I'm so sorry it's been such a long time since I updated. My story is divided into three parts and, silly me, I decided to type the third part before the second. Hopefully I can go back to updating once a week now, though. Then, when I hit part three, it will go like a chapter every couple of days. (or I could always upload it all at once and overload everyone.)

Thanks to everyone who sticks with me. : D


4 years later

Dear Diary,

Today was the most unusual but wonderful day of my life. Just like every Wednesday, I was out in the forest just humming away at another of the songs I made up and picking flowers for Her Majesty the Queen. All of a sudden, a boy burst through the trees and ran straight into me. Gathering together all my flowers that I'd dropped, he said something I couldn't understand. He looked and spoke like he was from India. I just looked at him, confused.

Then, guessing I didn't speak English, he said in very broken Spanish, "Follow me…Spanish king's people…follow me…kill you." But he used the wrong form of you.

I shook my head and interrupted, "I speak English."

"The soldiers…they're following me, and they'll kill anyone who gets in their way." It took a second for what he said to make sense, but by the time it had, he had already grabbed my hand saying, "Come on."

He dragged me through the forest as fast as we could both go. Then, he stopped. He let go of my hand and looked up and all around him, amazed by the large trees. After a second, he started climbing one. He turned back, still hanging to the tree. "Can you climb trees?"

"Of course," I replied, taking his free hand and grabbing the tree just below him. For a while, we climbed in silence, but then, my foot slipped off a branch. The boy heard me scream, and , hanging from the tree upside down, he caught my hand. At the same time, he dropped most of my flowers on my head.

I laughed as he pulled me up to the branch he was hanging from. I took my shoes off because they were the reason I'd slipped. I stood up on the branch and leaned against the one above it, and he started climbing again.

"Wait," I said; he turned around. "Thank you." For a moment we just looked at each other, but it was interrupted when suddenly three Spanish soldiers burst through the trees. I was shocked! "you are a…" He put his finger to his lip and kept climbing. Quietly, I followed.

Then, the soldiers started shooting at us. We ran across a branch and onto the top of a cliff. "Ha!" He said, kicking dirt down at the soldiers. He noticed I was frowning, so he continued, "Yes, I am an outlaw." He handed back what was left of my flowers—just a bunch of stems and two white flowers.

"So much for spending a nice morning picking beautiful flowers," I complained. The boy was wandering around, looking for a way to get down.

"I think those flowers are very pretty," he replied.

"Maybe they were meant to be together. What do you think?"

"Huh?" He looked up from the other side of the cliff.

"Were you listening?"

"No…can you swim?"

"No."

Then, his eyes opened wide because a soldier climbed up to where we were. "To bad," he said, running toward me. He grabbed my hand and we jumped off the cliff. It seemed like forever as we fell the fifty feet hand-in-hand, and then we hit. Our hands were ripped apart, and I just sank.

I came back to the surface gasping for air. Then, I noticed that the girl I was with hadn't. I went back under to try to find her. She was caught in some seaweed. I had to save her; this was my fault. I dove down toward her and fussed to get her untangled. To carry her to the surface was much more difficult. Her dress made her so heavy. Eventually, though, we made it back up. I breathed deeply, but she didn't. As quickly as I could, I swam over to a little cave and dragged her up on shore. She still didn't move.

Then, I heard someone talking along the shore. I peaked out to see who it was. It was two Spanish soldiers; I didn't have much time. I looked back into the cove and noticed that they stored a handful of life boats in there. I had an idea. In just a second, I was swimming back out to sea, unnoticed because I was underwater. All they saw was a drifting boat—that I was pulling with the girl laying under a blanket.

One of the soldiers jumped in the water to retrieve the boat, but it was deeper than he expected. I'd planned on that reaction. As soon as I was out of shot range of the other soldier, I climbed into the boat and started rowing. He fired one shot that was short and then gave up. One more miraculous escape for Wesley Swann, I thought smirking.

A couple hours later, I was taking a break from rowing when the girl woke up. Slowly, she opened her eyes. For a while, she just stared at the huge blue sky.

