Shiver Me, Shipwreck! #8

by Brian James
illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin

Grosset & Dunlap

Table of Contents

Chapter 1
Shipshape!

“Broken barnacles!” I hollered. “This is going to take forever.”

There were loose boards sticking up all over the deck of the Sea Rat. We’d been ordered to fix them by our teacher, Rotten Tooth.

Rotten Tooth was always telling us that those chores he always ordered us to do were Pirate School lessons. Sometimes, I wasn’t so sure. But Rotten Tooth wasn’t only our teacher. He was also the first mate of the Sea Rat. Plus, he was the meanest pirate to ever sail the seas. That meant we had to listen to him or we’d be shark bait.

“I guess we better get started,” I said. “Orders be orders.”

“Arrr! I’d like to order Rotten Face to walk the plank!” Aaron grumbled.

“Arrr? That would only get us into trouble,” Gary said. He was my best mate at Pirate School, and he didn’t like getting into trouble.

“Aye, let’s get to work,” Vicky said with a groan. Then she picked up a hammer and started hammering.

Aaron covered his ears with both hands. “Arrr! Do you have to make such a racket?” he shouted. “You’re going to wake every fish in the sea!”

Vicky stopped hammering and huffed.

She was Aaron’s twin sister. They both had the same dark hair and dark eyes. Only, her eyes got darker and madder whenever Aaron complained.

“You heard Rotten Tooth,” she said. “We have to make sure every nail on the whole entire deck is hammered in all the way.”

“Aye, I heard him!” Aaron told her. “But he didn’t say you had to be so loud about it!”

Vicky stomped her foot. Then she made a grumpy face. “Well, Captain Big Mouth, hammering is noisy business!” she told her brother.

“Aye,” Inna said. “Plus, it’s yucky business!”

Inna stood up and looked at her dress. It was all dirty where she had been kneeling on the grimy deck. That made her steaming mad! She was the only pirate kid in the world who hated getting dirty.

“Aye, and ouchy business, too!” Gary said after he hammered his thumb by mistake. I shook my head and tried not to giggle. Sometimes Gary could be one clumsy pirate!

“Arrr, it’s not so bad,” I said, trying to lift their sails. I didn’t like it when my mates moaned and groaned. “Besides,” I said, “taking care of the ship is also very important business.”

“Aye?” Vicky asked.

“Aye.” I nodded. “It says so in the pirate code.” I’d lived on a pirate ship all nine and three-quarters years of my life, so I knew all about the pirate code. “It says every pirate should take care of their ship just like they’d take care of a baby.”

My mates made oohs and aahs and went back to work. I was hammering nails by the railing when I saw another ship sailing on the horizon.

“Great sails!” I said, and pointed at the ship.

My mates rushed over and took a peek. We didn’t see many other ships on the open seas.

“Arrr! Do you think it’s a pirate ship?” Inna asked.

“Arrr! Do you think it’s a rival pirate ship?” Gary asked.

Inna GULPED!

She liked rival pirates even less than she liked getting dirty!

“Let’s see,” I said. I took my spyglass out of my coat pocket and spied on the other ship. “It’s a pirate ship, all right,” I said. I could tell by the flag.

“A good pirate ship or a bad pirate ship?” Inna asked.

I looked for a name on the side of the ship.

Then it was my turn to gulp! My timbers started shaking and shivering when I read the name. “It’s called the Bone Rattler,” I said.