Smells Like Pirates Page 17

  “I heard Madame when she was in the lair,” Homer said, tightening his grip on Lorelei’s wrists. “She was talking to Torch on the flat-screen. She said she’d sent you to get the map from me. She said she told you to work with Torch and Gertrude.”

  Lorelei’s expression softened. “Okay, so what? So she sent me to get the map. But I didn’t give it to her. I kept it.”

  “You’re working for Madame?” Hercules asked.

  “No. I just pretended to work for her.” Lorelei cringed. “Homer, you’re hurting me.”

  “Tell us the truth,” Homer insisted, not releasing his grip.

  “I am telling you the truth.” She cringed again. “Why would I work with Madame? She double-crossed me before, remember? She tried to feed me to her tortoise. I’m working with you. It’s L.O.S.T. and FOUND together. Now let go of me. Please.”

  Homer let go, then scooted between Lorelei and the captain’s chest. Lorelei sat up. Her pink hair was all messed up from their fight. Her face was still covered in scratches from the hot air balloon disaster. But Homer was equally a mess, with a collection of scratches and a thin layer of green goo spread over his toxic rash.

  Lorelei rubbed her wrists and stared at him with a sad pout. He felt a bit bad for hurting her. His sister, Gwendolyn, had spent a fair amount of time pinning him to the ground, torturing him with tickles or by dangling squirrel guts in his face. Being pinned down was a terrible, helpless feeling. “Sorry I hurt you,” he said quietly.

  “Homer?” Hercules asked. “What should we do? Should we open it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Homer said. “Not with her here.”

  Lorelei folded her arms. “Oh, I see what’s happening. You’re thinking of double-crossing me. You’re trying to figure out how to push me out of the pact.”

  “The pact was to find Rumpold’s treasure, not Captain Conrad’s chest,” Homer said. “The chest belongs to L.O.S.T. It was found on a L.O.S.T.-sponsored quest.”

  “The chest was re-found on this quest, and our pact covers all treasure we find on this quest,” she said.

  “Re-found is not a word,” Hercules pointed out.

  “Whatever,” Lorelei grumbled. “The point is, we have a pact. And you’re supposed to be a man of your word, Homer.” They stared at each other. “Are you going to break a pact? A sacred agreement in which you’ve given your word?”

  “Maybe,” Homer said, though his voice came out small and without conviction.

  Lorelei smiled. “You won’t break our pact. I know you won’t. Honesty is your Achilles’ heel.”

  Thunk.

  “Hey, guys,” Hercules said. “What is Dog doing?”

  Dog, who’d been sniffing the chest this entire time, had pushed the chest over. That slight impact was all it took to shatter the rusty lock. Lorelei lunged forward and pulled the lid open.

  A unified sigh of disappointment filled the submarine as the kids stared into the empty chest. “Nothing,” Lorelei grumbled. “Madame took it all.”

  All that fighting for nothing, Homer thought, his cheeks turning red with embarrassment. But even though it was empty, the chest itself was a valuable artifact. A maritime museum would probably like to have it. After all, Captain Conrad was one of the most famous British naval officers in history. Homer was about to tell Lorelei that he still intended to claim it in the name of L.O.S.T., but that’s when Dog lay on his stomach and pawed at the chest’s underside. “Urrrr.” Dog sniffed and pawed, his tail wagging.

  “He’s still sniffing,” Lorelei said with a burst of excitement. “Do you see that, Homer? He’s still sniffing!”

  “Will someone tell me why Dog is sniffing?” Hercules said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Homer leaned close and inspected the place where Dog was scratching. “It looks like there’s a secret compartment under here.” He patted Dog’s head. “Good boy.” Then he wiggled a piece of wood until it slid free. A package lay beneath. Homer carefully lifted it from its snug hiding spot.

  The package was wrapped in some sort of animal skin that had been pounded as thin as paper. The skin felt rubbery. Homer peeled it open. Beneath was a second layer of the rubbery skin. Then a third layer of silver fur. Holding his breath, he peeled back the fur.

  A small leather-bound book lay inside. Lorelei didn’t try to grab it. Instead, she stared, wide-eyed and speechless.

  “It’s in perfect condition,” Homer whispered as he turned the book over. “The skins kept a watertight seal.”

