Note: You guys know the drill.
Will peered through the warped boards, trying to see what had happened.Eventually he sighed and sat back down, pulling the burlap over his head. There were footsteps directly above us, then familiar voices. Will jumped up onto the barrel.
"Gibbs?" he hissed, tapping on the boards.
Someone let loose a string of curses. I filed them away for the next time my mom rolled my hand up in the car window.
"William?" a voice hissed. "Mother's love, is that YOU, boy?"
"Gibbs, what happened? Is Elizabeth with you? Is she alright?" Will asked anxiously.
There was a pause.
"That traitor Barbossa put her and Jack overboard," Gibbs finally replied. "Sorry, boy."
"Jack?" Will yelped. Quietly, of course. "He's alive?"
"Well-"
"Hey!" There was a rattling noise overhead. "'Oo you talkin' to?"
"Um..nothing?" Gibbs offered.
"Hey, check below!"
"Why dontchoo go?" a new voice whined.
"JUST GO!"
Will ducked down, hopping off the barrel. I squawked as I was jarred off his head.
"Oi, wassat?"
Will shot me a death glare and ran out of the storage room. I clutched his shoulder as he barreled out, up the stairs, past poor old wooden eyed Ragetti. He ran past the pirates locked in the itsy bitsy prison cell, up the next set of stairs, out onto the deck. All the undead pirates were shouting. I risked a look over my-and Will's- shoulder. The ENTIRE crew was chasing after us.
Will ran up the next little thing of stairs up to the teeny deck where the wheel was. He went past the wheel and jumped for the nearest rope.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" I screamed. Will caught the rope, barely. He hung there, sort of stunned that he actually made it.
Time for a new phrase in my ever-growing vocabulary.
"GO!" I shrieked. "MOVE YOUR LAZY ARSE! MOVEMOVEMOVEMOVEMOVE!"
That's right. I'd taught myself to say a "BAD" phrase. My mom would have taken away my computer for weeks if I'd said that at home. Was it overly strict? I thought so. I don't really know.
Will hauled himself up, into the rigging.
WHERE THE HECK WAS HE GOING?! I thought frantically. All the pirates were swarming up into the rigging, we'd be caught in seconds and they'd do that whole 'Ooh, look, a TURNER!' thing and I'd end up as nasty undead pirate dinner.
Well. As soon as they were able to eat again.
Well, they didn't KNOW he was a Turner because he hadn't done that 'put a pistol to my head and negotiate' bit. So they started SHOOTING AT HIM!!!!!
OMIGOD!!!
Most of them were missing and I thought 'hey, it's okay, they're lousy shots!'
There was this REALLY ugly sound, like, I don't know. It sounded to me like someone had chucked a rock at a soft and squishy thing. Like a pile of Jello or something.
Will gasped, going absolutely white.
I guess they weren't lousy shots after all.
"WILL!" I screamed. He let go of the rope and fell about ten feet onto the deck. I was smart enough to get off his shoulder.
Now, if I'd been me-that is to say, a girl- I'd probably melt into a quivering pile of goo. There was blood EVERYWHERE, but I could already kind of tell they hadn't shot anything important. Probably his shoulder.
It was really scary, him just lying there on his back trying to catch his breath and all bug-eyed from pain. I landed on his chest just as Captain Feather-hat aka Barbossa pushed the crowd of pirates aside. He had this very pretty pistol in his hand that he had aimed at Will's head.
"Who are you?" he asked. He didn't sound psycho. He sounded kind of mad, but not mad enough to shoot.
Yet.
Will's mouth moved a couple of times, but he hadn't got his breath back yet.
"WILL TURNER!" I squawked.
I was sure Will was going to lay awake at night thanking his lucky stars he had a nice parrot sitting on his poor bleeding self right when he needed it.
Maybe he wouldn't recall how that same parrot made fun of him. And messed with his neat little future. Oh, and made noise and drew attention from the pirate coming down to investigate us.
Ha. That was a BIG maybe.
Anyway, the entire pirate crew sucked in their breath and started muttering. Barbossa crouched and sort of patted Will's pockets. I bit his hand as hard as I could. There was blood, but he kept rooting around in there like he owned Will's pockets.
THEY WERE WILL'S! HELLO?!
I fluttered my wings in his face and he sputtered and pulled back. If parrots could smirk, I would have.
Barbossa was holding the medallion in his hands. Dang, he desperately needed to trim those nails. Long is so like, not 'IN!'
Channeling my Amber Molvey there.
Pushing Amber Molvey-esque thoughts aside, I gave Barbossa my best glare.
"Put him and that bird with the others," Barbossa ordered, glaring right back at me.
They locked Will and me in with the other pirates. The pirates were kind of helpless when it came to Will. Gibbs shoved his fingers into the wound.
Oh, yeah. How sanitary.
Something inside me started screaming and running away as Gibbs rooted around in there. There were some wierd squelching noises, and then he pulled out a couple of teeny round things.
Look, bullets.
They tied a piece of semi-clean cloth around Will's shoulder. Will had passed out or something, and they left him alone. I went and sat on Mr. Cotton's shoulder and replied in what I guessed was typical Cotton's Parrot speech, not the real stuff I'd been learning. It was kind of nice, not running-sorry, flying- everywhere and trying to figure out how to keep things the way they should be and helping people and trying to figure out what the heck was going on.
So, yeah, we were in pirate prison with a bunch of undead people everywhere.
At least I felt like I'd gained some kind of parroty normalcy. Like, you know, I was finally on the right track. Maybe I should stop trying to change things up. I mean, look what had happened? Had I really changed anything for the better? Not really. Maybe I should just ride the rest of it out, be as normal as I could be until it was all over.
I guess the world would stop spinning if I wasn't suffering from chronic indecision and a certain amount of guilt all the time.
