Tory - Chapter Ten: Almost Adventures

I was really surprised. Me and.....Jack? I could definitely see Luc and I (as I did every night in my dreams wink) and maybe even me and Will, but Jack? It was insane. I didn't even know him well. We had just met less than a week ago. I sat up. My head throbbed as if I had been listening to a bad music for a long time. Ouch.

"Jack?" I croaked. He looked up. "Water?" I asked. He got up, poured some water, put herbs into it and handed me the cup. I guided it to my lips, painfully swallowing the nasty tasting medicine. Serves me right for getting drunk. I heard shouts from Sarina's side of the room.

"Will, I didn't mean to! You know that I-, Will! Come back!" Sarina was shouting at Will's figure, retreating out the door. "Arg!!!" She screamed in rage, then moaned and held her head. She had just learned the "Don't Shout with a Hangover" Lesson. Poor girl. Jack got up and gave her some of the same stuff he fed me. I yawned. The herbs were making me tired and I could see they were having the same effect on Sarina. I snuggled down in my thin blanket, hoping for the soothing sleep.

When I awoke, I could see from the light in my windows that the sun was just rising. Opening the cabin door with my good hand, I stepped out onto the deck. The sun was just rising over the bow. It was so beautiful. I watched in raptured silence, kicking myself for all the days I had missed watching a sunset. As Sarina mentioned before, I'm a bit of a night owl, seeing more of the moon than the sun. I immediately resolved to change my ways. The sunrise was just so lovely.

"Yeh like sunrises, missie?" It was Jack.

"This is actually one of the first I've ever watched from start to finish." I confessed, for the sun was now fully up.

"'Tis beautiful." Jack sighed. We stood in silence for a moment. It was very quiet up here.

"Where's the crew?" I asked, looking around. I saw a lone man at the wheel and as I stared, he avoided my gaze. "Aren't they supposed to be working now?" Jack turned away and sighed.

"Well, yeh see, when men go to sea, they don't get ter be wi' women, if yeh catch my drift." Jack began. I nodded slowly. "And so when two fine lasses such as yerselves come upon ship, men get restless. The crew stays away from you fer yer own safety."

"Wait, but what about Ana Maria?"

"Ana Maria can take care of 'erself. You can't" Jack said. It took me a minute to register this.

"You ordered the crew to stay away from Sarina and I?"

"It wasn't an order, it was more like... guiding principles that have to be followed."

"Jack, Sarina and I are not children." I turned to him. "I think we can handle ourselves." Jack looked at me with an unreadable expression in his eyes. One split second later, I was pinned to the deck with my hands forced above my head and Jack kneeling on my legs with just enough force to make me unable to move.

"Ow! What was that for?!" I yelled, for it hurt being SLAMMED to the deck. Jack bent his head close to mine, so that our noses were almost touching.

"You are not as strong as yeh think yeh are. Remember that. I do not know why yer here, but I am cap'n aboard' this ship and I will not have yeh killed or raped." He lifted his head and got up from the deck, walking away without a backwards glance.

In that moment I knew that, behind his drunken exterior, Jack was ahead of everyone in this game. He knew more than anyone and he knew it. He was a mystery to me and would most likely remain that way. In that same moment I also realized something surprising. I was afraid of Captain Jack Sparrow.

Heading back to the cabin I pondered on this. I think I had been afraid of him longer than I actually cared to admit. I'm sure even Will was a bit afraid of him at times. He was a very scary man to have on our side and an even scarier one to be against.

Opening the door to our cabin, I saw Sarina was getting herself ready for a day's hard work translating Latin. We had both adopted the crews' style of dress. Sarina, deciding to make our look more 'modern day', cut off the sleeves of men's' shirts we found in the drawers. This formed a loose, comfy, tank-topish shirt. We both cut the bottoms off the fitted men's pants, because the shorts they had were more like capris on us. Sarina tied her hair back in her usual ponytail and I wore a bandana to keep my hair off my face and the back of neck and also to stop my scalp from burning. Unfortunately for me and my extremely pale skin, sun screen had not been invented yet. So from Day Number One of working on deck, I was constantly a pinkish reddish color all over my body. However Sarina, the lucky one, only tanned darker and darker.

