Freebooter’s Paradise
A DANGEROUS TANDEM ADVENTURE
Tim Loge
ILLUSTRATED BY
Leona Preston
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, establishments, organizations, or real locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance fictional narrative. All other names, characters, places, dialogue, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and are not to be construed as real.
Freebooter’s Paradise
Copyright © 2011 by Tim Loge
Published on Smashwords
First Electronic Version, 2011
All right reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to wherever you bought it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
Summary: Cameron, Marcella, and Miguel discover Blackbeard’s plan to plunder the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine and they lead the fight to run him out of town.
ISBN: 978-0-615-53255-4
Subjects: pirates, mystery, magic, friendship, Arizona, Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine
Illustration: Leona Preston
To family and friends, whose loving kindness propels us all
to a better place in this great, grand world, “Thank You, and Buen Camino!”
Please Visit
For the students and staff of
Fremont Junior High and Hamilton High, past and present
And for Claire and Ben of the Oak Openings
* * *
CONTENTS
1. Follow Me, You Really, Really Stupid Idiot-Dork
2. A Collision with a Yellow Bug, Big Red Gum, and Bad Omens
3. Super-Sized Dust Devils Attack Apache Junction
5. Freebooter’s Paradise—Plunder, Parcels, Pets, Pests, and Pawn
6. Captain Kidd’s 1001 Excuses and the Truth about Moonbeams
7. The Sun Door and Nennah Fortuna, the Wheel of Fortune
8. Cameron Is Forced to Walk the Plank
9. Pirates Treasure, Old Style and New
10. I Covered for You, Shrimp Boy
19. Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits, Cha-Cha-Cha
20. Downunder, the Stewards, and the Guardians
23. The Incident with the Gold Nugget
24. Breakfast at the Road Runner Café
26. Blackbeard Counterattacks with Confetti and Cannonballs
27. The Bold, the Brave, and the True of Heart
* * * * *
CHAPTER ONE
Follow Me, You Really, Really Stupid Idiot-Dork
“Follow me,” said Miguel as he shoved the screen door open and ran right into the forbidden zone of Grumpy Ry’s driveway just to get a closer look at the tandem bicycle.
I didn’t move from my kitchen. I knew where the bike was parked and I wasn’t getting close to it. “You can see it from here!” I shouted after him.
“You’re a chicken, Cameron Wrangler!” Miguel shouted over his shoulder.
“We’re not playing Follow Me anymore. It’s a baby game,” I said, but I was very interested in taking a closer look at the bicycle.
A tandem bicycle is built for two. It has two wheels, two seats, two handlebars, and two sets of pedals. My neighbor, Mr. Donald Rysill, who we nicknamed Grumpy Ry, bought his from the Mesa megastore, HeapsMart, only three days ago. Sure, it was cheap, but it didn’t look cheap. It was all chrome and gray and shiny as heck, pumped up with fat whitewall tires, white striped seats, a horn for the first rider and a bell for the second. I mean, it was beautiful. Miguel and I had been staring at it from the safety of my kitchen. Grumpy Ry was old, and we stayed away from him and his stuff because he always yelled at us for something, even just for looking at him.
I left my kitchen reluctantly and jogged across our driveway, onto Grumpy Ry’s, and over to the tandem parked next to his house. I was scared to be there, but it felt so good standing next to the bike. I could smell new all over—new tires, new paint, and new seats. An electric shock of excitement bolted through me. I so wanted to take it for a ride.
Miguel ran his hand along the second pair of handlebars. He gave me a seriously angry look and reached towards the bike’s bell, as if he were going to ring it.
“What did I do?” I asked. I was there right next to him. Hadn’t I proved I wasn’t a chicken?
Miguel scowled. “You had to follow me, huh? Didn’t you just say we weren’t playing the Follow Me game anymore?” Exaggerating his movements, he pretended to ring the bike’s bell.
“Miguel, don’t do it. Grumpy Ry will kill us.”
Miguel stuck out his tongue. “You shouldn’t have followed me over here then, dork. Seventh grade starts in August. Aren’t we too old to be playing baby games?”
I stared at him and wiped sweat from my forehead. Summer vacation had just started I didn’t want to get into trouble on my first full day of freedom. Was he joking or serious? Miguel’s brown eyes never gave him away. I still had trouble calling his bluff, like right now. Was he pulling my leg? Or was he really mad at me for telling him I didn’t want to play Follow Me anymore? After all, we weren’t third graders, geesh . . . but we were best friends.
Miguel showed up in my sixth grade class last October. The only reason we talked was because during recess he followed me all around the playground. He followed me so close that he stepped on the heel of my shoe and my foot came out of it—that’s called a flat tire. “Hey, watch out!” I said. “Why are you following me?”
“Why not?”
“Youuuu . . . dork,” I said, bending down to fix my sneaker.
“Sorry about the flat tire,” said Miguel, and then he stood there, gawking at me.
So I asked again, “Why are you following me?”
He shrugged. “Because.”
I gave him the meanest I’m-going-to-kick-your-butt-look, the same one my older sister gives me when I played the “because” routine on her. “Because why?” I growled.
Miguel twisted the toe of his shoe into the gravel. “I don’t have any friends.”
Nice, I thought. At least he was honest about it. Hmm, I thought Okay, so I don’t have a lot of friends either. Marcella, Mar for short, was the closest friend I had. Maybe Miguel knew that, but what should he care? I said, “You don’t have a lot of friends because you’re a dork.”
Miguel smiled and said, “I’m playing a game.”
“What game?”
“It’s called Follow Me, and you’re first so I have to follow you around. When it’s my turn, you follow me. See?”
I frowned. “It sounds stupid.”
Miguel laughed. He was a short kid, smaller than me, and I’m short to begin with. Even so, he had a very funny, big laugh. You wouldn’t forget it if you heard it. It was a fast, loud laugh like, “He, he, he-he-he, he-he-he, heeee.”
Miguel said, “It’s not a stupid game. It’s fun following you. You’re playing, and you don’t even know it.”
So that was why he tailed me across the playground. I hadn’t meant to play his stupid game. “You know what? You’re a dork.”
