Lilly and the Pirates Read online

  Pirates?

  The bus lurched around a corner and into a bus station. Lilly peered out the bug-spattered window. What if Great-Uncle Ernest had gotten the day wrong and didn’t meet her bus? What if she had somehow gotten on the wrong bus and ended up in the wrong city? What if the driver was a kidnapper in disguise? Lilly turned to a new page in her worry book.

  “Mundelaine,” the driver yelled.

  Lilly gathered up her bag of blank notebooks and her favorite Millicent Murray mystery, Millicent Murray and the Hyena That Didn’t Laugh. Lilly had wanted to bring all thirty-seven volumes (so far) of Millicent Murray mysteries, but her momma had pointed out that Uncle Ernest was a librarian, in fact the chief librarian of Mundelaine. Surely Lilly would be able to check out books to her heart’s content. Lilly loved how Millicent Murray did everything boldly, valiantly, intrepidly, stalwartly, fearlessly. A lot like Lilly’s momma and poppa. Nothing frightened Millicent. If only Lilly could be a little more like Millicent Murray, maybe she could have gone along to the Shipwreck Islands. Of course, when Millicent’s adventures became too scary, Lilly could always shut the book. And since next month a new Millicent Murray mystery would come out, it was a sure bet that no matter what dire adventures awaited Millicent, she would survive.

  Lilly stepped down onto the oil-stained concrete and peered into the dank dimness of the bus station.

  Only one person was waiting for the bus.

  He wore a wide black hat with the brim pulled low, a patch on one eye, boots with silver buckles, and a brace of pistols stuck in the scarlet sash tied around his middle. In his hand he held an empty birdcage. But it was his ears Lilly noticed most of all. They stuck out from his head like tiny sails. A gold hoop pierced one of the ears. The man scowled at Lilly.

  Her heart quavered. She had never, never in her life thought to write in her worry book, What if Great-Uncle Ernest is a pirate?

  “Uncle Ernest?” Lilly whispered.

  “Lilly?”

  The voice came from behind her. Lilly turned. Someone else was waiting for the bus. She hadn’t even noticed him; he blended so into the gloom of the bus station in his gray suit and gray tie. A gray hat sat on his gray hair. Under his arm he held a thick gray book. Even his voice sounded gray, like dust motes floating up from the pages of an old book that hadn’t been opened in years.

  “You are Lilly, aren’t you?” the man asked. “If so, I am your great-uncle Ernest.”

  Great-Uncle Ernest had opened his thick book to a page from which a bookmark stuck out. He read something, keeping his finger on the page. “I’m very pleased to have you visit,” he said to Lilly. He glanced at the book again. “I look forward to a very pleasant visit.”

  “Thank you, Great-Uncle Ernest,” said Lilly.

  “Just Uncle Ernest will be fine,” said her uncle. “I am merely a humble librarian.”

  Had Uncle Ernest made a joke? Lilly couldn’t see his face to tell. He had stooped over to pick up her duffle bag. Suddenly she missed her momma and poppa so much she could hardly move. She should have gone with them, should have been brave. Now it was too late. Now she was here with Uncle Ernest. At least he was a librarian, not a pirate.

  Uncle Ernest headed out of the bus station, and Lilly forced her feet to follow him.

  “Uncle Ernest,” she asked as they came out into the sunlight, “are there pirates in Mundelaine?”

  Uncle Ernest stumbled. “Pirates? No, no, of course not,” he said. “There have never been pirates in Mundelaine. Never. Impossible. Unthinkable.” The gray handkerchief in his gray suit pocket quivered. He set down her bag, pulled out the handkerchief, and carefully mopped his forehead. Then he neatly folded the handkerchief, tucked it into his suit pocket, arranged the corners, hefted her duffle bag, and set off down the street again.

  Lilly hurried to catch up. “What about the man in the station?” she asked.

  “What man?” asked Uncle Ernest.

  “The one dressed like a pirate.”

  “Oh. That man. He must have, er, been selling something. Or perhaps on his way to a costume party. Or perhaps all his clothes were at the cleaners and those were the only clothes he had left to wear. I assure you, Lilly, there have never been nor will there ever be pirates in Mundelaine. This is a quiet town. Certainly not the former site of a pirate school. And even if there were such a school here, no one would ever have wanted to go to it. No one at all.”

