Krawk Island
We were originally supposed to go to Faerieland next. But when we heard
about Krawk Island,
the trip was delayed. We were going to visit the pirates! When we sailed there,
everything was normal. We were on our second day on sea to Krawk Island when
all of a sudden our vessel was attacked. I screamed and turned the wheel. We
had requested no captains or sailors because of our trip to Maraqua. We had
learned all there was to know about water. We only took a young sailor who had
wanted to come with us.
A pirate vessel crashed into ours. I screamed again, and fell at the wheel.
Just then the captain and his pirates of the attacking vessel hopped into ours.
The Captain stared at us. I realised that they weren’t original pirates from
Krawk Island, but Neopians who were pirates. “We have a favour to ask you…”
***
I sighed. Oh why did we have to get ourselves into this mess! This was supposed
to be a friendly visit! I had a feeling something big was going to happen. And
this was it! I glanced around to make sure nobody was watching.
My NeoPets stood guard, ready to call if somebody came. I slipped into a door
and came out moments later. Jainny stared at me expectantly. “Well?”
I paled slightly. “He said we couldn’t leave until we find out more information.”
Jainny sighed, and suddenly a commanding voice rang through. “What are ye girlies
doin’ ‘ere abouts?”
I stammered. “Um… Well, you see cap’n…we were… uh… just… well,” I trailed off
hopelessly. He stared at us suspiciously, then, muttering things about talking
funny, he walked off. I sighed with relief, and turned to the door. So far so
good, I said mentally to the NeoPet behind the door. I could see him nod, and
I walked off.
We passed by a pirate, and I smiled as sweet and innocently as I could. “Hello,
I’m new here. What’s a Dubloon, may I ask?”
The pirate snorted. “I ain’t tellin’ no girlie nothing. Bad enough all these
strange NeoPets are coming in from everywhere, let alone a girlie like you askin’
all these suspicious questions.”
“Surely you can make an exception?” I began, and stopped suddenly as DorthyAnne
cast me a horrified glance. I realised suddenly how suspicious that sounded.
“W-Well-“
Jainny spread her arms wide. “We don’t want to go to a place we know absolutely
nothing about and seem like aliens to you! We just want to get familiar so we
won’t look weird trying to find our way around here.”
“Fair ‘nough,” was all he said. I opened my mouth and realised that he didn’t
think us so suspicious. He still wouldn’t talk, though.
“This will take a while,” Mairey said under her breath. I nodded in agreement.
We passed by a young wanderer. “Excuse me, could you tell me a bit about here?
It’s so hard to fit in when you’re so new! What’s a Dubloon?”
The young owner smiled. “Oh, well that’s easy. A Dubloon is currency here.
They have different kinds, which you’ll find out later.”
She walked off, and I felt someone tug my arm. I stiffened, and hissed something.
I could see him nod in satisfaction and I bit my lip. This was harder than I
imagined! How could you get these pirates to trust you?
We walked on, and I visited the Dubloon-O-Matic. I stared at the strange contraption
in awe. It was too weird to explain. I found out that you could change in Dubloons
for Dubloons I frowned. It was too bad we had no Dubloons
We dashed over to Smuggler’s Cove. “Not open. An’ even if it was, ye’d never
be welcome in a thousand years!” the pirate snapped.
I flinched and walked along the beach. I sat down sadly. I glanced at my pets
and sighed heavily. “Why can’t we have one normal trip?”
Jainny smiled “Want to watch the sun set?” I nodded glumly. I hoped that it
would take my mind off my worries. We walked off our adventures, and suddenly
I froze in mid laugh as there was a hand on my arm. I watched as the pirate
from the vessel who had attacked ours stepped forward, silhouetted against the
sun. He stared at us.
“You got the information? Remember, it’s either that or…” His hand went to
his sword. “That sailor you came with gets it!”
I nodded and dully explained the use of the Dubloon-O-Matic and Smuggler’s
Cove. He nodded. “You’ve done well so far. I--”
He froze as there was a rustle in the leaves. Then, he darted away before anybody
could see him.
