Disclaimer- I asked Disney if I could have POTC. They said "No!" Then Cinderella's Fairy Godmother turned me into a newt, but then Monty Python's Flying circus helped me get better. But I still didn't own POTC, so me and the guys from Monty Python sacrificed a Pixie Stick to Aquaman. The end…

Disclaimer squared-I don't own anything mentioned in the preceding disclaimer.

A/N: …sigh…the reason it took me sooooooooo long to update is because I got no reviews on my third chapter. No feed back equals hesitation to move on. Please review this time! The button's right there all convenient! Lol. Well, that and writer's block…

Chapter four- "Pardon My French"

I never saw it coming. Even I couldn't have thought about this in advance. I mean, how could I have been expected to foresee Billy and me getting covered up to our necks in mayonaise and raisons trying to reason with an ornery French whelp who speaks barely enough English to tell me his name? Right, I couldn't.

Now, this time I can allow that look. I see how you could be confused about why we were caked in mayonnaise and raisons in the first place.

The honest-to-whatever-divine-you-like truth is that when the Pearl came to Falaise De Fleur, Billy and I still hadn't worked out a fresh plan. We were playing it completely by ear. I forget why Ris had taken the Black Pearl to Falaise De Fleur, or perhaps he'd never told anyone why. He tended to keep as much business to him self as was possible, which is a principle that could have served me well, had I though of it earlier than I did. Unfortunately, hindsight's always twenty-twenty.

But once again, I digress. First stories first.

Billy and me were winging it out there. We actually discussed, in detail, our lack of plan.

"So, Billy…you thought of anything?"

"Nothing. You, something, anything?"

"Nothing."

"Guess that means we have nothing."

"Unless you've thought of something."

"Nothing."

"Least we know we have nothing…"

"That's something at least."

I just love intellectual conversations like that, don't you?

Well, once again, I return to my point. With nothing new to go on, we were going with what we knew, which, as evidenced in Isla Muelle, happened to be minor acts of vandalism. But first, the target had to be located. And seeing how it ended up not existing, that was gonna pose us a bit of a problem. But it was nothing we couldn't handle.

Once we'd wandered some streets away from the pier, we approached a French commoner, an older man with grayish clothes apparently selected to match his hair. We asked him which way the orphanage was, claiming we were brothers and that we were lost, but lived near the Falaise De Fleur orphanage.

Now, I fancy myself rather talented in the area of deception. Actually, I fancy myself rather talented at a great many things, but deception happens to be one of them. Dishonesty sort of comes with the territory, sort of in the job description as it were, if you follow me. Even at ten years old, I'd figure I could tell a pretty little fib. But the Frenchman saw right through us. How? There is-and was- no Falaise De Fleur orphanage.

"Aha! Little boys!" the Frenchman said with a rudely condescending laugh, as if speaking English and existing were the two worst sins that could be committed and there Billy and I stood, guilty of both of them. I disliked this man already. "There is no…how you'd say…orphanage here! All the charity is carried out by the church. So never try to pull the wool over a Frenchman's eyes, vous savvez?" The Frenchman said, then stalked away, laughing through his nose stereotypically.

It just so happened that we were standing just outside of the mentioned church. It was monstrous. A cathedral. Stained glass windows of all the most popular saints in their most heroic poses, all caught on their good side.

Which is another thing all together- do you suppose a saint has a non-good side?

Anyway, as Billy and me looked upon this monolithic place of worship, and its cast iron doors and all, and stonework to put the mountains to shame, and gargoyles to scare the gargoyles off lesser buildings, we instantly and simultaneously decided there didn't exist enough food refuse in the world to vandalize this massive sanctuary. And even if there were, there was something wrong, even in the eyes of two aspiring pirates, with attacking a church full of orphans.

However, this told us loud and clear that a Plan "B" was needed.