  Uncle Ernest was talking and walking faster and faster. Lilly had to run to keep up with him. She had no reason not to believe him. But who, then, was the strange man in the bus station? Lilly turned back to look. The man was stomping in the opposite direction down the street, his birdcage swinging at the end of his arm. The wind skittered a few leaves after him and gently flapped his ears. The gold earring in one ear caught the sun and threw sparkles of light on the gray concrete walls of the bus station.

  Maybe Uncle Ernest was right about no pirates in Mundelaine, but Lilly knew the first thing she would write when she opened her worry book again: What if Momma and Poppa were attacked by ruthless pirates?

  Uncle Ernest

  Uncle Ernest was mostly silent for the rest of the walk to his house. He did point out, with obvious pride, the library where he worked.

  Lilly didn’t say much either. She was too busy thinking about her momma and poppa. Where were they now? Had they already set sail? Were they safe?

  Uncle Ernest’s house turned out to be as gray as he was. Gray shingles, gray door, gray trim at the windows where gray curtains hung. The house next door was, if possible, even grayer. A few strips of paint dangled from its bare boards. The porch steps sagged. The roof tilted as though it might slide off. In the backyard a clothesline drooped, and a sign hanging by one nail from the porch railing read FOR RENT.

  “Who lives there?” Lilly asked.

  Uncle Ernest sniffed. “No one has lived there for quite some time,” he said. “I am hopeful that a new owner or tenant will perform the necessary maintenance and repairs to maintain a neat façade.”

  Lilly followed Uncle Ernest up the gray steps into his house, over the gray carpet, and up the gray stairs.

  “This room will be yours,” he said. Lilly wasn’t surprised to see a gray bedspread and gray blanket on the bed. Uncle Ernest stood in the doorway, paging through the book he still carried. He looked up. “I hope this room meets with your approval,” he said.

  “It’s fine, Uncle Ernest.” Lilly didn’t care how her room looked. This was just a place to stay until her parents came back for her.

  If they came back.

  Uncle Ernest was consulting his book again. “I will leave you to unpack and settle in,” he said. “Dinner is at six. I, er, I hope you like tofu.”

  Lilly nodded. What did it matter what she ate? Her fingers itched to open her worry book.

  As soon as Uncle Ernest was gone, Lilly wrote page after page until suppertime.

  That night, as they ate steamed tofu and mashed cauliflower, Uncle Ernest flipped through the pages of his book, then looked up at Lilly and asked, “What did you do today?”

  Do? He knew what she had done. She had said goodbye to her momma and poppa. She had ridden the bus to Mundelaine. She had met him at the bus station, come to his house, and unpacked her duffle bag. But he looked at her expectantly.

  “I rode the bus,” said Lilly.

  Uncle Ernest looked back at his book, then up again. “Did you have a good time?” he asked.

  Uncle Ernest and the book clearly hoped that she did. She guessed finding out that her uncle wasn’t a pirate had been good. Lilly nodded.

  Uncle Ernest referred to his book again. “And what will you do tomorrow?” he asked.

  Hope bloomed suddenly in Lilly’s heart. Did Uncle Ernest really want to know? Would he understand if she told him how much time she spent worrying and writing down things in her worry book to keep her momma and poppa safe?

  He was glancing at his book again. “Will you have a good t
ime tomorrow?” he asked.

  No, Uncle Ernest wouldn’t understand. “I’ll try,” said Lilly.

  The book must not have had any more suggestions for conversation. They finished the meal in silence.

  That night Lilly finished Millicent Murray and the Hyena That Didn’t Laugh and started it over again, but rereading the story didn’t take her mind off her worries. Tomorrow she would go to the library and find something new to read. Perhaps she could even help Uncle Ernest in the library.

  “Help me?” Uncle Ernest said when Lilly brought up the matter the next morning after a breakfast of four-minute eggs and three-minute toast. “At the library? Nobody but the chief librarian is allowed to check books out to people. Or shelve them. Or write numbers on their spines.”

