Silence reigned for a few seconds; both Masha and Willow and Vee and Gus were fully aware that it was best not to say anything that might piss these guys off, since the ship's cannons were pretty big and as a result could sink their little boat as if it were a snack. But obviously among Luz's many flaws there was also the total lack of sense of opportunity: "Um... sorry if I ask, sir, but are you a lobster?"
Her four companions slapped each other in the face, sure that at any moment the captain would give the order to open fire and erase them from the existence, but fortunately Salty took it rather well. "I'm not a lobster, shrimp! I'm simply a human on my father's side and a crustacean on my mother's side!" he responded with a laugh, clicking his claws.
"Uh... that's an... unusual combination" Luz murmured.
"Said the girl who was made of wood" Salty retorted, but he didn't lose his amused grin. He seemed to be enjoying the situation very much. "Who do I have the privilege of speaking to, by the way?"
"My name is Luz, this is my sister Vee and this is her girlfriend Masha, and these are my friends Gus and Willow" the puppet answered pointing to her companions one by one.
This time the pirates looked decidedly confused. "So, to recap… a talking puppet is the sister of a basilisk, who in turn has a human girlfriend, and your friends are a spider and a cricket?" the girl with brown hair and a ponytail who had just called herself the first officer murmured with a lot of doubt in her voice. Evidently she didn't expect to find so much nonsense all at once.
Captain Salty also looked rather shocked, which was somewhat ironic given that he himself was a walking oddity, but he quickly recovered and let out a cough. "Well, the ocean always holds the most diverse surprises! Well, since you introduced yourself, let us do the same. As you may have understood by now, I am Captain Salty, owner of this magnificent ship that has no rivals in this corner of the sea and who does the very honest job of lightening the holds of the overfilled merchant ships. The one next to me..." and he gave the brown-haired girl a vigorous pat, a pat that would normally have catapulted anyone into the sea, but that the girl resisted without batting an eyelid and without even losing her smile. "... is my first officer, and her name is Viney. Then there's Jerbo, our carpenter, and Barcus, the boatswain" and he pointed to the lanky boy and the dog. "And then we have..." he continued to list all the crew members one by one, who puffed out their chests with pride evry time they heard their names. When he had finished he turned to them again: "And now that we know each other, why don't you tell us what you are doing in our waters?"
"We are not looking for trouble, and we have nothing of value with us" Masha said hoping that the pirates would leave them alone.
"Oh, it's sure that you have nothing of value with you, otherwise you wouldn't be wandering around in one of the most hostile environments in the world with that little boat" the girl named Viney laughed. "Don't be rude and answer the captain's question: what are you doing here?"
"We're looking for my mom" Luz replied. "She went to sea to find me, and now we are chasing her to hug her again"
"Uh, well... that's touching". A small shadow of pity crossed Salty's face. "But it's still not a good idea to go to sea without preparation. You're probably not even going in the right direction..."
"Oh, instead we are! A whale confirmed it to us!" Vee said.
The crew looked astonished again. "You asked a whale for directions? Seriously?" the boy named Jerbo asked.
"Yes, her name was Selkidomus and she was leaving here because she had a child and was looking for safer waters" Luz confirmed. "She told us we need to stay on this route to get to a place called… Bonesborough, I think, where my mother is headed"
The pirates looked even more amazed. They looked at the puppet with inquisitive glances, searching for any sign that she was lying or that she was crazy, but they found none. In the end they had to accept that she was telling the truth. "Wow... I don't say this often, but you are one of the strangest things I've ever found in the sea... and I've been sailing for over fifty years" Salty murmured.
"Well, you may be strange enough to ask the whales for directions, but don't you think that gab will save you when something decides to take a bite out of that little boat" Viney, who had been considerably quicker to recover than her captain, said. "For your information, the sharks around here are the size of houses... and they're nowhere near the biggest thing that there is around, let alone the most dangerous"
"Yeah, we still have tons of meat in the hold from a sperm whale we killed two months ago" Barcus said. "It was about the size of a five-story barracks and it had a mouth so large and deep that the entire bow of this ship could fit inside it"
"And ever since then we've done nothing but eat that. I can't take it anymore, can't we throw it into the sea? At least we'd attract a kraken or a leviathan and we could eat something different" Jerbo grumbled sadly, and the whole crew made a noise of approval of his words.
Captain Salty glared at them: "Do you think it's time to talk about these things? We are in the middle of a boarding, in case you'd forgotten!"
Luz, Vee, Masha, Willow, and Gus looked at each other in confusion as well. Those pirates were not exactly as they had imagined. They certainly didn't seem like the classic ruthless killers of the stories who destroyed all the ships in front of them and hid the treasures on deserted islands. "Um... look, meeting you was very nice, but now could you let us go?" Luz asked. "As we told you, we don't have any money or anything that would interest you, and we have to go find my mother, so..."
