Disclaimer: Squirrel is mine, the movie is not. But what I wouldn't give to work on a movie like this…
A/N: I think I need to see this movie again. And again. And maybe one more time. And then I'll buy the DVD.
She woke on her back, woozy, uncomfortable and vaguely annoyed.
"Ooh, she's alive!" The blurred faces of the crew came into view. "Oh, I have never been so happy to see the sea-wench alive!"
"Watch wh-who you're callin' a w-wench," Squirrel muttered, putting out an arm to try and pull herself upright. Instead, her arm shot through to empty space. That woke her up quickly.
"Ah!"
"Stop rocking it!"
"I think I'm gonna be seasick."
"Thousands of feet in the air?"
"Still sick!"
"Squirrel!" Gibbs' voice called out. "Stop your flailing and calm down!"
I never thought you'd be the voice of reason, Gibbs, Squirrel smiled, calming down and blinking away the last of the fuzziness. She looked up at a curved cage roof made of spines and other bones. The ground she was lying on was swaying, and also made from bones. One of them was digging into her own spine rather painfully. "Where am I?"
"You're in a cage made from human bones suspended by a rope over a bottomless ravine," One of the newer members of the crew - Leech, that Indian man - put in, rather unhelpfully.
I knew there was a reason I never liked you much, Squirrel thought savagely. "Dare I ask… why?"
"They're cannibals, Miss," Gibbs said, somewhere to her left. "Savin' us for later, I daresay."
"Oh." Squirrel carefully felt around, found a secure piece of … human bone… and gently pulled herself upright. She was in one cage - ball, really - with five other members of the crew; Gibbs, Marty, Cotton and another man she didn't know were in the other cage. Squirrel felt a stab of alarm as she took this in. "Where's the captain?" She asked, not even bothering to hide the panic in her voice.
"They made him their chief," Marty muttered sarcastically.
Squirrel remembered that, but still. "That d-doesn't answer…"
"Them savages caught us all," Gibbs continued, sounding grim, "Knocked us out with their little blowdarts and tossed us in here."
Blowdarts? Squirrel checked her arm. Sure enough, there was one. That explained why she'd passed out in that tree. She plucked it out of her arm and tossed it away, trying not to think about how far it would fall. "But, Jack… he is alright, isn't he?"
"Most likely," Gibbs said absently. Then, because he saw Squirrel's wide eyes trained on him, muttered guiltily, "… not."
The stranger in the cage with Gibbs nodded sagely, though he seemed to be brooding a bit. "Well, there's hardly a time when Captain Jack Sparrow is alright, I suppose." He looked at Gibbs. "Where are the rest of the crew?"
"Well, let me put it like this," Gibbs said, with a trace of morbid storyteller's glee. "These cages? They were made before we got here." Will let go of the bars and grimaced.
Squirrel did the same, feeling queasy, but she peered through at the stranger, curious despite herself. "Who are you?"
He turned to face her. "William Turner."
Squirrel found her jaw dropping, and her stammer vanished. "The William Turner? From the stories about the Isla de Muerta and the Aztec gold?" She peered through the bars at the man Jack had mentioned in the tale, awed.
The mention of the now re-lost treasure of the Isla de Muerta made Gibbs look hangdog for a moment. "Aye. He's the same."
Will looked at her quizzically. "And you are?"
"I'm Squirrel," Squirrel said, then blushed at the look Will gave her.
"Long story," Marty put his two cents in. "She'll explain when she has time."
"Yes," Will said, looking grim. "And we don't have a lot of time at the moment." He looked to Gibbs. "Jack said to save him. What did he mean?"
"Well, lad, the Pelecostas believe that Jack is a god in human form."
Squirrel couldn't help but giggle at that. Jack, a god? Like his ego needed any more stoking. He'd be threatening to smite them down with lightning bolts next time they refused to obey a direct order.
"And, as a god, they're going to help release him from his fleshy prison."
