Chapter 14

Peter woke up with a start, sweating from a nightmare that he could barely remember, and didn't really want to. He was in bed, lying on his back, in the dark. He hated sleeping on his back. Why was he on his back? And something else was wrong. He couldn't move. No matter how hard he tried, he could not make one piece of himself move, not even an inch. He tried to cry out, but nothing happened. He couldn't even open his mouth. He was completely paralyzed. And he didn't know why. He wasn't sick anymore, he had gotten well. So why was this happening now? What was wrong with him now? And there was something else in the room. Something that didn't belong there. He could just barley see it in his peripheral vision, to his left. It wasn't one of the boys, or Wendy. Or Tink. Or anyone, or anything else that he knew. He knew that much. And whatever it was, it was hovering right next to his shoulder. He strained to see what it was, not being able to turn his head or even his eyes. All that he could make out was a blurry, gray and black blob that reminded him of a giant piece of bird crap. Or the mutilated remains of a rotting human torso. And it was moving up and down very slowly, like it was floating, like a hideously deformed balloon. And it made him feel funny. Every time it came down next to him, he felt a strange vibration, and then he realized that it also made a humming sound when it did this. The sound felt strange, in his head, like it was penetrating his mind, and it tickled. But not in a good way. And there was nothing that he could do about it. It just kept on doing whatever it was doing as he lied there, helpless. Terrified, Peter got angry. He wanted to kill it. You just wait, he said out loud in his mind. Suddenly, he was suspended upright over his bed, though he didn't remember getting up or flying there. But he felt like he had some control now, though he still couldn't move any part of his body. The thing had moved with him and it was still doing its thing right next to his shoulder, seeming unphased by his movement. Somehow, Peter floated rigidly to the foot of the bed, operating on only sheer willpower rather than any fairy magic. There was a small, child-sized desk on the floor there, up against the wall. Somehow, Peter turned himself in the air and floated down towards the desk to rest his left shoulder on it, pinning the thing against it. He couldn't feel it although it was still there, but now it couldn't move anymore. Now it couldn't hum or tickle him anymore. Then Peter turned his head to the right, having regained the ability to do so, in case another one might show up to attach itself to is other shoulder. Then he really woke up, to find himself lying on his back, in his bed again. He sat up and looked around. There was nothing in the room that shouldn't have been there. Everything was all right now. Everything felt right now.

Then he flew out of bed into the cold, dim morning air that had permeated the underground house to check on the others. They were all sleeping soundly, including Tink. And Peter decided not to wake them just yet.

Peter had indeed recovered from his illness that he had contracted on the Bestrafer. But ever since then, he had been suffering from some strange kind of waking dreams in which he found himself paralyzed before completely waking up. And they seemed to happen more often when he fell asleep on his back. So he tried not to do that anymore, but sometimes he just couldn't help it. And sometimes it didn't matter.

Then he flew out of the underground house and way up into the sky above it. It was early, but the sun would be rising soon, and the sky of the east was already lit with its aura. Peter turned to face the bay to the west. It was still dark over there, but he could just barely make out the speck that was Hook's ship, as well as the larger blob that was the other. For some reason, looking at it reminded him of the episode he'd just experienced. Maybe because their coloring was similar, gray and black. And he shuddered. Maybe he wasn't completely cured from his infection after all. Maybe he was still carrying something. He had no idea. But whatever it was, he hated it. He hated everything about the Bestrafer and whatever it had brought with it to Neverland. That's right, he told himself. IT. He would never refer to that thing as a "she" again.

Then he flew back down into the underground house and woke up all the other boys.

"Aw, Peter," Tootles groaned as he picked himself up from the floor groggily and yawned. "It's not even light out yet."

"It's light enough!" Peter replied as he floated over to Tootles upside-down, with his feet hanging directly over his head, and got right into Tootles' face. "Quit being such a wuss!"

"Peter Pan!" Wendy cried as she got up from her chair in a huff. "Don't you say that again!"