"Where were you?" Sarina asked, flipping her hair up.

"Oh, you were sleeping, so I went for a walk." I said. "I saw the sunrise. It was really pretty." She laughed.

"Well, maybe if you got your lazy butt out of bed before the sun hits noon, you would see more of that." She joked.

"Yup, I'm sure I would, but I don't have enough discipline for that." I smiled.

"Come along, let us Romanify our minds!" We walked out of the room, singing happy songs.

Our daily life on the ship was basically routine. When we woke up, we would have breakfast, and then go translate for three or four hours with short breaks to make sure we didn't go crazy. Then we would snack on something light, like an apple while translating for another hour. After that, Jack, Gibbs, Will or Ana Maria would teach us something about ships or surviving or navigation. Unfortunately, Jack, Gibbs and Ana Maria were busy most of the time, so the lessons were mainly taught by Will. We would then eat dinner in the Captain's cabin, or have to eat it by ourselves in our dingy cabin while they discussed something we weren't allowed to hear. We might have been protected by Jack, but we weren't special on the ship. I was sure that as soon as they could get rid of us, they would. For now I was happy, but what happened when I wanted to go back to my old life? Sarina and I left our lives behind. What if we couldn't.....? I kept blocking that thought from my mind, but like a bad boyband, it kept coming back.

One morning, we were awoken by the loud shout of "Land Ahoy!" from the man in the crow's nest. Sarina and I rushed to the door, to find, to our surprise, it was locked. It didn't particularly mean anything to me, but Sarina was outraged.

"They keep us caged like animals!" she yelled. "What if the ship sank? How would they feel then?" I tried to calm her down, but it was no use. "Hypocrites! Liars! Pretenders! Charlatans! I don't even know what that word means, but I'm sure it describes them!"

"Maybe they are trying to keep us safe." I suggested, remembering my conversation with Jack.

"I don't want to be protected! Don't you realize that the only thing we've done since we came here is be protected? We would expect to have cool sword fights and do crazy things and have crazy adventures. But no, we get stuck at sea the whole time, not even doing anything interesting. We're stuck translating Latin verbs. You get sunburned and I haven't washed my hair in so long that it sticks together like dirt sticks to a wet lollipop. By now, school is over. It's summer. I want to make out with hot guys. This isn't our PLAN!

"You're right. You really are. But listen to this..." I began to tell her about my encounter with Jack five days ago. As I finished, she looked confused.

"But doesn't Jack trust his crew? He did pick them." Sarina said.

"Yea, but remember what happened last time with Barbossa." She nodded.

"I guess you're right. More investigation needed." Sarina grinned. "But while we're stuck here, we might as well make the best of it. Let's see what these drawers can do for us. We'll make them regret locking us up." Sarina told me her plan. We grinned evilly and got to work. We dumped the contents of the drawers on the floor and sorted it into the following piles: fancy, men's clothes, and everyday. Then we really got to work. Sarina had found a knife a few days back and kept it in our room, just in case. We both picked an article of clothing that we could "doctor" and began to put our gender to use.

About thirty minutes later, we heard a knock at the door. Sarina smirked at me. This was our time. There was the scraping of a lock and Will poked his head through the door.

"You are supposed to come to the.....cabin." His serious expression turned into one of complete dismay. "What are you wearing?!"

"Clothes." Sarina replied, grinning. And even that wasn't so true. I was wearing a pair of the shortest shorts invented. I had cut them out of old sailor pants. My green halter top was V-necked and stopped six inches above my belly button. Sarina was wearing a skirt so short it was barely there. It was made out of red silk from a dress that had a huge stain that looked like wine on the top. Sarina had just cut the skirt part off, minus most of its bottom. Her top was the same as mine, only blue. In our world, it was pretty much daily wear for some people, but in this world, we could probably get arrested. If only our mothers could see us now.

