Free Blue Sea Burning by Geoff Rodkey Page A

“Where’s your brother?”
    â€œUp at the plantation.”
    â€œTo stay?”
    â€œYes.”
    Healy stroked his jaw as he stared at all three of us in turn. “Carpenter’s mates?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    He grimaced. Then he leaned in toward me and spoke in a quiet voice.
    â€œI’m not your father, boy . . . but if I were, I’d never let you on this ship.”
    The way he looked at me put a lump in my throat.
    â€œI want to go with you,” I said.
    His face tightened in another grimace. He stared up at the ceiling planks for a moment, like he was looking to them for permission. Or maybe it was forgiveness.
    Finally, he exhaled sharply through his nose.
    â€œFine.” He turned to Quint. “Tell the purser what you need. And hurry.”
    He was two steps up the companionway when the waver in Quint’s voice turned him back around.
    â€œBeggin’ pardon, Cap—”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œWe hadn’t talked about pay—”
    â€œGet the job done, you’ll see a crew share. Fifty thousand gold.”
    Quint looked confused. “Ye mean, we split fifty—”
    â€œThat’s the share. You’re splitting ten million.”
    Quint’s eyeballs bulged. “I can live with that.”
    â€œLet’s hope we all do.”

CHAPTER 9
    Mates
    AFTER CHECKING THE GRIFT ’S STORES against the list of supplies Quint gave him, the purser sent Guts, Kira, and me off with a handful of silver coin to buy extra lumber and nails from Port Scratch’s only store. On the way, I stopped to say good-bye to Mung, who’d been waiting with the carriage in case we needed to go back up the hill.
    â€œPlease watch out for my brother,” I begged him. “Try to keep him out of trouble.”
    Mung gave me a solemn nod, then gurgled a request of his own. I was pretty sure I understood it.
    â€œI’ll do the same for Quint. I promise.”
    Mung smiled, and I knew I’d guessed right. Then he gave me a hug that nearly squeezed the breath out of me. I had to hurry off after that, not just because I didn’t want the crew to think I was slacking, but because I could feel myself starting to get emotional. The list of things I liked about the ugly fruit plantation was a pretty short one, but Mung was at the top of it.
    By the time we got back to the
Grift
with armloads of cut lumber and a bucket of nails, Quint already had a team of pirates hard at work in a makeshift staging area on the lower deck, sawing wood for the new patch. We’d barely had time to set down the wood when a lanky pirate appeared with a tape measure that he spread against each of our upper backs.
    â€œWot ye doin’?” Guts asked him.
    â€œHarnesses.”
    He sped away before we could ask him what he meant, but a stocky, square-headed Gualo had popped up in his place, and he answered our question before we even asked it.
    â€œHe makes harnesses from sailcloth. For your backs. So you can carry carpenter. I am Ismail. I train you. Come.”
    Ismail led us down to the hold and gave us a quick tour. It was divided into a cavernous main compartment that held hundreds of water barrels, stacked sideways nearly to the ceiling, and a handful of smaller compartments fore and aft that housed the bread room, sail room, carpenter’s room, shot locker, and magazine.
    The whole deck reeked of bilgewater and was gloomy even on a sunny afternoon. Just a trickle of sunlight managed to filter down through the ceiling grates in the upper decks, and although a couple of oil lamps hung on hooks, neither of them were lit.
    â€œLantern only at night,” Ismail told us. “And
never
near magazine,” he added, pointing to the little room that contained the gunpowder kegs. “Unless you want to go
boom.
Kiss the sky.”
    In the main compartment, two feet of empty space stood between the stacked water barrels and the hull on either