Chapter Seven
Pirates
Nanny Eleanor had one proverb that she would live and die by: that nothing is truly as bad as it seems when you are dressed for the occasion. What seemed like an indomitable mess while in pajamas suddenly because little more than a small hurdle when a girl was in her best clothes. And so, despite the fact that they had no idea what to do with George, Miss de Berry prowled the beach outside (and had for two hours), and a foot injury that forced her to hobble, Sariah felt a sunshine in her spirit when she pulled out her favorite divided skirt and floral pants. She felt so confident, in fact, that she bounded to the bathroom and did a quick pirouette in front of George, making sure to pivot on her uninjured foot.
“Today,” she declared, “We will be pirates.”
George flopped a bit as he tried to sit up. The bubbles had all dissipated during the night, which meant that his tail was now on full display. His fluke flapped against the side of the porcelain as he struggled upwards, but in the end, he splashed back down and sighed.
“I can’t be a pirate, unless you want to tie me to your bow and let me be your figurehead.” He exhaled softly and made a ring of bubbles around his own mouth.
Such a boy thing to do.
Sariah forgave him for this transgression as she barged on with her plan. “Well—I was thinking. It’s no good for you to be cooped up in here. So I did some snooping around this morning and I found something.” She paused, but her theatrics were lost when George didn’t urge her on. Perhaps he would find the next part as scintillating as she did, though: “A wheelbarrow.”
“A wheelbarrow?” George furrowed his brow. “What’s that?”
“Mermen!” Sariah sputtered with the usual note of grievance she typically reserved for uttering: “Brothers!”
“It’s not my fault I don’t know what it is,” George argued. “I wouldn’t make fun of you if you didn’t know all the intricacies of kelp farming or didn’t know what a dengasi was!”
“All right,” Sariah conceded. “I suppose that’s true. But if we’re going to play, we have to get you out of the bathtub and into the wheelbarrow.”
George still hadn’t unpuckered his brow, which was not very reassuring. “But don’t you think it’s best if I stay in here? They could be looking for me, and I really don’t want to go back to the sea—”
“Nonsense.” Sariah waved her hand in the air to shoo away his protests. “We’ll just go down the street and back. Just a few times—just to pretend like we’re on the open seas—and, besides. Pirates aren’t afraid of anything! There’s no fun if there’s not a little risk.”
Surely Davy Jones himself couldn’t have delivered such an impassioned speech as that. Perhaps if he had, he wouldn’t be in his own locker now after his first (and fatal) defeat.
Anyway, it seemed to rouse George. At least he stopped blowing bubbles and tugging on his scales. His face was still screwed up, though. “I...I suppose…if it’s what you want me to do…”
His voice sounded very meek, but Sariah clapped her hands together and almost did another pirouette. “I know we’ll have lots of fun!”
There was only the small matter of sneaking past Nanny Eleanor and lugging George to the waiting wheelbarrow. Sariah crept down the hallway and saw Nanny Eleanor in the study. She had a book propped open on her knee and turned a page when Sariah crept by.
“That nuisance has already been here once today. Tried to sneak in under the guise of delivering pastries from in town,” Nanny Eleanor said without even looking up.
Sariah froze. How did adults have such a sixth sense about them? She certainly didn’t know where all her siblings were lurking every second of the hour. If she had, she would have stopped Connor from cutting the hair off her porcelain doll last month. Was that one of those things Lizzie always mentioned came with growing up? “Who?”
“Who else? Miss de Berry.” Nanny Eleanor turned her sharp gaze upon Sariah. “Don’t speak a word to her, do you understand? Conniving little beast. She was trying to wheedle information out of me. Asking what we did, what brought us here, if we’d met any of the locals—all just thinly veiled ways of uncovering intel that seems like harmless prattle. Oh, yes. She’s a hunter, and a good one at that.” Nanny Eleanor turned the next page with too much fervor.
Sariah wondered if Nanny Eleanor had ever considered the fact that it could really just be harmless prattle, but if she hadn’t stuck up for the dignity of gossipy girls yesterday, she wasn’t about to defend Miss de Berry now. “Well...Nanny Eleanor, what are we going to do with George? It doesn’t seem fair to leave him in a tub forever.”
“We’re going to protect him, of course,” Nanny Eleanor said with an odd inflection in her voice. “As I could not do with Leon. Mermen are made to be protected, Sariah, you understand? I already wrote a letter to Phineas to tell him about our change of plans. He should be sending a batch of reinforcements to get the next part of the plan underway.”
Sariah gave a noncommittal nod and darted outside. Her stomach churned at the thought of plans and reinforcements—like George was some kind of prisoner or package—but the sunshine forced all of those gloomy thoughts into the shadows when she rounded the corner of the house.
There, overrun with beach grass, was a little round shed. Sariah had seen it last night, when her spark of genius occured. The door was broken down and riddled with holes, so it took no effort at all to free the wheelbarrow Sariah had seen inside earlier. She rolled it up to her unlocked window and climbed inside. She hit the bed with a little grunt and rolled onto the floor, feet first.
Such was the power of an appropriate outfit. She could conquer the world in it.
She would not have to pass the study door again. She crept into the bathroom and announced her success to George, who seemed to endure the news like one might that their arm was broken.
“Cooperate, George, and you’ll be in the wheelbarrow soon,” Sariah assured him.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he muttered under his breath. Or at least, Sariah thought that was what he said. She wasn’t entirely sure.
“Pull!” Sariah grasped his arms and did as she instructed.
His slick chest hit the side of the bathtub, and the poor merman gave a little moan. But he hardly had time to complain about that before Sariah had him even further over, the edge jutting into his stomach.