"Billy," I said without looking at him, seeing how both out necks were craned upwards, trying to take in the sheer magnitude of the building. "Aside from this establishment it's self, which needless to say seems untouchable, what else would Ris use to decide if he wanted to leave me here?"

"The city it's self?" Billy suggested. "I can't say I could see Ris seeing fit to leave you somewhere you're likely to get trampled or impaled within ten minutes…hypocritical as that may be when you really think about…"

Billy didn't need to finish his sentence. A pirate trying to protect me from violence?…Not if I could help it!

Unfortunately, that posed another problem: it was a pretty safe town. The only unsavory characters I'd seen there worked for my uncle. But if there's one thing I know for certain, if you look hard enough, no matter where you are, you'll find a jackass.

I keep telling you-stop looking at me like that!

Well, after a moment more's consideration I trotted off down a promising alley. Billy took a moment to realize I was gone, but when he did, he followed quickly behind me.

"So, where are we goin'?

"To find someone."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Do you actually know anyone?"

"Nope."

"But you're gonna find 'em anyway?"

"Yeah."

"Is that supposed to make any sense to me at all?"

"Nope."

"Jack? Do you actually have a plan at all?"

"Yeah."

"Don't you think you should tell me what it is?"

"Nope."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah."

"Well…as long as you're sure…"

"Sure, I'm sure."

I stopped so suddenly, Billy almost stepped on my heels. I smiled at the sight of what had to be the seediest, grimiest, cheapest, and roughest of back-alley bars. While this sight would later put a smile on my face quite often, that first time there, it wasn't for the reasons it would be in the future.

Billy looked at me blankly.

"Jack…you're kidding…"

"I kid you not."

"I really think it's about time you told me what we're doing."

"What you're doing is just what I'm doing. And be sure you do it when I do it. Particularly the part where we run like bloody hell."

Billy looked at me with a smug you-try-too-hard look. A fine thing from the whelp who "wants to be called Bill", let me tell you!

"Like "bloody hell", huh?" he said, almost laughing at me.

"Oh, shut up." I grouched at him, then walked over to the entrance of the bar, and opened the door.

We almost coughed and choked in the cloud of smoke from various sources that billowed out of the room, but we decided it wouldn't have been good form. Instead, we stepped in and stood side by side in the doorway of the dim tavern hall as the door swung shut behind us.

There are rats in sewers beneath the cities that would be ashamed to show their hideous, furry, little faces in that place. Every one of those hulking masses of filth who formed the tavern patronage that weren't entirely involved in themselves and their drinking to the exclusion of all else, were busying themselves with turning one another into filthy, smelly, greasy little piles of human pulp on the dingy floor.

"Jack…" Billy said nervously "now I really think you should inform me of this so-called plan."

I decided that would be the opportune moment to let the poor whelp in on the basics.

"We bait and run. Run right back to Ris."

Billy nodded with vague understanding. I glanced around and spotted a real mangy mongrel of a man.

Not that they all weren't, but my point remains…

I walked up to him, Billy trailing tentatively behind, still not seeming entirely sure about this plan. He looked like he thought the whole thing was insane. Ludicrous. Mad. Nigh suicidal. Well, of coarse it was: it was my plan, wasn't it?

"Hey, mister!" I said kid-ish-ly "Are you from this city?"

He looked at us, seeming less than impressed with what he saw. So was I: the man reminded me half of an angry bulldog and half of a bloodshot monkey.

"Who are you two kids?" the Lout said rudely and telling by hi accent, was in fact from the city. "I don't need to talk to you two! Leave me alone or I'll turn you both into pork salad, vous savvez?"

Personally, I don't see how he could turn either one of us, never mind both of us, into pork salad at all, really- I'm not a pig now, and I wasn't then.

Don't look at me like that! I'm not telling you again!

Anyway, this man suited the purposes I was planning, but he seemed rooted to the spot in his seat in the tavern. I'd have to change tactics and hope Billy could keep up with what I was doing.

"Mister!" I said suddenly, purposely startling him into coughing. "What do you do?"

