Reunions and Petpets: Another Pirate Adventure:Part Two

     Lady Oakridge withdrew her torn claw from the lock and huffed a sigh. The mechanism had defeated the Royal Bori's picking attempts.

     "Good idea, though?" Sproingal offered. "It could have worked if these locks weren't so stiff and rusty."

     Meadowbuck drew his bony knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, then rested his chin on his knees. "I hope Christopher is okay. I wish they were keeping him here in the brig…."

     But the iron-barred cell contained only Meadowbuck, Lady Oakridge, Sproingal, and a pile of damp straw, perhaps intended to be a bed. Meadowbuck certainly wasn't going to try sleeping in it. He'd seen the bare tail of a Mutant Miamouse when Rasival and Sacrige had first thrown them in here. No way was he going to risk tangling with a Mutant Petpet just to have a soft spot to sleep. Plus, the straw was probably infested with Petpetpets. Gross.

     Rasival and Sacrige had dragged the three friends up the gangplank of their ship and into the hold belowdecks. Meadowbuck recognized some of the pirate crew as they were dragged away. They hurled insults at the friends, and especially at Meadowbuck, who had turned them in to the Defenders of Neopia.

     "This is really the ship they had before?" Sproingal asked. "You'd think the Defenders wouldn't have re-sold the ship back to the pirates who used to own it."

     "Rasival and Sacrige look completely different," Lady Oakridge said. "With fake names, they could have bought the ship back and nobody would have known."

     "And then they found out we were having a reunion," Meadowbuck said. "And ambushed us."

     A wry smile spread over Sproingal's face. "Guess we had a double reunion," the Blumaroo said. "All of us, and us with them."

     "I could have done without this half of the reunion," Lady Oakridge said tersely.

     "Do you think the Oakridge Estate guards will find us?" Meadowbuck asked.

     The Bori looked down at her chipped, apparently no-use-as-lockpicks claws. "I don't know. They'll look for me first in Brightvale, at the hands of my political enemies. I doubt they'll think to look for school rivals from eleven years ago."

     "Anybody else got friends who might think to look for us on a pirate ship?" Sproingal asked. "I've got some friends from the Art Gallery, and the Faerieland arts district…somehow, I don't think they'll even notice I'm gone."

     "What makes you say that?" Meadowbuck asked.

     Sproingal tugged at one of his ears. "Weeeeell...I wouldn't notice if they disappeared."

     Lady Oakridge snorted mirthlessly. "Sounds like you're great friends with them."

     "We're artists!" Sproingal protested. "We disappear for weeks at a time to work on our projects!"

     Meadowbuck sat back against the side of the ship. "My assistant isn't expecting me back for several days. We could be anywhere in the Neopian Ocean before she realizes I'm gone."

     "So...nobody knows to look for us out on the high seas," Lady Oakridge summarized.

     Nobody said anything. Their predicament was dire, with no relief in sight.

     "Where do you think we'll end up?" Sproingal asked.

     "They made me walk the plank last time," Meadowbuck said.

     "What?!" both his friends exclaimed.

     The Yellow Gelert held his paws up. "It turned out okay! One of my college professors rescued me!" He looked between their aghast faces and added, weakly, "But I'm sure they won't make us walk the plank this time?"

     The hatch from the upper decks thumped open, and sunlight steamed down in a perfect rectangle. Heavily clawed paws descended into the brig, belonging to the Pirate Lutari, Sacrige. Meadowbuck jumped up and gripped the iron bars of the brig, his teeth bared.

     "Hey!" he said. "You let us out of here, Sacrige!"

     The Lutari stomped up and flicked Meadowbuck's big nose with one gloved claw. The Gelert yelped and stumbled back. "That's what I thought," he said. He tossed a shiny prybar into the cell with them. Sproingal scrambled to snatch it up.

     "Are you helping us escape?" Lady Oakridge said. "That seems rather counter-productive."

     Sacrige gave her a toothy grin and drew his cutlass from his belt. All three 'pets stepped back from the bars. Sacrige took a keyring from his belt and opened the door of the brig, brandishing his cutlass. He pointed the sharp tip at the Spotted Blumaroo.

     "Drop it," he said. Sproingal whimpered and complied. With his gloved paw, Sacrige picked up the crowbar. "Thankee kindly," he said, then swung his cutlass at Lady Oakridge and Meadowbuck. The two squawked and ducked, and the cutlass grazed their fur. The Lutari bent down and picked up the wisps of hair before turning and exiting the brig, locking the door behind him. "You've all been a big help," he said, grinning, and turned away.

     The three captured friends stood in silence as the Pirate Lutari retreated back upstairs and slammed the hatch behind him.

