The midday sun was blazing fiercely down upon us. It felt as though my hair was nearly plastered to my scalp with sweat. I'd already rolled up my sleeves as far as they'd go, but I dared not take off my boots, for fear of the horrible smell that would surely result.
Jack was sitting on a barrel with the map spread in front of him, trying to figure it out. He looked deeply focused on it, so I thought I shouldn't bother him and just sat there watching him. The whole time he'd been gone I never felt at ease for a minute, his absence weighing on my mind. Just having him around was so...nice.
"I can't focus with you staring at me," Jack remarked without looking up from the map.
"Well, I'll leave you be, then," I said. I leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the mouth, then skipped off in the opposite direction. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a rather silly grin spread over his face as he went back to the charts.
A few minutes later, Jack hopped up out of his seat as if his butt were on fire. "Oh! What's that?" Looking alarmed, he ran over to the side of the boat. "What's that? I don't know, what IS that? What do you think?"
"Where?" said Elizabeth.
"There!" He ran over to the other side, making weird noises as he went. Everyone followed him. Then he went to the other side of the ship, and everyone followed him again.
"He's rocking the ship!" Pintel shouted.
"We're rocking the ship!" Gibbs exclaimed.
"Aye, he's onto it!" said Barbossa.
"He's rockin' the ship!" Pintel repeated.
Ragetti came up to Pintel with a rope and a grin. "We'll tie each other to the mast, upside down, so when the boat flips, we'll be the right way up!" They scurried off to the mast, snickering.
"Time it with the swell," Barbossa instructed. Then he went down below, yelling at everyone down there to untie the cargo.
Soon the ship was rocking so much that we all had to run and clutch at the rail to stay on. One poor guy didn't make it and was crushed by a cannon. Everyone winced.
"Now up," said Jack, as the ship slowly began to tip so much that we were hanging off the rail, "is down."
The ship was now underwater. I held my breath. Will started drifting away from the railing. Elizabeth turned to grab him. Soon it felt like my head was going to implode from not breathing. Fortunately, we went through a vortex of some sort, all the water rushing past us, and the Pearl popped up above the surface of the ocean.
Everyone was kneeling down, coughing up water.
"Blessed sweet westerlies, we're back!" said Gibbs.
"Aw, yeah!" I whooped, spitting up some water myself. "All the way to the end of the world and back!"
"It's the sunrise," Elizabeth said faintly, looking up at the sky.
Everyone got to their feet. And then they all pulled out their guns on each other. Jack pointed his at Elizabeth and Barbossa. Will pointed his at Barbossa and Jack. Barbossa pointed his at Will and Jack. Elizabeth pointed hers at Jack and me (so much for our truce). With a sigh, I pointed mine at Elizabeth and Barbossa.
"Can't we all just get along?" I groaned.
Even Jack the monkey pulled a pistol on Cotton's parrot. The parrot squawked, "Parley?"
Suddenly, everyone burst out laughing and lowered their guns. Just as suddenly, they all put them up again.
"All right, then," said Barbossa. "The Brethren Court's a-gatherin' at Shipwreck Cove. And Jack, you and I are a-goin', and there'll be no arguin' that point."
Jack said, "I is arguin' the point. If there's pirate's a-gatherin', I'm pointing my ship the other way."
Elizabeth turned her other pistol on Jack as well. "The pirates are gathering to fight Beckett, and you're a pirate."
"Fight or not, you're not running, Jack," Will added.
"If we don't stand together, they'll hunt us down one by one, 'til there be none left but you."
"I quite like the sound of that," said Jack musingly. "Captain Jack Sparrow, the last pirate." I elbowed him. "Ow! Not counting you, darling."
"Aye, and you'll be fighting Jones alone. And how does that figure into your plan?" said Barbossa.
"I'm still working on that," said Jack. "But I'll not be going back to the Locker, mate. Count on that." He fired his gun at Barbossa, but nothing happened. Everyone tried firing their pistols, but nothing happened with theirs, either.
Gibbs opened his and peered inside. "Wet powder!" he said exasperatedly.
