Free Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean

twenty arrowheads pointing at his brow.
    The warpainted pirates jumped nimbly aboard where the bow of the Starkey was wedged in the splintered stern of the Jolly Peter . Finding nothing but cobwebs and ship’s biscuits in the hold, they rounded up the Darlings and bundled them into the smelly old pirate kitbags from the fo’c’sle, and pulled the cords up tight round their necks: ‘I can get me a good price for slaves!’ Starkey cackled gloatingly. The warriors were very polite and their small hands were soft and well washed. But they stole John’s umbrella and penknife and, as they worked, they discussed whether Puppy was best cooked with ginger, squid, or piri-piri sauce. None of them attempted to lay hands on Peter Pan, who stood defiantly gripping the hilt of his dagger. But they worked round him, ignoring his blood-curdling curses and his promise to ‘make Starkey pay’.
    All this while, the steam-cutter puffed and chugged and juddered along, pushing the Jolly Peter ahead of it like a tea trolley in a Lyons corner house. From the noises it was making, it seemed the brig might die of shame at any minute, burst apart and plunge to the bottom of the sea. After Curly was dragged down from the crow’s nest and stuffed into a kitbag, there was no one keeping a lookout for reefs or whirlpools. Without his charts in front of him, Peter had no way of knowing what lay in their path. At any moment they might run aground—or reach the horizon and plunge off the edge of the world! The one thought that comforted him was that the Jolly Peter would take the SS Starkey with her, down to destruction.
    ‘Turn out your pockets!’ Starkey told Peter.
    (And put Hook’s treasure map into the greedy paws of a common pirate?) ‘Never!’
    ‘Turn out your pockets, cock-a-doodle, or I’ll have my throat-slitters shoot you full of arrows, and take a look myself, after.’
    Wendy saw the boy in the jay feathers and scarlet frock-coat glance towards the ship’s rail. She knew at once that he meant to leap to his death sooner than give up the treasure map to Starkey. ‘Don’t do it, Peter!’ she cried.
    Starkey laid a fatherly hand on the shoulder of one young squaw, whose bowstring was pulled taut. ‘On my word, bucko … shoot him in the thigh,’ he said, and the squaw took careful aim. ‘Let’s see what an arrow can do to puncture his pride!’
    Now, if Peter had had his charts in front of him just then, he would have seen that the Sea of a Thousand Islands had lately gained an extra sprinkling. Five small islands had appeared to port and, most unusually for islands, seemed to be gaining on them. What is more, they rose and fell on the swell, riding the waves, travelling against the current. When Starkey saw them too, the sight held him spellbound. The dreaded order ‘Shoot’ perched unspoken on his lip as he watched the flotilla of little islands sashay closer and closer.
    At that very moment, the ancient engines of the steam-cutter, struggling to push the Jolly Peter along, overstrained themselves and blew. The funnel coughed up black smuts, then stopped smoking. The sickening forward surge slowed, and both ships were left wallowing. The five islands overtook, nestling closer. They were woolly with trees, alfalfa, and pampas grass, and were apparently hitched to one another by lengths of fraying rope. Did they have inhabitants, these bobbing patches of dry land?
    Oh yes.
    Grappling irons came over the ship’s rail like gigantic claws. After that came … well … gigantic claws. The Redskins saw the tigers first. The panthers were quicker aboard, but their pelts were so black that they were almost invisible. The bears were slow moving but just as unstoppable, flopping big furry bellies over the rail before flumping on to the deck like sacks of brown sugar. The baboons flew through the rigging, hand-over-fist-over-tail. The palmerions’ hooves made a hollow din on the deck-planks.
    No doubt Starkey’s sprogs were, in