"Good morning Miss," I greeted, forgetting she knew me to be from India.

She hurriedly sat up. Then, she noticed the boat, the ocean, me. Her eyes widened, and she scrambled to her feet.

"Liar," she screamed, "criminal, kidnapper!" She turned and jumped off the boat.

"No wait! You can't swim!" I called after her, flinging myself across the boat. I caught her under her shoulders, but the boat was lopsided. It flipped over on top of us. Once again, I had to bring her back up—this time under the boat. She grabbed onto one of the seats, gasping for air.

"You told me you were from India," she accused.

"I told you nothing; you assumed."

"Well, why would anyone pretend to be from somewhere else?"

"I told you. I was running from the Spanish. Did you not believe me?"

She thought for a second, beginning to calm down. "What did you do? I mean that was illegal?"

"I work with a group of outlaws that steal from innocent people on ships."

"You're a pirate! Take me home immediately, you dirty, rotten, girl stealer!" She exclaimed, pushing me under the water.

I came back up and stated calmly, "You came with me willingly." She stopped, instantly realizing she wouldn't have had to come with me is she hadn't wanted to. She climbed the tree of her own will. Now that she was thinking rationally, I continued, "At the moment, we are closer to the next island than we are to yours. If you'd like, you can leave me there, but I will not return to your home. Now help me flip this back over."

After that, she was silent for a very long time. She did help me flip the boat right side up, and quietly we rowed the short distance to the next island.

Upon arriving, she simply asked, "What next?"

"I'll visit my friends," I looked around. I had no idea where we were, what island this was, or where "my friends" would be. However, I had to make her feel like I did. I started taking gigantic steps toward my right.

"What—" she started to ask what I was doing, but I stopped her by holding a finger up to make it seem like I was counting. Then, I switched directions, now heading to the interior of the island. Curiously, she picked up her soaked skirt and followed me.

I switched directions in random places, pretending to make note of big rocks or palm trees, all the while going further into the island. Then, finally I found what I was looking for—houses. I skipped the first few and tried to seem like I purposefully chose the fourth. I knocked on the door.

"Excuse me Ma'am," I began when an older lady answered.

"Don't speak English," she interrupted, starting to close the door, but then, I realized her accent was French.

"Parlez-vous Francais?" I asked, holding the door open.

"Oui," she stopped closing it.

"Um," I thought for a second, "pouvez-vous nous aider? S'il-vous plait." I begged her to help us.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est vous voulez?" She sounded a little annoyed as she asked what I wanted.

"A quelle ile sommes nous?" (What island are we on?)

"Jen e sais pas le nom." (I don't know the name.)

"Savez-vous le region?" I thought she might know the general area.

"No…la Carribe."

I thought for a second. What would I do now? I couldn't find "my friends" the POLANDs without knowing what island it was. Then, I got an idea. There might be a map! I asked her.

"Y a-t-il un cart?"

"Oui, mais je ne peut pas le lire." That explained why she didn't know what island we were on. She couldn't read the map.

"Allez-vous nous montrer? S'il-vous plait?"

"Oui," she rolled her eyes like an old lady and brushed passed us. She led us to the center of the town.

"Voila!" She said and left before I could reply, "merci."

"A map!" The girl—who was still following me—laughed out. "You went through all that for the map! I could have told you it was right here."

"Well no one ever told me there was a map of the island on every island," I replied, trying to find a specific symbol.

"People don't need to tell you. It is obvious just by looking."

"I've only been on three islands. This one, yours—which I was too busy to notice if there was a map—and a pirate island that had no map."

"only three islands," she repeated, "but you are a—"

I covered her mouth. "Not so loud," I whispered, "yes I'm a pirate, but until a week ago, my entire career had been based on the sea. I wish I could tell you more, but I can't. Okay?"

"Okay," she answered quietly.

"Now lets go."

"Where?" She asked.

"There." I pointed to a symbol of a rum bottle and headed in that direction.

"The bar?" She asked, shocked, "Aren't you a little young?"