"Oh, come on, Wendy. You know it's true. And you should stop being such a nag!" Peter replied as he turned to Wendy and maintained his position in the air while crossing his arms defiantly.

"Peter, what in the world has gotten into you lately?" Wendy demanded to know as she also crossed her arms and glared at Peter.

And Tootles started to cry.

Wendy went to him and knelt down to hug him against her chest. "Now look what you've done!" she scolded Peter. "The sun's not even up yet and you're already causing trouble!"

Peter mumbled her words right back to her, deliberately slurring them in a mocking way.

Wendy just glared at him even more angrily as she continued to hold Tootles, who was still crying.

Tink heard the commotion from inside her flower hut, having been awakened by it. But not wanting any part if it, she simply pulled her covers over her head and buried her face in her pillow to try and drown out the noise so she could go back to sleep. "Stupid humans," she mumbled to herself. Although she, too, had recovered from her physical ailments, she had also been a lot more cranky than usual. But this was most likely due to Peter's recent bout of grouchiness.

Then Peter turned to the rest of the boys as he righted himself in the air. "You men, follow me!" he commanded in a voice that sounded just a bit deeper than usual. Then he turned away from them and flew out of the house, not waiting to see if they would follow or not.

Still rubbing the sleep from their eyes, Nibs, Slightly, Curly, the Twins, plus John and Michael followed Peter outside while Tootles stayed behind with Wendy.

They followed Peter to a clearing in the forest several hundred yards away from the house. Then Peter turned to face them as he lighted on the ground, and they also landed in a loose formation in front of him, waiting to see what he had in mind.

"I want to play pirates!" Peter announced. "John!" he said as he pointed his finger at the boy wearing the derby hat. "You will be Captain Hook! I will be me, and the rest of you will be my squires! Hold on a second." Then Peter flew to a nearby tree and searched through its branches until he had located one that was relatively hook-shaped. He broke it off and picked the leaves off of it before he flew back down and handed it to John. "Here, hold this in your right hand and don't let go of it. You're not allowed to! Oh, and don't forget, you're not allowed to fly either! Hahahaha!" Peter added gleefully as he hovered in the air above John, who only groaned in response as he reluctantly did what he was told, knowing the routine all too well.

"The rest of you men, take to the air and follow me!" Peter shouted. "We will let Captain Hook prepare his defense while we go plan our offense!" And with that, Peter took off to go hide somewhere in the woods as the rest of the boys followed him, leaving John behind to sulk with the stick in his hand.

Looking at the stick with derision, John grumbled to himself discontentedly, "I hate being Captain Hook."

- - - - - -

Meanwhile, back in the underground house, Tootles had finally stopped crying. He sat on a rug on the floor next to Wendy as she rekindled the fire in the fireplace, which had gone out while they had been asleep. "Wendy?" he asked as he looked up at her.

Without turning around, as she continued with her task, she replied, "Yes, Tootles?"

"Why is Peter so mean sometimes?"

Wendy stopped what she was doing for a moment as she turned her head to look down at Tootles, who's eyes had dried now but still contained much sorrow. "I don't know," she replied. "I guess that's just the way he is sometimes."

"Boys will be boys," Tink chimed in as she knelt on the pad just outside the curtain of her flower hut.

"But I'm a boy, too," Tootles reminded her.

"Yes, you are, Tootles," Wendy replied as she resumed stoking the new fire. "But you're a special boy. And you should be proud of that."

"I don't like being special," Tootles moped.

Tink rolled her eyes and crawled back inside her flower hut to go back to sleep again. She really didn't feel like doing anything today, or even talking to anyone. And she decided that she wouldn't.

Wendy tried to think of some words that would comfort Tootles, but all she could manage was, "It's alright, Tootles. Try not to worry so much."

"I think I'll go outside and play," Tootles said as he got up from the floor. "By myself, as usual," he also mumbled under his breath.

"Alright," Wendy replied. "But be careful. I'll start making some breakfast. It should be ready in about an hour. Ok?"

