Smells Like Pirates Read online

  “Well, it can’t be a real dragon,” Hercules said. “Dragons are mythological creatures. So it must be something like a dragon statue. Or maybe something shaped like a dragon.”

  “We won’t know until we get there,” Lorelei mumbled sleepily. How long had she been awake?

  “Ur.” Dog rolled over and stuck his legs in the air, presenting his belly for scratching. Lorelei, who was lying next to Dog, ignored him. Dog got to his feet and nudged Lorelei with his nose, but still she ignored him. “Ur?”

  The boys shared a long helpless look. Was Lorelei going to be in this sad mood for the entire quest?

  Hercules folded the map and set it on the console. “I have an idea,” he said. “Maybe we could have a funeral for Daisy.” It was the first time anyone had mentioned the rat by name since Homer had delivered the bad news.

  “Really?” Lorelei pushed her bangs from her swollen eyes and looked up at the boys.

  “Sure,” Hercules said with a shrug. “Why not? It might make you feel better if we do something like that.”

  Would a funeral make Lorelei feel better? Homer wasn’t sure. Lord Mockingbird’s had been pretty weird, but it was also the only funeral Homer had ever attended. At this point, he’d do nearly anything to get Lorelei to stop moping. They needed her help with the riddle.

  “But she’s not here,” Lorelei said. “We can’t bury her.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Hercules said. “We can use the funeral to remember Daisy.”

  Homer checked the autopilot setting. According to the blinking black dot, they’d crossed the halfway point and were still on course. Splat! A yellow jellyfish hit the windshield. Homer wanted to holler, “Look at that one!” because it was the size of two pillows. But given that they were about to hold a funeral, he thought it best to restrain his amazement.

  Everyone, including Dog, sat in a circle on the submarine’s cold floor.

  “What do we do now?” Homer asked.

  “Well, maybe Lorelei could tell us how she met Daisy,” Hercules said.

  “Okay.” A little sparkle lit up in Lorelei’s eyes as the memory drifted to the surface. “I was living behind the utility closet at the soup warehouse. Lots of people used to dump their garbage out in the alley, and sometimes it was pretty good stuff. I had my eye on a sofa cushion, but when I went to get it, I found a family of rats living in it. A mom and her five new babies. They were so cute.”

  Homer shuddered. He’d seen newborn rats back on the farm—pink, hairless, and squirmy like overfed maggots. Cute wasn’t the word he’d choose.

  “I left the couch cushion in the alley so the mother rat could take care of her babies. But a week later, someone came and took the cushion away. I felt so sad wondering what had happened to the rat family. Then I saw something moving in the shadows. One of the baby rats lay on the bricks, shivering. She must have fallen out of the cushion. I carried her inside and fed her some soup. She became my rat.”

  “Why’d you name her Daisy?” Hercules asked.

  “Because most people think rats are ugly. But I thought she was beautiful. Like a flower.”

  “That’s a misnomer,” Hercules said. “A misnomer is when you call something the opposite of what it is. Like when you name a pig Perfume. Or when you name a turtle Speedy.”

  “Daisy wasn’t a misnomer,” Lorelei said with a pout. “She was beautiful.”

  “Your turn,” Hercules told Homer.

  Homer frowned. What was he supposed to say? “Uh, well, I remember when I first met Daisy at the soup warehouse.” What else could he say? The rat had stared at Homer with her beady eyes, black nose, and twitchy whiskers. Honestly, she’d given him the creeps. “She was… uh… she was a nice rat.”

  Hercules elbowed Homer. “Keep talking,” he whispered. Lorelei flared her nostrils and looked at Homer, waiting for some sort of story.

  Homer cleared his throat. “I remember how she stole my Galileo Compass when I was trying to sneak into the lair. And how she stole that silver spoon from Ajitabh’s cook when we were at his tower.” He wasn’t sure if this was the kind of story Lorelei wanted to hear, but she suddenly smiled. So he kept going. “And how she got into the cave on Mushroom Island and stole those harmonic crystals.”

  “She was a brilliant thief,” Lorelei said like a proud mother. “I didn’t need to teach her anything. She was a natural.”

  Feeling like he’d done his job, Homer elbowed Hercules. “Your turn.”

