Part 3 : Blame it on the Rum

"Actually, I was supposed to say that, but, yes, that's who I am. Now, it appears as if you were stowing away on me ship?"

"That's really funny, how we're on the set, but everyone is acting so real. Did you do this just for us?"

"Whatarya tryin to say?" said Gibbs, looking very confused.

"That we're on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean and we really appreciate you trying to make it just like the movie. This is really nice."

Everyone, including Jetta, was looking at me very confusidly. (I don't think that's a word, by the way.)

"Well, we be pirates, and ye are in the Caribbean, but what's all this talk about "movies" and "sets"?" said Gibbs. Jack was taking all this in with a rather puzzled look on his face, but he didn't say anything just yet. Gibbs was doing all the talking for the most part. But, anyway, I tried to get through to them, though they all insisted on being stubborn actors and actresses.

"This is just like that thing on the Boston trip where you talk to those people and they act the time period," I said to Jetta. Everyone looked a me like I was missing some big part of the picture. Saved by the bell, The awkward silence was then interrupted by a dwarvish pirate running up to Captain Jack.

"Here's that inventory on gunpowder ya wanted, Cap'n," he said, holding up a piece of tattered cloth with some scribbles on it that I guess where supposed to be numbers. There were two words with some tallies next to them: "rum" and "gunpowder". May I note that the rum column seemed to hold considerably more tallies than the gunpowder.

"Seems we're a bit short in the gunpowder area," said Jack to Marty, the short pirate, while holding that cloth at arms length. "Tell Ana-Maria to steer to Tortuga. Might a bit more, aye?"

"Yessir."

The little pirate hurried off to the helm, while Jack continued to stare at us as if we came from another planet. I looked around for some sign of cameras or something that they were filming the movie, but could find none. I was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

"So, have you come to join the crew of the most fearsome pirates in the Caribbean?" Jack said. He was directing the question at us.

"No, do you think WE actually know anything about ships?" I said.

"Well, then. If ye haven't come to join me crew, then we'll just have the pleasure of dropping ye off in Tortuga, savvy?"

"Alright, jokes over," Jetta cut in. "Now, I know you're not a REAL pirate, and I can prove it!"

"Jetta, maybe you shouldn't" I cut in.

"Meghan, what are we supposed to do? Stay here like we're actually on a pirate ship?"

"Yeah!"

"You're insane."

Anyway, I wasn't sure exactly what she was going to do to prove that we weren't actually on the Black Pearl, but insulting pirates isn't such a good idea.

"Now, everyone knows that that hair is just a wig ," said Jetta. Apparently, not everyone. Because most of the crew was looking at us like we had just made a very dire insult. But before I could do anything, she walked up, took hold of a bunch of Captain Jack's dreadlocks and yanked it as hard as she could.

"I don't think I deserved that!" said Jack angrily, reaching for his pistol. Jetta stepped back in fear, because, apparently she was getting the same impression as I was. But, to my great relief, he didn't shoot her. He reached up and shot at something far up in the crow's nest. It gave a yelp, and tumbled down at his feet. I jumped back like three feet because on this very deck was Barbossa's cursed monkey, Jack! While all these shenanigans were going on, I hadn't realized that the sun had almost set, and that the moon was rising into the sky. Within seconds, the last of the sun's brilliant rays had disappeared behind the calm horizon, and the moon's light shown on the deck. What happened next definitely proved that this was no dream or movie set. The screeching monkey mutated into a skeleton, part flesh, fur and bones, right in front of our eyes! Now, everyone knows that this monkey was entirely made by a computer, so there was no way that it could possibly have donned its skeletal persona without the help of a lot of computer screens and modeling. It certainly wouldn't have looked like this on the set. I guess Jack (the captain, not the monkey) saw our surprised and very horrified looks.

"Just needed to get some anger out on that little rat," he said, as if trying to explain himself.

"How? What? What just happened?" I found Jetta stuttering out the words.

"Welcome aboard the Black Pearl."

"Let me just talk to my friend here for a moment," I said to Jack and pulled Jetta back into the corner where there was a spacious room, probably the captain's quarters.

I hated to break it to her, but I tried to tell Jetta all the same, "I think we have just time-traveled," I said to her with a sigh, waiting for the bomb to fall. And it did.

"What!?! That's impossible! No one can go back in time. Jack Sparrow's not even a real person!"

"Well, his hair's real enough" I said smugly, remembering the recent events. That might have just won me this battle.

"So, let's recap this for a moment. You're saying that we went back in time, to the time of a movie and to people that aren't even real, and now we're going to be dropped off somewhere that isn't even a real place!?"

"That just about sum's it up, yeah."

"Impossible."

"Do you have a better explanation!?"

"No."

"So there!"

"Okay, you won. So, for a second lets just assume that we did go back in time to a time that isn't even really in history. Then we didn't just go "poof!" and it happens. There must be something that we did in the future before we got here."

And that's Jetta for you. Always trying to think of something logical. But its hard to think of a logical explanation if you have just landed yourself in a theory that sounds totally illogical down to the last detail.

"What did we do the last time we were in 2006?" said Jetta.

"Nothing. We went to science and did our lab, but we never finished because there was this giant explosion in the lab and..."