"Get something proper on before Jack sees you!" Will hissed.

"Why?" I asked, innocently.

"Just do it." Will looked extremely worried. "Oh, Jack's going to.."

"Jack's goin' to what?" Jack interrupted, leaning against the doorway. Will looked beaten. Glancing around the room, he caught sight of our outfits and grinned wolfishly. "Was I not ri' abou' them, William?" Will glared at us. "Yer needed in my cabin. We 'ave a bi' o' a proposition. Come on, lasses."

As we walked up to the captain's cabin, we were definitely noticed. A few of the men stared, a few smirked, a few gaped, but they were all put quickly back in our place by a steely glace from Jack. I glanced at Sarina. Our plan wasn't exactly working. The whole crew was supposed to be drooling and then agree with us for whatever we said. It was kind of sketchy, as we didn't know exactly what we wanted yet, but it was all Sarina and I could do with our workable materials.

Just as the door to the cabin closed, Will burst out. "What in the WORLD are you thinking, wearing that... that... well, you aren't wearing anything!!!" Sarina and I looked at each other. This really wasn't going as planned.

"We just wanted to have a bit of fun." I explained.

"Fun! Fun!" Will sputtered. "You like you live in Tortuga. And do you realize what type of people live in Tortuga, or are you as dense as you clothes portray you as?!" Sarina began to speak, but Will cut her off.

"No! If anything, I expected it from you," he nodded to me "but not from you. Sarina I thought you had more sense than to walk around on a ship full of men half naked!"

"It's not her fault. It was my idea." I said, now beginning to wonder what I had thought in the first place.

"Of course it was you idea! It couldn't have been anyone elses!" Will yelled. I narrowed my eyes.

"What's THAT supposed to mean? You EXPECT me to be a slut? Well, guess what you-" I was interrupted from my long string of curses by Captain Jack Sparrow.

"Now, don't be yellin' at me firs' mate. 'e's a good man. Will, don' be yellin' and accusin' people. They just dressed... differently, showin' that they're perfect for me job." Jack drawled.

"No! It's too dangerous. No way am I letting Sarina, er, and Tory do such a thing!"

"What's the job?" asked Sarina.

"Well, yeh see, the island beyond next is where a friend of mine lives." Jack grinned wolfishly. "And this friend has something I want. But he won't let me have it. So if I have help from you to, ah... borrow it from him, it would be very helpful indeed."

"So, what exactly do we have to get?" Sarina asked, sounding interested.

"Don't mind that yet," Jack easily avoided the question. "You just pop in, get me and Will to it and we'll take it. All you have to do is let us inside the house."

I looked at Sarina. She nodded. It seemed pretty easy. We didn't even have to do the actual stealing.

"Sure. We'll do it." Jack grinned.

"Wonderful. But ladies?"

"Yes?" we said in unison.

"Change into something else. You look REALLY bad."

We had been dismissed from the captain, but Will was still there.

"Jack, I do not think that this is a good idea."

"Will, they can take care of themselves. And there is no one else to do the job."

"Ana Maria could do it."

"No, Kelmar knows her. If he sees her, he'll most likely kill her. He knows that

she is with me, but he doesn't know the girls."

"But it's dangerous."

"They agreed to it."

"Because you didn't tell them all the dangerous details!"

"They still agreed to it."

"But-"

"Will, they're doing this job for me. You can't do anything about it." The captain turned on his heel and strode away, leaving Will staring angrily back at him.

Meanwhile, having changed in our cabin, Sarina and I were standing on deck, looking at the waves.

"This job seems really interesting. Our first adventure! And we actually get to

participate!" Sarina said happily.

"Yea, it's pretty awesome. Jack was a bit vague though. We'll have to get more

from him later."