     Meadowbuck shook himself. "What was that about?" he said.

     Lady Oakridge examined her new haircut and grimaced. "Intimidation tactics?"

     "But he didn't even ask us a question!" Sproingal said. "What's the point of scaring us if he doesn't want anything from us?"

     "He always was a bully," Meadowbuck said. "He's probably scaring us just to prove he can."

     Lady Oakridge growled low in her throat. "I have a burning hatred for that guy. Rasival too."

     "I'll punch them next time they come in here!" Sproingal said.

     Meadowbuck put his paw on Sproingal's shoulder. "I don't think that's such a good idea this time, Sproings. They have weapons, and we're not even trained Battledomers."

     "So now what?" Lady Oakridge said. She plopped down on the pile of straw. The straw emitted a high-pitched squeal, and Oakridge leapt up again. A small shape crawled from beneath the straw and stared up at Lady Oakridge with its three eyes, each blinking alternately.

     "Ew ew!" Meadowbuck said. "Get back, Lady Oakridge! It might bite!"

     Lady Oakridge got down on her knees and held out a paw to the hideous Petpet. "Hey there, little one. Did I sit on you? I'm sorry."

     Sproingal made no attempt to disguise his disgust. "Gross! Come on, Lady Oakridge, don't go near it!"

     The Royal Bori reached into her pocket and took out some peanuts, and held them out to the Mutant Miamouse. "You hungry? Here you go."

     The Miamouse snatched a peanut in its tiny claws and began devouring it. Meadowbuck cringed at its manners.

     "Okay, Lady Oakridge, just back away slowly," said the Gelert.

     Lady Oakridge turned and glared at him. "What is with you, Meadowbuck? You're usually so kind-hearted! This poor Petpet is just hungry."

     Taken aback, Meadowbuck's ears drooped. "W-well," he stammered. "I mean, look at it, it's a Mutant Petpet."

     "One of your sisters is Mutant!" the Royal Bori protested.

     "That's different!" Meadowbuck said. "This is a Petpet living in a dirty pile of straw on a dirty pirate ship."

     Lady Oakridge turned back to the Miamouse. "I apologize for his manners--I don't know where his compassion is today." She offered the Petpet another peanut, which it happily accepted. "You're just a little hungry, right? I'm sorry for sitting on you and disturbing your rest." She sat down on the straw beside the Mutant Miamouse and held out a pawful of peanuts. "I put these in my pocket because Christopher liked them so much," she explained to the Petpet. Her face grew somber. "But we don't know where he is right now...so you're welcome to them."

     Meadowbuck's ears drooped further. He looked away from the Mutant Miamouse, feeling both chagrined and depressed. He missed Christopher. Who knows what those pirates were doing to him right now. He was probably locked away in a cage somewhere aboard this ship. Meadowbuck hated to think of him confined like that; the Faerie Ombat deserved to fly and explore. Turning away from the scene with Lady Oakridge and the Miamouse, Meadowbuck gripped the iron bars of the brig cell. The bars might be rusty, but they were nowhere near corroded enough for an academic, an artist, and a politician to break through.

     Meadowbuck broke out of his reverie in time to hear Lady Oakridge say, "The pirates probably don't even know you live here. You spend your days hiding out down here belowdecks, don't you?"

     Meadowbuck turned back to see the Miamouse nodding.

     "Poor thing," Lady Oakridge said. "Well, we're planning to break out of here. Would you like to come with us? The Oakridge Estate has gardens and lawns and a hedge maze you could play in. You could live there, if you wanted to."

     The Mutant Miamouse's three eyes lit up, and it nodded vigorously. Lady Oakridge smiled and gently patted its head with a single claw.

     "I thought so," she said. "But we need help first."

     The Miamouse licked the side of a peanut and looked at Oakridge questioningly.

     "We need to pick the lock on the cell door," she said. "We need a thin piece of metal to do that. Do you think you could find us a thin piece of metal? About this long?" She held up her fingerclaw and thumbclaw a few inches apart.

     The Mutant Petpet shoved the peanut in its cheeks and held its paws apart at the same distance Lady Oakridge was indicating.

     "Yes!" the Bori said. "That long. Can you find us something like that so we can pick the lock?"

     With a smart salute to its wrinkled brow, the Miamouse scurried through the bars of the cell and vanished into the nooks and crannies of the brig. Sproingal grinned and slapped his paw on Lady Oakridge's plated back.

     "That was awesome!" the Blumaroo said. "You really think it'll work?"

     Lady Oakridge beamed at him. "Of course! Petpets are very smart, even the cardboard ones like Meadowbuck's old Liobits. Meadowbuck was able to teach Starmane to write, after all--that takes a great deal of brainpower. A flesh-and-blood Petpet like Peanut here will no doubt be a great help to us."

