Abigail Adams, Pirate of the Caribbean Read online

  “Not so much,” Doc said.

  Rackham laughed. But his eyes weren’t smiling. He grabbed Doc’s shirt. “I don’t allow no children aboard, see? Got no use for ’em!”

  “Give them a chance, Captain,” Abigail said. “You said yourself we’re short of hands.”

  “What can ye do?” Rackham demanded of Doc.

  “I’m pretty good at soccer,” Doc said.

  “Can ye climb?”

  “Sure,” Doc said. “Our gym teacher, Mr. Biddle, set up this rope in—”

  “Good! Get up to the crow’s nest!”

  “The what?”

  “Crow’s nest,” Abigail Adams said. “See that basket at the top of the tallest mast?”

  Doc looked up—way, way up—at the rocking, swaying, teeny tiny basket.

  Doc gulped. “I don’t know …”

  Rackham laughed. “Yo ho, a landlubber are ye?”

  “Well, now that you mention it,” Doc said, “I do love land.”

  “Not love, lub!” Rackham screamed. “Landlubber. Means y’ain’t been to sea, ye scurvy dog!”

  “Captain Rackham,” snapped Abigail Adams, “there’s no need for that kind of language.”

  Rackham spun to face Abigail. He towered over her, glaring down.

  She stared right back.

  Calico Jack lowered his eyes and turned to Doc. “Get up there and watch for ships, see?”

  “I’m kind of hungry,” Doc said.

  “Take this.” Rackham held out a biscuit with raisins. The raisins were moving. “And call out loud when ye spots sails.”

  Doc put the biscuit in his pocket, reached up, and climbed into the rigging. “Hey, this is fun,” he said. “Kind of like the world’s most dangerous playground.”

  Rackham yelled, “Be smart now, before I feed ye to the fish!”

  “Okay, okay,” Doc said. And he climbed higher.

  Off the coast of Cuba, the men of the British warship woke to find themselves alone in the harbor. The smaller British supply ship was gone.

  The captain roared at his men for falling for the pirates’ trick. No one dared point out that he was the one who was supposed to be in charge.

  “Well, never mind, men,” growled the captain. “We’ll catch up with them soon enough.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Doc stood in the crow’s nest—basically just a basket with low sides. The views of the sky and ocean were amazing. But the tiny basket dipped and swayed like an amusement park ride that was missing a few parts.

  Pretty soon, Doc started to turn green.

  Down on deck, Abby had been put to work as a “swabbie.” As far as she could tell, the job was to mop the deck and get yelled at.

  Doc’s stomach gurgled. The biscuit he’d nibbled was foaming up in his belly. His head was swimming. His face was hot. He felt like he was about to—

  Doc shouted.

  “Look out, men!” cried Captain Rackham. “Ship in sight! Prepare for battle!”

  Doc shouted, “No, I mean—look out!”

  And he barfed.

  The wind blew it far out to sea. No one on deck even seemed to notice.

  Anne Bonny had a spyglass to her eye, searching the horizon. “He’s right!” she shouted. “Sail ho! East-southeast!”

  Doc looked around. There really was a ship.

  “Looks like an unarmed sloop!” Bonny called out. “Flying a French flag!”

  “Raise our French flag!” Rackham called out. “Ready the cannons! Arm yourselves, men!”

  “Can I come down now?” Doc asked.

  No one answered. So he started to climb down.

  Men raced around the deck and shouted commands. A French flag rose high up the mast and flapped in the wind.

  Doc jumped down to the deck, right next to Abby. “Classic pirate trick,” he said. “Pretend to be a friendly ship so the other guys let you get close.”

  “Doesn’t seem fair,” Abby said.

  “I don’t think pirates were that into fairness,” Doc said.

  Abigail Adams hurried over to them. “Quick, children, hide below deck,” she said, pointing to an open hatch.

  “What are you going to do?” Abby asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Abigail said. “To be honest, I know very little about sword-fighting.”

  Abby tried to smile. “Beats hanging laundry in the White House, at least. Right?”

  Abigail nodded.

