Part 4 : Argh.
"Oh my God! You just beat Jack Sparrow in a sword fight!" said Jetta, running up to congratulate me.
"I know!" I squealed. People say that I get very squeaky and or loud when I'm excited. So if this hurts your ears, sorry. I clapped my hands very rapidly and pranced around that deck. Now, the pirates were staring at this little victory dance kinda strangely, so I quick looked at them and did a big bow for my achievement. No one clapped; they just stared in awe. Argh. Bloody pirates!
Only then did I notice Captain Jack Sparrow, who had a sorta pouty look on his face. Then I remembered that that sword was one of his cherished "effects." He was probably sad about losing it. But I had not choice in the matter. "So, Jack Sparrow, what do you say?"
"Captain. I confess. You beat me. But what'r you gonna do on me ship?"
Pirates needed to be negotiated with. And fast. They weren't very patient people. Luckily, I was saved from the immediate thought by the bell once more. I was certainly getting lucky today. And that bell was...
Who you know fresher than Hov'? Riddle me that?
The rest of y'all know where I'm lyrically at
Can't none of y'all mirror me back
Yeah hearin me rap is like hearin G Rap in his prime
I'm young HO rap's Grateful Dead
Back to take over the globe, now break bread
I'm in Boeing jets, Global Express
Out on the country but the blueberry still connect
On the low but the yacht got a triple deck
Everyone stared at me at that moment, including Jetta. "It's coming from the audience!" I exclaimed. Because numb was my ring tone! These pirate clothes have a lot of pockets, but, luckily for me, my cell phone was in the front pocket on the side of my coat. I quick took it out and flipped it open. The caller id read "Liz."
"Hey, Liz. What's up?" I said. All the pirates were really staring at me now, but I tried not to show that I was nervous.
"Where ARE you Meghan? I've been looking all over for you at lunch. You in the library or something? We had this fire drill because of some explosion in the lab. Was that your class? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Jetta's here with me."
"Well, where are you? I'm not eating lunch alone." Lunch? It was night here. Ouch. This time travel thing must have some sort of a time difference. This spelled trouble, as you can see. Because I couldn't just say, "We're in the sixteenth century on the Black Pearl with Captain Jack Sparrow. No, that would not work. But, then I had an idea. If my cell phone had come back with me, then what else might have come back as well?
"Meghan, are you still there?"
"Yeah, um, listen: do you know if all the laptops were okay in the explosion?"
"Some got burned, but most are fine. Yours was the only one they couldn't find anywhere. White Macbook, right?"
"I have it with me, I think. Do you have your laptop with you?"
"Yeah, one second. Lemme boot it up."
Phone in hand, I hurried back down to the bilges. If my laptop wasn't in 2006, then it must be here in the 1600's. I hoped it didn't get lost in time travel, because it's new and then I would seriously kill someone. I looked around the dark bilges where we had been and grabbed a lantern off the wall. Holding it out, I saw the white glint of my Macbook safe in a corner. Thank god! I felt like hugging that thing. I hurried back up to the surface in about two seconds flat brandishing my laptop in my hand. "Touche!" I said to Jetta. All the pirates were still awestruck by this puzzling series of circumstances. "Still on the phone with Liz - hello!" I realized as she shouted at me through my phone.
"Okay, okay! Still here!" I shouted back. "You've got a webcam, right?"
"Yeah."
I pushed a pirate off a nearby barrel and sat myself down there, then flipped open my laptop. I opened up the internet and prayed that it would work. Connect to Linksy's? the computer prompted. Yes! There's still an available wireless network! This computer must hold some sort of connection with things in the future still. Knowing that the internet might go out at any moment, I opened up skype and positioned my computer so the camera at the top had a view of the pirate ship.
"I'm webcasting to you right now," I told Liz, and I quick put my hand over the camera lens. She might not be ready for this just yet.
"Liz, is it working?" I asked urgently.
"Yeah. Here we go. Meghan, is something wrong?"
"There's a lot wrong," Jetta muttered.
"Is that Jetta?"
