Free Seven Dead Pirates by Linda Bailey

quickly. He leafed through the book, checking pages at random. Finally, he spotted the word “Hook.” As he began to read, growls of appreciation drifted up from the floor.
    And so he read about Captain Hook and the crocodile who had swallowed Hook’s hand and then followed him around, waiting for the rest. Moving through the paragraphs, Lewis couldn’t help peeking at his own pirates, with their various missing bits. No wonder they were fascinated by Hook.
    He read on, losing track of time, losing track of himself, hypnotized, like the pirates, by the story and the sound of his own voice. Whenever the book drifted to other characters—Peter, the Lost Boys, Wendy—the pirates grew impatient. “HOOK! HOOK!” they cried, forcing him to search again.
    “Ah, that were a treat,” said Crawley finally, with a deep sigh. “You reads like a charm, young Lewis. Near as good as your great-granddaddy.”
    “Great-Granddad read to you?”
    “Aye, when he were about your age. He read us about Hook many a time.”
    And, indeed, Lewis had noticed that in certain parts, the pirates’ lips had moved in unison with his. They had actually
memorized
sections.
    “I wish we’d met this Hook,” said Moyle, “but in allour sailing of the seven seas, we never come across him.”
    “Well, no,” said Lewis, “you couldn’t. He’s—”
    He was going to say “not real,” but stopped. The pirates, still in the grip of the story, had a strange contented light in their eyes. It would be like telling a five-year-old there was no tooth fairy.
    He closed the book instead.
    “I … I have to go now,” he said. “Dinner.”
    At the door, he looked back. They were sitting where he’d left them.
    “What are you going to do now?” he asked.
    Crawley grinned crookedly. “No way of knowing, lad. But you’ve put us in a fine way to make a grand evening of it. Hasn’t he, boys?”
    “Aye!” cried Bellows. “We’ll shake the floor tonight, by thunder.”
    Lewis waited.
Shake the floor?
But no explanation was offered. He left.
    The macaroni and cheese was dry, but still tasty. Lewis ate it standing at the counter. Afterward, he washed and dried his dishes.
    Then he headed for the spare room where he’d been sleeping, even though he still didn’t think of it as “his” room. The bins and boxes were gone now, but his mother’s sewing machine still sat like a lump in thecorner. The couch, made up neatly into a bed, looked as if it were awaiting a paying guest.
    Lewis walked to the window and tried to raise it, but it was stuck. He made a few more efforts, grunting. Then he stared at the empty driveway.
    What were they
doing
upstairs?
    His toes began to tap. Slowly. Nervously. Then faster.
    He ran for the back staircase.
    He only meant to take a peek. He only wanted to satisfy his curiosity.
    But when he saw what looked like a party, when he heard the shouts to “Come in, lad!” he couldn’t stop himself. Soon he was perched on the edge of the brass bed, watching what appeared to be a card game—except that Lewis had never seen cards played so
actively
before. Skittles, Moyle and Jonas squatted tensely in a circle, slamming down cards with such force that Lewis couldn’t help jumping. The rules were unclear, but there seemed to be a lot of shoving and whacking across the head, neither of which Lewis had ever imagined to be part of a card game.
    Across the room, Adam was playing a small metal flute for Jack and Barnaby Bellows, who were dancing a kind of jig. Mostly this consisted of hoppingfrom one foot to the other with ferocious energy, but occasionally the partners seized one another and spun in a frenzied circle. The floor, Lewis noticed, actually
did
shake as Bellows’s huge feet pounded the boards.
    Crawley stood back, but his damaged face had an air of deep contentment. It wasn’t long before he burst into song:
    Come, ye young sailors with spirits bold
.
    We’ll venture forth in search of gold
.
    Way hay, let the