Jetta rudely cut me off with a, "Yeah, there was that explosion. And then we ended up here!"

"But an explosion of Zinc and Hydro-cleric acid does not equal time-travel." I said. See, I can be logical too you know!

"But that zinc did smell kinda funny," I said, reminiscing on a fact that I didn't really think had any relevance. I hoped that I wouldn't get a painful reminder of that from Jetta.

"Are you SURE that what you put in there was Zinc?"

"NO, it was a magical fairytale potion that explodes the whole lab into a million pieces!" I said sarcastically.

"Sure it wasn't some sort of explosive?"

"Like what, gunpowder?" Sure. Who keeps gunpowder in a science lab?"

"Gunpowder!" Jetta said. I gave her a weird look for effect. I do that a lot.

"That fits perfectly. Gunpowder is black like zinc, it's obviously in powder form, like the zinc in the lab, and Jack's running short on it."

"So you're saying that we blasted back several hundred years because of a magically teleported bottle of gunpowder?" Now it was my turn to be skeptical.

"Do you have a better explanation," she said, imitating me. I hate when she does that.

"Now you're thinking like me," I said in response. "So, we agree that we traveled back to the era of Jack Sparrow and now we don't know what to do? Do we have an accord?" That's another thing about me. I put in Pirates lines in my speech just to annoy Jetta.

"If you would stop talking like Jack we would."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Have you two stopped all your talk about labs and time travel and such?" said Gibbs. Apparently these pirates were big eavesdroppers.

Ignoring him, I walked straight up to Jack, who seemed to be enjoying a bottle of rum. He stopped drinking, after a considerable time of me standing there. He cocked an eyebrow at me again. "It seems we woke up here and we don't know where we are," I told him.

"Ah, I know the feeling," he said, looking lovingly at his bottle of rum. How typical.

"Now, I really can't have you aboard me ship if you ain't a sailor. Tortuga's a nice place though, lotsa rum."

"We're NOT going to be dropped off at Tortuga!" I said angrily. "We're staying here."

"I see no profit in it for me."

You know how Elizabeth says the Jack would discover something: "that he was a good man." Well, I guess he hadn't discovered that quite yet. Because he was being impossible. Luckily, any true Pirates fan knows exactly how to talk to Captain Jack Sparrow.

"Profit?" I said, quickly drawing my sword. Drawing a sword is so cool. Remind me to take this sword we ever get back to 2006, okay?

"Of all your stupid ideas, Meghan, I think this is the worst. He's a pirate and you've never used a sword in your life. What, are you kidding me?" Jetta criticized.

"Any better ideas?" I muttered back to her.

"It might be too late for that." Is that comment supposed to be honest or cynical? But, before I could think of anything else, Jack cut in.

"Do you think this wise, lass?" he started.

"Crossing blades with a pirate?" I finished for him. Then I did that cool little thing where you make a sort of soft screeching noise while scratching your blade against your opponents. Remember that from the movie? Well, I've always wanted to do that.

Jack took a strike at my blade, but I blocked it. Any true Pirates of the Caribbean fan knows the swordplay choreography inside and out. I was a true Pirates fan, and Jack was totally predictable. He whirled around in a 360 and I quick turned to thrust up my sword and block the blow. Even though I knew the choreography, it's much easier to memorize than to do, I tell you. I hoped I wasn't making that too obvious to him or the rest of the crew, who watched with intent interest as their esteemed captain parried with a fourteen-year-old.

"So, how's my footwork?" I said, trying to keep him entertained as well as predictable.

"Just like dear William's, oddly," he said casually. I quick perceived that he was doing a cross step to the left, and I swung my arm around behind my head to block his next blow. (You can see that little move in the fight between Will and Jack in the blacksmith's shop. Just a little FYI there.)

Then, I blocked three more with some quick clangs. But I quickly noticed that my extent of knowledge was only as far as the movie's choreography went. I didn't know the extent of Jack's knowledge and I had to find a way out of this without looking like a coward and at the same time beating Jack. That is a dilemma right there. Suddenly, I hatched an idea. Will had thrown his sword at Jack as he was running out and then lost his weapon. If I could do the same, just get Jack to do that little sword hurling trick (which he had hopefully picked up from Will) I might have a chance. That is, if I didn't get stabbed in the back before. There was a risk, but I had to take it. Jack lunged at me with his sword, and I jumped in the air, allowing the sword to slice smoothly at the air beneath me feet. Upon landing back on the ground, I took off running with my back to him toward the main mast. He did just as I thought: threw his sword with mock gusto. It hurtled toward me and I knew I had less than a second to spare. I grabbed some of the rope that led up to the crow's nest and swung myself up. The sword whistled smoothly through the air, then came into contact with the ropes beneath my feet. Slicing through them cleanly, it cut the roping free of its anchors on the deck, then continued its arc over the deck and coasted smoothly across the ledge on the other side of the ship. Sword overboard! Within seconds, everyone listened in wonder as Jack's sword cannon-balled into the ocean and landed with a THWACK! and a SPLASH into the sea. That was if for Jack's sword. In seconds, it had sunk far below the surface.

I swung around the mast, still on the freely swinging roping and landed with a confident flourish. "By your leave Captain Sparrow."

To be continued...