“Yeah, I know, but in the Follow Me game, I become what I follow. So, if I am, that’s because you are.”
It took a second for that to sink in. He just turned my insult back at me. This kid was tricky. I took a step closer to him and said, “Yeah, that’s really stupid. You’re a really, really stupid dork. Don’t you know that?”
“Yeah, I’m a really, really stupid dork, if you’re a really, really stupid dork.”
“You’re an idiot!”
“Yeah, I know. If you’re a really, really stupid idiot-dork, then I’m a . . . ”
I couldn’t take it anymore, and I grabbed Miguel by the arm, tucking him into a headlock. “Follow this!” I screamed, as I gave him my best, super-sized noogie.
Miguel squirmed and busted out laughing his idiotic laugh. I mean, he howled. The other kids turned around to look at us. Luckily, the recess monitor didn’t come running and that was probably because Miguel sounded so happy. He was a total really, really stupid idiot-dork, and I told him so again and again, noogie after noogie.
“I am what you are! He, he, he-he-he, he-he-he, heeee . . .”
When I finally let him up, he snatched my hand and gave me a wrist burn I’ll never forget. It hurt. So we noogied and burnt each other until recess was over that day. The other kids and even Mar steered clear of us. I didn’t care. It was fun, and the next day Miguel and I decided to be best friends. We have been ever since.
And after all of that craziness, here we were, standing in front of Grumpy Ry’s tandem, Miguel’s hand resting on the bell.
“Don’t do it,” I warned, but it didn’t help.
Ring-ring! Ring-ring!
When Miguel rung the bell, I didn’t know if I wanted to run or hide.
Ring-ring! Ring-ring!
Miguel smiled so wide I could count his teeth. Maybe I should have punched him in his teeth, but instead I reached for the black bulb of the bike’s horn. If I was going to get into trouble for just standing here, why shouldn’t I have a bit of fun too? I squeezed.
Honk, honk, honkkkkkk!
Ring-ring! Ring-ring!
“He, he, he-he-he, he-he-he, heeee.”
“Who do you think you are?” With his arms flailing like a demented scarecrow caught in a dust storm, Grumpy Ry flew out of his side screen door. He tried to slam the door behind him to get a crash, but he only got an “Umph.” Before he could finish saying, “Get your grubby, little hands—” the screen flew back open, slamming into him.
“Donald Rysill, if you ever slam a door on me again, you’ll be sorry you were born.” Mrs. Rysill stepped out of the house, one hand on the screen door and the other over her nose. Grumpy Ry stepped aside to let her out.
“Oh, Honey Bunches—”
“Ah!” She shushed him raising her index finger into the air. “I better not get a nose bleed.”
Nobody moved. I guess we were waiting to see if her nose would bleed. The space between the houses, where our driveways ran next to each other, acted like an echo chamber. Just a few seconds ago the tandem’s ringing and honking and our laughing filled the space. Now there was a deathly quiet. Was Mrs. Rysill’s nose bleeding?
Mrs. Rysill sniffed. Grumpy Ry winced. I sniffed, too, because of the dust and my allergies. Miguel giggled at me. I elbowed him. Geesh.
A sparrow hopping from the top of my garage to the top of the Rysill’s suddenly decided to chatter at us. Maybe he was saying, “Keep the noise down, you crazy, crazy nut jobs.” Miguel looked to the sparrow and then grinned at me. He probably thought the sparrow was saying, “Don’t stop the fireworks, more now, more now.”
Gurpmy Ry rubbed Mrs. Rysill’s back with one hand. “Dot, dear, I didn’t mean to.”
“Ah.” She rubbed her finger under her nose and then looked at it. No blood. “Don, you’re lucky this morning,” she said. “If you’re really lucky, I won’t find a bruise on my face tomorrow because if I do, I’m wringing this tandem around your neck.” The sparrow on the garage chirped and flew away. She continued, “In fact, about this tandem—these young men are lucky today, too. Aren’t they, dear?” She smiled at us and then at Grumpy Ry.
My heart skipped a beat. Was she going to let us ride the tandem? I held my breath.
“They don’t know how to ride it,” said Grumpy Ry, eyeing us. “It’s not like a regular bike. They have to work as a team riding a tandem. They’ll crash and ruin the paint job.” Notice that Grumpy Ry didn’t mention we could get hurt if we crashed—not that we ever would. With him it was always about stuff like his backyard, his car, his garage, and now, his tandem.
Mrs. Rysill shook her head and pointed to her nose and then to Grumpy Ry. He groaned, turned and stomped into his house like my sister might after not getting her way. Mrs. Rysill smiled at us. “Boys, would you like to give it a spin?”
Miguel whooped, but all I could do was nod. I couldn’t believe it. We were taking Grumpy Ry’s brand new tandem out for a spin. I moved out of the way as Mrs. Rysill and Miguel wheeled the bike around for our takeoff.
I stared at Miguel in wonder. He’d finagled us into fun adventures before, but this topped everything. Sometimes I joked with him that he was special because of his laugh and his stupid games like Follow Me, but maybe he really was special. I mean, in a good way, like he was magic or something. Maybe he was just really lucky on certain days, like today.
Grinning, Miguel pulled me to the side of the front seat. “You drive. I’ll follow.”
* * * * *
CHAPTER TWO
A Collision with a Yellow Bug, Big Red Gum, and Bad Omens
I jumped onto the front seat. “Thanks, Mrs. Rysill.”
Miguel jumped onto the back seat. “Yeah, thank you. This will be a blast.”
We rode down the driveway and made a wobbly right turn onto the sidewalk.
Mrs. Rysill called after us, “Have fun and be careful. Come back—oh, come back around supper time. I’ll tell your mom you’re out and about, riding the tandem.”
I told Miguel, “Mom won’t believe her.”
He completely ignored my comment and exclaimed, “We can ride all day.” And he whooped again. Ring-ring-ring!
I half-turned around to wave good-bye and I shouldn’t have, because we nearly tipped over.
“Aaahhh! Watch what you’re doing, Cam-moron! We need to work as a team. He, he, he-he-he. Mrs. Rysill rocks.”