"Ok, Wendy," Tootles replied as he took to the air left the house.

When Tootles ascended from the house, he saw that the sun had just fully risen and the air was already pleasantly warmed by it. He just hovered in the air for a few moments and he let the new day's light wash over his face as he tried to figure out what he wanted to do. He couldn't think of anything in particular, so he randomly chose a direction just starting floating through the forest, to see where he would end up. Eventually, he found his way to the beach, the same spot in fact where he had found the dead mermaid several days ago. Thankful that it was gone now, he sat down in the sand and looked out into the bay. From his vantage point, he could see neither of the ships that were moored off the coast, as Hook Island was blocking the Jolly Roger, and the shore of Neverland itself was blocking the Bestrafer from his view. And that suited him just fine. He'd never cared much for any pirates. The sound of the surf splashing softly against the sand lulled him, and he began to daydream about a fantasy in which he was the hero of Neverland instead of Peter, and he had just driven off all of the pirates and all of the other bad things that existed there so that everyone else could finally live in a perfect state of peace and harmony. All thanks to him, Neverland was transformed into a place of nothing but pure goodness. It was Heaven. And as a result, Peter changed right along with it. He became a mild and gentle boy, just like Tootles was. And they became best friends. Tootles imagined Peter wrapping his arms around him, hugging him tightly, and Tootles felt warm all over as he hugged himself to emulate the feeling. Closing his eyes, he began to drift off to sleep. But then he was brought back to reality by a strange sound. Opening his eyes, but continuing to clutch himself, he listened, trying to figure out what the sound was. It was coming from the water around the bend, towards the area where the new ship was parked. And it was growing louder in a way that indicated that whatever was making the noise was getting closer to him.

Alarmed, Tootles let himself go and stood up as a boat shot into his view from around the bend of the shoreline. Panicking, he turned to run for the trees, forgetting momentarily how to fly. And he tripped in the sand and fell on his face in it. Struggling, it was as though he had fallen in some quicksand and he couldn't seem to go anywhere. Feeling trapped, he cried out, "No!", and pushed himself up in the sand. Then he managed to take to the air enough to float into some bushes that grew just beyond the beach, not bothering to look behind him. As he settled himself on the ground behind the bushes, he hoped and prayed that whoever was on the boat hadn't spotted him, and he turned himself around so that he could peek through the leaves at whoever was arriving. The boat was noisy, and thus mechanical, so he knew that it had come from the new ship rather than Hook's. Tootles had the urge to just leave now and go back home so he could eat breakfast with Wendy. And his tubby stomach growled in agreement with this idea. But then he told himself no. He had to stay and see what was going on. He had to stop being such a chicken, and he had to stop letting his stomach rule him. That was the only way, he knew, that he would ever be able to gain any real respect from the others.

The boat came at the beach fast, and didn't show any signs of slowing down. Tootles could see that there were two people on it, but they were still too far away for him to tell who they might be. About 25 feet out from the shore, whoever as operating the motor shut it off and pushed a lever that caused the tiller to raise up out of the water, and then they let the boat coast the rest of the way so that it wound up beaching itself on the sand. That's when Tootles noticed that the other person, the one nearer to the bow, was Smee. And he didn't recognize the one at the stern because it was someone that he'd never seen before. Squinting, he could just barely tell that it was a woman. Then he watched as Smee and the woman got out of the boat to stand on the beach next to it, facing each other. And he listened as he heard them talking.

Sturmsi stood on the beach in front of Smee, who waited patiently for her orders as she eyed the treeline around the beach suspiciously and sniffed the air. Someone was out there, watching them. She could smell him, and feel his eyes. But she decided to ignore him for the time being, pretending not to notice his presence. "Smee?" she asked as she looked around the beach nonchalantly.

"Yes, Capt'n?" Smee replied with an eager expression that would have been just as fitting on the face of a friendly dog.

"Do you still have that map?"

