Note: Yay! Heartfelt thank yous go to... Drumroll... QueenCobraWing and x-Pick'n'Mix-x! You (and anyone else who reviews) get a big cake shaped like a pirates ship. Sorry about the rather long wait, blame the exams. On the bright side, it heightened the suspense (of which there is not yet very much!) In the last chapter, Tori was being mean to Jack...
"Stop it, Tori." I explode, once we're safely out of earshot. "Why are you being so horrible to Jack? He's going to help us find Dan and Alex." I glare at her, and she stares sulkily back. I think carefully for a moment, then finally realise.
"You're jealous, aren't you Tori. Because I got to meet Jack, and you'll never get a chance to meet Will." She shakes her head violently, but she can't conceal the tears at the corners of her eyes. I can imagine how she feels. If Will showed up without Jack, I'd be pretty forlorn.
"It's just so unfair." Tori bursts out. "Jack Sparrow is a useless, smelly, stupid pirate. He won't know how to save Dan and Alex. Will would know what to do. He'd have a plan." Alright, any sympathy I may have felt has now vanished.
"That's completely untrue, and you know it." I reply hotly, leaping to Jack's defence. We hardly ever argue, but when we do, sparks always fly. "Captain Jack Sparrow is ten billion times cleverer and more cunning than your precious William. Remember in the curse of the Black Pearl?"
Tori pauses, and I think that the argument might be over before it really ever began. But Tori doesn't give up easily. "Will is truthful, caring and honest. He's a good man, who went through a lot to rescue Elizabeth. On the other hand, Jack Sparrow is utterly self-centred and dishonest. And seriously, don't pretend you haven't noticed the way he smells."
I'm prepared for a long and detailed debate over the comparative advantages and disadvantages of Jack and Will, but as soon as I open my mouth, Tori just scowls at me and stomps off down the road. I feel ashamed of myself. I should be searching for Alex and Dan, not having pointless arguments with Tori.
"I'm sorry." I shout after her, but she takes no notice of me. A small part of me agrees with her. We do need a plan. Some kind of strategy to rescue the boys. Maybe we should look for clues. I know, it does sound like something from a far fetched detective story, but the skeletons may have dropped something that will help us.
"Jack, Tori!" I call nervously. It's really dark out here now, and I can't see either of them. A pigeon flys past, making me jump. As I start scanning the street for Jack and Tori, there is a soft thump behind me. "Please come out." I beg, turning around.
Then I hear the soft click of a button, and the road is lit up. Tori is in front of me, dangling a little pink torch, and wearing a smug smile.
"I bought this last week at a car boot sale!" she says, as Jack emerges from the shadows, rubbing his eyes. I explain my idea that we should look for clues along the road, and surprisingly nobody objects. I guess that's the best chance we have to rescue the boys.
I guess this might be a good time to describe myself, in case you're wondering what I look like. Well, my hair is very messy, long and dark and I have quite pale skin. Unlike Tori, who has short, light hair and big blue eyes, I'm not very pretty and I tend to be a bit shy around people sometimes. I spend a lot of time indoors, and I'm often made to babysit Alex, Dan and Tori.
"I've found a clue! This could be the lead that helps us to find your cousins, lass!" Jack says excitedly, and I rush over to him. "Look." He points to a crumpled bit of paper on the pavement. I nudge it with my foot and carefully pick it up.
"Ewww, this is just a wrapper from some junk food." I keep forgetting that he doesn't belong in this century. "Actually, I've been meaning to ask you something. How did you get here?"
"Get where?" he asks innocently, and I get a strange, inexplicable feeling that he's hiding something.
"Get to the 21st century. Get to London. Get to a small cinema. Take your pick." I reply. But just as he's about to answer me, we hear Tori scream. "Tori! Are you okay?" I shout, running up the street to her. She's pointing at something on the ground, which Jack picks up and inspects.
"Interesting." I hear him murmur, and he passes me the object. It's spherical, hard and wooden. Tori stares at the little ball in my hands. No way. It can't be. It is.
"Ragetti's wooden eye!" Tori gasps, and Jack stares at her, clearly astonished that Tori knows who Ragetti is. She takes advantage of his surprise. "So, Captain Jack Sparrow, I think you'd better tell us everything you know. How did you get here? How did the skeleton pirates get here? Why did they take our cousins?" I find a bench a little way up the road and we sit down, ready for a story.