She did. She liked kids. She more than made up for Grumpy Ry’s dislike of us. Every year she gave my sister and me a Christmas present and then later on, for our birthdays, she’d give us another present. She gave us special Halloween treats like the super-sized Snickers candy bars or a Ziploc bag stuffed full of homemade cookies. When she worked in her front yard, she always said hi or asked us how school was. Every so often, she would tell us funny stories about when she was in elementary school back up in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Now, Grumpy Ry, he was just mean. Once Grumpy Ry busted us after we snuck into his yard to get my Frisbee back. Boy, did he yell. He was so angry, his eyebrows went crazy. They were fat and white and moved around like some kind of fuzzy caterpillars. Miguel pointed and whispered to me, “His eyebrows are boxing.” And they were and we laughed. Pow! Bop! Boom-pow-pow! I mean, they were way too fun to watch. Grumpy Ry shouted at us to leave his yard, but we couldn’t.
Then Miguel said out loud, “Cam, I bet you a dollar his right eyebrow wins.” Well, Grumpy Ry heard that and figured out why we were laughing and blew his top.
“Making fun? Let’s see what your parents have to say.” Grumpy Ry marched past us straight for my house. Knocking hard on our kitchen screen door, he must have spooked my parents because both of them answered. Mr. Rysill tattled on us, shouting the whole time, “If I’ve told these boys once, I’ve told them a thousand times to STAY OUT OF MY YARD!” I thought he’d never stop. Dad’s frown pretty much signaled I would be grounded for life, but my Mom looked as if she was about to cry, and that worried me. Was my Frisbee worth making her cry?
After Grumpy Ry left, I stared at my shoes. I didn’t know what to do. Sometimes if I talked or moved the wrong direction when I was in trouble, I could make things worse. Miguel knew this too. We had been in enough trouble together to know that even looking at each other could bring extra trouble.
“Get in here,” Dad grumbled. He was wound up. His right eye twitched like he was sending a secret message in Morse code. “You almost gave Grumpy Ry a heart attack, or maybe a stroke.”
“Don’t call Don ‘Grumpy Ry,’ Allen,” Mom said, giving Dad the same you’re-in-trouble look she gave us. “You boys need to respect our neighbors. What did I tell you about listening to Mr. Rysill? Huh?”
Before we could answer, she kept talking, which was never good. It meant she had a lot to say, and she wanted to get it all out before she forgot anything. Even so, I was glad she wasn’t crying. Mom continued, “He’s worked hard all his life. He deserves his peace and quiet.”
My older sister, Julia, stood behind my parents and pulled faces and waved her finger at Miguel and me. She would have gotten in trouble too, if only Mom or Dad had caught her doing it. I hated my sister and referred to her as JJ, “Julia the Jerk.” She hated me too, so it was mutual.
By the time Mom finished her talk, Dad’s eye had stopped twitching. He didn’t say another word. He probably figured, like me, that Mom had said everything there was to say about the matter, twice. Mom sent Miguel home. “I’m going to call your Aunt Lucy,” she told him as he slouched past the screen door, giving me a halfhearted wave good-bye. “She needs to know.” Straight away, Mom had Miguel’s aunt on the phone.
Miguel had parents, but they fought too much and were getting a divorce or something, and he lived with his Aunt Lucy. Miguel hadn’t told me the whole story. He didn’t talk about his parents. The thing I know for sure was that he wished his Aunt Lucy was his real mom. “She loves me, you know,” he said to me, like if I didn’t believe him he would punch me. I believed him.
After riding the tandem a few blocks, Miguel and I stopped wobbling and fell into a rhythm. On that super-hot desert morning, the wind felt cool on my face. I was having a blast, and I couldn’t stop smiling.
It was fun to look down and watch our feet pedal at the same time. “Look at our feet,” I said to Miguel.
“Cool, but if you’re not driving, let me.”
“I’m driving. I’m driving.” I stopped looking at our feet.
After we cranked our speed I shouted, “Coast!” We peddled backward as fast as we could. Of course we didn’t move backward, but we probably looked like nut jobs pretending. We practiced our swerving maneuvers by switching from the sidewalk to the street and back to the sidewalk again. Keeping our balance was the key.
We must have looked smooth, the whole mile point five, because people in cars and yards smiled and pointed at us like they had never seen a tandem before. Mrs. Wong, who’d never talked or smiled at us before, even waved at us. Gee, I thought, when we ride our regular bikes, people ignore us or nearly run us over.
Before Miguel and I had a chance to test the brakes, a yellow Volkswagen Bug jerked to a dead stop right in our path.
The lady in the passenger’s seat pointed crazily up through the windshield of the car like she was arguing with the driver, but she should have been pointing at us because we were going to crash into her door speeding a hundred miles an hour. I slammed on the brakes. The squeal of our tires filled my ears and the whole world slowed down. I noticed clouds rolling in the sky. I noticed the lady had her black hair tied into a bun. She looked at me, and boy, was she beautiful. Her dark blue eyes locked with mine. She winked at me with a crooked grin, and in that wink it suddenly occurred to me that she had planned this crash. But why? I didn’t even know her. I had never seen her before. I would have remembered her because she was so beautiful. In the next instant I realized we were going to wreck Grumpy Ry’s tandem. I wanted to throw up the five waffles and orange juice I had for breakfast, but instead I could only scream, “Ahhh!”
With a thud we hit the car door and then bounced back.
“Cam, we’re dead!” Miguel shouted.
I looked around. A long, dark skid mark stained the sidewalk and a tire mark marred the dented car door. We jumped off the tandem, accidentally letting it fall over. I couldn’t help but stare in disbelief at the lady. Normal people flinched when their car door was hit, or at least they’d holler or something. She hadn’t moved, and now she ignored us, only staring at her hands. She spun a silver ring around and around her finger.