I sighed and my pets and I walked away. “How do we get ourselves into these
messes?” I groaned.
Jainny grunted. She stooped down and picked up a pebble, tossing it from hand
to hand. She glanced at Mairey and tossed it at her sister. Mairey cried out
and dodged it. I whirled around in time to see this. “Oh no, we’re not going
to start that again.”
Just then I tripped on a tree root. I picked myself up, when suddenly I froze.
DorthyAnne looked at me in interest. “What is it? Do you see something?”
Yes I saw something! A flash of golden light had caught my attention. I began
scavenging through the sand, when finally my hand hit something. I dug furiously,
and pulled up a small treasure box, large enough to fit in the palm of both
my hands. My NeoPets rushed over. There were rocks inside it.
We turned to leave, and suddenly I heard laughter. I looked around to see that
a whole bunch of pirates were walking and laughing. They looked at us suspiciously,
and we flashed them our most charming smile. Satisfied, they headed off.
I looked at the pirates, and began to follow them. We took our first step when
a harsh, commanding voice rang out. “An’ where d’ye think yer goin’?”
I turned around to see a pirate standing there, a cutlass in his hand. The
blade gleamed in the sunlight. He continued, advancing upon us. “I guess ye
be takin’ us fer fools don’t ye?” I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “Well
you ain’t gonna be playin’ yer game no more!”
“Game?” I cried hopelessly.
He nodded and held out a hand. “Gimme th’ box.”
“Oh. Oh! Jainny?”
She sighed and handed the treasure box over. The pirate opened it. He seemed
pleased and pulled out a pearl necklace. My jaw dropped. How did that get there?
I suddenly remembered the cushion. “Ye ain’t gonna steel no more, are ye? Any
treasure found on these ‘ere shores are belongin’ to us!”
I nodded. “I’ll give everything I find to you Cap’n!” He seemed pleased at
the title, and walked away. I bit my lip, and let out a long breath when he
was gone. I turned to my pets. “Come on!” We dashed over to an abandoned ship.
I sat down, and my NeoPets followed. “What are we going to do?” Santannaa cried.
“We’re spies!”
We glanced at her in alarm, and DorthyAnne clamped a hand over her mouth. “Shhh!”
she hissed. Santannaa nodded slowly, and DorthyAnne let go. “What do you want
to do? Alert all of Krawk Island?” Santannaa shook her head.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“Just as long as it doesn’t happen again,” Mairey snapped. “We need to keep
it down. We need to call it something else though, so that we can talk about
it in public and all.”
We thought long and hard, and suddenly Mairey leaped up. "Artists! I can’t
believe we’re artists!”
I smiled. “Yeah, it’s so weird. We were sent on this--" I broke off, and
we thought again.
Santannaa smiled. “What about we were sent to do a painting on Krawk Island?”
“Yeah,” we all murmured. “I like that.” I continued. “We were sent on this
‘project’ and we can’t find a perfect scene to ‘paint’.” We laughed and soon
we were making all this gibberish. We’d explain our problem and change the key
words to something else.
“It’s so hard. We can’t seem to get anything out, and they’ll take away our
things-most of them at least-because we didn’t pay.” Mairey winked and DorthyAnne
grinned.
“Or, we could leave without the painting, and let them take our things, or
we could paint,” Santannaa said thoughtfully.
We all looked at each other and sighed heavily. “Paint!”
We stood up, and I looked at them. “Remember our secret code! And from now
on we refer to Secret Code as ‘star’, and if somebody asks what we mean by star,
say we found a star that looks like us so we named it “our star”. And we really
did find one, so we could show them, too.”
Nodding, we strolled casually though Krawk Island. Every so often we’d pass
by someone and ask them for information. We were doing this, when suddenly I
felt myself being dragged. I looked to see the Captain of the vessel who had
attacked ours. I later found our his name was Creden. I looked at him. “What?”