Squirrel was horrified. "What?" Will's face was equally incredulous. Cotton supplied the unasked-for answer for both of them by grabbing Gibbs' hand and chomping down on it. "No!" Squirrel screamed. She stared at the bars of the cage, disgusted and terrified.
"Aye, lass." Gibbs supplied. "Jack's life ends when the drums stop." Squirrel cocked her ear with the rest of the crew, hearing the drum beats for the first time. They were the countdown. The countdown of Jack's life. Like a heartbeat…
"No!"
The crew in the cage with Squirrel started yelping again. "Gibbs, for the love of all things sacred, tell this girl to stop rocking the cage! We're have little time as it is!"
Squirrel ignored them. She continued to pull at the bar - the spine - above her head, at the top of the cage. With a dry crackle, it gave way, shattering into pieces in her hand. She quickly wiped her hand on her cloak, disgusted, then jumped.
"Lass, what the hell are you doin'?" Gibbs bellowed.
"I'm getting out of here!" Squirrel grunted, heaving herself up through the hole she had made, but she wasn't strong enough to pull herself through. She looked down at the whining crewmen. "Give me a boost."
One enterprising fellow - seeing as the girl who was making such a fuss intended to leave - gingerly knelt under Squirrel's feet and slowly stood up, helping her through the hole. She scrambled to her feet and took hold of the rope to steady herself.
Will was watching her curiously, and nodded approvingly as he saw Squirrel's intention. "I agree, miss. We can't just sit here and do nothing."
Squirrel balanced herself carefully, careful not to look down. The spine had given way too easily under her hands. She didn't trust the strength of the bones under her feet. She quickly grabbed the mooring rope and began to shimmy upwards. Climbing was what she was good at.
"Stop rocking the cage!" Leech bawled.
"No!" Will shouted, an element of undeniable command in his voice. "That's what we should do! Swing the cages to the cliff side." He pointed to the far wall. "See those vines? We can use them! We can use them to climb up the cliff and help Jack escape!"
Squirrel smiled to herself as she neared the top of the rope. That Will Turner was certainly officer material. When he spoke, everyone listened. He'd certainly make a worthy captain of some vessel. Just not her captain. Her captain was the one and only Jack Sparrow.
Who is about to be eaten by cannibals.
That wiped the smile from her face. She scrambled up the final few feet of the hanging rope, then stared at the rest of the way. Several feet of single hemp rope stretched horizontally over a yawning crevice. And the rope itself was starting to sway, given the fact that the cages were swinging so vigorously back and forth.
It's just like in a storm, Squirrel told herself, Just like in a tropical storm and you're up in the rigging of the Pearl. Just move and don't think. She grabbed hold of it, swung under it so she looked up at the sky, and monkey-crawled her way slowly to the other side. She heard the shouts of the crew as they flung themselves at the bars, forcing the balls to pendulum in wider and wider swings, heard their shouts of near-despair as they missed by mere inches.
Squirrel nearly cried when she reached the other side. Solid land! She heaved herself to, then lay flat on the blessed soil for a moment to catch her breath.
"Climb!" She heard Will Turner shout. "We've got to get to the top!"
Good, she thought with a smile, The crew'll be safe. They'll climb up, and we can go back to the ship, arm up, and then go to find and save Jack Sparrow. And everything will be fine.
And then she looked up.
Crossing the narrow wooden bridge was one of the Pelecosta tribesmen. He would be sure to see them.
"Will!" She crawled to the edge of the cliff and hissed down at the two cages. "Gibbs! Cotton! Stop! Stop!"
They looked up at her, saw her pointing, and stopped climbing.
"Stop! Stop!" Will hissed at the second cage. The two cages clung like bloated ticks to the cliff side, waiting until the sentry passed them by.
Squirrel kept herself flat on the ground, hoping and praying that her blue-grey cloak wouldn't give her away. Don't look this way. Just turn around and go back. Please.
"Miss Grey!"
Squirrel looked over the edge, slowly.
Gibbs nodded up at her. "Get to the ship, lass," he hissed, "And make ready to launch."