Suddenly my t-shirt grew tight around my neck. Miguel shouted, “Let him go!” By the back of my shirt someone pulled me onto my tiptoes. I tried to turn around to see who was doing it, but it hurt my neck to wriggle around. I heard the birds squawking and the wind rustling the palm trees. Pushed aside and let go, I spun around to look at my captor and lost my balance and fell backward onto my butt. From the ground I stared up at the tallest guy I had ever seen. He wore blue jeans and a yellow Hawaiian shirt with white flowers. His black hair gleamed in the flickering sunlight and on the ends of his long, bushy, braided beard were small blue ribbons. His red, sunburnt face grimaced at me. His wild, frightening black eyes sent a shiver down my back and clear to my toes. He didn’t say a word, but if he did he might have said, “I’m not the Devil, but would I tell you if I were?” The man growled when he looked at Miguel. I swallowed.
The beautiful lady rolled down her window and said, “See, Ed? The storm’s right on time. You should know better than to doubt me.” She gave him the warmest smile. I say warm because her smile made me feel good, too, even after all that had just happened. It made me forget that a storm was about to hit Apache Junction and that Miguel and I had just crashed Grumpy Ry’s tandem. I couldn’t think of anything except her. Who was she? She had to be a model or a movie star.
The big guy squatted beside her door and only glared back at her. I wondered if he had bad breath. I mean, he looked like the type of person who would. He pumped his fingers into fists low to the ground. He had a long white scar on top of his right hand. His arms were bulked like a WWE wrestler’s. What was he going to do? Was he angry with her because we dented his car? Because she made him stop in front of us? Was he going to sucker-punch her? I wasn’t sure, but I had to stop him.
“Leave her alone—it’s not her fault!”
The man didn’t bother looking at me, but his hands stopped pumping.
The lady laughed. Looking over to me, her eyes sparkled and her smile widened. I felt a frog in my throat and heat on my ears. The scent of strawberry and vanilla wafted over me. I wondered if there was ice cream melting in the car’s back seat. I had seen grocery bags back there. “You’re my hero,” she said, not in a mean or sarcastic way. “Or soon will be,” and she winked at me again.
I couldn’t help myself and grinned back at her. The big guy grunted. Miguel frowned and came over to stand next to me. “Cam, get up. Let’s go.”
The man swung back his fists, intending to hit something. I panicked, flipped onto my belly, and scrambled to my feet, facing home and ready to sprint for help. I figured he was going to hit her. Then came the Bang! I took off running, but I heard Miguel say, “Wow, that was way cool.”
Confused and curious I slid to a stop and turned around. The lady was fine. She was looking down at the car door. The dent was gone. Had he popped it out? I walked back to get a closer look. With his bare hand, the big guy rubbed off our tandem’s tire mark from the car door. When he stood up, sure enough, the door looked fine.
She said, “Like new,” and ran her hand along the outside of the door like she was buffing a fresh coat of wax. “We have only minutes before the Queen arrives. We shouldn’t be late.”
This lady worked for a queen? I knew there was something about her. I nudged Miguel, but he only scrunched his nose at me.
The big guy nodded to her and then turned to tower over Miguel and me. He squinted his eyes, pursed his lips, and pumped his fingers into fists again. The white scar on his hand seemed to squirm like a worm.
I looked from him to the tandem and tasted waffles in my throat again. I decided right then to never eat another waffle. Although the tandem’s front tire still looked round, I was sure we scratched the bike when we accidentally let it tip over.
“Leave the boys, Ed,” said the lady.
As fast as swatting a fly, the big guy reached around and grabbed us by the backs of our t-shirts. He knocked our heads together.
“Ouch!” cried Miguel.
Right then, I was too scared to say anything.
The big guy leaned in close like we were in a football huddle. He looked at us, nodded toward the car door and said a low, gruff voice, “You’ve crossed me, and I’m a dangerous man . . . Go home to your mother and pray to God you never do it again.”
When he let go of me, I felt like I had grown an inch taller.
The wind had stopped rustling the palms and the birds had stopped squawking. The man walked around the front of the Bug to the driver’s side. When he got in, it sank an inch. How he fit all of himself in, I don’t know. A big guy like that didn’t seem to belong in such a tiny car. It made me wonder if it didn’t belong to the lady. He started the car and sped off, burning rubber. Watching them zip down the road, I noticed the Bug’s Nevada license plate.
Miguel asked, “Was he chewing Big Red?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah, it smelled like it.”
Already back to his happy-go-lucky self, Miguel snickered.
I asked, “What?”
“A big, ugly guy with ribbons in his beard should have big, ugly guy breath, but he chewed Big Red. That’s kind of cool. Got any gum?” Miguel held out his palm.
“No, and there was nothing cool about that big guy.” I righted the tandem.
“It was cool how he popped the dent out of the door.”
“Yeah, but besides the gum and the door, was he really that cool?”
“No, but I think I’ve seen him before . . . on America’s Most Wanted.” He grinned.
Checking the tandem for damage, I found a double L-shaped scratch on the side of the rubber handle bar. Worried that Grumpy Ry would see it, I tried to rub it out, but it stubbornly remained. I showed Miguel the scratch and then said, “The lady didn’t jump when we hit her door.”
“She didn’t? I would have peed my pants. I nearly peed crashing into them.”
“Did you notice how pretty—”
Miguel finished my sentence, “She was? Yes. I also noticed how you kept staring at her. Is she your girlfriend?”
“You dork.” I punched his shoulder. “It was weird how she didn’t jump or flinch. It’s like—”
“I bet she’s a model.” Miguel pretended to flip long hair over his shoulder.
“That’s my sister.” I laughed. JJ was forever flipping her hair.
Miguel dusted off his seat. “I bet Ed, the gorilla, is her bodyguard.”
“Probably.” I pinched the front tire. There was plenty of air in it and I was so glad that we didn’t pop the tire’s inner tube. “The front tire seems okay. Let’s see if we can make it to Luigi’s Market before it starts to rain.” I jumped on. Luigi’s Market was a store on Tracy Road. It was a little store like a 7-Eleven or a Circle K, but it didn’t sell gas.
Miguel climbed onto his seat. “I think I want some Big Red. I haven’t had it for a long time.”