  “Well, I didn’t spend much time with Daisy,” Hercules said. “But I do know that the word rat comes from raet, which is Old English. And the word rodent comes from rodere, which in Latin means ‘to gnaw.’ ”

  “She was good at gnawing,” Lorelei said.

  “Funerals usually end with someone saying something, like ‘rest in peace,’ ” Hercules said. So they all said it together. “Rest in peace.” And that’s all it took, just a bit of talking, to cheer Lorelei up.

  “I still miss her, but I do feel a little better.” She gave Dog a hug.

  And so they sat for a while, the hum of the battery the only sound. Dog stayed close to Lorelei, as if he sensed that she needed something warm and furry to hold on to. But then the mood was broken by a loud splat.

  Gigantic yellow globs bombarded the window. “Yuck,” Lorelei said. “It looks like it’s raining boogers.” The next jellyfish to hit was a whopper, and the impact sent a vibration throughout the sub. The gold name plaque trembled, then slid down the wall and landed on the floor at Homer’s feet. He grabbed it.

  “I hate that this is called La Madame,” Homer said. “Madame used this submarine to double-cross my uncle. And then she stole it from him. She doesn’t deserve to have it named after her.”

  “I remember reading the report,” Hercules said. “When I became the official records keeper for L.O.S.T., I had to put all the files in order. The last records keeper never alphabetized anything. He simply shoved the documents in wherever there was room. It was a total disaster. I created a system based not only on the alphabet, but also on Latin prefixes. For instance—”

  “Never mind all that,” Lorelei interrupted. “Tell us about the report.”

  “Oh. Right.” Hercules screwed up his face for a moment, deep in thought. “Let’s see if I can remember. The report was called ‘The Unforgivable Treacheries of Madame la Directeur.’ I didn’t file it under ‘t’ for ‘the,’ because I think it best not to do that. So many things begin with ‘the’ and the ‘t’ file was bulging. So I filed it under ‘un,’ since that is the prefix for ‘unforgivable,’ and—”

  “You’re going to drive me crazy,” Lorelei blurted out, her sadness dissolving by the moment. “We don’t care about the filing system. Just tell us about the report.”

  So Hercules did. He remembered it as best as he could. And here’s what it said:

  The Unforgivable Treacheries of Madame la Directeur

  Submitted by Lord Mockingbird XVIII following an interview with Drake Horatio Pudding, witness to the horrid event.

  Let it be known that Madame la Directeur did break the solemn vow she made to the Society of Legends, Objects, Secrets, and Treasures by stealing treasure for personal gain. The dastardly deed occurred as follows:

  Madame la Directeur accepted a position as questing partner alongside Drake Horatio Pudding in a L.O.S.T.-sponsored quest to find the sunken remains of the HMS Bombastic. Drake offered the use of his brand-spanking-new submarine, La Madame. Upon finding the Bombastic’s remains, Madame manned the submarine while Drake explored the wreckage. At great risk to his life, Drake searched the ship’s quarters, including the captain’s, where he discovered the captain’s chest. Take heed, for what follows is undeniably dastardly.

  As Drake carried the chest back to the submarine, Madame attacked him with the submarine’s robotic arms. Drake fought valiantly but was no match for the metal demons. The captain’s chest was ripped from his grip. His oxygen tank nearly empty, he watched in agony as the robotic a
rms and the captain’s chest disappeared into the submarine. Madame la Directeur piloted the submarine to an unknown location, leaving Drake to drown. She later sold the chest’s contents on the black market.

  “That’s how I remember it,” Hercules said. “You’ve got to have a good memory to be a World’s Spelling Bee champion.”

  “Robotic arms?” Lorelei asked. “This submarine has robotic arms?”

  While Homer was also interested in learning more about the robotic arms, he couldn’t shake the image of his brave uncle floating in the middle of the ocean while Madame drove away.

  “I wonder what was in the captain’s chest,” Hercules said.

  “Some people thought the captain’s chest contained Rumpold Smeller’s treasure,” Homer answered. He knew all these details from reading The Biography of Rumpold Smeller. “The owner of the chest was Captain Ignatius Conrad. He was the last person to see Rumpold alive. He made Rumpold walk the plank—”

  “—and then Rumpold drowned,” Lorelei interrupted. “Or got eaten by sharks. Or maybe both. No one actually knows.”