  But for the first time since becoming a pirate, she looked worried.

  “Raise high the Jolly Roger!” Rackham hollered.

  The French flag came down, and Rackham’s pirate flag went up—a black flag with a white skull, and swords crossed beneath the skull. Every sailor knew exactly what it meant. No quarter. No mercy. Surrender without a fight—or else!

  “Y’are in range of our guns!” Rackham shouted to the French trading ship. He waved a sword above his head. Pistols and daggers stuck out of his belt and hung from the sash around his chest. “Give up now, and ye’ll not be harmed! But choose to fight, and every one of ye must expect immediate death!”

  Standing beside him were Anne Bonny and Mary Read, loaded with weapons. Four pirates hung in the rigging, aiming muskets. The rest lined the side of the ship, shouting rude insults—stuff we can’t really print here.

  “Hold your fire!” the merchant captain called. “We surrender!”

  This is how most pirate attacks went. Merchant captains weren’t paid enough to risk their lives battling pirates. They usually let the pirates take what they wanted and went on their way.

  Bonny and Read threw grappling hooks over to the other ship. They tugged on the ropes, lashing the two ships together. Then Bonny and Read leaped over six feet of open water, landing on the deck of the captured ship.

  “We surrender!” the captain said again.

  “We surrender!” called a few other crew members.

  “No, we do not surrender!” one man on the merchant ship told Bonny and Read. “We most certainly do not! I demand to speak to your captain!”

  The man was not armed. He was average height, a little round around the middle, about sixty-five years old. He wore a white wig with curls on the bottom. His face was red with fury.

  Abigail Adams leaped across to the merchant ship and walked up to her husband.

  “John,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Hey, that’s too tight!” howled John Adams.

  “Hold still, prisoner!” Anne Bonny commanded.

  Bonny held John’s arms behind his back while Mary Read tied a rope around his wrists.

  “Wait here,” Bonny commanded, shoving John to his knees.

  Abigail helped him up.

  “I have come to rescue you!” John Adams declared.

  Abigail Adams sighed. “First the children, and now you. Who says I need rescuing?”

  “My dear, you’re sailing with savages! Chased by the British navy, rumor has it! I say, you there!” Adams shouted to Jack Rackham. “Are you the captain of that filthy pirate vessel? In the name of the president of the United States, I order you to drop your weapons!”

  “And I order ye to hold your tongue,” Rackham growled. “If you wish to keep it!”

  “I wish to,” John said. “But I must insist that you unhand my wife.”

  “Wife? Who’s yer wife?”

  “That would be me,” Abigail said in her normal voice.

  She reached behind her head and untied her ponytail. She shook her head, and her gray hair fell around her shoulders.

  “Blimey, but I figured as much,” Rackham said, grinning. “Well, makes no difference, Adams. You’re a good man all the same.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I suppose.”

  “How about ye?” Rackham said to John. “We take men with skills, see? Force ’em to join us. What can ye do?”

  “I’m a lawyer,” John said. “Ever heard of Harvard?”

  “Carpenter?” Rackham dem
anded. “Navigator? Surgeon? Cook?”

  “I served in Congress during the American Revolution and helped write the Declaration of Independence. Everyone thinks Thomas Jefferson wrote it, but I did quite a bit. You know that part where it says—”

  “That a wig ye be wearin’? Give it here!”

  Rackham ripped the white wig off John Adams’s head.

  “Look at me!” Rackham sang, placing the wig on his own head. “I served in Congress! I be friends with Timothy Jefferson!”

  The captain danced down the deck as the other pirates laughed and hooted.

  Abigail Adams looked at her husband, shaking her head.

  John shrugged. “I was only trying to help, dear.”

  Doc and Abby peeked up from the open hatch.

  They were alone on Rackham’s ship. They walked to the rail and looked across to the captured ship. All the passengers and crew were tied up. The pirates were searching them for valuables, reaching into pockets, yelping they’d stab anyone who dared to keep anything hidden.

  “Let’s review,” Doc said. “We’re stuck in history, with no clue how to leave.”

  “Check,” Abby said.