"Man o' my own free will."

Which translates, of course, to pirate, or possibly simple vagrant. Standard terminology.

"Is that why you have no nose?" I asked, and the Lout-and Billy too actually- stared at me like I had a few dozen. You see this gentleman-though I use the term loosely- was completely and fully nose-endowed. And Lout and Billy knew this. And Lout clearly disliked being told otherwise.

"What'd you just say?"

I spoke louder, purposefully and thoroughly obnoxious. Billy stood by, and I observed he was just as confused at the Lout with the ill-favored look.

"I wanna know where your nose went!" I declared, loud enough for all creation-or at least the tavern- to hear.

"What are you two talking about?!"

"But I haven't said anything!" Billy protested.

"Billy," I pointed out "you just did!"

"…uh…"

"What in blazes is wrong with you two?!"

"We're just curious, my snout-less friend."

"I got a nose!" the Lout roared.

"No sense living in denial." Billy interjected, and I smiled. Great. He was finally catching on to the plan.

"Clear out! Both of you! Go! Are you hard of hearing?! Go! Or I'll make you hard of breathing! Vous savvez?!"

"I was just asking is all…"

The mad-dog contortion of his face spoke volumes. It looked like this would work, particularly since he, immediately following my just mentioned statement, proceeded to jump up and pull a knife on us.

"That is IT!"

"Billy…" I said calmly and collectedly, backing away from the knife-wielding maniac. "…I do believe that this is the part where we RUN!"

Billy was already halfway to the door.

Dashing out the door after him like a clever, charming mouse being chased by a gargantuan Lout of a cat, I pulled ahead of Billy, and we ran feverishly down a sharp left turn into an alley, the elephantine man close behind. You've heard the phrase "swearing like a sailor"? No mere exaggeration, believe you me. But this man was conjuring such a proverbial blue streak as to embarrass the average sailor.

And in front of two kids too. Shame.

…I'm NOT dignifying that look with an answer.

So we ran down the alley. Out of the alley. Into the street. Down more alleys. The lout was still behind us all the way. So we ran up some alleys, and out into some streets. I was panting, my heart pounding in my ears, actually running for my life for the first time in the just mentioned time frame. In a mildly masochistic, mildly psychotic way, it was the most fun and exhilaration I'd ever had in my life.

Gradually we realized we'd lost the lout. Unfortunately, we'd lost ourselves in the process. Hopelessly lost.

"Jack…where are we?" Billy panted.

I looked at him like he had two heads and half a brain.

"You expect me to know? You really expect me to know?"

"Guess not…where's Ris, anyway?"

"The area of the docks, I think, or something…wherever that is…"

Exactly how excited Billy was showed plainly on the blankly crestfallen expression on his face. I shrugged and looked around.

I'd never seen a structure quite like the huge warehouse that glared me in face when I examined my surroundings, trying to figure things out. It impressed me, but not in the grandiose way the monolithic church had. What struck me about the big-city shipping warehouse was the sheer functional-ness of it. A big, no-nonsense, gray box, neatly gridded-in windows, a double door in the front, smaller, but proportionally exactly the same as the building's front that it was set in. A wood and metal sign proclaimed it a shipping warehouse. A straightforward, no-questions-asked tax collector of a building.

"Let's ask the way back to the harbor in that…thing!" I suggested "They'll know!"

"How do you know that?"

I looked at him blankly.

"It's a SHIPPING warehouse!"

Billy nodded.

"I knew that."

I walked up to the heavy building and opened the door.

It was dim in there and only one arrangement on the miles-high ceiling provided a shaft of light that sat sullenly in the middle of the room. Crates and boxes were piled to the sky against the walls. A big ladder sprawled against the wall, leading to an alcove, a loft half-filled with planks. And in the middle of it all, perched on a single crate in the middle of the room, with no apparent motivation, unless he was in a state of meditation…or maybe medication…was the sand-haired French boy with freckles. There was no one else there-it was evening, after closing time. The whelp on the box, I could only assume was the manager's son, or something similar.