  “Well, I’m going to rename the sub,” Homer said. “I’m going to call it The Drake.”

  “You can’t do that,” Lorelei said. “It’s mine now. Everything from the lair belongs to me. Finders keepers.”

  “But—”

  The submarine shuddered, and the battery began to whine like an angry housefly. The whining rose an octave, and Dog started to howl.

  “What’s going on?” Lorelei asked.

  Homer and Hercules scrambled to their feet and rushed to the console. The battery light blinked red. “We’ve stopped,” Homer said, pointing to the autopilot screen, where the black dot had stopped moving.

  “How come we’ve stopped?” Hercules asked.

  “Howoooo!” Dog cried, throwing his head back as the battery’s whine continued to climb the musical scale. Lorelei covered Dog’s ears.

  “I think it’s the jellyfish!” Homer shouted above the noise. “There are too many of them. They’re pushing against us.” Gelatinous yellow and white blobs now covered the entire window. “It’s like we’re trying to drive through a bowl of Jell-O. The propeller isn’t strong enough.”

  Then the battery went silent. The submarine shuddered to a stop. The headlights dimmed and everything went dark.

  “Ur?”

  It took a few minutes to find the emergency backup battery. As soon as Homer pulled the switch, the overhead lights flickered, then glowed. The yellow and white jellyfish pressed against the windshield, their gelatinous bodies undulating, their tentacles creeping along the glass. It reminded Homer of the moths that were drawn to his bedroom window at night. “Do you think they’re attracted to the light?” he asked.

  “Maybe. Let’s turn the light off and see if they go away,” Lorelei suggested.

  So Homer turned off the emergency battery, and they sat in the dark for a while. It was pitch-black down there and kinda creepy.

  “Without power, the oxygen generator doesn’t work,” Hercules whispered, as if he didn’t want to disturb the jellyfish. Or as if whispering a terrible truth made it sound less terrible. “What if we run out of oxygen?”

  This possibility hadn’t occurred to Homer. Run out of oxygen? He reached for Dog and found a warm ear. He ran his hand down Dog’s back and pulled him close. “Maybe we should turn the battery back on.”

  “Give it a few more minutes,” Lorelei said. “We need to get rid of those jellyfish.”

  “We can’t survive without oxygen,” Hercules said, followed by a soft puff of his inhaler. “My throat feels like it’s closing up. Does anyone else feel that way?” Another puff. “Do you think we’re running out already?”

  Homer’s throat began to feel weird, too. But it was probably because he had his face buried in Dog’s neck and he’d inhaled a few stray dog hairs. That always happened. “Let’s turn it back on,” he said.

  “Thanks a lot, Hercules! All your worrying is making me worry,” Lorelei said. “Fine. Turn the battery back on.”

  Homer gladly switched on the emergency battery, and the interior lit up. “Crud,” he said as he looked at the undulating blanket of yellow and white that was still pressed against the window.

  “Why won’t they go away?” Lorelei asked.

  “They seem to like us,” Hercules said.

  An unsettled sensation tickled Homer’s stomach. “Hey, we’re rising,” he said. As the upper half of the submarine surfaced, the jellyfish slid down the windshield until they covered only the submerged half of the window. Night had fallen. A full moon hung in the sky like a lightbulb. The submarine began to rock back and forth with the ocean current.

  The black dot started moving again—but in the wrong direction. “They’re pushing us backward,” Homer said.

  “What?” Lorelei rushed to the console. “We can’t go backward. There isn’t enough time to go backward. We’ve got to get rid of them.”

  “Hey, wasn’t there something in the first-aid kit about jellyfish?” Hercules rummaged through the red metal box. “Here it is.” He held up a tube. “It’s jellyfish pheromones. Maybe we could use this.”

  Homer didn’t want to admit that he had no idea what pheromones were. Thankfully, Lorelei did it for him. “I have no idea what phero-thingies are,” she said.

  “Pheromones are chemicals that are released by animals,” Hercules explained. “Phero is Greek, and it means ‘to carry.’ The chemicals carry a scent that can be smelled by others in the same species. And the scent makes them behave differently. I think it’s used for mating, mostly. It’s pretty cool when you think about it.”