     "Peanut?" Meadowbuck asked.

     Lady Oakridge shrugged. "It seems like a fitting name, doesn't it?"

     Sproingal smiled and sat down beside Oakridge in the straw. "Who knew you had such a way with Petpets."

     Lady Oakridge raised her eyebrows. "Well...you knew. You both knew."

     Sproingal and Meadowbuck stared at her. Lady Oakridge squinted suspiciously at them both.

     "I've written to you about my advocacy for Petpet rights. I have a menagerie of Petpets at the Estate. I'm trying to pass a bill right now through the Brightvale courts that will institute better care for Petpets in Brightvale and Meridell." She crossed her arms over her chest and fixed first Sproingal with a stare, then Meadowbuck. "Don't you two read my letters?"

     Deep crimson rose to Sproingal's face beneath his Spotted fur. "O-of course I do!" he said. "Just uh...um...I have a really bad memory! I'm an artist, I'm spacey, you know that."

     Oakridge scrutinized the Blumaroo for a moment before turning to Meadowbuck. "Your job literally requires you to have a good memory. What's your excuse?"

     Meadowbuck's head sank into his shoulders, and he wished he were a Blurtle with a carapace he could retreat into to hide from Lady Oakridge's judgemental gaze. "I…might...sometimes skip the political portions of your letters?" he said.

     The Royal Bori huffed and shook her head. "You two! Ugh! It sounds like my only friend on this ship is Peanut, and they can't even read!" She rose to her paws and stumped over to the bars of the cell to wait for Peanut to return.

     Sproingal and Meadowbuck shuffled their paws and made a few murmured excuses--or perhaps apologies. Neither of them were speaking clearly enough to be heard. Neither had ever seen Lady Oakridge angry, not at them, anyway. The Bori's wrath had always been directed at injustice and evildoers. Perhaps they had done her an injustice by not carefully reading her letters. She'd taken a great deal of time out of her busy schedule to write weekly to each of them, for the past seven years. To find out that neither of them had read her handiwork must sting. Meadowbuck smoothed back his ears with a paw and took a deep breath.

     "Lady Oakridge?" he said, much more clearly this time. "I'm so, so sorry. I should have taken time to read your letters, really read them." The archaeologist drew himself up to his full, unimpressive height. "Why don't you tell us about your Petpet rights bill now while we wait for Peanut?"

     A smile crept over Lady Oakridge's face. "It would lift my spirits." She chuckled. "And it might put both of you to sleep--but here goes."

     Lady Oakridge was right--it was pretty boring. Meadowbuck and Sproingal played the good sports and gave her their most attentive expressions throughout her speech. Meadowbuck even managed to give a few appropriately-timed responses. But still, when Peanut made a reappearance beside Lady Oakridge in the straw pile, both boys breathed a sigh of relief.

     "Peanut!" Lady Oakridge exclaimed. "Welcome back! Did you find something we can use to pick the lock?"

     The Mutant Miamouse nodded eagerly, reached behind itself into the straw, and hauled out...a metal ring jingling with keys. The three Neopets stared at the key collection, jaws flopped open.

     "Is that…" Sproingal said.

     Lady Oakridge picked up the keys, reached into her pocket, and dumped a huge handful of peanuts in front of Peanut. A job well done.

     "There's no way one of those fits the cell door," Meadowbuck said. "Right? That's just some random keys."

     Lady Oakridge reached through the bars and inserted the first key into the lock on the outside. "Well, this one isn't a match," she said, and flipped to the next key. "Mmm...no."

     The eighth key clicked in the lock, and the door swung open. Meadowbuck laughed incredulously. "It worked! Peanut…" The Yellow Gelert turned to the Mutant Petpet. "Peanut, I um...well, I underestimated you. I'm sorry" He nodded and smiled. "And thank you."

     The Miamouse winked one of its three eyes and took a bow. Sproingal reached out a paw and patted Peanut between the ears.

     "Thanks, little guy," he said. "Sorry I was mean."

     Peanut patted Sproingal's Spotted paw. All was forgiven.

     Lady Oakridge held open her fur-lined robe, revealing several deep inner pockets--no doubt where she'd stashed the peanuts she'd offered to Peanut. "Hide in here, Peanut," she said. "You'll be safer while we move around the ship."

     Peanut nodded and clambered into one of the pockets, until only its bare tail was trailing out. Lady Oakridge carefully tucked the tail in with one claw, and closed her robe.

     "Okay. What's the plan?" she asked.

     "We gotta find our Petpets," Sproingal said.