  “The British are hunting us, and, hold on—what do they do to kid pirates? I don’t think my book mentioned.”

  “Let’s not find out,” Abby said.

  “Then we need to get out of here, fast,” Doc said. “And somehow save Abigail Adams.”

  “And John Adams, too!”

  “John? Why?” Doc asked. “Isn’t he back at the White House?”

  “I don’t think so,” Abby said. “Look!”

  There, on the other ship, sitting on a crate with his hands tied behind his back, was the second president of the United States.

  Doc and Abby jumped across to the captured ship—where the pirate party was getting started. The pirates had stolen clothes and were parading around in fancy hats and colorful coats and high-heeled boots. They knocked the tops off bottles of wine with the blades of their swords—no time to bother with corkscrews. They cracked open barrels and blasted the locks off chests with their pistols. Coins and jewelry went into a box, to be divvied up later. Stuff they didn’t want they carried to the rail and dropped into the ocean.

  Doc and Abby helped John Adams to his feet. Doc jumped behind him and started loosening the ropes. Abby looked around. All over the deck, pirates were dancing and singing and tossing stuff into the sea.

  But no sign of Abigail Adams.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Where is she?” Abby asked.

  “Ah, bless you, young man,” John said to Doc as the ropes fell from his wrists. “Last I saw Abigail, she was following Captain Rackham. Trying to stop him from hurting any of the prisoners. What a wonderful woman!”

  “We have to find her,” Abby said. “Maybe we can all get onto a lifeboat or something. Get away while the pirates are too busy to notice.”

  “This is our chance,” Doc said. “Let’s go!”

  They scrambled down a ladder to the lower deck and started searching the cabins.

  At least, Doc and Abby were searching. John Adams was lost in his own thoughts.

  “She is a woman who thinks only of the welfare of others,” he said.

  “We get that,” Doc said. “Would you mind helping us find her?”

  “I’ll tell you a little story,” John said.

  “Can it wait?” asked Abby.

  It couldn’t.

  “In the spring of 1776, I was in Philadelphia, serving in Congress,” John began. “Should we declare independence from Britain? That was the big debate. Many were scared to do so—but not my wife. She wrote to me, urging bold action.”

  “Good stuff,” Abby said.

  “Her most famous letter,” said John. “She knew the United States would need new laws, and she wanted them to be fair to women.”

  “So did you?” Doc asked. “Remember the ladies?”

  “I’m afraid not,” John said. “I treated Abigail’s letter as a joke. I wrote back that she was ‘saucy.’”

  “Not cool,” Abby said.

  “No, dear,” said Abigail Adams. “It most certainly was not.”

  She was standing in front of them in the narrow passageway, hands on her hips.

  “Talk it over later, you two,” Abby said. “Right now we need to get away from the pirates.”

  “Why not hide here, on this ship?” Doc suggested. “Wait till Rackham sails away, and then—I don’t know, but at least we won’t be around when the British show up.”

  “Smart,” Abby said, looking around. “Quick, let’s find somewhere to hide!”

  They raced down the passageway—and crashed into Jack Rackham.

  “Goin’ somewhere?” he growled.

  Abby smiled. “We were just, you know, uh …”

  Trying to change the subject, Doc said, “What happened to the wig?”

  Rackham rubbed his head. The white wig was gone. “Too itchy!”

  “Isn’t it?” John Adams said. “Some say they look well, but—”

  “Adams!” Rackham cut in.

  “Yes?” John asked.

  “Not ye!” Rackham screamed. “Ye flea-ridden scalawag!”

  Abigail said, “Mr. Rackham, I’ve spoken to you about that kind of language.”

  “Apologies,” Rackham said. “But I was talking to ye, Adams. Ye signed the articles. Won’t be going nowhere.” Putting his arm around Doc’s shoulder, he added, “And neither can I part with ye! My very best lookout!”

  “Funny story.” Doc laughed. “The thing is, when I said, ‘Look out!’ I was actually about to—”

  “And my best swabbie!” Rackham said to Abby. “Get back to the ship, all three o’ ye!”