  “Oh, so the scent will attract the jellyfish.” Lorelei leaned close to Homer and whispered, “Kinda like the scent of treasure attracting you-know-who.”

  Homer thought about this for a moment. “So if we squirt that tube into the water, then the jellyfish will stop liking us and will like the scent instead, and we can get rid of them.” He grabbed the tube from Hercules, climbed the conning tower, and opened the hatch. Fresh salty air rushed in, filling the interior like a cool drink of water. Homer stuck his head out the hatch. The ocean churned, rocking the sub from side to side. Waves rolled over the deck. A sour taste filled his mouth. He’d have to do this quickly or he’d get seasick for sure. After uncapping the tube, he stepped onto the top rung and tossed the pheromones. The sea quickly swallowed the little tube. Homer closed the hatch and rejoined the others at the observation window.

  The effect was immediate. Tentacles trembled. Then a quiver ran across the jellyfish, reminding Homer of his visits to the ballpark when everyone stood up and did the wave. The giant blobs released their grip on the submarine and swam away.

  “We did it!” Lorelei cried.

  Soon after, they were submerged again and racing along at hyper-speed.

  Homer and Lorelei sat at the helm studying Rumpold’s map. “I’m hungry,” Hercules announced, and he wandered into the supply locker.

  “Bring me a couple of energy bars,” Lorelei said. “And some water.”

  Now that they weren’t bobbing on the surface, Homer’s stomach had settled back to normal. “Is there anything other than energy bars?” he asked, trying not to imagine what his mother might be making for dinner. As shuffling sounded from inside the locker, Homer tried not to think about creamy macaroni and cheese or roast beef with tender red potatoes and gravy. A dry energy bar will be delicious, he told himself. It was certainly better than having to eat sand-flea soup, which had been the main dinner course during many a treasure-hunting expedition.

  Lorelei mumbled as she read the riddle. “ ‘Behind saliva hides what you seek.’ ” She scratched her upturned nose. “Saliva? How do you hide a treasure behind saliva? That’s just weird.”

  “Uh, guys,” Hercules called from inside the supply locker. “I think I found something.” A screeching sound filled the sub as Hercules dragged a large wooden chest from the closet.

  Dog shot
to his paws and galloped toward the chest, his nose quivering. He circled the chest, sniffing every square inch. Hercules fiddled with the padlock. “Dog, move your nose. I’m trying to open this thing.” Hercules gave Dog a gentle push, but Dog pushed back, squeezing between Hercules and the chest. His tail wagged furiously as he stuck his nose right up against the lock and sniffed. “The chest was inside a metal locker. It’s got the initials C.I.C. on it. Do you think that stands for ‘Captain Ignatius Conrad’?” Hercules pushed Dog again. “Hey, why is Dog sniffing this thing if he can’t smell?”

  “Smell?” Homer and Lorelei blurted out.

  The map flew into the air as Homer and Lorelei leaped from their seats like Olympic athletes in a long-jump competition. Arms reaching and fingers twitching, each tried to get to the chest before the other. Lorelei, being the swifter of the two, threw herself over the chest. But Homer, having a bit of a weight advantage, knocked her off with a shoulder butt.

  “What’s the matter with you two?” Hercules gasped. He scooted away as they started wrestling like a couple of first graders fighting over the last cupcake. “Someone’s going to get hurt.”

  Lorelei clutched the padlock, but Homer grabbed her around the waist and pulled her away from the chest. “It’s not yours!” he said with a groan. “It belonged to my uncle Drake.”

  “Let go of me! I want to see what’s inside!” She kicked his kneecap. Pain shot up his leg, and he fell backward, smacking his shoulders against the Seaweed Processing Biofuel Unit. “Finders keepers,” she said as she grabbed the padlock.

  Homer was sick and tired of “finders keepers.” He took a huge breath and lunged at Lorelei. They rolled onto the ground, where he pinned her, as Hercules watched in silent confusion.

  “Madame stole it from my uncle,” Homer said, his chest heaving with short breaths. “I’m not going to let you steal it from me. I know you’re working for her.”

  Lorelei stopped struggling. She narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”