The Ship of Lost Souls 1 by Rachelle Delaney Page A

“You’ve still got both eyes.”
    Smitty considered this, then nodded. “It’s a problem, isn’t it?”
    Jem silenced them both with a glare.
    â€œDon’t insult me,” Deadeye Johnny was saying. “A ruby’s worth a hundred sacks of doubloons these days. The King’s Men’ve torn up the islands for ’em but come up with nothin’. Except those that fall from the sky.” He snorted. “This is a treasure in itself.”
    â€œForget his offer, Deadeye,” the first pirate said. “I’ll give ye me knife for the jewel.” And he drew out a long pocketknife with an ivory handle inlaid with delicate, silver curls. “Belonged to Cutthroat MacPhee, it did. Long, long ago.” The other pirates’ eyes widened as the silver curls glinted.
    Smitty turned to Jem and mouthed, “A knife!”
    â€œObviously!” Jem mouthed back.
    â€œYour knife!” Smitty mouthed, pointing for emphasis.
    â€œJem,” Tim whispered under his breath, “be as quick as you can, but stealthy. Smitty and I’ll distract them if you need us to.”
    Quick but stealthy. Quick but stealthy. Cold sweat dripped between his shoulder blades as Jem flattened himself against the wall and tiptoed—quickly and stealthily, he hoped—toward the table.
    Jem dropped to his knees. The pirates were clustered at the far end of the table, so he crawled underneath the opposite end, grateful for the shadows that seemed to be keeping him hidden. He crept along the floor, his hands sinking into puddles of rum and small, scattered crumbs, then stopped a few feet away from the pirates’ boots. Above, the men haggled on.
    â€œCome on, Deadeye. Cutthroat MacPhee’s prized knife for yer little jewel.”
    â€œThrow in that big sack of ara feathers ye stole from the commodore last week, and ye’ve got yerself a deal.”
    â€œMe feathers? Never!”
    Jem glanced back at the wall and saw Smitty gesturing wildly in the shadows. His windmilling arms seemed to indicate that the knife lay right above Jem on the table.
    He drew a breath and reached up, slowly, next to the pirate with the knife, praying that hands small enough to slip out of knotted rope would also go undetected under a pirate’s nose. He crept his fingers along the table ledge, then looked over at Smitty again. “There!” the boy mouthed, nearly poking Tim in the eye as he pointed. “Right there!” Jem stretched his now-aching arm a bit farther . . . and his fingers connected with cool, smooth ivory.
    Suddenly there was a clatter as Tim dropped a tin mug on the floor. On purpose, of course—to divert the pirates’ attention. Jem clasped the knife handle and slipped it off the table, then began to back out the way he’d come. Quick but stealthy, quick but stealthy, he chanted in his head to the beat of his whomping heart. Almost there.
    Just then, his hand slipped in a puddle of rum. He looked down to right himself. And when he looked back up, his pounding heart nearly stopped. There, staring back at him under the table, with the perfect pirate scowl on his round, one-eyed face, was Deadeye Johnny. For a moment they simply stared at each other. Then the pirate’s good eye blinked.
    â€œGet that boy!” he hollered.
    Without thinking, Jem rolled away from the table and toward the wall just as Smitty and Tim jumped out of the shadows, yelling and waving their arms like crazed apes. Tim knocked over two chairs, and Smitty stuck out his foot to trip one of the pirates, who was running toward Jem, yelling, “Get him! He stole Cutthroat MacPhee’s knife!”
    â€œRun!” Tim hollered. The three boys dashed to the door and out into the blinding sun.
    â€œSplit up!” Tim called.
    Still clutching the knife, Jem swung to the right, just barely out of Deadeye Johnny’s reach, and took off down the street.
    â€œWhich one