?”

“Can’t say that it does. But maybe it just means that Captain Rojo Herring will find us at three o’clock some fine afternoon.”

“Captain Rojo Herring?” Madame Gladiola asked. “Who is Captain Rojo Herring?”

“He be the man we paid you to find for us,” Flotsam said. “He be our captain.”

“Ah,” she said. “Perhaps you should have been more clear with me. The spirits did not tell me of a man named Rojo Herring. They spoke only of the captain who seeks you—and that captain goes by the name of Mad Captain Penzing the Horrific.”

Jeb, Ebb, and Flotsam all froze.

“Who did ye say was looking for us?” Flotsam squeaked.

“Mad Captain Penzing the Hor—”

“Don’t say that name again!” Ebb shouted. “It be worse luck than all the curses of the seas to say that name out loud.”

“That may be so,” Madame Gladiola said calmly, “but the spirits do not lie about fate.”

“Can ye talk to ’em again?” Jeb begged. “Can ye ask ’em to change their minds?”

Madame Gladiola shook her head. “You can’t change fate. You can only accept it,” she said.

Then a horrible mewling howl filled the air. It was a sound miserable enough to shiver anyone’s timbers.

“It be too late!” Flotsam cried. “
The Wild Three O’Clock
is a-comin’ for us. We all be doomed!”

A
hhhweeeescreeekharooo!”

The eerie, unnerving, miserable howling noise continued for several hours that afternoon.

Jane first heard it as she was leaving Wembly’s Superior Drugstore. She had agreed to go buy a gallon of hydrogen peroxide and five packages of extra-wide milkshake straws as a favor for the Grimlet twins.

“We wouldn’t ask you if we weren’t absolutely desperate,” Eddie had said. “But we can’t finish the weather machine without those things, and Mr. Wembly has banned us from his store for life.”

“We could break in tonight and steal the items
from him, but I’d like to think that type of petty larceny is beneath us,” Melissa added.

Given that she was saving his drugstore from a break-in, Jane felt that Mr. Wembly could have been nicer to her when she went to pay for her purchases. But he made her wait while he changed the tape in the cash register and then made her wait some more while he talked to Mr. Charles P. Comforte-Thorpe, the poet laureate of Remarkable, about anti-itch power.

Jane was feeling cross and bothered by the time she left the store, and her mood wasn’t improved when the horrible howling assailed her ears.

“Owwehoewwweyedooohlurveyoooooohhhh!”

The sound was so bad that Jane assumed that the Grimlet twins were somehow responsible. But when she ran back to the secluded spot in the park where they were waiting for her, she could see that they were just as puzzled by the howling as she was.

“Yewwwwaresooohtrewwwtooomeeee!”

“That’s the worst noise I’ve heard in years,” Melissa said admiringly.

“You mean you’re not the ones making it?” Jane asked.

“Don’t I wish,” Eddie said, his mind awhirl with all of the wicked cacophonous schemes he could launch, if only he could harness the powers of such a foul sound.

“Well, if it’s not you, then who’s doing it?” Jane asked.

The Grimlet twins shrugged. On another day, they might have been interested in finding out. Today, however, was devoted to their weather machine.

If Jane had been at home instead of at the park, she wouldn’t have needed to ask the Grimlet twins about the source of the sound. She would have discovered that the horrible howling was coming from her very own backyard. More specifically, it was coming out of the mouth of her very own brother.

Although Anderson Brigby Bright Doe III wasn’t going to admit it, he’d been shaken by the fact that Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa wasn’t interested in having her portrait painted by him. This had forced him to come to the shocking realization that maybe Jane had a point. While he was certain that deep down, Lucinda loved photorealistic painting as much as he did, he could see that perhaps she might also enjoy
being serenaded by him at the dance with a beautiful song he’d written especially for her.

He didn’t know much about singing, but then, he figured he didn’t need to know much. All you had to do was open your mouth and let music come out. It couldn’t possibly be as difficult as painting photorealistically. He closed his eyes, pictured Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa’s beautiful face in his mind, and began to sing a major scale, the one that usually went do re mi fa so la ti do.

“Laooowageeehhheoooo!
” he sang. It sounded all right to him, so he sang it again, only this time a little louder.
“Largeekumringfrunkdoeurgog.”

It was just as he suspected. There was nothing hard about singing at all. He opened his mouth wide and prepared to sing as loudly as he possibly could.

“LURGLEEEGGFRUNK…”
he began, but this time he was interrupted by his father, who threw open the window of his study and leaned out to shout at him.

“Anderson Brigby Bright Doe III,” yelled Anderson Brigby Bright Doe II, “I told you not to yowl in the yard when I’m trying to work.”

“I’m not yowling, Dad. I’m singing,” Anderson
Brigby Bright said, wondering why his father was in such a bad mood.

“No, you’re not,” his father shouted. “You sound like a drowning duck. And you’ve made me lose my train of thought. Do you know how much trouble I’ll get in if your mother finds out I’ve lost something else?”

Anderson Brigby Bright waited until his father slammed his window shut before starting to sing again. He didn’t think for a moment that there was anything wrong with his voice. His father was a genius, and like many geniuses, he was often unreasonably sensitive to distraction.

“Dew new rawrg leek…”
Anderson Brigby Bright sang, but this time he was nearly knocked down by Mrs. Zenforia Devorah Ffyfe-Smithington, who’d come running over from her house next door carrying a large, red backpack full of first-aid supplies for wild animals.

“Where is it?” she asked. “I thought I heard it howling in your yard.”

“What are you talking about, Mrs. Ffyfe-Smithington?” Anderson Brigby Bright asked.

“I heard a endangered black rhino yowling in
pain,” she said. “It sounded to me like the poor thing has laryngitis.” Mrs. Zenforia Devorah Ffyfe-Smithington was an expert on endangered animals and spent most of her vacations traveling to faraway places so that she could rescue them from whatever was causing them to become endangered in the first place.

“There are no black rhinos here,” Anderson Brigby Bright assured her.

Mrs. Zenforia Devorah Ffyfe-Smithington vaulted over the fence to continue her search. As soon as she was gone, he opened his mouth and began to sing a love song he remembered hearing on the radio once.

“O ahhh lurve yew annnnd yeeeew lurve meeeeh toooo!”
he sang. Really, he thought to himself, there was nothing to this singing business. But then his thoughts and his singing were interrupted by the sound of giggling. He looked up to see that Penelope Hope Adelaide Catalina had come out onto the porch. She was laughing at him as she scribbled down a math equation on a notebook in her lap.

“What are you doing?” he asked, irritated at yet another interruption. Penelope Hope held up her notebook. The equation she was working on was the
kind that not only had numbers, but also had Greek letters, squiggly lines, and weird little symbols all over it.