I trotted up to the kid, Billy following me.

"Hello, there." I said personably. The whelp looked at me like he was assessing me and I wasn't measuring up to standards. I suspect it was because I'd addressed him in English.

"French." He said in an almost incomprehensible French accent. "Speaking French."

Apparently we looked like we couldn't understand him through his accent, and he launched into a stream of French.

"Je parle Francais, mais Je ne parle pas beaucoup de Anglais. Tu parle Francais, non? Tout le monde parle Francais, c'est correct?"

Billy and I looked at each other. This was gonna get interesting.

"Look," I said slowly and clearly and a bit loudly, the way some people do when they're trying to break a communications barrier without learning a new language. "My name is Jack, and he is Billy, and we're in big, big trouble with-"

Billy cut me off, interjecting with his well-traveled wisdom.

"Let's start with just names and see where we can go from there."

I nodded.

"Good idea." I turned back to the boy. "My name is Jack… Jack." I said gesturing widely at myself.

My contemptible Anglophone self was clearly not making a good impression. But at least he understood, or at least seemed to. He nodded and pointed to himself, declaring he was Francois. I started gesticulating at Billy.

"This is Billy. Bill…y. Billy."

This Francois did not seem to understand. I gestured some more. He still didn't seem to comprehend.

Billy approached him, and started to speak haltingly.

"Me llamo…no, sorry, that's Spanish…. Uh…oh, right! "Je'mapelle Billy." He said simply. The French kid looked pleased, at least, more so than he had with me. But he was still looking at us the way you might look at a piece of donkey manure freshly plucked from beneath a leper's toenail.

"Saluté" he says blankly. Now, I know you usually hear about people looking blankly at something. Well, this kid had that so perfected that he went on to invent blank speaking. Actually, he wasn't quite blank, at least not at first. Before going back to his usually expressionless gaze, he raised his eyebrows. I got the feeling that this was him so surprised, he was nigh hysterical.

"Look, I'm Jack, he's Billy, and we're lost. Need help! Hiding!"

François shrugged.

"Je ne comprénde pas."

I, not being as versed in blankness as he was, settled for the blank stare which I promptly gave him.

"June a-gone to what?"

"He said he didn't understand."

The French whelp nodded at this translation.

"C'est…it's right…mon English is…est tres mal…is very bad."

I sighed. Huffed in exasperation. We'd lost the Lout, but he wasn't going to stay lost. We still had to keep Ris from leaving me there and we certainly didn't have time to teach François The King's English: Language Of Shakespeare. I settled on trying once more to augment my talk with undignified, bizarre, wide hand gestures. Felt absolutely ridiculous, seeing how I'm not usually a hand-talker.

This time, I honestly and truly what you're looking at me like that for.

"Hide! Us! Need to! Up there! Secret!"

I pointed clearly to a loft I'd spotted over his shoulder. He looked at me and said nothing. I was just about ready to punch him. I must have looked it too, because Billy decided this would be a good time to step in and step forth.

" Mon ami et moi est perdu. "

François shrugged. Now that he understood, he didn't care. A smug smirk spread across his face.

"C'est sont perdu."

Great. There we were in a damned warehouse, probably with an angry thug closing in every second, lost as souls on the River Styx. Thank god François was there to correct Billy's Francophone grammar. In case you couldn't tell, that was sarcasm, by the way, mate.

I didn't have time to put in my cynical little two cents worth and tell the both of them to speak English or shut up, because the door was being thundered at. But the sound of the profanities issuing forth, it was that Lout.

I dashed for the loft and ladder with a swift glance at Billy.

"C'est sécrét!" Billy said sternly to François, then made for the loft, quick at my heels.