"Bring a lantern over here!" I said to one of the silent, gaping pirates. Hastily, he got it and handed it to me. I put my phone between my head and my shoulder and grabbed the lantern, still keeping my hand over the camera.
"Meghan, who are you talking to? My screen is black. Do you have your hand over it or something?"
"Listen, Liz. You might not believe this, but you have to, okay? You're right. There is something very wrong. You ready?"
"Sure, whatever," said Liz, seeming very unsure by my strange behavior. I saw Liz's face flicker up on the screen and pulled my hand away. Then, I turned back to see Jack peering at the screen over my shoulder.
"Oh my GOD!" I heard Liz's exclamation from the screen. Jack jumped back a bit at that one.
"Is that really Johnny Depp!?!" Liz sounded excited.
"Yeah, no, kind of," I tried to explain.
"You've GOT to get me an autograph!"
"No, Liz, you don't understand."
"Where are you, anyway?"
"In the Caribbean!" shouted Jetta, very agitated at this whole set of circumstances.
"Look, we really don't know where we are," I cut in. "You have to believe us! We think we traveled back in time and now we're with pirates and you're our only link to the future." Then I realized that that sounded very dumb.
"Meghan, I know you're obsessed with pirates, but it's not even April Fool's Day yet...or Halloween."
"Look, you can talk to him yourself."
With that, I picked up my computer, pulled Jack down and sat him on the barrel and set the laptop in his lap.
"You drop that laptop or spill any rum in it, you'll be paying me the equivalent of 2000 dollars in doubloons!" I warned him. He just stared quizzically at the screen. "Come on!" I said. "You always have something to say, just tell her why we're on this ship," I told Jack.
"Well, you see, through an unfortunate and utterly unforeseeable series of circumstances that had nothing at all to do with me, your friends here have appeared on me ship and this one here robbed me of me precious sword," said Jack, rather solemnly.
"Please, Liz, we don't know what to do. We're really stuck here. She believed me at that point, because I am not able to keep a straight face through half of a prank, so this would either be setting a world record for me, or I wasn't kidding. I wasn't kidding, as you well know and now she well knows.
"You're not kidding me, are you?" said Liz with a large degree of uncertainty.
"No, I'm really not. "
"Can you still get me an autograph from Jack Sparrow?"
"Captain to you!" Jack cut in.
"I don't even know if he knows how to write," I said.
"Do too!" said Jack indignantly.
"Okay, he does. We'll try to find some kind of cloth around here then we can get for your autograph, okay? But for now, you need to help us."
"HOW? Its not like I can just run up to the principle and say 'my friends have time-traveled and are now in Pirates of the Caribbean and they need our help'!"
"No, you're right. I need to conserve the battery on my computer so that we can contact you, alright?"
"I'll try to find whatever I can about new Pirates scripts and stuff to see what you guys might be up against, but there's nothing else I can really do. I mean, the movie comes out tomorrow. You're probably stuck in some sort of uncreated backstory."
"I know. Just try to find out something, or else it might end up that we never existed."
"Got it. Be careful, okay? Try to stay where you are until we get some more information."
"I gotta go now. Call me as soon as you find something, but hurry. We don't have much time left in this story that we're in before something dangerous happens."
"I'm trying."
"Okay, bye."
I shut down my laptop and clicked the screen back into place since Jack did not know how to do that. Then, we turned around only to see that every pirate was brandishing a sword or cutlass and all other relentless pieces of metal. This was not good. "She's an enchantress!" said Gibbs. "Bad luck to have them aboard."
"Put away your weapons, sons," said Jack rather casually.
"Gibbs, fortunately I know how to counter bad luck. Now, these enchantresses with their strange instruments (I silently scoffed at that, hah, 'strange instruments.') might be of some value to us."
Hearing that, the pirates all decided that it was in their best interest to put their weapons down, and I did a (hopefully) silent sigh of relief. I also got an idea. If these pirates believed so strongly in enchantment, then maybe we could use that to our advantage. We wouldn't be dropped off at Tortuga so quickly if they realized what we might be able to do for them. And, as far as I know, we were the only ones with a computer in this world, led alone who knew how to use it, so that could prove valuable to us as well. We just had to play the part.
