Free The Castaways by Iain Lawrence Page B

too, was being kept on a leash of sorts. I was afraid of what could happen if he was ever turned loose.
    The beard that framed Mr. Beezley’s face was growing ragged. It reminded me then of a lion’s mane, and it shook as he walked to my side. He looked down at the compass.
    “I know what you’re thinking, boy,” he said. “I know what goes on up here.” He tapped my head—hard—with his knuckles. “You’d like to see the end of me, wouldn’t you?”
    “Why should I want that?” I asked.
    “Because you fear me,” said he, very matter-of-fact. “And well you should, boy. Yes, well you should.”
    Mr. Beezley was never more frightening than when he talked of dark things. I couldn’t bring myself to ask about the cook, to challenge him at all, and only stood there with shivers in my neck.
    I was glad when he wandered away, until I heard him muttering behind my back with Mr. Moyle. It seemed his “one fell swoop” might happen right then. But I realized that as long as we kept at sea we were safe, as there were barely enough people to work the ship as it was.
    North we went, another hundred sea miles from dawn to dawn. Then, again, I was standing at the wheel, waiting for the castaways to come up from below. But today they were late, and they still hadn’t appeared when Benjamin Penny came to take my place.
    He climbed the ladder and made straight for the mizzen shrouds, where he kept his wooden box. He untied the lashings and dragged it over.
    “Where’s Mr. B?” he said. “Where’s Mr. Moyle?”
    “Still below,” I told him.
    “Well, push off,” he said. “Your turn’s done.”
    Penny loved to steer the ship. It was probably the first time in his life that he’d been given a useful task, and—like Weedle—he worshiped Mr. Beezley for this trust he’d been given.
    “Go on. Hop it, Tom.” He pushed the box against my feet and climbed aboard it, trying to crowd me from the wheel. His webbed hands prodded at my arms; his twisted bones knocked on my hip.
    I couldn’t bear the touch of Benjamin Penny. I gave up the wheel and let him squirm into place behind it. He glanced up at the sails, his sharp little teeth giving him the wicked smile of a cat.
    “You’ve pinched her,” he said. “Look at them luffs.”
    By instinct I did as he said, surprising myself that the language of sailing men had become such a part of me. I saw the sails rippling along their windward edges and knew he was right; I had let the ship wander too close to the wind.
    It gave Penny a great pleasure to point this out, and he made it clear that he had to correct the mistake I’d made. Heheaved mightily on the wheel, though a touch would have been enough.
    “Don’t bother waiting for Mr. B,” said Penny. “He’ll be glad he don’t have to see your face. He don’t care figs for you, Tom.”
    “Nor for you,” said I.
    “Humbug!” So Penny had even adopted his hero’s words. “He’s taking me and Weedle to look for gold. But he ain’t taking
you
, and he ain’t taking Batty neither.”
    Batty
. It was the second time in as many mornings I’d heard that name.
    “You wait,” he said. “Mr. B’s got something planned for you. Poz! He does.”
    “What sort of thing?” I asked.
    He shrugged, gloating horribly. “All I know is, I wouldn’t want to be in
your
shoes.”
    “Perhaps you are,” I told him. “What if he’s planning the same thing for you?”
    A look of doubt came and went on Penny’s face. “Humbug!” he said again. “Mr. B’s taking me under his wing, he is, and if you say otherwise I’ll stick you for it, Tom. I swear to God I’ll stick you.”
    I went to the cookhouse and watched Midgely bustle about, filling a bucket with potatoes. With the ship sailing, and the whole room at a slant, everything seemed to hang at a weird angle. Skillets and towels swayed far from the wall, while the bucket seemed to float up from Midgely’s hand. It was a sight that still turned my stomach, and I