For a short time, it all went quiet. François had gone back to his silent, impenetrably blank musings and the Lout had…gone to look for another entrance or some such thing, I dunno. At any rate, for some short length of time, Billy and me sat behind some planks in the loft, hardly breathing. The loft was dry and smelled like lumber and sawdust. There was one window in the side of the loft.

I poked my head up just enough to peer out the window. I could see the ocean out that window. Now, what happened next was serendipity of the highest order: the window (which happened to be facing west, squarely into that present sunset) had the underside of the ridge of the roof above it, and in that alcove nested a family of sparrows (the sort with a small "s" if you take my meaning). Apparently taking its first flight, a young male of the brood swooped down in an inverted arc, flying away from the nest. I saw the image of the bird against the sun and above the ocean for maybe half a second, but it burned into my brain like a brand on a horse (or on a pirate's arm) and stayed there. I grinned. I expect Billy looked at me like I was insane. He often did, and it never bothered me. Some how that sparrow-sun-water image condensed me, the events at hand, and all the other events to come into a single image. I'd only find one other symbol like that ever again, and that one would be unknown to almost everyone, and the people who do see it, I almost never explain it to, but that's quite another story.

The seconds dragged by, painfully quiet. The air hummed with tension: if-when- that loud, violent Lout got in, we would be in very real danger. My senses, like in other emergencies I was fated to end up in, were heightened to the point where I could not just hear my own breathing and heart beat so damned loud, I could hear Billy's, and smell his lunch on his breath. Hell, I could see the individual hairs on François' head, who was on the floor-the loft being about as high off the floor as the top of a tallship's mast off the deck. One sudden noise-like the violent Lout forcing his way in-would send me into a full blown fight-or-flight response. I developed a taste for this immediately. I was in Trouble and On The Run. I loved it. And it was all summed up by the sparrow-sun-water. In the midst of all the alertness, for some reason the thought that flashed through my mind was "I'm gonna be a pirate"

I had no further time to elaborate on that. The door groaned, then gave, several boards cracking under the Lout's shoulder. Billy and me stayed stone still. A conversation took place below us, which Billy translated for me later.

"Ou est ils?! Deux garçons..." the angry Lout said,: "Where are they?! Two boys…"

"Voici." François had no trouble answering: "There." I assume he'd pointed at the loft.

I didn't know at the time that "Voici" meant "there", and since without that knowledge, I didn't know we'd been ratted out until Billy leapt up and started down the ladder like a monkey, I was in a great hurry to get down and get away, I slipped, having exchanged caution for speed, and plummeted down, and cracked open a crate of mayonnaise jars, getting covered in the stuff (and a few splinters besides) but I had no real injuries, and so got back up and kept running. I pushed over another crate, hoping to use it to block the Lout's path. No such luck. He turned and went after Billy instead, and all I succeeded in doing was get raisons stuck to the mayonnaise.

Our flight across the warehouse for the door was chaos from the start.

Billy was running from the Lout Hell-for-leather, and with a good reason. We were both in that mad scramble for the door. Billy slipped in my mayonnaise mess, earning his own mayo and splinters. We turned a corner sharply as we raced for the door. The Lout wasn't as quick footed as us and kicked out another crate of raisons, showering all three of with them. Only they didn't stick to the Lout because he wasn't covered in mayonnaise.

In the middle of this all, François sat as deadly still as that grand church's stone gargoyles.

Billy and I made it to the hole in the door, and before we started running off in all sorts of impractical directions, I remembered in what direction I'd been looking when I saw the sea.

"Billy! This way!"

We took off down the road. Around the corner. Down a side street. Up an avenue. Three rapid sets of footfalls, three rapid heartbeats, one stream of profanity issuing from the Lout chasing us. And -finally- out to the docks!

We ran into Ris here, as we'd expected. Except, this was a bit more literal than we'd envisioned. After our colliding with Ris, the built-like-a-bear pirate captain saw the man chasing us immediately. We were pushed safely off to the side and Ris' sword was in his hand before Billy and I had time to process that anything had happened.