"Not the bar, my friends' house. They export rum, and maybe they'll be nice and export us as well."

She frowned and was about to ask more when we arrived at the door. I knocked. There was a short commotion inside. Two men dropped to the floor; one pulled his gun, and the other drew his sword.

"Devrions-nous?" The white guy with the pistol asked the black man if they should let me in.

"Ouvert la port," I knocked some more saying open the door, I'm your friend. "Je suis votre ami." I continued after a second, "S'il-vous plait," I begged, "Aidez nous…Je suis un—"

Then, the door opened before I had to say I was a pirate. "Viens," the white man invited me in, "Prenez-place." (Have a seat.)

"Ne dire pas cela encore," He told me never to say that again and then questioned, "Qu'est-ce que tu veut?"

"Quelques vetements pur la Mademoiselle, et un…voyage au…Tortuga." That sentence kind of fell apart as I asked for some clothes for the girl and a ride to Tortuga.

The white guy laughed. In English, he said, "Bukhard, get the lady some clothes. Size small."

"I thought pirates didn't have slaves," I commented.

"I knew you were British!" He exclaimed, then continued, "He's not my slave; he just actually speaks French—unlike you—so he…"

Bukhard interrupted in a very strange accent, "He's trying to say that you're doing well. Keep up the good work." He brought the clothes over. "Your clothes Miss."

"Thank you," she said, accepting them. She set the shoes down on the floor—a little manly, but they would do. However, she was appalled when she unfurled the clothes and long socks and a shirt fell to the floor. She stood there holding man's pants, just staring. "You expect me to wear this?" He asked after a second.

"Have you not a dress?" I inquired, surprised as well.

"We do not supply to many female pirates," the white man replied.

"PIRATES!" She screamed, "I'm not a—"

"Could you just be quiet?" I interrupted.

"I will not wear this." She handed it back to the white man.

"Fine then, you can walk miles over rough terrain in that heavy, soaked, shredded dress." I tried to scare her.

"Hope you can keep up," The white man continued, setting the clothes on a table, picking up a bag of mail, and heading toward the back door. Then, he stopped and called, "Wesley, come here."

I frowned and followed. As soon as we had both left, the girl said, "Give me the clothes Bukhard." When he did, she rolled her eyes and sighed.

"How do you know who I am?" I asked as the white man began saddling a horse.

"Wesley, as a bug, you'll spend your entire life memorizing ships, captains, islands, POLANDs, new tricks…All I have to memorize is pirates, and you're obviously Wesley Swann."

Accepting the explanation, I added, "And the code, you have to memorize the code."

"That doesn't count," he said after a moment, "after a while that is just as simple and necessary as knowing the names of your ship's crew."

"No, it's much simpler. The people on my ship are always changing their names."

He laughed, moving on to the other horse, but then stopped. "Wait, does that mean you know the code?"

"Better than I know French."

"But no…you can't…how?" He didn't know what to say first.

"It took me fifteen minutes. All I had to do was watch someone."

"They let you watch them! Who was it? They're not supposed to—"

"Someone else who wasn't supposed to know," I broke in. "He learned it because it was either that, or a bunch of dead POLANDs. If I say more, we'll both be dead."

Then, the girl came out. She looked interesting in the long white socks that turned into dark grey trousers, and the shirt that was definitely too big. She had thrown most of her hair up under a hat, but parts of the dark curls were falling out. I just tried not to laugh.

She saw the horses and said, "I thought we were walking."

"You can if you want to, "I replied, mounting one of the horses.

"No, I can only take you as far as the next stop," the white man explained, all of a sudden loading rum onto his horse. "Once you're there, who knows what the next link or the link after that might have you do."

"Is Turtaglu that far away?" She wondered, hopping up behind me on the horse.

"Tortuga? Traveling this way…yes." He mounted quickly and rode off. I followed him closely.