"Eh, what map ye be referrin' to, Capt'n?" Smee asked with genuine ignorance.

"The one you had before. The last time we were ashore," Sturmsi said as she looked at him.

Smee scratched his head in confusion as he returned her gaze with a look in his eyes that revealed the emptiness of his head.

Sturmsi sighed as she closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them again to glare at Smee. "You know," she prodded, crossing her arms, "the one you were looking at when we got lost?"

"Oh! Right!" Smee replied as his eyes lit up with recognition at the word "lost", and he began fumbling around in his pockets. Finally, he pulled out the folded piece of paper and opened it up for Sturmsi as he held it out to her. "Be this the one you'ere askin' about, Ma'am?"

"Aye, that's it," Sturmsi replied as she wrinkled her nose at the funny images that were printed on the paper. "Where did you get it?"

"Eh, um..." Smee trailed off as he lowered the map as he thought, trying to remember where indeed he had gotten it. "Why, I can't seem to remember," he admitted.

"Are you sure?" Sturmsi questioned him.

"Well..." Smee replied, looking up at her as he stood slightly hunched over. "Now that I think about it, Capt'n, I think I'd just awoken with it in me pocket one morn. And I didn't remember where I'd gotten it then either. Aye, to be sure. Mayhap I got it from one of those wee folk at Small Monday fair, but I'll be banjaxed, I can't remember if'n I e'er done so."

"Hmm," Sturmsi replied as she rubbed her chin. "Do you mind if I have it?"

"Oh, sure, Cap'tn, to be sure," Smee replied as he happily handed the map to Sturmsi. "It ain't ne'ever done me any good anyway."

"Thanks," Sturmsi said as she took the map and looked at it curiously for a few moments. There was something that was strange about it, other than the odd effigy of Neverland that it appeared to be trying to depict. It actually made her feel funny when she looked at it, which intrigued her. Then she folded it back up and stuffed it in the inside breast pocket of her jacket. "Now, let's..." she began as she started to move towards the treeline, but then she halted. "Oh, wait," she said as she just remembered something. "We're being watched." Then she glared at the spot in the bushes were Tootles was still hiding. "There," she added as she pointed in his direction with her finger so that Smee would look there as well.

Smee didn't see anything, of course, but he didn't bother to say so as Sturmsi began walking towards the spot that she was continuing to point at, and he followed her.

Tootles, meanwhile, sat in place, frozen with fear like a deer in a spotlight as he looked into the shiny eyes of the one who was approaching him, not understanding how she saw him.

"Who's there?" Sturmsi called out as she continued to approach the bushes. "Come out! I know you're there. Quit hiding like a rat and show yourself!"

This reminded Tootles about what a coward he was, and it made him angry with himself. He shot up out of the bushes and into the air overhead, but stopped short of flying away. Instead, he stayed hovering at what he hoped was a safe distance from the newcomer as she stopped a few feet in front of the bushes and looked up at him, lowering her finger.

"Oh, that be one of those young scalawags of Peter Pan's," Smee informed her. "Quite a trouble-maker he is, Ma'am, to be sure."

"Peter Pan..." Sturmsi murmured as she remembered the boy whom she'd caught on her ship not too long ago. "Yes, I remember him, for he's already made a trespass on my ship, unannounced and unwelcomed, getting into things he shouldn't."

"Oh, aye, Capt'n. That sounds just like him, it does," Smee replied solemnly. "Always apesterin' my poor capt'n on the Roger he is too."

"What is your name?" Sturmsi asked the flying boy curiously as she noted his funny panda-like appearance.

"I'm Tootles!" he replied, trying to mask the fear in his voice with feigned bravery. "And wh-who are you?"

"I am Sturmsi, captain of der Bestrafer," she told him.

"What do you want?" Tootles questioned her.

Sturmsi thought about that. That was a good question. Then she came up with an answer. "Right now, I would like to know how you can fly, seeing as you have no wings."

Tootles thought twice about answering that question, but he decided it wouldn't do any harm. "Fairy magic," he replied.