He raised his eyebrows and I hurriedly explained what I had heard. “Now leave!”
He nodded and dashed off. I put a hand to my head. That day, we slept in a small
room we had rented. I woke to the sound of banging. I stood up groggily and
woke my pets up. We walked over to the door and I opened it. A gang of pirates
stood there. One of them grabbed my arm and hurled me out of the room.
I opened my mouth to speak, when suddenly I felt the cold tip if a dagger.
My pets were in similar positions.
I blinked in surprise. What was going on? Then, they began to haul us into
jail. They tied our hands behind our back with rope. “What are you doing?” Santannaa
cried.
I stared at them in shock, and one of the pirates twirled a small dagger. “Ye
be a spyin’ on us now?” he said.
“Wha--" Jainny cried.
He continued. “You didn’t think ye’d get away wit’ it, did ye?” He didn’t wait
for us to finish. He lunged forward, and I could feel his hot, rancid breath
against my face. “I news there was somethin’ amiss about yes from the start.”
I looked around, and saw Creden sitting down, confronted by another pirate.
“It wasn’t our fault! He blackmailed us!”
The pirate smiled, and pressed the tip of his blade against my neck. I swallowed
hard, and realised that my pets were in the same situation as me. The pirate
hissed in my ear, “Tell me one more lie, and I be makin’ a mess of yer throat!”
I froze, not daring to breathe. I felt the blade press deeper in my neck, and
then the pirates left. We were alone. For the rest f the day, the pirates tried
to beat the information out of us. But they still got the same answer. “He blackmailed
us!” They tried attacking us, threatening us, and even starving us. It was the
second day at night, and we were alone.
I turned to my pets, and heard Santannaa whisper quietly. “I always keep my
knife in handy. So does Mairey.”
Jainny blinked and twisted around uncomfortably. “I thought they took them!”
Santannaa smiled. Mairey looked around. “You’ll see but we can’t risk it. We
need to first find a plan to get out, and then act. I think the window will
work, if we can. Creden has the sailor in the ship, so we can get it.”
I bit my lip. Do we have to take him along with us?”
Santannaa shook her head. “We just need to free him. We can’t leave him here,
though.” She twisted her wrist, and suddenly the knife slid into her hand. Mairey
did the same. They began slicing their bonds. When they were done they moved
on to us. Their knives were made of stone, the tip as sharp as a Plastic Butter
Knife.
We turned to Creden, and realised he was gagged. We began to drag him over
to the window, and Jainny brought over a stool. We stood on it, and soon all
of us were out. I reached into the window and grabbed Creden’s arms, lifting
him through the window. I grunted, and stumbled at his weight.
Finally, we brought him over to the first departing ship. I talked to the Captain,
just as I heard that our captors had realised of our disappearance. I hurriedly
told the captain to leave the bonds and gag on until they dropped him off at
their landing.
We dashed over to our ship and began to cut the rope holding it. I saw a bunch
of pirates running across the shore towards us, and we began to leave. I saw
some of the faster pirates begin to lift themselves overboard. We threw them
off, and the remaining pirates who had invaded our ship. We set the sails after
we were sure there was nobody else.
We untied the sailor, and he rested in my cabin.
I could see the beach was littered with pirates. Soon, the sails took wind
and I began steering away. Jainny brought me some sea grog. We thought it was
disgusting at first, but we had gotten us to the mashed seaweed. We made a toast
to our escape.
I raised the glass to my lips when I stopped. “By the way, where did you keep
your knives?”
Mairey and Santannaa looked at each other and smiled slyly. They lifted their
sleeves, and I saw them put their knives back. There was a small wristband made
of vine. When Santannaa and Mairey twisted their wrists, the Plastic Butter
Knife slid into their hands. They had also attached a hilt to the knives, made
of vines and twigs.
“To the five of us. And five it will remain.” We heard a cawing noise above.
I looked up to see dark Pteris. “Say,” I said slowly. “Aren’t dark Pteris flying
above the water a bad omen?”
To be continued... | 