"What?" Squirrel whispered back, "All by myself? I can't!"
"Please!" Gibbs hissed, urgently. "You have to! We need all the hands we can get!"
"Aye," Will added, "We need all of us to help crew the Pearl."
"Actually," Leech put in, "You don't need all of us. About six would do."
There was a pause as the man's words sank into all of them.
Squirrel quietly rose to her feet, turned, and fled through the jungle, heading for the beach.
The tide was coming in. Squirrel skidded to a halt in the sand, trying to get her breath back. Behind her, the drums had stopped.
Jack, you better have had some plan of escaping, because if you die, so help me I'll…
She looked up. There was someone on the Pearl. Someone she didn't know. But, from the looks of things, they were trying to make off with Jack's ship.
"Hey!" She shouted, indignantly, running towards the ship. "Hey! What are you doing?" A dog barked at her as she ran past, but she took no notice of it.
Two pirates, one on the deck the other untying the mooring lines. Mangy mongrels and scavengers, by the looks of them. They both turned incredulous looks at her as she ran towards them.
"Well, 'allo sweet'eart." The one on the ground - bald and eye-level with Squirrel - leered at her. "What brings you to our fair ship, ey?"
Squirrel glared at the pirate. "This is not your ship - the Black Pearl is the property of Captain Jack Sparrow," she said, anger giving her a clear and proper British accent, in which each word was like a whip crack. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Savin' it!" The pirate up on the deck - tall and scrawny - grinned.
Squirrel glared up at the tall pirate, then shouted at the rigging. "Jack! A little help!"
There was a screech, and a bundle of black and white fur leapt out from the rigging and landed on the scrawny pirate's head, shrieking almost as loud as the pirate was.
Squirrel smirked, shouted a quick 'thankyou!', then turned her attention back to Bald Pirate. "Saving it from what, exactly?"
Bald looked a little awkward, but continued his bluff. "The tide, obviously. Wouldn't want a ship this valuable to be lost at sea. Why, any ruffian could salvage it…" His leer vanished, and he became cold and businesslike, drawing his cutlass. "And you're gettin' in our way, sweet--"
Squirrel smacked Bald Pirate's sword aside with her free hand - Bald Pirate stared at the tip of a silver dagger, looking alarmed. Most likely he hadn't seen her drawing it. But with it just centimetres from his nose, he understood her intent.
"You see this?" Squirrel said calmly, aware she was red with anger but not really caring. "This is a dagger. It can go at least 18 places that a sword cannot." She paused, then added as an afterthought, "Repeatedly."
The jungle suddenly erupted in shouts, echoing off the mountains and heard even over the roar of the sea and the cries of the monkey and the tall pirate. Squirrel looked over her shoulder briefly, her heart pounding as loud as any drum. Gibbs? Marty? Will? And Jack as well? Relief that they were all alive was tempered by that fear that came from the shouting and chanting of the natives.
Squirrel fixed the bald pirate with a determined glare. "Congratulations," she said, trying to keep the urgency from her voice, "You've just been recruited into the crew of Captain Jack Sparrow. Your duties will be given once the captain himself returns." She lowered her dagger slightly. "But to start off, you can get the Black Pearl into the water and prepared for immediate launch."
The bald pirate gave a small apologetic grin, attempting to appease the crazy girl with the dagger. "That's what we were doing in the first place." He scurried to untie the next mooring line. "We was helpin' you out!"
"I n-noticed." Squirrel looked back over her shoulder, hearing the shouts coming ever closer. Will, Gibbs, Marty and Cotton were still coming, as was Jack, and as was the pursuing native cannibals. This island was dangerous, and time was running out. Their very lives were at stake here - everyone's lives. And Squirrel and the two newest crew members were the only things which could ensure their safety and freedom. Pressure.
But Heaven help her if she didn't smile just a little. She had just recaptured the Black Pearl from two grown men with just a dagger and a monkey. If that didn't make her a pirate, what did?
A/N: And Squirrel's having fun with the piracy thing. Come on, who wouldn't?