  “What is it?” Hercules also whispered. It was definitely a whispering kind of moment, for a secret was about to be revealed. The submarine’s battery hummed. Dog’s tail thwapped against the floor. Breaths were held.

  Carefully, with fingers barely touching the precious leather, Homer opened to the first page. He could have sworn that an orchestra swelled at that very moment. Harps sang out, and cymbals clanged—for in loopy handwriting across the page were the following words:

  The Diary of Rumpold Smeller the Pirate

  PART SIX

  THE LAND OF

  DRAGONS

  Imagine if you found someone’s diary—someone you’d read about your entire life. Let’s say, for example, Santa Claus. What a find that would be. Dear Diary, Today I told Mrs. Claus that I was sick and tired of being a glorified delivery boy and that I wanted to go back to college and become a taxidermist. It’s always been my dream to be a taxidermist. Or how about the Tooth Fairy? Dear Diary, I’m so totally in love with the boy next door, but every time I see him, I’m always carrying a big, stinky tooth, and I think he thinks I’m weird. What should I do?

  To Homer and Lorelei, Rumpold Smeller the Pirate was as much a character from a storybook as he was a real person. He’d lived on this planet—no doubt about that. But his adventures were woven from the threads of historical fact, hearsay, and exaggeration, forming a tapestry of legendary proportions. What was true, what was fiction, no one really knew.

  Until now.

  Homer sat on the submarine’s floor, crisscrossed his legs, and held the diary in his lap. Hercules and Lorelei sat on either side, pressing their shoulders against Homer’s. Dog pushed beneath the diary and draped himself over Homer’s lap. He’d found the treasure, after all, so he had every right to the best seat in the house. Homer cleared his throat and turned to the next page. Then he read out loud.

  Dear Diary,

  Today, on the eve of my thirtieth year, I begin this diary. It may seem odd that I waited so long to write about my life, but until this moment, I’ve been much too busy to put quill to parchment. You will discover how busy I’ve been as you read about my adventures traveling the world and collecting treasure—from the forbidden palace in China, where the emperor himself gave me a yellow ball of dragon’s saliva to—

  “Hey, that’s part of the riddle,” Hercules said.

  “Shhhh,” Lorelei shushed. “Keep reading.”

  —to the piranha-infested Amazon, where a chieftain gave me the key to a lost city.

  But how is it, you must wonder, that I now find the time to write? As I look out my porthole, a British naval ship, the HMS Bombastic, sails on the horizon in fast pursuit. Captain Ignatius Conrad appears determined to capture me. I fear my life will be coming to an end sooner than I’d like.

  So in the time I have left, I will tell you my true story as I lived it. But be warned, I will not reveal the location of my treasure in this diary. What I will do, however, is to clear up some of the rumors about me. As you shall read, I’m not the cold-blooded killer the world thinks me to be. As you shall also read, I’m not the person most people think me to be.

  I am known as Rumpold Smeller the Pirate, but I was not born with that name. I was born Rumpoldena Smeller, the only daughter of Duke Smeller of Estonia.

  Homer stopped reading. “Wait a minute. That can’t be right.” He read it again.

  I was born Rumpoldena Smeller, the only daughter of Duke Smeller of Estonia.

  Lorelei gr
abbed the diary from Homer’s hands. “He’s a girl? I mean, she’s a girl? Wow, listen to this.” Lorelei read the next sentence.

  In order to live the life I wanted, I cut my hair short, wore the costume of a boy, and took my brother’s name.

  “She’s a girl. A girl!” Lorelei beamed.

  “That’s amazing,” Hercules said. “She looks like a boy in all the drawings.”

  Homer’s thoughts traveled through the pages of his books back home. Every drawing of Rumpold showed him as a man with pants and a sword and a Jolly Roger flag. Sometimes a severed head dangled from his hand, and sometimes the bodies of his victims lay at his feet.

  “Wait a minute,” Homer said. “All those drawings were based on his legend. Rumpold himself only posed for three portraits, and he doesn’t have a beard in any of them. I bet if we looked at those portraits, now that we know the truth, we’d be able to see that he was actually a girl.”

  “This is huge,” Lorelei said. “This is going to change history.”