Just before we hit a good rhythm, Miguel squeaked and slapped me between the shoulder blades. I braked. Miguel jumped off the bike and—like a madman—took off his t-shirt. “Ahhh!”
“Bees? Wasps?” I asked. “Killer bees?” I didn’t see any circling around. In fact, the sky directly above us was freakishly cloud free again, but I knew better. The birds hardly peeped, meaning they had found a safe place to hide from the coming storm and were ready for it. I hoped we could make it to Luigi’s Market, but if we got caught in the rain, it would be fun. Then again, we were riding Grumpy Ry’s tandem, so maybe we should have gone home.
Miguel examined the back of his t-shirt. Satisfied, he put it back on and came over to me. “He put a skull and crossbones on the back of your t-shirt, Cam.”
“What?”
“Ed, the big guy. Right here.” Miguel poked my back at the base of my neck. “It wasn’t there before the crash—I know. It’s a skull. It’s creepy.” Miguel traced it with his finger. “And these are crossbones.” He crisscrossed over the spot. Irritated that we weren’t on our way to Luigi’s Market, I reached over my shoulder and wiped at it like it were a horsefly. Miguel didn’t like that and lamely joked, “You have eyes on your fingers?” Miguel sounded spooked and looked green, and I didn’t like that, so I took off my t-shirt.
Sure enough, I could see the skull and crossbones. But how could that be? It was a clean shirt; I just took it out of my dresser that morning. The half skull creeped me out too, but I lied hoping it would settle Miguel down and said, “That doesn’t look like a skull at all.”
Miguel outlined the skull with his finger for me. “Here’s the eye socket. Here’s the jawbone. Here are teeth. And these are crossbones.”
Again, I could see plain as day what he was talking about. “Maybe,” I conceded and tried to wipe it off. It smeared a little, but it didn’t go away.
Miguel said in total seriousness, “It’s an omen, Cam. A bad omen.”
“You dork,” I said, and then I caught my breath. I wondered if Miguel was right. What the heck was this black stuff on my shirt?
Then it came to me. I said, “It’s tire guck, Miguel. You saw big guy wipe it off the car door. He wiped it on my back to clean his hand—the jerk. Let’s go.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” said Miguel, but he stood there, not relieved in the least. Earnestly he said, “It’s still there, isn’t it? In the form of a skull and crossbones. I think you’re a marked man, Cameron.” Miguel stood there trying to dig the toe of his shoe into the sidewalk. “Maybe we should go home . . . Ed told us to go home.
I shook my head, trying to shake off Miguel’s bad omen stuff. I said, “Ed? We don’t even know who Ed is. Why didn’t the lady scream or jump when we ran into her door? Miguel, they stopped right in front of us on purpose.”
“That’s probably true,” said Miguel, tilting his head. After considering it for a few seconds, he nodded and finally smiled. “Maybe they were planning to sue us if we wrecked their Bug, but you stopped too fast for them.”
I put my hand out for a high five. Grinning, he slapped it.
I asked, “Do you still want to go home?”
Miguel jumped onto his seat. “No way. You know we’ll never get another chance to ride this.” He rang the bell. Ring-ring. Ring-ring!
I went to pull on my t-shirt, but Miguel snagged it away. I protested, “Let me put it on.” In Arizona, even the morning sun burned you.
“No, it creeps me out. I don’t want to stare at it. Keep it off or let me drive.”
I jerked my shirt away from him, turned it inside out, and slipped it on. “Better?”
“Yes, but I still want to drive.” Ring-ring! Ring-ring!
“Let’s make it to Luigi’s Market first.”
“All right, and then I’ll drive to Mar’s.” Ring-ring! Ring-ring!
Honk-honk! Honk-honk!
Apache Junction is a small desert town located at the base of the Superstition Mountains. There weren’t a whole lot of places for kids to go or things for us to do. We had two movie theaters. The three-dollar movies were the best because they were cheap, but also because Sean Walker gave me free popcorn. He had a crush on my sister.
We didn’t have far to go to get to Luigi’s Market, but the wind returned with a vengeance and pushed against us. I tried to pick up the pace. Suddenly, sand stung my eyes. I glanced to the sky. “Faster!” I shouted. “Gigantica haboob—faster, faster!” A huge tidal wave of sand headed straight for us. I had never seen a dust storm that big.
“I am! I am!” Miguel shouted back.
Our feet blurred in a whirl. I was barely able to keep my eyes open when we finally made it to Luigi’s Market.
“Guys, hurry!” called Mar squinting and jumping up and down with her white-blond head poked around the glass door.
“Hey ya, Mar!” Miguel called back.
Her new lime-green bike was already locked in the bike rack. I always locked my bike, too. Once your bike was stolen, you never let it happen again.
We stopped and jumped off the tandem. I said, “We don’t have a lock. Let’s take it in.” Miguel shrugged and helped me heft the tandem up the one step and onto the porch. He held open the door. As I brought it in, Luigi shouted, “Don’t bring it in! Close the door—sand all over my donuts!”
“Please, Luigi,” I begged. “This is Grumpy Ry’s tandem. We don’t want it to get stolen. We don’t have a lock.”
Luigi frowned, crinkling his wrinkles, but he waved his hand as if saying Bring it in if you have to, you knuckleheads. “Why do you lie to me, Cameron Wrangler? If it were Grumpy Ry’s bike, you wouldn’t be riding it.”
“Yeah,” agreed Mar, giving me a suspicious look.
“It’s true,” chimed Miguel, nodding vigorously.
Luigi sighed and pointed his beefy finger for me to park the tandem in front of the shelves with the engine oil and windshield fluid. “I never thought of you boys as thieves. Maybe I should watch you more closely.”
“We’re not lying,” I said offended, and I set the kickstand.
“Well, it’s not a believable story, Cam,” said Mar. She took a swallow of her lime-green Icee. Mar loved anything lime-green, food and otherwise. “I can think of better stories.”
“Oh my,” said Luigi as he raced around the counter tightening his apron around his large, bouncing stomach. He stopped next to Miguel and Mar. I joined them, and the four of us stood in front of the market’s rattling glass doors watching the red wind carry garbage and tumbleweed down the street.