"Not so fast, shrimp. No one here is heartless enough to leave you in the middle of the sea with that little boat" Salty said, then he tossed them a rope. "We're also going towards Bonesborough. Get on board, we'll give you a lift"
Although the prospect of traveling on a larger, sturdier and safer ship and in the company of people who knew how to navigate and navigate the sea was attractive, none of Luz's four companions were convinced, and the puppet herself was somewhat doubtful. "Um... thanks, but we would prefer to continue on our own..."
"Trust me, if you keep your head on your neck you'll get on board" Viney told her.
"It's a menace?" Masha exclaimed as she stepped in front of Vee. She wasn't sure what she could do if the pirates decided to attack them, but she was willing to at least try to defend her new girlfriend.
But Viney shook his head. "No, girl, it's an advice. A great advice, I should add. And if you don't get on board it will also be the last advice you get in your life". She pointed to a point on the horizon where there were many clouds. "Do you see those clouds? They seem placid now, but when they get here they will unleash a storm. You have more or less thirty minutes before this corner of the sea turns into hell, and believe me, that little boat won't be able to hold up against the fury of the waves in the slightest"
Luz looked at the clouds in the distance. They just looked like big, quiet white masses moving slowly across the sky. "They don't seem so terrible to me"
"Really? Then let's do this" Viney replied with a smirk. "Let's wait five minutes. At the end of these five minutes the waves that will crash on your little boat will already be so violent that it will visibly shake. If in five minutes this won't happen, than fell free to go around saying that the first officer of a pirate ship can't distinguish a storm from a passing cloud!"
Luz expected Viney to be teasing them, but instead the pirates sat quietly and waited with mocking smiles on their faces. And after five minutes, in fact, the waves crashing on the boat had become so strong that the passengers had to hold on tightly to avoid falling into the water, and even the approaching clouds were becoming grayer and more threatening. "Still skeptical?" Viney asked in a satisfied voice. "So, do you come on board, or would you rather we'll return and pick you up when you'll be half drowned, assuming that we'll find you in the middle of the storm?"
"Okay, okay! You win!" Luz exclaimed; she didn't like the situation at all, but she liked the risk of being tossed away by the storm or eaten by a giant shark even less, so she grabbed the rope and climbed up to the deck of the pirate ship. Albeit with a moment's reluctance, Vee and Masha followed her.
When they were finally on board they remained close to each other, knowing that they weren't among friends. They expected the pirates to put a chain on them or something, but instead the first thing that happened was Viney grabbed Luz's face and started hitting her forehead. "Wow, you're really made of wood! How is this possible, are you magical or what?"
"Hey, hey! Respect personal space!" Luz exclaimed trying to push her away, but even though she was exerting all her strength the pirate didn't move an inch.
"Ha ha! You've got a long way to go, shrimp, before you can tell my first officer what to do!" Salty said with a laugh. "First rule of the sea: the strong decides everything. If you are weak, then you can only hope that the strong will be kind to you. If not, accept your demise"
"Ugh... that's a stupid rule!" Luz said trying desperately to wriggle away from Viney. "Come on, let me go!"
"No way! You're the first living puppet I've met, I want to know everything about you!" Viney responded by continuing to touch her. "Now, how hard is the wood you're made of? Can you handle cannon shells or would you explode on contact?"
"I don't know! I've never been hit by a cannon shell!"
"Really? Have you never tried? Not even once?"
"Why would I want to shoot myself with a cannon!?"
"I don't know. Fun?"
"What kind of sick concept of fun do you have!?"
"Okay, okay, that's enough" Salty interjected. "All of this is very funny, but I don't tolerate rowdiness on my ship when there's a storm coming. Everyone, get back to your seats! And you three, try not to go overboard. And you, shrimp, make sure you keep your cricket and your spider tightly locked very well in your pockets, or the wind will carry them away"
"Wait a minute! Aren't we leaving before the storm hits?" Masha exclaimed.
"Huh? Do you think this ship is magical and can travel like the wind?" The captain burst out laughing. "We can't sail faster than the storm, so we might as well ride through it. Get ready to dance!"
As if to confirm the captain's words, a lightning crossed the sky in the distance and immediately afterwards a thunder clap was heard that made Luz, Masha and Vee's skin crawl. Gus and Willow took the captain's words literally and locked themselves in the puppet's pocket; and Luz, Masha and Vee looked at each other worriedly, not at all sure they were still safe. Seeing their fear, Viney reassured them: "Don't worry, freshwater sailors, you're in no danger! This ship is virtually unsinkable. You'll just have to prepare your stomachs and make sure you won't vomit. Trust me, it'll be fun!"
It wouldn't have been fun at all. Absolutely not at all.
The fact that in the sea of this world there are giant sharks and enormous sperm whales is clearly a reference both to Collodi's original story (where the final monster was a shark) and to the Disney film (the whale Monstro, which replaced the shark from the original book because... well, in 1940 people were cultured enough to understand that a shark wasn't so big). Krakens and leviathans instead are mythological creatures. Even the way Barcus describes the sperm whale they killed is a reference to the original book, since it is the same way a dolphin describes the terrible shark to Pinocchio. And finally, the fact that they will have to face a storm is also a reference, given that Pinocchio crosses the sea right in the middle of it in Collodi's book.