THE TIME WARP TRIO
book 2
The Not-so-
Jolly Roger
by Jon Scieszka
PUFFIN BOOKS
ONE
I thought you said you read The Book," said Sam.
I looked over at Sam and Fred swaying in the tops of the two coconut trees next to mine. We were thirty feet above the ground. I grabbed my tree tighter. "I did," I said weakly. I closed my eyes so I couldn't see just how far up we were.
"Well, what happened this time, Mr. Magic?" asked Fred. "We didn't even open The Book! We were just goofing around in your room. Now we're making like monkeys in the tops of some trees on a deserted island."
"Maybe it was something you said," said Sam.
Waves crashed on the beach. I smelled the salt air. I opened one eye to look at Sam and Fred. Sam's glasses hung from one ear. Fred's Mets cap was twisted backward. They did kind of look like monkeys hugging coconuts. If I hadn't been so scared, I would have laughed. "I said I read The Book. I didn't say I understood it." "Oh, great," said Sam, trying to hang on to his coconut and fix his glasses at the same time. "So you're telling us you don't know where we are?" I looked out at the long stretch of blue ocean. The hot sun hung high in the blue sky. I tried to guess what time it might be. "Where we are? I don't even know when we are."
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!" screamed Sam. A red and blue parrot flew by and screeched back.
"We're lost," moaned Sam. "Shipwrecked. Castaways. Robinson Crusoes in time and space. We have no idea where or when we are. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!"
"Get a grip," said Fred. "I wished for buried treasure. The Book sent us here." Fred started to climb down his tree. "It doesn't take Einstein to figure it out. Somewhere around here there's buried treasure."
"We are going to die," said Sam. "Don't say I didn't warn you. Because where there's buried treasure, there's pirates. We are dead meat. Shark food."
"Well, look at the bright side," said Fred. "If you're dead, you won't have to go to school Monday."
Sam gave his glasses a push. "Ha. Ha. Ha. You're so funny, I forgot to laugh."
Fred started to slide down the tree trunk. "What's the big deal? We find the treasure, dig it up, Joe says the hocus-pocus stuff, and we go back home millionaires."
"Well..." I said.
"What's this 'well?' " said Sam. "I don't like the sound of this 'well.' "
"Well, The Book says there are a lot of ways to travel in time," I said. "But the only way to get back to our time is to find the person who has The Book in this time."
"But what about the All-Purpose Time Warper Spell?" said Fred.
I shook my head. "It only works going backward. We have to find The Book to get home."
Sam knocked his head on the nearest coconut. "Oh, fine. That's just fine. I mean, that should be easy. Thanks to lame-brain treasure hunter here, there aren't that many people to ask for The Book. Let's see ... we could ask this coconut. We could ask that sea gull. We could ask the ocean. We could ask the .. . oh, no." "What's an ono?" I asked. Sam pointed out to the ocean. We could just see the front of a sailing ship appearing from around the edge of the island. "Hey, it looks like a ship," said Fred. "Three guesses what kind of ship, Einstein," said Sam. "And the first two don't count."
We clutched our trees and watched the front of the ship turn into what looked like a huge wooden ocean liner. Except this ocean liner had cannons. And it was flying a flag from its mast—a black flag with a white skull. "Oh, no," said Fred. He went back up the tree. Fast.
TWO
While the pirates drop anchor and load their rowboat, maybe I should back up and explain how we three guys happened to find ourselves up in the coconut trees and in big trouble two hundred and seventy-five years before our time. It was just a week after the last time we travelled through time. And that was more than a thousand years before this time, which is a later time if you're just reading this for the first time in your own time, which .. . oh, forget it. Let me start one more time.
Last week (my time), I got a birthday present from my uncle Joe. Uncle Joe is a magician. He gave me a book. It had strange silver writing on the front that said The Book. When Fred opened The Book, it transported my two best friends (Fred and Sam) and me to King Arthur's time. We met a bunch of knights, a dragon, a giant, and stuff like that. But you can read about that some other time.
To get back to this time, the week after we got back to our time, Fred and Sam came over to my house to check out The Book again.