“This might as well be the surface of Mars,” said Mar.
“Except for the garbage,” I said.
Miguel snickered.
The doors rattled violently, threatening to fly open. Luigi simply reached out and turned the lock on the right door, securing them shut. He turned the OPEN sign in the window so it read CLOSED on the outside.
“What if someone wants in?” Miguel asked.
Or wants out, I thought. I looked around the store. We were the only ones in there, as far as I could tell.
“I don’t care,” Luigi said. “Only a fool would get out of his car now.”
Unlike other haboobs, this one made people pay attention. They actually stopped driving and pulled over to the side of the road. Some even turned on their hazard lights.
“Oh my, MY,” Luigi laughed after a particularly strong gust of wind hurtled the huge white letter H from the face of the newly built HeapsMart across the street. It crashed into the freshly paved parking lot and disintegrated, blowing away. “Serves them right,” he said. “That store will take away my business. A full page in today’s newspaper announced their official grand opening. They’re opening today? Ha! Two people went inside that store today. Two.” He held up two fingers. “Other than that, I haven’t seen a soul over there for three weeks—I’ve been watching. And you kids know, I see everything.” He raised an eyebrow and nodded once. His double chin wiggled like Jell-O. “I know everything going on in this town. Trust me. They need staff for that store, lots of people. Who’s going to work there, across the street?” He pointed with his thumb. “I’ve asked everyone who’s come into my store. Still, nobody knows. Nobody has a family member or a friend or even an acquaintance working there. Not one person in Apache Junction has seen an advertisement for a job over there.” He pulled a hanky out of his apron and wiped sweat off of his brow, even though it wasn’t warm in the store. I thought it was actually too cold.
“How can HeapsMart open without workers?” asked Mar. She took another sip of her Icee.
“They can’t, unless Nobody the Ghost rings up customers. So, there will be no grand opening today. No free ice cream. Ha, ha!”
“No free ice cream?” Miguel lamented.
Parked on the far side of the HeapsMart parking lot was a familiar-looking car. A shiver raced down my back. “Miguel,” I asked, “is that a yellow Volkswagen Bug?”
“Where?”
I pointed. Miguel pressed his nose against the glass and squinted his eyes like it would help him see better. It was getting harder and harder to see anything.
“Yes, it’s a Bug,” said Mar. “The guy driving tried to run over a pigeon in the parking lot. How could someone be so mean?”
Luigi said, “A big guy climbed out. How he fit in that thing and drove, I don’t know.”
“A lady was with him? A pretty dark-haired lady?” I asked.
“Cam lost his girlfriend,” Miguel said, pretending to be totally serious.
“Yes,” said Luigi, “a woman was with him.” Miguel and I exchanged looks. “They arrived just before the storm.”
I caught Miguel glancing at the back of my t-shirt. He crossed his fingers, probably trying to keep the stupid bad omen away.
Mar saw him look so she looked at my back too. “Why is your t-shirt on inside out?”
“I’ll tell you later,” I said. I wanted to hear what else Luigi had to say about the lady.
“They went in through that little side door,” Luigi pointed to the far side of the building, “and carried a bunch of grocery bags inside. Those were the only people I saw go in there today. To be honest, with no end to truck deliveries all April, I don’t know how they could carry more stuff in there.”
The sky was completely sand-covered. I felt a little panicky and wondered if Grumpy Ry was driving around looking for his tandem. I should call Mrs. Rysill, I thought. I should call home, too. A tumbleweed as big as a shopping cart sped down the road. It must have rolled in from the deep desert.
“Ahhhh!” screamed Miguel. “Look at the size of that dust devil.”
“It’s a tornado,” said Mar.
The dust devil was gigantic, and others followed behind it. Dust devils were basically whirlwinds, but normally they weren’t that big. But then again, neither were our dust storms. Somewhere I had heard that the Navajo believed dust devils were spirits. If they spun clockwise, they were good spirits. If they spun counterclockwise, they were bad. Watching the flying debris, I could tell these dust devils spun counterclockwise. More bad omens.
* * * * *
CHAPTER THREE
Super-Sized Dust Devils Attack Apache Junction
The Domino’s Pizza sign broke away from the top of the parked car and flew down the road. Everybody laughed, except for Mar. She set her Icee on a stack of Dr. Pepper twelve-packs and crossed her arms, shivering.
“Don’t worry, Mar,” said Luigi. “Those are dust devils, not tornados, but they’re not called devils for nothing. These are just super-sized dust devils. Everything will be fine. Listen, you kiddos have a free Icee on me today.”
Mar jumped and squeezed my arm as the rest of the large HeapsMart letters flew off and crashed in the parking lot. Boom! Kaboom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
No one laughed at this.
Luigi said, “We should all go to the back room,” as he walked away. “It’ll be safer there. Let me lock the register. Get your Icees.”
“Thanks,” said Mar, halfheartedly. She whispered to me, “I already paid for mine.”
“Get another one.”
Mar shook her head pointing to her abandoned Icee. “I can’t finish that one.”
Through the glass doors we watched the driver from the pizza delivery car climb out and run over to us. He pulled on the doors. “Hey, dudes! Let me in.”
“Don’t let him in!” Luigi shouted from behind his register, locking it. “The wind will catch the door and break it and I don’t want any more sand in here. Tell that fool to go back to his car. It will all be over in minutes. It always is.”
“Dudes, help me.” The skinny guy was shouting again like he was about to cry.
Miguel had already gone for his Icee, and Mar, she adjusted her glasses, cocked her eyebrow, and waited for me to do something.
“Let me in, please?” the pizza driver asked. I would want someone to let me in, too, if I was out there in the storm. Plus, the guy was so afraid he was shaking . . . so I turned the lock and opened the door. The right door snapped open caught in the wind just like Luigi had warned it would. The guy rushed in and ran straight for the back of the store. “Thanks, dudes.” Tons of sand and even a tumbleweed followed him in.
“Close the door—my donuts!” Luigi shouted as he raced back around the counter. “Why do I bother to tell you what to do, Cameron Wrangler? I know darn well you won’t listen.”