  Never ever would Homer have guessed this secret. Because he’d kept a number of secrets, he knew how often they tried to free themselves. How tempting it was to tell someone, just so the secret would stop tickling for a bit. What a feat Rumpold had accomplished. She’d pretended to be a boy for most of her life. It was a secret worthy of some sort of award.

  Mr. Bernard Dullard would be in shock when he learned the news. As the author of The Biography of Rumpold Smeller, he would have to rewrite the entire book and change all the hes to shes, and that would certainly take a very long time.

  “Now that I think about it, it makes total sense that the most successful treasure hunter in the world was a girl,” Lorelei said.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Homer asked.

  “Girls are better at finding things,” was her explanation.

  “You mean girls are better at taking things,” Homer said with a frown. “And they’re better at lying.”

  “That’s not true.” Lorelei was about to whack Homer with the diary when Hercules, who’d been oddly quiet, cleared his throat.

  “I think you’ve both been lying,” he said. Homer and Lorelei shared a fleeting glance, then fell silent. “I’m part of this quest, and you’ve been keeping a secret from me.”

  “What do you mean?” Lorelei asked innocently.

  Hercules pushed up the sleeves of his rugby shirt and leaned his elbows on his knees. “There had to be a reason why Lorelei kept kidnapping Dog. There had to be a reason why she wanted Dog to be a part of this quest. He can’t smell, but he was sniffing Captain Conrad’s chest. And he was sniffing the treasure map back at the lair. I’m not stupid. I know there’s something going on.” A hurt expression washed over Hercules’s face. “Don’t you trust me enough to tell me the truth?”

  Homer felt about as small as an ant. And his heart grew heavy as he looked into Hercules’s sad brown eyes. Hercules had been true and loyal. Without his help, the quest to Mushroom Island would have been a failure. Without his bravery, Dog would have fallen from that airplane and been squashed. It was the biggest secret Homer held, but it felt wrong to keep it from Hercules. “Dog can smell treasure,” Homer said.

  Lorelei smacked Homer’s arm. “What are you doing?”

  “I should have told him,” Homer said. “He’s my friend, and he’s risking his life on this quest.”

  “But—”

  “But what?” Homer said sharply. “I trust Hercules a million times more than I trust you, Lorelei. Dog’s my dog—don’t forget that. I get to choose who I tell.” Lorelei grumbled something under her breath, but Homer didn’t care about her opinion at that moment. He cared only that he’d hurt his friend’s feelings. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he said to Hercules. “My uncle Drake knew that Dog could smell treasure. That’s why he kept Dog, and that’s why he made sure I inherited Dog. And Lord Mockingbird knew because he once owned Dog. But now only the three of us know.”

  Hercules reached out and patted Dog’s rump. “If word got out, Dog would be in danger.”

  “That’s right,” Homer said. Then he leaned close to Hercules and whispered, “I’m glad I told you. If anything happens to me, someone other than Lorelei should know. Someone who will protect Dog.” Hercules nodded.

  “I don’t care if you’re whispering about me,” Lorelei said huffily. “I’m going to read Rumpold’s diary because it’s a million times more interesting than anything you two have to say.”

  A buzzer sounded. Homer scrambled to his feet and rushed to the console. The speedometer moved from HYPER to SLOW. A button labeled ICEBERG AVOIDANCE SYSTEM lit up.

  “Look,” Lorelei said, pointing. The headlight beams grazed across a large glistening shape.

  “Iceberg!” Homer cried. He grabbed the steering wheel, but the submarine didn’t respond. “We’re on autopilot,” he realized. “I can’t do anything while we’re on autopilot.”

  “Uh-oh.” Hercules threw himself into a seat and latched the belt.

  Unfortunately, a seat belt would offer little protection. The Worst Ways to End a Treasure Hunt had an entire chapter dedicated to iceberg disasters. Upon contact, merchant schooners were reduced to fireplace kindle, pirate ships were gutted like dead fish, and ocean liners plunged to the bottom of the sea. Icebergs were a seafarer’s foremost enemy. The little submarine stood no chance if it crashed into such an imposing foe. Homer pushed the ICEBERG AVOIDANCE SYSTEM button.