"What? There are fairies here too?" Sturmsi questioned further as she squinted at Tootles in disbelief before realizing that she shouldn't be so surprised to learn that this might be the truth as she recalled the mermaid and looked at the boy that was floating in midair right in front of her.

"Aye, Capt'n Sturmsi, there be all sorts of gombeens such as that muckin' around in this doolally place, to be sure," Smee answered.

"Yeah, so?" Tootles replied, not wanting to give her any more information, although he realized that Smee would probably fill her in on everything he knew about the island, since it appeared to him that they were friends.

"You know...something is just not right about this place," Sturmsi said quietly, though she said it more to herself than either of the other two people who were listening to her.

"W-what do you mean by that?" asked Tootles.

Sturmsi looked up at him and smiled in a way that freaked him out quite a bit. "You smell funny," she told him. Then her face started to change in a way that freaked him out even more.

That's when Tootles realized that he was looking at the same thing that had killed the mermaid he'd found dead on this very shore not that long ago, and he was beset with the images of it's mutilated corpse. With a gasp of disgust and fear, he turned away from Sturmsi and flew back towards the underground house as fast as he could go, and he moved as though he was trying to outrun the very devil while it was only her demonic laughter that bothered to chase him.

- - - - - -

When Tootles made it back to the underground house, he found that all of the other boys had also returned for breakfast and were already halfway finished eating it.

"Tootles!" Wendy greeted him with cheer in her voice but concern on her face. "I was getting worried about you. Come and eat some breakfast before it gets cold."

Tootles quietly sat down at the table and the smell of the food eased his mind while agitating his stomach. He felt like he was starving. Wendy served him three Neverberry pancakes with extra butter and syrup.

Tootles looked up at her gratefully while she did this and she just smiled back at him while he started to dig in.

After he had cleaned his plate, which took less than five minutes, the rest of the boys had finished their meals and were preparing to go back outside for some more adventuring. "Peter!" Tootles called out, just as Peter was about to take off again.

"What is it, Tootles?" Peter asked with an apathetic expression as he halted by the door, not wanting to be held up by whatever boring thing that Tootles had to say, but stopping himself anyway just in case it wasn't as boring as he expected it to be.

"I saw someone on the beach with Bosun Smee," Tootles informed him, as if it was the most important thing he'd ever said in his life.

"So what?" Peter asked with annoyance as he kept his back turned to the shorter, fatter boy. "Unless it was Captain Hook, I couldn't care less."

"No, it wasn't Captain Hook, but that's just it," Tootles continued insistently. "It was a woman. Sort of. It was that, um, thing that killed the mermaid, I know it! And Smee was with her, and he gave her some kind of map."

"Hmm," Peter replied as he turned the rest of the way around to actually face Tootles. "That is kind of strange, now that I think about it. Where did you see them?"

"It was at the same place where I found the dead mermaid," Tootles replied.

"I'll go check it out!" Peter cried suddenly, and with that, he flew out the doorway so fast that the air he sucked out of the room with him felt like the wind of a storm to those who were left in his wake. The other boys just looked at each other curiously, some of them shrugging, as they decided not to follow Peter right now since they were weighed down by their full stomachs, as well as so tried of playing pirates that real pirates were the very last things that they wanted to see just then.

Peter arrived at the beach in no time, and in just enough time to catch Sturmsi and Smee leaving the shore in their noisy but fast moving boat. Peter flew out over the water to follow them just as they disappeared around the bend of the shoreline. And when Peter got to that point, he saw that they were heading straight for the Bestrafer. They were moving even faster now, which was quite fast indeed, but Peter knew that he could easily catch up to them if he really wanted. And part of him did want to do just that, to try and find out what they had been up to, but something held him back. So he just hovered in place as he watched the boat recede in the distance until it got to the point where, from his viewpoint, the visage of the smaller boat became superimposed over the visage of its mothership.