  “Could I come along anyway and check out some books?” Lilly asked.

  “Check out books?” He sounded doubtful. “I suppose you could fill out a library card application and present two forms of identification, and then you would be issued a temporary card with which you might check out two books a week.”

  Two books a week? Lilly’s heart and shoulders sagged. Sometimes, when a new crate of books arrived, she devoured two books a day.

  Two books, though, were better than no new books.

  “I shall draw you a map to the library,” said Uncle Ernest.

  “Didn’t we pass it walking back from the bus station?” asked Lilly. “I think I can find it again.”

  “I have found in life that it is wise to have a map wherever you go,” said Uncle Ernest. “You never know where you might find yourself otherwise. I’ve left you a list of chores to do. I hope you don’t mind. A Guide to a Visit from Your Great-Niece”—he tapped the cover of the thick book—“recommends giving you some responsibilities about the house.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Lilly. Anything to make the days and weeks pass faster. Uncle Ernest drew a detailed map, put his gray hat on, and left for the library. Lilly read the list of chores.

  Wash dishes.

  Dry dishes.

  Put dishes away in alphabetical order.

  Cups

  Glasses

  Plates

  Silverware

  Forks

  Knives

  Spoons

  Chores done, Lilly followed Uncle Ernest’s map one block straight down the street to the library.

  At the Library

  Lilly caught her breath as she stepped through the door. Books. Books and books and books. More books than Lilly had ever seen in her life. Enough to fill hundreds of crates. She inhaled the smell of books and ink and paper. Her fingers ached to pull books off the shelf and leaf through them, read a line here, a page there. She had read about libraries, of course, how you could check books out of them. She had pictured fifty or even a hundred books. Nothing at all like this vast wealth. She could bury herself in reading until her momma and poppa came sailing back to her. Maybe she would even be a librarian when she grew up.

  Lilly filled out all the forms in triplicate and handed them to Uncle Ernest, who reluctantly waived the two forms of identification because, as Lilly pointed out, he knew who she was. Lilly clutched the temporary library card that he handed back to her and wandered past shelf after shelf of books, their spines lined up precisely with the edges of the shelves. How, from all these books, could she choose just two? Maybe she could come to the library every day and sit here and read and read and read. Lilly thought she could live in the library and be almost happy. If only her momma and poppa were here.

  But nowhere among all the books did she see the red-and-gold covers for which she was looking.

  “Uncle Ernest,” Lilly asked, “where are the Millicent Murray mysteries?”

  “The what?”

  “Mysteries. About Millicent Murray.”

  “Do you mean fiction?”

  Lilly nodded.

  “Almost all of the library collection is nonfiction,” said Uncle Ernest. “You can’t go wrong with facts.”

  Lilly’s heart sagged even further. Uncle Ernest must have seen the look on her face because he said, “It is highly irregular for the chief librarian to leave his desk, but I shall check downstairs in storage. Perhaps there are a few fictional books there.”

  He carefully locked the library door, turned the Open sign to Closed, and disappeared through a door behind his desk. Lilly wandered back through the rows of books of facts and more facts. She had counted on Millicent Murray to distract her, counted on rereading her way through all thirty-seven volumes (so far) of Millicent’s adventures. If she couldn’t have Millicent Murray, what would she check out, then? Maybe she could find A Guide to a Visit with Your Great-Uncle.

  Lilly ran a finger over the titles: The Life History of Lava. Motes and Mites: The Story of Dust. Good books, perhaps, but they looked even less interesting than the ones that had come in the crates for her momma and poppa on the life cycles of banana borers.

  Momma and Poppa. Where were they now? Were they safe? Had they reached the Shipwreck Islands?

  She blinked. There, in front of her, was a book with just those words lettered on the spine: The Prudent Mariner’s Guide to the Shipwreck Islands.

  Fingers shaking, Lilly pulled the book off the shelf. It was a thin volume, barely thick enough to have a title on its spine. She turned to the table of contents: “Hidden Reefs.” “Treacherous Tides.” “Deadly Currents.” Could the Shipwreck Islands be even more dangerous than she had imagined? Heart hammering, Lilly flipped to the first chapter, “If You Are Going to the Shipwreck Islands.” It was a very short chapter, just one word: “DON’T!”