Together, Mar and I struggled to pull the door shut. By the time Luigi got to us, all he had to do was turn the lock. The doors were secured.
“You knuckleheads,” scolded Luigi, and he stopped to look at what had caught Mar’s attention. She gasped and held her finger to the glass, pointing.
What I saw, I would never forget for the rest of my life. High on top of the dust devils sailed an old-fashioned ship, a galleon. Its glowing green sails were stretched full to their limits. A small sail at the top of the front mast ripped away and flapped loose, ruining a perfect image. At the back of the massive ship, a huge black flag with a devil skeleton snapped in the wind. A pirate ship surfed dust devils to Apache Junction? It couldn’t be true. It seemed all wrong. I rubbed my eyes. There was so much sand everywhere, it must have seeped into my brain. When I looked again the ship was still there, but it had turned and was heading straight for us. It disappeared when the sand erased it from our view, but then seconds later, it faded back.
“I don’t believe what I’m seeing,” said Luigi. “It’s devilry.”
I looked to Mar, and when she looked to me with the same surprise and awe I had, I knew we had both seen the pirate ship. The wind whistled between the locked doors and I heard a thud behind us. I glanced back. Miguel had dropped his Icee and it had splashed everywhere. I could smell raspberry. Miguel stared out the doors with huge, round eyes. Just then, a dust devil crashed into the side of Luigi’s Market. The building moaned. The glass doors wobbled. At that point, the sand was so thick that the doors looked like they were painted red. Something hit the left one, and it cracked. The crack expanded, creeping down the door like a spider web.
“In the back, now!” shouted Luigi. He muttered a Hail Mary as he rounded us up. In a rush, I accidentally sloshed through Miguel’s spilled Icee. I felt the wet seeping through the side of my sneaker.
Luigi shouted at the pizza driver, “You, too!”
“Dude, do you see that ghost-ship?” asked the pizza guy. “It’s flying straight at us.”
Luigi said, “You saw nothing. It was garbage blowing in the wind, or somebody’s mobile home most likely. Now move.”
He ushered us into his back room. After we were all inside, Luigi lunged at the door, locking it and jumping away like it was a hot potato. That got under my skin. I mean, it seemed like he locked it not to keep the storm out, but more like to keep the pirate ship out.
Miguel, Mar, and I huddled together in Luigi’s well-lit backroom. His desk and the full-sized safe stood against the inside wall. The rest of the storeroom was filled with shelves and boxes. The back wall housed the loading dock and an emergency exit. This was all new to us. Luigi had never let us back there before.
Mar pushed Miguel’s chin up, closing his mouth. “Your tongue grosses me out,” she said.
Miguel looked blankly at her. “Did you see what I saw?”
Mar and I nodded. The pizza driver nodded, too, as he sat fidgeting on supply boxes.
Luigi sat at his desk and picked up his telephone. He pushed the tab up and down a few times and then hung up. “I thought I’d call my great aunt to make sure she was okay, but the phone’s dead,” he said. “May I borrow one of your cell phones?”
All three of us pulled out our phones. I gave mine to Luigi.
“Sorry, old dude. I can’t afford a cell today, but ask me tomorrow,” said the pizza driver. Awkwardly, he fumbled with something behind his back.
“I should call home and let my parents know we’re okay,” said Mar.
“Me, too,” said Miguel. He stared at his phone and punched the power button a few times. “No way, it’s dead. I guess I forgot to charge it last night.”
Luigi said, “Cameron, it’s searching. I can’t get a signal.” He passed it back to me.
“Mine, too,” said Mar. “It must be the dust storm. I’m turning it off. If it just keeps searching for a signal, the battery will die.”
Another dust devil hit the store. The lights blinked twice and then went out. The back room, without windows, was pitch black. The howling wind tore around the store. It was spooky and I laughed nervously. I felt like I was in a haunted house. I couldn’t help but laugh again.
“Don’t worry, and be still,” said Luigi. “I’ve got back-up power. I don’t want you knocking things over and hurting yourselves.”
A second later, the emergency light flickered on. It spotlighted the skinny pizza driver. Looking at his battered watch and speaking through a mouthful of food, he complained, “For the first time in my life I go to work early, and I’m still going to be late. Dudes, I won’t ever go in early again.”
“Do you work at the Apache Junction Domino’s?” asked Mar. “That’s my favorite pizza, Dominos.”
“No, I worked in Tempe, but I quit and took this last week off because I start my new job today making twenty-five dollars an hour.”
“Twenty-five dollars an hour—all right,” said Miguel.
“Yeah, little dude, it’s all right,” cheered the pizza driver.
Mar asked, “Where do you work now?”
“I’m supposed to start across the street at the new HeapsMart.”
Luigi had been nervously pacing and wiping his forehead every few seconds, but after hearing that, he spun around and asked, “You said you were going to be late for work at the HeapsMart across the street?”
“Yeah, like I start at ten a.m., but I got lost coming here, and then this storm hit. Usually these storms last a minute or two, but this one’s like fresh wax: sticking around for a while.”
Luigi walked over to stand directly in front of the pizza driver. “It’s 9:50. You still have time to make it. Tell me, what’s your name?”
“Chad, old dude. What’s it to you? Why are you getting in my face all of a sudden?”
“If you quit Domino’s, then why did you still have their sign on top of your car?”
“Um, well . . .” He looked sideways at Luigi. “I don’t have it any more. Do I? Ha,” he said and busted out laughing.
“Those signs cost money!” Luigi shouted at him.
“What do you care, old dude? Back off, Wrinkles!”
“How long did you work for Domino’s? Two weeks? Three?”
“I got a pay check.”
“Don’t expect another one. They’ll keep it to pay for the sign you stole.”
Chad recoiled. “Who are you? The IRS? Or just a nosey old dude with a crappy little store?”
“Actually,” Luigi rolled back on his heels and tucked his thumbs under his apron, “I’m undercover FBI. You owe me a dollar and eight cents for the Suzy Q you ate without paying for when the lights went out. I watched you take it off my shelf on our way back here.”