"Well, the other day, I was sailing the Pearl past the Isla de Muerta when I heard a strange noise coming from the island. Me and the crew-"
"The crew and I." Tori interrupts rudely. Jack gives her his favourite wounded look and carries on with the story. I am trying really hard to concentrate, but it's difficult, considering who's telling it. Yes, I am aware that what he's saying is important, but he's a very distracting person.
"Well, we saw another ship. Sailing away from the Isla de Muerta. They opened fire on us, and we found out that they were cursed, the moonlight showed them to be skeletons. As we couldn't kill them, they took the Pearl, locking us in the brig."
"I'm sorry." I say quietly, noticing the deep sadness in his eyes. Poor Jack. People are always taking the Black Pearl away from him. We sit quietly for a minute, until Tori ruins it.
"Keep going with the story, we need to find Alex and Dan." As much as I hate to admit it, she's right. With every passing minute, they get further away, and it'll be even harder to track them down.
"The Captain of the ship requested an audience with me." He says reluctantly. "Lass, are you sure you want to know the truth? You won't like it." Tori scowls at him, and nods.
"Alright then. The captain of the cursed ship was a blond fellow with blue eyes and a long scar on his neck. The spitting image of your missing cousins. That's why I recognised them at the cinema. Their father was the Captain of the cursed ship." He stops for a moment to let it sink in.
"I'm very sorry to tell you this lasses, but it looks like your dear uncle is a pirate, savvy?" He obviously expects us to be appalled, like Will Turner was when he found out that his father was a pirate. But Tori and I are, well, the opposite of appalled.
"Wow! Uncle Pete!" Tori grins, once she's recovered from the shock. "Saf, he's a pirate! Isn't that awesome! A pirate in our family!" I nod excitedly, glancing over at Jack. He looks confused.
"We like pirates." I explain. "We're not scared like Elizabeth Swann or stupid Will Turner." Tori glares angrily at me, while Jack chuckles quietly. "Why did you think I wasn't scared stiff of you at the cinema? You're a pirate Captain."
"I thought that was because of my irresistible good looks and charm." He winks at me, and I feel myself melting into the bench. Tori mimes being sick, and I stick my tongue out at her.
"Anyway, what we know so far." Tori says. "Captain Jack and his crew got defeated by some cursed pirates and locked up by our uncle, a pirate captain, who then seized the Black Pearl. Then, Jack turns up in 2011 and some skeleton pirates follow. The skeletons kidnap Alex and Dan, then vanish. Jack, how did you get here?"
"I don't know." He admits. "One moment I was locked up in the brig, the next I was in this road. I saw a picture of myself in that, er, cinema building, so I went inside and joined the line of people." Oh, he must have seen the posters advertising the film. It must be really weird to see yourself on a poster, I wonder what he'd say if he saw my room!
"So, what do we do now?" Tori asks. We're all silent. We could call the police and tell them that the boys have been kidnapped, without mentioning the skeletons. But then my family would be distraught, not to mention furious with me. I couldn't do that to them. We will have to find the boys ourselves.
"Hey, what's that?" Jack points to a screwed up piece of paper, blown down the road by the wind and coming to rest beside the bench.
"Probably another useless piece of rubbish." Tori sneers as Jack unfolds the paper and passes it to me. "The front page of a newspaper, or perhaps a leaflet about politics."
"It's a map." I tell the others, staring at it in disbelief. "A map of London. Look, there's Nelson's column. And Buckingham palace!" Tori snatches the map, and studies it carefully.
"We're right here, in the left corner." She says, pointing to a road. "Hey, have you seen this? X marks the spot, right?" She points to a spot in the centre, marked with a red cross. "That's St James's park. It must be where they're taking the boys!"
We're finally getting somewhere. Now all we need to do is get to the park, rescue Alex and Dan from their evil skeleton captors and get home before anyone notices how long we've been out for. Piece of cake.
"There's a bus stop on Albert road." I say, remembering passing it on the way to the cinema. "We can get a bus to the park from there."
"Lass, what's a bus?" Jack asks me, making Tori burst out laughing. It's going to be a long night.