“Sariah!” he croaked. “I’m falling!”
“No, you’re not!” Sariah managed to position her own body in between him and the floor.
In all technicalities, he did fall, but he landed on her, so she thought it made them about even. His tail flopped and twisted in various ways that surely would have snapped his knees if he was born with them. His flipper smacked the wall and made a horrible thug sound, and water splashed out and drenched them both.
“Sariah? What was that infernal racket? Are you bothering the merman?” Nanny Eleanor yelled.
Sariah could hear the click-clack of her grandmother’s boots on the hardwood. “We’re doomed!”
George flopped over and shooed her on. “Hurry! Go lock the door!”
“That’s suspicious! That’ll only make her more adamant to get in!”
Sariah stood up, but the floor was slick once more, and she flopped out on her stomach. Her clothes were drenched and her hair hung limply on her shoulders. “I fell, Nanny Eleanor! It’s—it’s just me! The floor is slippery, and I’ve got a bad foot—” Sariah almost threw out the excuse that she had bad lungs, but she stopped herself midway. That really didn’t have much pertinence here, and Nanny Eleanor wasn’t like Mother who would cave to that argument every time.
“Well, goodness gracious, child,” Nanny Eleanor began. But by the time she swung the door open, Sariah was already there.
Just like Nanny Eleanor had done with Miss de Berry yesterday, Sariah positioned herself in front of the door so that her grandmother couldn’t step inside. Hopefully, she also couldn’t peek around the privacy wall and see the bathtub, the merman, and the mess.
“You’re sopping wet!” Nanny Eleanor scowled. “Really, and that outfit was nice. Well, go change.”
“I will,” Sariah said, though in her head that meant: I’ll get around to it, eventually.
But her answer had satisfied Nanny Eleanor, and therefore, fulfilled its purpose. She retreated back to the study and closed the door, which suited Sariah’s purposes just fine.
“She’s gone!” Sariah hissed as she spun around. “Come on!”
And though it took a fair amount of dragging and whispers, Sariah finally did manage to get George to her room, on her bed, and then plopped him right into the waiting wheelbarrow.
“There! And you said it couldn’t be done!” Sariah crowed.
George situated himself in the rusty wheelbarrow. He screwed up his face, but when he caught her eyes, his glower turned into a half-hearted smile. “You...um...forgot water.”
“Oh, for the love of—” Sariah muttered. “I just want to play!”
The water was fetched from the ocean, and finally, finally, they were ready to go.
“You’re my first mate!” Sariah declared.
She shoved the wheelbarrow onto the road and huffed and puffed as she did it. “And we’re being chased by a rogue band of pirates—”
“They’re right behind us!” George cried with such fear that Sariah turned around to check. When she did, he added in a whisper, “It’s just pretend, Sariah.”
This time, the grin he gave her was real, a bit of a dimple appearing.
Sariah knew at that moment he would make a fine first mate.
“Hold on!” “They’re gaining on us!” “Cannon fire to your left, Sharpshooter—” “Dodge!”
Sariah raced down the dirt road as they screamed whatever their imagination could dream up. She swerved to avoid the cannon fire—drove the wheelbarrow into the grass when they were almost apprehended by Blackbeard—crept along while George played lookout to find the hidden treasure.
“The coast is clear,” George whispered. “But hurry up and get the treasure!”
Sariah jabbed her fingers into the sand and came up with nothing but a half-broken seashell, but in her mind’s eye, it was the lost amulet of...of…
“Look, George,” she whispered. She crawled back over to him and put the bit on his tail. “The lost amulet of Stormy Siren. If we find all the pieces and reconstruct it, it’ll let us control the weather like she used to do!”
“And we can use lightning to set Blackbeard’s ship on fire! We’ll send him right down to Atlantis!” George seized the fragment and held it against his chest. “I’ll hold it for you, m’lady.”
“We’ll send ‘em to Davy Jones’s locker,” Sariah said in her best pirate drawl. “Come on!”
They burst out of the grass fighting, but Blackbeard was prepared for them. They had to turn around and go at least fifteen knots, which Sariah hoped was fast; she’d never been a captain on a real boat, but she’d read that phrase a lot in books.
“Shoot to our left!” “Incoming!” “We’ve been hit! We’re taking on water!” “Don’t worry—that’s good for me.” “Go! Go! Go!”
They were almost flying now, right down the dusty street, the sun on their back, the sea breeze to their front. Everything was swathed in golden sunlight.
“Here he comes again! Watch the port side!” “Which one is that?” “I don’t know—port and starboard, who cares—watch both!” “He took out our masts!”
This last declaration was followed by a very real shriek. They’d definitely hit fifteen knots, if not more, but the legs of small girls were not made to go fifteen knots. Neither were wheelbarrows, and their pirate ship jerked out of Sariah’s hands. She collapsed to the ground while George and the water spilled out everywhere, in a large mess of legs and tails and arms and saltwater.
They both lay there on the pavement and stared at each other. Their elbows were probably skinned, as were her knees; George had lost a few scales on the road. But…
They both burst into belly laughter, the kind that only true friends can arouse in one another.
“Get up! Get up! Are you a pirate or are you a land-lubber?” Sariah cried as she hopped back up.
George cackled as he raised one battered fist in the air. “A pirate!”
“Then we’ll fight Blackbeard and never utter the word surrender!”
Sariah grabbed a piece of beach grass and raised it into the air as if it were a real cutlass. The battle had been brought to them, but they would not surrender. No, they would fight harder than Davy Jones himself, and they would never be sent down to his eponymous locker.
Only they were so engulfed with fighting Blackbeard that neither of them saw Miss de Berry, hidden in the strips of long, tawny grass.
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