  A piece of paper fell out of the book and fluttered to the floor. Lilly picked it up. Someone must have left it in the book—a grocery list, maybe, or a letter. But who would write a letter on such tattered, smudged paper? The ragged edges crumbled under her fingers as Lilly gingerly unfolded the paper. Not a letter, not a list. A crudely drawn map.

  The stairs creaked under Uncle Ernest’s feet. Without knowing exactly why she did it, Lilly folded the map back up and stuffed it back into the book, clutching it shut to keep the piece of paper from falling out again.

  Uncle Ernest held a familiar red-and-gold book. “I did find one in a box of books donated to the library and set aside for the used-book sale,” he said. “While I don’t recommend it . . .”

  “Thank you.” Lilly grabbed the book. Millicent Murray and the Rooster That Didn’t Crow. She had read it before, but she would read it again. “I’m ready to check out now.” She had planned to sit in the library and read, but she could almost feel the map pulsing. It wasn’t the kind of thing Uncle Ernest would have allowed in the library if he knew it was there.

  She held her breath while he checked out the books.

  Would the map fall out? Would Uncle Ernest confiscate it?

  But the map stayed hidden inside. All the way home she clutched the book. When she got up the stairs to her room, she spread the map out on her gray bedspread. There were odd lines and squiggles, an arrow pointing to a circle with lines radiating out in four directions. And in one corner of the map by a big X, the rambling printing read Heer be tresur.

  Mysterious Laundry

  Lilly pored over the map until it felt burned onto the insides of her eyelids. Was this place the Shipwreck Islands? Except for the printing staggering across the one corner, there were no other words. Just cryptic symbols. What was that lopsided circle with an X over it? Or was it just dirt? Was the map part of the book or just tucked into it?

  The book itself was not much more help. Although the chapters after chapter 1 were longer, Lilly found little hard information in them. No one, it seemed (according to The Guide), had ever gone to the Shipwreck Islands and returned to tell about them. Then who had written the book? Everything in the book seemed to be rumors, guesses, wild stories. Were there really man-eating palm trees? Sea serpents? Giant sea gulls? Lilly didn’t think so, but just the thought of those perils was enough to make her
slam the book shut time after time and write in her worry book. She always went back to The Prudent Mariner’s Guide to the Shipwreck Islands, though. Better to know the worst that could happen so she could worry against it.

  Skreee-kee-ree.

  Lilly ran from the room, down the stairs, and out the door to see what the squalling was all about. Perched on a tree was a sea gull, a thin strip of paper wrapped around its leg.

  Momma and Poppa! Lilly’s fingers shook as she untied the string that held the note to the sea gull’s leg and unrolled the paper. Were they all right?

  The tiny printing read:

  Lovely sailing. Miss you much.

  Love, Momma and Poppa

  And in even tinier printing underneath:

  P.S. Please feed the gull.

  Clutching the paper to her chest, Lilly ran into the house again and searched Uncle Ernest’s refrigerator. Tofu casserole and a tin of sardines. She grabbed them both and hurried back outside. The sea gull turned up its beak at the casserole but gobbled down the sardines, eyeballs and all, while Lilly wrote her own note:

  Miss you A LOT. Am being good as gold. Love, Lilly Then she tied it to the sea gull’s leg and watched the bird flap away.

  She carried the strip of paper upstairs and pressed it carefully in her worry book. Momma and Poppa were safe. For now. And they still loved her.

  When Lilly had finally read all of The Prudent Mariner’s Guide to the Shipwreck Islands and written down every worry she could think of, she ran back down the street to the library. Maybe she could find some other book on the Shipwrecks, one that wasn’t so full of disastrous possibilities.

  Uncle Ernest looked up, startled, as she banged in through the door. “I’m afraid you can’t check any more books out until your card is processed, Lilly,” he told her.

  “I just want to look around,” Lilly said. She felt his anxious eyes on her back as she scoured the shelves again.

  Lilly scanned title after title about earthworms as pets, washtub-bass tuning, the life cycle of dandelions. But nowhere did she find anything else on the Shipwreck Islands.