  “Hang on!” Homer cried as he jumped from the seat and threw himself over Dog. Dog, who’d been chewing on an energy-bar wrapper, moaned. Homer squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the impact, but nothing happened. The submarine took a gentle turn to the right, avoiding the ice chunk.

  “That was close,” Lorelei said, wiping sweat from her forehead.

  “Uh-oh,” Hercules said, pointing as another chunk of ice appeared. The Iceberg Avoidance System continued to operate, and the sub turned just in time.

  And that is how the next hour passed. Ice chunk after ice chunk loomed, and the submarine maneuvered around and between the chunks like a confident sea lion. The kids sat in the seats, their gazes glued to the awesome sight. It was as if they’d entered another world. Each chunk contained its own magic. Each chunk contained its own story. Dog sat on Homer’s lap, mesmerized by the sparkling landscape of blue and white.

  “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” Lorelei whispered.

  Schools of silver fish passed by, darting between icy crevasses. Dog barked as a larger fish appeared at a corner of the windshield.

  “Oh, look,” Hercules said. “It’s a narwhal.” The whale was sleek and dark against the ice, like a torpedo. It turned its head for a moment, staring at the submarine’s occupants, then swam out of view, its tusk leading the way.

  “Wow,” Homer said.

  “Double wow,” Lorelei said.

  Hercules, who could have told them that the word narwhal comes from the Old Norse language, simply took a deep breath and said, “Triple wow.”

  The speedometer’s dial moved from SLOW to DRIFT. The coordinates flashed on the autopilot screen, followed by DESTINATION REACHED.

  “We’re here,” Homer said. He could barely believe it. “We’ve reached Greenland.”

  Lorelei pressed her palms on the window. “The treasure’s out there.” As she said that, a shiver ran up Homer’s spine.

  They resealed the diary in its waterproof skins and set it into the chest for safekeeping. If all went well, there’d be plenty of time to read about Rumpold’s adventures. If all didn’t go well…

  Homer didn’t want to think about that.

  The submarine surfaced, and the battery shut off. Homer climbed the conning tower and opened the hatch. Cold air rushed in, and it felt as if ice water had been poured over their faces.

  “Brrr!” Lorelei complained. She wrapped her arms around herself. Homer’s jaw tensed against the frigid temperature as he stepped to the top rung and stuck his head out of the hat
ch.

  They were adrift in a small inlet. According to Homer’s Quality Solar-Powered Subatomic Watch, it was 10:00 p.m. Wednesday. Gulls cried overhead, circling the strange contraption that had invaded their quiet world. Jagged, snow-covered mountains loomed, sheer walls of gray standing in silent greeting. Chunks of ice clung together at the water’s surface as if a giant had dropped his snow cone. “It’s freezing out there,” Homer reported as he closed the hatch and climbed down. He couldn’t feel his nose or cheeks.

  “Your lips are purple,” Hercules pointed out. “We need warmer clothes.” While he shuffled around in the supply locker, Homer turned the engine back on.

  “We’ll need to find a place to moor the submarine. I saw a rocky ledge I think we can tie up to.”

  Hercules found some parkas that were lined with white fur. And he found fur-lined boots and gloves. They were a bit big, but they’d have to do.

  “What about Dog?” Homer asked.

  “He’s already fur-lined,” Lorelei pointed out as she pulled on a pair of boots.

  “Yeah, but his paws aren’t fur-lined.”

  “Oh, good point.”

  Dog would certainly be more comfortable waiting inside the submarine, but since he was the only treasure-sniffer in the group, he was needed on the surface. So, using Homer’s Swiss army knife, Lorelei cut some fur-lining from her parka and secured it around Dog’s paws with the laces from her sneakers.

  “That’s quite clever,” Hercules said.

  “You have to be clever to survive in The City on your own,” she told him.

  Homer drove the sub close to the ledge. After shutting off the engine, he and Lorelei climbed out and onto the water-drenched deck. Even with the layer of fur, the cold soaked through to their skin. Homer stepped onto the rocky ledge and Lorelei tossed the mooring line. He pulled the sub close and tied the line around a boulder.

  “Okay!” he hollered. “You can bring Dog.” Then the members of L.O.S.T. and FOUND walked along the ledge until they reached the beach.