That was when Peter just turned away and started heading back home again. Looking at that ship made him feel weird, especially now, and he had no desire to get near it again for the time being. Not until he had figured out what was wrong with him, what was causing his strange, recurring nightmares and bouts of sleep paralysis. Though he knew that the answer might very well lie within the ship itself, he was not ready to go back there. And he wasn't sure when he ever would be. He didn't even feel up to facing Hook right now, at least not the real one. So, for now, he would just play pirates with his friends. And that's exactly what he intended to do right then, with whoever he could get to along with it, to get his mind off the things that he didn't like thinking about, by simply pretending that everything was the way it was supposed to be. Make-believe was the only thing that made him feel better during times like this, that was the way it had always been for him, and it was all that he'd ever needed anyway.

- - - - - -

Exactly two weeks after Smee had boarded der Bestrafer, Sturmsi kept her promise to Hook, although she was reluctant to do so. But one thing she didn't like to do was break her promises, however tempted to do so she might be. So, the previous night, she had Smee pack up his things and return all of the items that he'd been issued during his stay aboard her ship. Then, bright an early the next morning, she sounded the horn to let Hook know that she was coming. With Freddy at the tiller of the motorboat again, she accompanied Smee on his journey back home.

Hook stood ready and he watched their approach from the railing of his ship as he stood on the deck alone with his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl etched upon his face. Then, as they came up to the hull, he let out a sigh of frustration before going to the rope ladder that was coiled neatly on the deck to pick it up and throw the end of it overboard so that it fell down into the water directly in font of the boat. He did this himself because, currently, he had all the rest of the men strung up in chains down in the brig for having tried to commit mutiny in Smee's absence. Hook had just barely been able to keep himself from killing them all, both during and after the skirmish, for if he did that, then he wouldn't have any means by which to sail the Roger out of Neverland when the day of Peter Pan's demise had finally come, a day that he still fully believed that he would live to see. Eventually, he would let them out, hoping that they had learned their lesson, for he had given them all quite a sound thrashing. Mullins, in particular, had been beaten to within an inch of his life. And now old Smee would be back to help keep them in line too, and ease some of the captain's burden as well as his paranoia of the other, much less trustworthy pirates. Not that Hook planned to show the bosun any manner of gratitude for this, mind you, besides forgiving him of his stupidity by simply letting him live. He rather planned to have everything go back to just the way it had been before. Though it was quite a sad state of existence, Hook thought, it would have to suffice until after Peter Pan had finally gotten what he had coming to him.

When Smee had climbed far enough up the ladder for Hook to reach him, the captain absently mimicked what he had seen Sturmsi do on the Bestrafer, though he didn't realize it. He reached down with his hand and grabbed the back of Smee's shirt to haul him the rest of the way up, though he did it a lot more roughly than Sturmsi had done earlier. Then he tossed him aside so that he fell on the deck behind him as he went back to the railing to glare down at Sturmsi, who only returned his hate-filled gaze with a blank one. Without a word, and without turning her head, she motioned for Freddy to get them back to the Bestrafer. He complied, and as the boat turned around, Sturmsi turned as well so that she could continue facing Hook while they left. Hook watched her go and began to feel a bit better as her form grew smaller to him in the distance.

Finally, once he could no longer look at Sturmsi without also looking at the Bestrafer at the same time, Hook turned around to look down at Smee, who currently remained seated on the deck where he had been thrown, too fearful to get back up again until he had been given permission to do so.

"Look alive, Smee," Hook commanded him with a seething growl.

"Oh, aye, aye, Captain!" Smee cried as he frantically got back to his feet and stood at attention, rigid with fear because he sensed the captain's extremely foul mood, and he made an equally-fearful salute by drawing his hand up the side of his body and his face before planting it to his forehead. And he bent backwards as the captain approached him with what sounded more like a hiss than a sigh, trying to keep as much distance between them as he could while suppressing both the urges to cringe and to step back away from him, knowing that would just irritate him even further. "I-is everything alright, Sir?" he managed to ask in a small, squeaky voice that sounded utterly pathetic, though his eyes held an amount of true concern for the captain that was equal to the fear that they were also filled with.