     Meadowbuck nodded. "They're not here in the brig, so they're probably being held in the cargo hold." He met Oakridge and Sproingal's stares with a shrug. "Their business was stealing Petpets and reselling them. They had an entire hold full of Petpet cages last time."

     "And you know where it is?" Sproingal asked.

     At Meadowbuck's nod, Lady Oakridge said, "Lead the way!"

     The three friends--and one hidden Miamouse--crept out of the cell to the far wall, where a door lead into the ship's corridor. Meadowbuck held up a paw and pressed one long ear to the door, listening.

     "Nobody's out there," he said. He carefully pulled the door open and stepped into the corridor.

     He led the others to the third door down and pressed his ear against it--but he really needn't. He was sure even Lady Oakridge and Sproingal could hear the chirps and squeaks from inside.

     "That sounds like Delia!" Sproingal said.

     "And I think I hear Nuka's hooves," Lady Oakridge said.

     Meadowbuck tried the door and found it locked. He stepped aside and gave a little bow to Lady Oakridge, who took out the keyring and began trying the lock. She got it on the third try. Meadowbuck yanked the door open and leapt inside.

     "Christopher?!" he said, looking around eagerly.

     A chirp met his voice, and the Yellow Gelert's face lit up.

     "Christopher!" he said.

     The Faerie Ombat peered out at him from a tiny, dirty cage hanging from the ceiling. As the Ombat pranced and bounced, the cage swung, and the ring in the ceiling holding it up creaked. Meadowbuck held a warning paw up to his muzzle.

     "Shh shh," he cautioned. "We don't want anyone to hear us."

     Christopher nodded and sat down on the floor of the cage. Lady Oakridge was already trying keys in the lock of her Nuk's cage as the hoofed Petpet cantered back and forth eagerly. Sproingal was crouched at Delia's cage, assuring the Spotted Feepit that everything was okay and they were going to get her out.

     With the three liberated Petpets at their sides, Meadowbuck, Sproingal, and Lady Oakridge crept back out into the corridor. They froze as footsteps sounded overhead, from several owners.

     "They're gonna notice we're gone soon," Sproingal said. "We gotta do something. We need weapons!"

     Lady Oakridge snorted. "Oh, and I suppose just holding a cutlass will give you the skills to go against a seasoned swashbuckler?"

     Meadowbuck sighed. "Oakridge is right, Sproings. We can't fight them, it's a whole crew against three--and some Petpets," he added, as Christopher chirped indignantly.

     "So we need a distraction," Sproingal said.

     Meadowbuck and Lady Oakridge looked at each other, then looked back at Sproingal and nodded.

     "A surprisingly logical deduction," Lady Oakridge said. "Got a plan?"

     Sproingal beckoned to Delia and whispered something in her fluffy little ear. She nodded and whisked off up the stairs to the main deck. Sproingal hopped after her, and turned to his friends when he reached the base of the stairs.

     "Okay guys," he whispered. "When you hear 'fire, fire, put out the fire,' run for the longboat on the starboard side."

     "What?!" Meadowbuck hissed, trying to keep his voice low. "That's not a plan!"

     "It's certainly not a good plan," Lady Oakridge said. "Sproingal! Get back here!"

     But the Spotted Blumaroo had already vanished up the stairs.

     "Fyora help us," Meadowbuck muttered. Christopher patted his paw consolingly.

     The remaining group waited with baited breath. Meadowbuck took the relative silence as a good sign--probably, if a pirate had caught Sproingal, there would be a scuffle and a great deal of shouting that would alert the others down below.

     After several minutes, Lady Oakridge laid her face in her hands. "What's taking him so long? Has he forgotten his own plan?"

     "He's not that flighty," Meadowbuck said, a little defensive.

     Lady Oakridge lifted her face and stared at the Gelert. "In college, he tried to drink his brush-cleaning water on multiple occasions, because he always put his identical coffee cup next to it."

     Meadowbuck shrugged helplessly. "I'm sure that happens to lots of painters."

     "Once, he gifted me the same painting twice. The first time I told him I couldn't possibly accept a work that belonged in the Art Gallery for everyone to see. The second time, he had forgotten what I'd said the first time."

     Meadowbuck squinted suspiciously at his college friend. "You didn't tell him that because you didn't want the painting, and didn't want to hurt his feelings, did you?"

     Lady Oakridge waved her claws airily. "A lady never reveals a secret."

     "Oi!" came a shout from the top deck of the ship. "Get that fire doused, lads!"

     Meadowbuck looked to Lady Oakridge. "That's pretty much pirate speak for 'fire, fire, put out the fire,' right?"

     Lady Oakridge's expression had hardened to firm resolve. She grabbed Meadowbuck's paw and pulled him towards the stairs. Now or never.

     To be continued…