"Yes, Gibbs speaks the truth. Enchantresses we are!" It was harder than I thought to make this up on the spot. "You," I said pointing to Jack, "You have a touch of... dest-in-y about you, Captain. Jack. Sparrow" Yes, this was working brilliantly. I looked at Jetta and she quick caught on to my idea. Waving her hands about, she began to do a weird meditating like act. These pirates were so gullible, they all looked at us like we were Bruce Almighty. So we put on this who performance for them, until Jack said, "You two! Let's go to my captain's quarters to do some negotiating. Maybe then we can come to some sort of accord?" We nodded yes, so Jack led us off into the captain's quarters and we sat around a knobby wooden table lit by like a million candles. There were maps spread out on it, and more than enough bottles of rum.
"So, how is it again that you two came upon me ship?"
I looked at Jetta, and she looked me back in the eyes as if to say, "You're the big pirates fan here, talk to him!"
"We can travel from the future."
"Ah, so you made it to me ship from some other time,"
"Yeah,"
"Your names?"
"I'm Meghan, and this is Jetta."
He seemed to contemplate our names deeply for a moment.
"Not Turner!" I said quickly, just to make sure.
"No worries, mates. We've been through that already."
"So, you've got the Pearl and from then to now you've left Will with his bonnie lass?" (Using pirate's lingo is so fun!)
"The lovely Elizabeth."
"Yeah, so...why'd you bring us here?" He started to say something, but was interrupted by a beeping noise from my phone.
"Hold that thought. Text message," I said, taking out my phone. Jack looked at it intently and watched as I flipped it open. Then, I realized I had made a mistake, because the wallpaper on my cellphone was a picture of the pirate himself.
"Oh," I said when I saw that he was staring at it.
"Why am I on that...thing?" he said, pointing in his usual, half-drunk way at my LCD screen. Jetta gave me a look. Kind of like the "Over-obsession is a bad idea," look.
"You're a diamond mate, a legend" I said, trying to get myself out of this current predicament. Wait! I could get the best wallpaper for my phone of Jack because he was standing right here! I quick clicked to the camera feature of my phone. "Jack, stay right there! DON'T MOVE." He looked a little frightened, like I was going to incinerate him with my phone or something. I turned the revolving camera lens (That's one of the crowning features of my phone, by the way) in his direction. Then, I clicked "capture" and there it was, a perfect picture for my wallpaper. "You survived," I told him, holding up my phone so he could see the picture. He was still blinking a little bit, probably from the light of the flash. Okay, back to the text message.
"Jetta, its from Liz!"
"Elizabeth! Does it say anything about me!?" said Jack.
"Not that Elizabeth," said Jetta. Jack looked a little disappointed at that news.
"cant fnd nything yet. g2g," it read. "She must have written this during class," I said. "But it doesn't help us much."
"So, what do we do?" said Jetta. Why does everyone always have to look at me for advice?
"What about have some rum?" Jack suggested. He held out another bottle to Jetta. She rolled her eyes and stared him down, so he turned his hand to offer it to me. I took it. unsure of what would happen next. I took off the cork with a hollow "POP!" and looked inside at its contents. Kinda weird, murky liquid inside. Jack was looking at me, expecting me to chug it down. If I was gonna play the part of a pirate-enchantress, this came with the package. So, I slowly took a short swig like Jack, only I couldn't keep that vile liquid in my mouth for more than one second. It was disgusting! I spat it out behind me and grimaced. I turned back around only to have Jack snatch the bottle from my fingers.
"You don't burn rum, do you?" he said, hugging the bottle close to him.
"Course not. This just isn't my favorite kind," I said, trying to sound convincing. He seemed to take that for a valid answer and opened his mouth to discuss some more pirate issues with us, when Ana-Maria walked in.
"u'r s'pposed to knock!" said Jack.
"Still standing the orders to port at Tortuga?" she said, ignoring him.
"Nye. We've come upon a change of plans. Sail to port Royal."
To be continued...