"No, Smeeee...I'm afraid I must report that there have been a few...complications, while you were away," Hook said, and the words oozed from his lips like poison as he bent down to bring his face right next to Smee's, as though this was all the bosun's fault. In a way, Hook actually thought that it was, though he knew that it was in no way intentional on the little Irishman's part. Nonetheless, he had to take out his burgeoning frustration on someone, lest he would explode and do something that he might regret doing later, and Smee was the only one in his vicinity at the moment who was in good enough shape to handle it.

Smee charily lowered his hand back down to his side as he continued to face the captain, and that was the only thing that he dared to move right now. "Eh...but, uh, Sir...what sort of, eh...complimications...?"

Hook let out a fierce growl and stuck his fist into Smee's chest, hard enough that it would leave a bruise there, and he bunched the front of Smee's shirt into it and jerked him even closer, causing Smee to yelp in terror.

"There was an attempted mutiny," Hook informed him in a voice that sounded strangely like a quiet roar, grinding his teeth as capillaries popped out in the whites of his eyes and then his pupils also turned red as he recalled the event. "Led by Mullins, of course."

"W-well, Capt'n, I-I've tried to tell ye, Sir, th-that Mr. Mullins, well, he-" Smee stammered nervously, only to be cut off by a sound that Hook made that wasn't quiet, and then Smee did cringe as well as whimper at the noise. None of the sounds that he had heard while aboard der Bestrafer scared him nearly as much as that one did.

Then Hook straightened himself and moved towards the hatch of the brig, dragging Smee with him by the front of his shirt. When they got to it, Hook let him go and then reached his hand inside his coat to pull out his cat-o-nine.

Fearing that he was about to be lashed with it, Smee held his hands in front of his face defensively while maintaining a cowering position in front of Hook. But, instead, he found the thing being shoved rudely into his already sore chest.

"Take it, you sniveling cur!" Hook barked at him furiously as he gouged Smee with the object even harder, which was his way of trying to hand it to him. "Or else I will sting you with it!"

Reluctantly, Smee grasped the whip with both of his hands as Hook released it. Then he looked up at the captain with a dazed expression, as if he had no idea what he was supposed to do with it.

"All the men are chained up down there, and have been for going on four days now," Hook told him as he pointed at the hatch that lead down into the brig just below them. "Now get down there and let the scugs out. But should any one of them utter so much as one peep of dissent about anything whatsoever, you are to lash the insolent jackanapes to his very bones! And do keep in mind that I won't be tolerating any of your typical poltroonery on this matter. You will do for me as well as you did for Sturmsi. Do I make myself clear?"

"A-aye-aye, Captain! I-if that's what ye want, Sir! So it is, to be sure!" Smee responded frantically with another hasty salute, and though his voice wavered at the thought of having to lash any of his already beaten-up shipmates down to their very bones, the look in his eyes indicated that he was ready to do anything at this point to appease the captain, no matter how cruel it was.

"Good," Hook replied with a sneer. "Now, I'm going to search my bunk, for I have not been able to get one decent night's rest for the past two weeks!" And with that, Hook turned about and began stomping towards his cabin. Then he halted and spun around to look at Smee again, who had just turned away from him to make his way down into the brig as ordered. "Oh, and, uh, Bosun Smee?" the captain called to him, making him pause.

"Yes, Capt'n?" Smee responded with feigned cheeriness to disguise his dread.

"I should also advise you not to disturb me for the rest of the night, not unless there is a dire emergency," Hook said. "And I really do mean it. I trust you understand?"

"Aye, Captain," Smee replied with a gulp, getting the point.

And without another word, Hook went into his cabin, slammed the door behind him, and locked it, having absolutely no desire to look at anyone until well into the next day, after he'd gotten at least twelve full hours of sleep.

* * * * * *