The Battle for the Castle by Elizabeth Winthrop Page B

William.
    â€œAre you with me?” she asked.
    When he didn’t answer right away, she pulled Sorrelto a stop in the middle of the path. William trotted on for a short distance and then circled back to her.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “If I have to, I’ll do it alone.”
    â€œWe’re just kids, you know. We shouldn’t have to do things like this,” he said, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he could take them back. They sounded pathetic.
    â€œI’m with you,” he said at last.
    â€œWhat about Jason?” she asked.
    â€œWhat about him?”
    â€œCan we trust him to help us?”
    â€œFirst you’re saying you can do this alone and you don’t need us!” he exploded. “Now you want a torching party.”
    She stared at him calmly like a teacher waiting for the answer to a question.
    â€œOf course we can trust him. He’d love it.” William threw up his hands. “Burning boats at midnight. One of his favorite occupations.”
    â€œGood. Tell him to bring the bicycle. We’ll need his panniers to carry the torches and he can be an extra pair of hands in the dory.”
    William watched as she urged Sorrel into a canter. He should have refused, he thought. He should have let her just try and burn up that boat by herself. She’d see.

CHAPTER 11
    In the dead-still night, every noise seemed magnified to William. The loading of the long wooden torches into a fisherman’s dory, Gudrin’s whispered instructions to the boys to push it into the water, the scrape of the oars against the oarlocks. William pulled on one oar and Jason on the other while Gudrin sat in the bow directing them. They had given her the flashlight from William’s backpack, and for a while, she played with the strange object, flicking the switch on and off and making light circles in the inky sky above them. Finally she settled down and concentrated on getting them in striking distance of the ship.
    William had to keep lifting his oar and waiting for Jason to catch up. Jason had great biking muscles in his legs but William had more strength in his arms from all those years of floor exercises.
    â€œWe almost there?” Jason called to Gudrin.
    She didn’t bother to answer.
    â€œShh,” William said for about the tenth time.
    â€œWhy do we have to be so quiet?” Jason whispered back. “After all, there’s nothing out here but a pile of bones.”
    â€œYou didn’t see them,” William said with a shiver. “Even from a distance, they looked pretty creepy.”
    â€œWell, they’re not going to jump off that ship and grab us, are they?” Jason said. “You can’t hear us anymore can you, old boys?” he called out, cupping his hand around his mouth. I bet he’s just as scared as I am, William thought. Jason always shows off when he’s nervous.
    â€œWe’re pulling to the right again,” Gudrin called softly from the bow. “Straighten out, the ship’s in sight.”
    William let his oar rest on the surface of the water to give Jason time to swing them around. He cocked his head and listened and knew suddenly what was missing. When he was eight, his parents had taken him sailing for three days. At night, when he lay in his bunk, he heard the slap of the halyard against the mast, the splash of the waves along the hull, and the creak of metal rings rubbing one another. The fittings of this ghostly ship made no sound because the sea and the wind had no hold on it. The currents did not move it, the breeze did not lift the shredded sails, the waves didnot rock it back and forth. They might as well have been rowing toward a black hole in the ocean for all the noise it made.
    â€œWe’ll head up above the ship and let the current take us down toward it,” Gudrin said. “Then the wind will be at our backs when we throw the torches.