"I've been thinking about this time travel stuff," said Fred. "And I think we should go somewhere worth our while." Fred sat on my bed, still wearing his baseball uniform, tossing his baseball up and catching it. "Kids in those magic books I've read are always so dumb. They always wish for exciting adventures or some garbage like that. And they never take anything useful with them—like a machine gun or a jet. I say we wish for a pile of money and come back millionaires."
Sam looked up from his comic book. "No way. It will never work. If you had ever made it to the end of any of those magic books, you would know that magic is very tricky. Like Joe's uncle said, 'be careful what you wish for. You might get it.' We could wish for a pile of money, end up in a bank, and get shot by Jesse James."
I sat at my desk, trying to perfect my disappearing quarter trick. "Sam's right. It's not like faking people out with coin tricks. Let's just be a little more careful this time and figure out exactly what we're going to wish for."
I looked at the midnight-blue book on my desk.
"Magic can backfire on you even when you're trying to do good," said Sam. "And it will definitely mess you up if you are greedy."
"So, Mr. Know-It-All, what do you want to wish for?" asked Fred, pulling his baseball cap down over his eyes.
"I think we should go visit some famous historical figure and see what they were really like."
Fred threw his ball up to the ceiling and caught it. "Go visit some famous historical figure? Get out of here! You should be in one of those other lame magic books with all the other stiffs. Who wants to go visit famous dead guys?"
Sam pushed his glasses up. "I do."
"Get a life," said Fred. "So we go visit George Washington. We come back. What do we got? Nothing. But, we go visit buried treasure. We come back. What do we got? Millions!"
"Oh, that's brilliant, Sherlock. This is the same kind of bright idea that almost got us executed last time. Did you ever stop to think who buries treasure? Pirates, that's who. And do you know what pirates usually have? Pistols and cutlasses, that's what. And do you know what they do with those pistols and cutlasses? Shoot and stab people who are trying to steal their treasure, that's what."
"Come on," said Fred. "I took care of the Black Knight, didn't I? What's a few pirates? Joe, you got any pictures of buried treasure in that book?"
I stuck the quarter in my pocket and picked up The Book. "No."
"So there," said Sam.
Fred cocked his arm to throw his baseball at Sam.
"But there is this spell called the All Purpose Time Warper:
Hickory dickory dock.
Mouse, turn back the clock.
The clock won't strike.
To go where we like—"
"Buried treasure," yelled Fred. "No, you jerk," yelled Sam. Fred threw his baseball. Sam ducked. Wisps of pale green mist began to swirl in my bedroom.
THREE
"But wait," I said, "the spell only works—"
Fred's baseball slowed and then froze in midair, only inches away from my desk lamp.
The Book seemed to melt right out of my hand.
The green mist swirled faster and higher; covering book, ball, bedroom, and all.
"Oh, no is right," said Sam.
We looked around the island for somewhere to hide. The choices were pretty slim: our three trees, or one big black rock.
We climbed higher into our trees, and did our best to look like coconuts. We couldn't see anything, but we could hear the splash of oars and bits of some truly awful singing.
What do you do with a drunken pirate?
What do you do with a drunken pirate
Ear-ly in the morning?
The small rowboat landed as I peeked through the leaves. Two guys unloaded a chest. One was tall. The other was short. Both wore ragged pants and striped shirts. They were the ugliest and nastiest-looking guys I've ever seen . . . until I saw the third guy behind them. He was twice as big and twice as nasty-looking.
He was the one with the awful singing voice, and boy, did he have a face to match. Black hair stuck out everywhere. His black eyebrows and moustache bristled out front. Long black strands fell down his back. And a monstrous black beard, with four pigtails, braided and tied with ribbons on the ends, fell down his chest. To top it all off—the whole mess was smoking!
But the worst part about this guy was not his crazy hair or black outfit. The worst part was that he was equipped, just as Sam had predicted, with four pistols and one wicked-looking cutlass.
"Bad luck," whispered Sam. "I'll bet anything that's Blackbeard. .. and not the Walt Disney version."
"Who's Blackbeard?" Fred whispered from his tree,
"His real name was Edward Teach," said Sam. ...
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