Pirate Pete's Arc

Chapter 10 of 11

Pete stood at the rail at first light. Priscilla surfaced below him, her blue hair wet against her shoulders. She did not smile this time. "A barrel washed loose from the cave," she said. "The tide pulled it out in the night. It's drifting now." She pointed past the shallows toward the shore. "That way. Toward the docks where your mother lands." Pete's chest went tight. His mother arrived today. If she found a rum barrel bobbing near her boat, she would know. She had searched his ship twice and found nothing. One barrel on the water would undo every lie he had told her. "How far?" Pete asked. "Slow," Priscilla said. "But the current only goes one way. You have until noon." Pete could not row out himself. His mother might dock any minute and see him. He turned and called down the deck. "Rusty! Slappy! Get to the rowboat!" Slappy scrambled up first, the red bandana crooked on his head, a coil of rope already in his hand. Rusty came slower, arms crossed, red beard jutting. "You want us near your rum again," Rusty said. "Last time you screamed at us for touching it." Pete remembered why. These two had dumped his barrels overboard once, in a panic, to hide them. He did not trust them near the rum. But he had no one else, and no time. "A barrel's loose," Pete said. "It's floating to my mother. You net it before she sees it, or she takes the ship and every one of us goes hungry." That reached Rusty. He dropped his arms. "Where?" Priscilla lifted a wet hand from the water. "Follow me. I'll swim ahead and point." Slappy and Rusty dropped into the rowboat. Pete stayed on deck, gripping the rail, watching them pull away. The mermaid's tail flashed ahead of the bow. Pete counted every stroke of the oars. He saw the barrel then, a small dark shape rolling on the swells, closer to shore than to the boat. Rusty rowed harder. Slappy leaned out with the rope looped in his fist. A second boat appeared past the barrel. Black hull. A thin figure stood in it, straight-backed, pearls catching the sun. His mother, early. She faced the shore, not the water yet. "Faster," Pete whispered, though no one could hear. Slappy threw the rope. It caught the barrel's rim. He hauled, and Rusty grabbed the wood, and together they dragged it over the side and out of sight. The mermaid dove. Pete's mother turned her head a breath later and saw only two boys rowing, arms full of nothing she could name. Rusty raised the recovered barrel over his head so Pete could see. Three barrels safe again. Pete let go of the rail. His mother had missed it by seconds. But she was here now, early and watching, and his rum still sat in a cave the tide kept robbing.