  “I’m coming too,” John Adams announced.

  “No, thanks all the same,” Rackham said.

  “You were asking before about skills,” John said. “Well, I have them.”

  “Such as?” Rackham asked.

  “Well …” John said. “Such as … such as cooking!”

  Abigail Adams choked back a laugh.

  “Good, I’m starved!” Rackham snapped. “Back to our ship! All four of ye!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Abby and Doc stood at the rail of Rackham’s ship, watching the French merchant ship sail away.

  “Eagle eye!” Jack Rackham shouted, slapping Doc hard on the back. “I told ye to get up to the nest! Keep a sharp look out—and take this here.”

  Rackham held out a spyglass. Doc stuck it in his back pocket and started climbing.

  “Pirates seem so cool in books,” Abby said. “And movies. But you pretty much just go around stealing stuff.”

  “That’s the basic idea,” Rackham grunted.

  “And acting like slobs,” Doc added from a few feet above the deck.

  “Up to the nest!” Rackham roared.

  “Okay, take it easy,” Doc said.

  “And ye, swabbie,” Rackham growled to Abby. “Get yer mop and wash the poop deck.”

  “Gross!” Abby said. “No way.”

  Doc stopped climbing. “It’s not what you think,” he said. “The toilets are in the bow, the very front of the ship. Two square boxes, open right down to the water.”

  “Yuck.”

  “I know,” Doc said, “but that way the wind blows the, you know, smell away from the ship.”

  “Up!” Rackham roared.

  “I tried it,” Doc said. “The waves slash up and tickle you. Plus, I was afraid I’d get a splinter.”

  “Up!” Rackham roared.

  “Okay, okay, I’m going.”

  Abby watched her brother climb higher and higher. She was worried for him. And for herself. And Abigail Adams. And John Adams, who’d been sent to the galley to make stew.

  Abby was mopping the deck when Abigail Adams walked up.

  “Are you all right, dear?” Abigail asked.

  “Fine, thanks,” Abby said. “But shouldn’t you leave? Before it�
��s too late?”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” Abigail said. “I’ve had my adventure.”

  “You know how to leave, right?” Abby asked. “I mean, get back to your own time?”

  “I have a general idea,” Abigail explained. “I saw what Abraham Lincoln did. And I figured out it had something to do with jumping into, well, something. That’s why I tried the laundry basket in the White House. I’m hoping the same basic idea will work again.”

  Abby bent down and emptied a wooden crate of ropes and scraps of sailcloth. Then she jumped in.

  “Nope,” Abby said. “Still here.”

  “We’ll figure it out, don’t worry,” Abigail said.

  But she seemed a little worried.

  Abby got out of the crate and picked up her mop. “So were you mad at John?” she asked. “For laughing at your idea of making laws fairer to women?”

  “I certainly was,” Abigail said. “In some ways, I have more freedom on this pirate ship than in my own country.” Her eyes opened wide, and she shouted,

  “What?”

  “You’ve just given me an idea,” Abigail said. “I know how to get us off this ship!”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  In the galley, John Adams grabbed a few hunks of meat from an open barrel. They were gray, with blue spots, and hard as stone.

  He dropped them into a large pot of water.

  He added shriveled peas and moldy onions. He found some biscuit—the kind with “raisins”—and tossed a handful into the pot.

  He stirred the stew and waited for the water to boil.

  Doc was up in the crow’s nest, with the spyglass to his eye.

  “Uh-oh,” he muttered. “That can’t be good.”

  He could see, far in the distance, a ship.

  A ship with a British flag.

  “Look out!” Doc shouted. “I mean, sails ahoy, or whatever.”

  He looked down to the deck. The crew members were lying around, sleeping off the effects of their pirate party. It didn’t look like anyone had heard him.

  Except for his sister and Abigail Adams. They were signaling for him to be quiet and to come down. Doc scurried down the rigging and reported on what he’d seen. Abigail put her arms around the two kids.

  “We have even less time than we thought,” she told them. “This little ship is no match for the British navy. We’d all be captured—assuming we survived the battle.”