“No, you didn’t,” argued Chad as he tugged on his tight, new, green uniform shirt, which was buttoned all the way to the top. He seemed to be missing a tie. “I didn’t eat no stupid Suzy Q. I hate Suzy Qs!”
I joined the argument by asking, “Then what are those black crumbs around your mouth from?” I liked Suzy Qs. I knew exactly what their crumbs looked like, and how they tasted.
Chad jumped off the boxes and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked at the crumbs and defiantly dusted them from his hand to the floor. “What crumbs?”
Luigi reached around Chad and he ducked, probably thinking Luigi was going to punch him. Luigi produced the Suzy Q wrapper that had been lying on top of the boxes behind Chad. Luigi held it in front of the guy’s face.
“I didn’t eat that Suzy Q—the little dude did. He came over here when the lights went out and planted the wrapper. Bad little dude, bad!”
“Liar!” Miguel shouted. “You’re a zit-faced liar!”
“Miguel, calm down. I know the truth,” said Luigi. “I’ll make you a deal, Chad. The Suzy Q is on the house, if you tell me one thing.”
Chad crossed his arms and rubbed his chin. “Okay. Sounds fair. One question, then.”
“No, I want to know two things, maybe three,” Luigi said. “I’ve changed my mind.”
Chad scoffed. “No, I won’t tell you a thing now because I just changed my mind, too.” He laughed.
“Tell me what I need to know, or I’ll arrange to have a Mr. Chad D. Smith of Tempe, Arizona, arrested for stealing a two-hundred-dollar Domino’s car sign and a dollar-eight Suzy Q.”
“What? How did you know my last name? I only told you my first name. Are you really FBI?”
Miguel pointed on himself where a name tag would be if he were wearing a uniform, and then he pointed to the pizza driver. Mar and I looked over and saw, like Miguel, that the guy was wearing a name tag. What a dork. He didn’t realize Luigi had read his name tag. The three of us snickered.
Luigi asked quickly and forcefully like an FBI agent on TV would, “How did you find out about the job at the new HeapsMart?”
“HeapsMart called me two weeks ago and interviewed me over the phone.”
“I see. Of course they would call an outstanding Tempe citizen like you out of the blue for a twenty-five-dollar-an-hour retail job.”
“With full benefits and a free pair of glasses, if I want them.”
Luigi raised an eyebrow. “Sure, with a free pair of glasses,” he repeated, stretching his arms out in mock surprise. He winked at us and continued, “Here’s my second question: is that your uniform?”
“Yeah, and no more questions. That was your two,” said Chad.
“Two’s all I needed,” Luigi said. “Thank you.” And he jabbed his finger into the pizza driver’s name tag.
“Oh, I forgot about that.” The pizza driver tilted the tag up trying to read it upside-down. “That’s how you knew my name. You’re not FBI, old dude. You’re just an old chubby dude, old dude.” He pushed a finger into Luigi’s belly.
Luigi stepped back and said, “An old dude who can read. Try it sometime. What’s Freebooter’s Paradise? Why wouldn’t your name tag say HeapsMart?”
Chad tilted the tag up again to look at it. “I have no idea. I’ve never heard of Freebooter’s Paradise.”
“Could it be the department you’ll work in?” Mar offered, being the best shopper among us. “And thanks for answering three questions instead of two.”
I held my fist up, and we knocked knuckles.
Luigi cocked his head. “Shh, listen.”
“There’s no wind,” said Miguel.
“That’s a good sign,” said Luigi. “There’s thunder, but no wind.”
I heard something else, too. It was faint. Voices. Shouting?
Chad, so ready to get away, bolted to the storeroom door and unlocked it. We ran after him as he raced to the double front doors and unlocked them, too. Surprisingly, the cracked glass of the left door was still in the door frame. The pizza guy stood in awe of the sight across the street. We piled together on the porch.
Against black, lightning-filled thunderclouds, the pirate ship sat with its left side against the HeapsMart entrance. The ship was taller than the building, but the building was longer so the small side door on the far right was still visible. The galleon’s railings were painted gold. A threatening row of cannons loomed out from the side. Everything was soaked, and the bottom of the hull was stripped raw of paint. The wind had died and the huge pirate flag hung limp. Lightning flashed, followed by thunder, and another downpour threatened any second.
“Holy cow,” whispered Miguel.
Pirates sang as they lowered the sails and adjusted the riggings. I wondered if, up close, they looked like they sounded, tough and mean.
To the mast nail our flag, it’s dark as the grave,
Or the death which it bears while it sweeps o’er the wave;
It shall never be lowered, Blackbeard’s flag we bear,
If the sea be denied us, we sweep through the air.
I come, as the lightening comes red from above,
O’er the race that I loathe, to the battle I love.
At the end of this verse a woman’s laugh rung as clear as a bell. I wondered if it belonged to the beautiful lady. Was she there, not of her own will? She said I was her hero, or I soon would be. I couldn’t be any kind of hero—I was just a kid. The more I thought about her, the more I had to wonder was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life working for pirates?
* * * * *
CHAPTER FOUR
Mar Uses Her Stink-Eye
The people who had parked their cars temporarily at the side of the road for the dust storm continued on their way. Why they didn’t drive into HeapsMart to check out the pirate ship I didn’t know, but I knew I was going to take a closer look.
Someone on the galleon fired a gun. Luigi fell back against the store windows and held his hand over his heart. His eyes bulged and his head swiveled, trying to spot the shooter. After a couple of seconds I realized Luigi wasn’t hurt—and that was great—but his reaction to the gunshot freaked me out.
The pirates had stopped singing, and a booming voice called, “Look sharp about it . . . heave, heave ho!” And a sixty-foot-long sign resembling a huge piece of driftwood flew up from the deck to hang in the air. A roar of grunts erupted from the pirates towing the ropes.
“Heave, me hearties, to the bow and then aft here around the outside.”
They swung the sign forward and then came back around the outside of the ship’s riggings to return suspended over the side of the ship. Before it steadied, the sign dipped and bumped against the row of cannons. A lightning bolt lit up the sky, and when its thunder followed, I jumped, thinking for a split second that it was cannon fire.