Whatever it is, the Lout did for a living, he probably did it with his fists and sword. Whatever it is the Lout did for a living, he was infinitely worse at it than Ris. The Lout would slash wide, Ris stepped back, then in again to strike. Steel clanged on steel as the Lout deflected with a turn, but it took too long, and by the time the Frenchman from the tavern had learned his lesson and retreated to lick his wounds, he was beaten black and blue and poked full of holes.

Ris sheathed his blade and turned to us.

"The ship's almost ready to depart, and you'd better be too. Both of you. Jack, I'm not leaving you here to get into any more trouble like that."

Ris went back to work and Billy and I grinned at each other. We'd pulled off another one!

We turned around to sit under a cluster of trees in the fading light while we waited to leave, when we bumped into someone. Again, literally.

We'd collided with François the French Whelp, who looked as blank as ever.

Once again, I forgot that François did not speak English, and launched into an outraged stream of my native language, occasionally sprinkled with a few of the lighter obscenities I'd gleaned from Ris' crew.

"How in damned bloody hell did you figure to show up here?! After ratting me and Billy out to that hideous, bile-faced son of a…a…a motherless goat?!" I shouted, and added a bit more besides along the same line, before Billy held me back from punching the kid. By the way, I don't know if you'd been interested to note that even then my grasp of English grammar had started to decay from exposure to sailor-talk.

François remained infuriatingly placid.

"Je ne comprénde pas."

"I don't give a brig-rat's arse where June a-gone!..."

"Jack, shut up." Billy said kindly. I would do no such thing.

"And another thing!: I know you speak some English! You already did! What, English a last resort that you only speak when ignorant people bother you?!"

You see what a right healthy "debate" this is turning into, no?

"Tu est trés, trés fou..."

I looked at Billy.

"What'd he say?" I demanded. Billy paused, quite aware the translation would spark further "debate".

"He said you're very, very much an idiot."

I whirled back to François, eager to "debate" some more.

"I'm an idiot?! Well, who's the one who has only two facial expressions, the first one don't count!"

"Je. Ne. Comprénde. Pas. Savvez?"

"Jack, he really doesn't get it…"

"Does he get anything?"

"I really don't think this is necessary…"

"You know what else isn't necessary? Your appendix! Give it to me!"

Ris, at this point, intervened in our spirited little "debate".

"I think that's quite enough of that. Let's go."

As Ris herded Billy and me back on to the Pearl, I glowered over my shoulder ay the smugly expressionless face of François, and shook my fist at him. Just before I was away from where François could see me, I stuck up two fingers of my left hand at him in one of the most satisfying "British Bite-Me"s I've ever delivered.

That night was, of course, as dark as any, so I wouldn't have been able to see my hand in front of my face, if it weren't for the candle. I was lying half-reclined on my hammock, a scrap of paper in my left hand, pressed against my palm, a writing implement in my right hand. A quill's unlikely, probably a charcoal, but I don't really remember. I was quietly sketching away with a species of quiet concentration. Billy spoke.

"Jack, what are you doing?"

"Something."

"Ooookay…" he paused. "You certainly didn't seem to get along well with the people of the French colony."

"What was that word they kept saying? "Savvy"?"

"Savvez", it means "you know"."

"No, not savvy. "Savvez"."

"Right. Savvy. You know."

"No, "savvez"."

"That's what I said: savvy."

Billy half-laughed, half-sighed.

"Whatever, Jack, just get rid of that candle and go to sleep."

I'd finished what I was doing and stowed the writing implement. I snuffed out the candle.

Then I waited a while before putting the simple, basic, line-drawing of the sparrow-sun-ocean into my vest pocket.

A/N: Well, that's yet another chapter! Hope you liked it! Review this time, peoples! Lol. Oh, and the British Bite-Me "Jack" mentioned is just his name for a gesture that's considered rude in Britain, like the middle finger. They stick up the middle and first finger. Ta, for now!