The girl was having so much fun as we rode full speed to the beach. Constantly smiling with one hand on her hat and one around me to keep her on, she would sometime point out interesting things. But mostly, she just smiled. Then, we got to the beach and slowed down. For a while, we rode along the beach before stopping at a small sailboat. We all hopped off the horses—I helped the girl, not because she needed it, but because that's what guys do. The white man loaded all the rum and a sack of mail off his horse and onto the boat. He grabbed both horses' reins.

"Are you not coming?" I asked.

"No, it's all your reign now," he said as the girl and I climbed aboard, "the next man will meet you in the beach. Please don't hurt my boat." He untied the boat and pushed us off.

But then he remembered something. "Miss!" He called out to us, "I never got your name!"

"Neither did I," I admitted quietly.

"Kemina," she replied. Then, she called back, "My name is Kemina!"

He waved to us, and we waved back for a while. Then, we set about to getting where we were going.

Not too long after that we arrived to the next island, expecting everything to go just as quickly as the last one. However, something went way wrong. A man who was a little overweight came out to meet us as I tied up the boat.

"Who are you and why are you docked here?" He demanded.

"I was supposed to meet a friend," I looked around for him, "Boswell, he's in the 'alcohol business.'" I tried to sound suspicious.

"That's an aweful small ship to be importing."

"And I'm an awefully small man," I hopped out of the boat and into the water. "There's more where this comes from. This is just a test."

"I've a test for you."

I looked at him questioningly. Who was he? Why did he care? I hardly had time to think that when the man punched me across the face. I stumbled and almost fell. I caught myself and turned back to him, shocked.

"Stephen always delivers alone," the man said. I was starting to think he was Boswell, but why? If he was, wouldn't he recognize me as a pirate? If so, why was he thinking I would hurt himm?

"Boswell" noticed my confusion and continued, "You're with a girl, young man, so who are you and what have you done with Stephen?" All of a sudden, he had a musket pointed at my chest.

"The real question is," I said, kicking him in the stomach. He slipped, and did fall on his butt. Now I had the musket pointed at him. As he propped himself up on his elbows, I finished, "Who are you? And what have yo done with Boswell?"

"What is this you speak of? I am Boswell!"

"Ah, but if ye were Boswell, you would not use this musket," I revealed throwing it into the water, "ye would have a pistol. And ye would not have to ask who I was; ye would know."

"Boswell" hopped to his feet at the first opportunity. "I suggest a dual," he commented, drawing his wword. Kemina screamed and ducked.

"Why?" I asked with my hand on mine.

"The only man left standing," he attacked, and I drew quickly in defense, "is the man he says he is."

"That's a dumb fight," I replied, but we were already fighting.

Fighting in water was harder than on land. You were slower; everything was slippery. Both of us were knocked off balance a couple of times, but we were both good fighters. Recovery was quick, and the battle continued. At one point, he had knocked me over, and I lost my sword. I searched around in the now muddy water with my hands. Unbeknownst to me, "Boswell" was sneaking up behind me.

Gradually, Kemina had begun to peak over the ship, and when she saw "Boswell," she screamed, "Wesley!"

I turned around, still without my sword. Now, I was the one, helpless in the water with my hands behind me as "Boswell" put his sword against my neck.

"Ah, Wesley," he began, "who am I now?"

I looked down at the sword, then up at him and answered, "A well trained British swordsman."

I could see the anger on his face as he lifted the sword to strike. Then, suddenly a boot flew out of nowhere, hitting "Boswell" in the head.

"Take that!" Kemina exclaimed, throwing a rum bottle, but that one missed.

"Boswell" took the pistol from my holster, turned, and shot toward Kemina. I immediately tripped him with my leg as he was turning. He stumbled, and thus missed, but he didn't fall. Kemina ducked and screamed again. Quickly, she peaked over the edge, but showed no more. NO one noticed except for her, that a few hundred feet to the west of us on shore were two men in British soldier garb. Upon hearing the shot, they fought each other. One fell and the other ran towards us.

While she was noticing this, "Boswell" picked me out of the water and slammed me against the boat. He held my shirt and pushed the pistol to the bottom of my jaw. I had no doubt he could or would shoot me, so I just stared up at the clear blue sky waiting for the shot. Then, it came.