"True. By the way, have you seen Ellie or Luc recently?"

"Nope, why?"

"Just wondering. I haven't seen them either. It's kind of weird, because this ship isn't that big."

"I wouldn't worry about it. We've spent most of our time on deck; they could be in the cabins." I said.

"I guess." Sarina said, furrowing her eyebrows worriedly. We stared at the horizon some more. I could faintly see the island where Jack said we would be doing our job. However, my eyesight wasn't that good and it was most likely closer than it looked.

Suddenly the boat tilted to the side, catching a big wave that came out of nowhere, it seemed. The wave didn't actually crash over the side of the boat, but it tipped it enough to send Sarina flying over the side, crashing into the waves below. I stared in horror for a second, and then jolted into action.

"MAN OVERBOARD!! MAN OVERBOARD!!" I yelled, and kept on yelling. A bluish blur swept past me and made a clean dive into the water. I figured it was Jack, with one of his amazing heroic women saves, but suddenly he was standing next to me, throwing a rope to the figures in the water below. Jack ordered us to pull them out ("ye scaberous dogs!") and standing on deck was Luc, with Sarina in his arms, both of them dripping wet. Sarina looked like a mad cat.

"You know, I could have saved myself." She said glaring, as she grabbed a cloth from a pirate to dry herself off with. "I can swim, I'm not a total dip." A lot of jaws dropped.

"Yeh can swim?" Jack asked.

"Yea, so? You can swim." Sarina said irritably.

"But I'm a pirate. Yeh're a woman. A lady."

"So? Tory and I both can swim. Where we come from, everyone can swim." Some pirates looked uneasy. I got it. It was like in that book, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which we had read in school. The girl knows how to swim and everyone thinks she is a witch, but that was weird when applied here. Jack could swim. Will could swim. Obviously, Luc could swim. Maybe they were weirded out for another reason. I decided to let it go.

"Come on, Sarina. Let's go back to the cabin, you probably need a change of clothes." I said, grabbing her arm and escorting her back to our cabin.

"Hahahaha!! I got saved by LUC!! Luc the hot! Luc the wonderful! I'm in love!" Sarina twirled around in the cabin, spraying salt water on me.

"Lucky." I grumbled, but I really didn't care anymore. I was happy that my initial sunburn had turned into a nice tan. I was happy that soon I would be going on land and our first adventure. I was happy because I was with my best friend and these great people that are in this world that we had been transported to. "You should probably change your clothes."

"Yea. Let's see what funky stuff I can pull together with this assortment. Where do you think that Jack got all this crazy stuff anyway?" Sarina said, her hands busy in the drawers finding new and unexplored territory of fashion.

"Probably from all the people he captured. He'd have to be pirating for a long time though."

"I'm sure he has been. How old do you think he is?"

"No idea."

"Here hold this." Sarina said, flinging me the cloth that she'd been drying herself with. I didn't react quickly enough and soon found it plastered to my forehead, dripping salty water on my face.

"Hey!" I flung it back, catching her on the back of her legs.

"Oh, you want a piece of me? Do you? Do you?" She flicked the towel at me, giving me rattail welt marks. I yelled and curled up in a ball on the floor.

"Mercy, mercy!" I yelled laughing. "Stop! You win!" She lay down on the floor next to me, tired out.

"I'm having fun!"

"That was random!"

"I know, but I really am. I don't want it to end." Sarina closed her eyes, grinning. "I can't wait for our adventure! Tremendous, tremendous! It's great to be alive!"

TBC: Coming up next episode!

Who is Kelmar and why does Will think he is dangerous?

Will Sarina and Tory survive their next adventure?

What are the men's true feelings for the girls?
What are the girls' true feelings for the men?

Where is Ellie and why wasn't she in this chapter more?

What is the mysterious thing that Jack wants stolen?

What is in that crazy Latin book?

And finally, where was the humor in this chapter?

All to be answered, next.