Ch. 2

Hand Over the Rum, Love!

            Everything was hot, too hot. Shay tossed and turned fitfully in her sleep. She was having a dream about falling, endless falling. She was tumbling down into a black hole until at last she hit something soft and…… warm. Shay opened her eyes only to close them again shielding them from the blinding sun. Wait a minute, why was the sun so bright? She hadn't gone to sleep outside. She groped around for her teddy bear but instead of finding a mattress beneath her she found…sand? Shay stood up abruptly.

Where the bloody hell am I? She thought.

            Shay looked around. She was on a beach.

Okay. She thought. Let's be rational. Where did you go to sleep last night? In the fort. Okay, yeah the fort. And what was the last thing I did before waking up on this beach? Uh…The necklace!

            Shay immediately looked down for her heart charm. It was there, sure enough, hanging innocently just below her collar bone. Shay touched it cautiously; making sure it wasn't still hot. It was once again cool and lifeless, as metal should be. Shay was positive that the charm was the reason she was here on this beach, she didn't know how it could be responsible but she knew it was. What other explanation was there? Trying to explain her present situation was getting her nowhere so she continued surveying her surroundings.

            This wasn't just a beach, it was an island! And a pretty familiar one at that. She was almost positive that this was the very island that Captain Jack Sparrow was marooned on. She was about to go explore when she tripped over something. She looked down to see her bag there at her feet. So her bag had come with her.

Well this is useful she thought. At least I'll die of starvation before I die of boredom. Oh well, I might as well see if I can find that rum cellar.

            Shay racked her brain for any clues from the movie as to where the cellar was. She remembered that Jack had knocked on a tree. She assumed this meant that it was hollow. So she started off in search of a hollow palm tree, all the while trying to sort out what had just happened.

            One hour later, Shay found herself still tapping on trees and getting extremely bored. Tap, tap, tap. Nothing. She moved on to the next one. Tap, tap, tap. Hollow! Yes! After becoming acquainted with practically every tree on the bloody island, she'd found a hollow one!

            She envisioned what Jack had done next. She faced the tree.

He had he had turned to the right.

            Shay turned to the right.

Then, he'd taken three huge steps forward.

            Shay took three exaggerated steps, nearly doing a split each time.

Now he'd jumped, to make sure this was the right place.

            Shay jumped. Sure enough, it sagged under her weight each time she came down on it.

            Shay shoved her hand into the sand and traced the textured feeling of wood until there was a large crack. She then jammed her fingers into the crack and pried the cellar open. It wasn't much to look at, that was for sure. It was a dark, musty, 5' by 5' room filled with, well no, not filled with rum. What was up with that? There were only two bloody bottles left!

Wait! That's a good thing, a VERY good thing!  She thought.

            If there were only two bottles of rum left, that meant that Jack still came to the island on occasion. Either that or some bloody maroon had stumbled across the cache and with nothing better to do, drank himself to death. Shay sincerely hoped it wasn't the latter. Shay grabbed the last two bottles and wearily made her way back to the beach where she'd woken up.

* * *

            Shay sat serenely on the shore with her feet in the water. It was getting dark, and the sun's rays had just about disappeared beneath the horizon. But not before the ocean's surface had become littered with golden specks where the sun's light hit the water.

            She was just now beginning to realize her situation. Part of her was telling her to be reasonable, to come to terms with the fact that this couldn't be happening. But the other part was saying

Well it's about bloody time! I've been waitin' all my life for this!

            Part of her wanted to believe it, no, wanted to embrace it, but the other part of her didn't want to believe it. It would be too painful if she woke up. She hated waking up. But this wasn't a dream! It couldn't be! It was just too real!

            Shay let out an exasperated sigh. She was thinking too much. What else was new? Sometimes, she would think about things so deeply that she couldn't sleep at night. That's why she could never fall asleep without reading something or drawing or doing something before she fell asleep. She needed something to take her mind off of life.

Well, might as well draw then…she thought. She reached into her bag withdrawing her sketchbook and pencils, and began the task at hand.

* * *

            Shay sat in the cool sand, enjoying the warm Caribbean breeze that caressed her face. The sun had long since set and she sat with her back against the trunk of a palm, drawing by the light of her flashlight. The swishing noise that the palm trees made as their leaves rubbed against one another soothed and calmed her, helping her to work diligently.

            She was working on her masterpiece. It was a picture. She'd been working on it for three hours. Actually, she'd finished it about an hour ago, now came the finishing touches. They were more like corrections really. She'd be admiring her work, and suddenly, the nose didn't look right, or the eyes were off and she would have to go back and fix it.

            She added a bit more shading to the cheek, mad the nose a bit sharper and gave it more of a curve. She then held her sketch book out at arm's length and admired her work. It was perfect. The best she'd ever done.

            It was a side view of a man's face. It was a beautiful face, pale, almost luminescent in the moonlight. He had dark-purple, almost black lips that seemed to be just on the verge of smiling. However, one look at the man's eyes and you immediately changed your mind. This man wouldn't be smiling anytime soon. There was too much pain in his eyes, the irises of which Shay had carefully colored brown and surrounded the lids with a light pinkish purple. Other than that, there was no color. His face was white, and his hair was black and wild… like the night. It spiked and curled in every direction. It had taken Shay a while to draw. She'd drawn each strand individually. Oh, who was it that Shay had drawn? For those who haven't guessed by now, the man's name was Edward. Edward Scissorhands.

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Okay People, I sincerely apologize for the shortness of this chapter but I really want to get this up there before my only reviewer, Ira Gaines, forgets about this fic, or thinks I've abandoned it. The next chapter will be a continuation of this one and will there fore have the same title.

P.S.- I make reference in this chapter to a picture of Edward Scissorhands. It really does exist. I drew it. if you want to see it tell me, and I MIGHT, key word being MIGHT be able to send it to you. I'm working on a picture of Captain Jack Sparrow!! WOHOO!

Ira Gaines: Thank you sooooooo much for the compliment!!!!! I'm honored, truly honored, that out of all the fics out there, u like mine. *Grins like an idiot* About all the other fics being the same, here's a few you might like: The Map (One of the best fics ever!) Meeting His Match, and Pirates of the 21st century: A Modernized Tale. Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!! Hopefully, the next one won't take as long to get up.

Oh, and one more thing… I you haven't seen "Newsies"… SEE IT!!!! SEE IT NOW!!!! IT RULES!!!!!!