The tense crowd began to disperse. "Wait!" Pintel said, waving his pistol eagerly. "We can still use 'em as clubs!" At this there was a thonk as Ragetti hit Pintel on the head with the butt of his pistol. "Ow!"
"Sorry," said Ragetti. "Effective, though."
There was still the matter of finding water, though. Everyone was starting to get dehydrated. Will spread out the charts over the top of a crate. "There's a freshwater stream on the island. We can resupply there, and get back to shooting each other later."
"Yes, because we're all so terribly excited about it," I said dryly.
To Barbossa, Jack said, "You lead the shore party, and I'll stay with my ship."
"I'll not be leaving my ship in your command," said Barbossa disdainfully.
"How about you both go ashore and leave the ship in my command?" Will suggested. Both looked at him. "Temporarily."
We went ashore in the longboat. Upon stepping onto the beach, just about everyone in the shore party's jaw dropped.
"Criminy!" said Pintel.
"Oddsbodkins," Ragetti breathed.
The body of the Kraken, huge, gray, and dead, lay on the beach, its orangey-amber eyes wide open and staring blankly as sheets of glass. Jack looked almost sad-which, when I thought of it, didn't make sense. Why would he mourn the death of something that had eaten him? Then I realized-he was probably sad because he thought that, if the Kraken could die, anyone could die. Including him.
Barbossa, on the other hand, looked slightly smug. "Still thinkin' of runnin', Jack? Think you can run from the world?"
I went to see what Pintel and Ragetti were doing. Very cautiously, they were approaching the dead Kraken, Pintel armed with a very large stick. "Careful...careful..." said Pintel in a low voice.
"You know what they say. Never tickle a sleeping Kraken," I whispered.
Pintel gave me a look. "We're not intendin' on ticklin' it," he said darkly.
"It's an expression!"
Pintel gave it a good poke. It did not stir. Laughing, he and Ragetti ran up the side of the carcass. "You stupid fish!"
"It's a cephalopod, actually," said Ragetti.
I ran after them.
"We'll charge a shilling to see it," Pintel mused.
"And a shilling for a sketch of 'em sitting at the top!" Ragetti added.
"Pintel and Ragetti, Kraken slayers!"
"Any chance I could get in on this action?" I asked.
"Can ye draw?"
"Yep!"
"You'll do the sketchin', then!" said Ragetti.
"That means I get the shilling we earn from every sketch, right?"
They exchanged reluctant glances. "Well-"
"Oh, come on! That still leaves you with sixpence each. With all the customers we'd get, I'd be sketching my fingers off. I'd earn it."
"Perhaps we could split it evenly three ways?" Ragetti suggested. Pintel smacked him. "Ow!"
We ventured deeper into the forest to find the freshwater stream that Will was talking about. We found it, all right, but it was sort of a mixed bag. Sitting on the riverbank, partially submerged in the water, was a corpse. His clothes and hairstyle seemed the same sort that Sao Feng's men had, which indicated a similar ethnicity, yet his skin was a bloodless alabaster. Barbossa bent down, dipped his finger in the water, and put the finger in his mouth. Then he hastily spat. "Poison. Fouled by the body."
Pintel grabbed the corpse by the shoulders and flipped it over, revealing a grisly sight-a giant spike was shoved into the man's mouth and through the back of his head. "Eeep!" I squealed, instinctively grabbing Jack's wrist. He took my hand in his.
"Hey, I know 'im!" Pintel exclaimed. "He was in Singapore!" Trust Pintel to make a remark like that.
"Capteeeen!" Marty yelled from where he was standing in a tree. We all turned and looked. Back towards the shore, Ragetti was jumping up and down and pointing frantically.
"Oy! We got company!"
Out on the ocean, the Black Pearl had been joined by a boat recognizable as that of Sao Feng. Immediately, all of Tai Heung's men drew their pistols, pointing them at Jack and Barbossa. But mostly at Jack. I noticed that Jack's grip on my hand had become rather tight.
"Uh...he's the captain." He pointed at Barbossa with his free hand.
Barbossa rolled his eyes.