Pirates out of Time

By Success Stories Publishing Ltd.

Robert, a thirteen year old English boy who has recently moved to America, is involved in a plane crash whilst travelling with his family to see his critically ill sister, Sophie. He finds himself on an unchartered island that appears to be inhabited by bloodthirsty 18th century pirates, living their lives according to the pirate codes of that time.
When the pirates capture the family, it is Robert’s passion for pirate lore that allows him to work out what is really going on behind the pirates’ frightening façade.

The family learn of the pirates’ history and customs, including the fact that they have created a miraculous medicine which could save Sophie’s life. But Robert discovers that the Captain is hiding a terrible secret that will have a devastating impact on anyone needing to take the cure, including Sophie.

When the island is taken over by present day criminals, will the pirates still possess enough pirate skills to be able to fend off a modern enemy with 21st century weapons? Can Robert and his family help find a solution to the Captain’s secret dilemma? Even if they can, how will they deal with Dr Baines, a fellow passenger in the plane, who is bent on acquiring the medicine for her own personal gain, thereby exposing the pirates’ peaceful culture to the glare of modern society – a society with which they have had no contact for over three hundred years?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Success Stories Publishing Ltd.
• Release date: Dec 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310924071

Book preview

Pirates Out Of Time

Sharon Richards

Pirates Out Of Time

by Sharon Richards

Cover image by Olga Lysenko

Published by Success Stories Publishing ltd at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition

All material copyright 2014 William Sellwood

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgements

I would like to say a huge ‘Thank you’ to the following people:

To Rona Barbour, an enthralling storyteller, for telling me about a writing contest which motivated me to complete the first draft.

To David Llewellyn, a wonderful writer and very generous (and tactful) mentor.

To Pennant Roberts for passing on his years of writing experience.

To Judith Morrison for her honest feedback that made me take out the boring bits.

To Joyce Rutherford for her support and friendship and faith that I could do it.

To John Nesbitt, Georgina Nelson and Emma Thompson; young readers (now much older) whose feedback encouraged me to keep going.

To Carol Ferro for her unstinting good humour and support.

To Gaynor Jones for her eagle eyes and great patience.

Finally, to my good friend Mark, for his unstinting generosity and kindness to me and so many others.

Dedication

To Bill, George and Sam,

This is for you

With all my love and gratitude for all of your love.

Contents

Chapter 1 Crash Landing

Chapter 2 Who’s There?

Chapter 3 Prisoners

Chapter 4 Friend or Foe?

Chapter 5 Kill or Cure!

Chapter 6 Walk the plank!

Chapter 7 Rat Lines

Chapter 8 A Fly in the Ointment

Chapter 9 A History Lesson

Chapter 10 Pirate School

Chapter 11 Down the Hatch

Chapter 12 The Captain’s Folly

Chapter 13 Bladderball

Chapter 14 Public Speaking Skills

Chapter 15 Fundament!

Chapter 16 Under Pressure

Chapter 17 Sailing Under False Colours

Chapter 18 The Truth

Chapter 19 Good news

Chapter 20 …and Bad News

Chapter 21 Leaving

Chapter 22 Our Worst Nightmare

Chapter 23 The Race

Chapter 24 Jump!

Epilogue New Beginnings

About the Author

Chapter 1: Crash Landing

Pirates! My head’s full of them; always has been for as long as I can remember. I’m lying in bed trying to read a book about them right now but I can’t concentrate; I’m too busy worrying about tomorrow. Tomorrow’s the start of the new term, or ‘semester’ as they call it at my school here in America, the school I’ve been trying to fit into for the past six months. Trying and failing.

I hear Mum thundering up the stairs.

‘Robert…Robert!’

‘What?’ I snap.

‘I’ve just had a phone call. We’ve got to go to Bermuda right away!’

'Bermuda? What for?'

‘It's your sister.’

'Sophie? What about her?'

'She's been in a car crash.'

I shoot bolt upright in bed.

‘Is it serious?’

She nods and wipes her eyes. Her hands are shaking.

‘How serious?’

She doesn’t reply. She takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself, trying not to panic me. But, by not answering the question, she panics me more.

‘How serious?’ I almost shout.

My older brother, Jamie, sticks his head through the door,

‘Stop asking questions, Rob, and get ready now!’

‘How serious?’ This time I do shout.

‘They said she’s in a critical condition.’ Mum’s voice shakes. ‘We’ve got to go right now. Dad’s at work. They’re letting us use the company plane. It’ll be much quicker.’

Jamie disappears down the stairs, ‘I’ll call a taxi. We can meet Dad at the airport.’

So, less than half an hour later, here I am on a tiny plane, trying to get my shocked brain to focus enough to fasten the seat belt. When it finally clicks into place, I look up. Unluckily, so does Doctor Baines, my Dad’s new boss. I can’t understand for the life of me what she’s doing here with us or why she’s even letting us use the company plane. She doesn’t even know Sophie and from what I’ve heard, she doesn’t usually put herself out for anybody, even in an emergency.

I’ve only met her twice before and that’s one time too many. The first time I saw her I thought, ‘Wow: she’s gorgeous.’ She’s slim with big blue eyes and long blonde hair. But when I looked closer I realised she’s just a bit too thin, like she’s got too many sharp corners.

That’s when I nicknamed her ‘Doctor Bones.’ She might seem attractive on the outside but it doesn’t take you long to suss out that it’s a very different story on the inside. She’s sitting opposite me now, flashing a perfect smile without a flicker of friendliness in it. She breaks eye contact first, rummages in her handbag and sprays herself all over with perfume from a silver and blue bottle. In this small cabin, the smell’s overpowering. It catches in the back of my throat and makes me feel sick.

‘Do you like it?’ she asks, but she doesn’t wait for me to answer. Just as well really; I’m a thirteen year old boy, perfume is not really my thing.

She snaps the blue lid back onto the small silver bottle. It’s got the name of the perfume written down the side in blue letters. She leans over towards me and lowers her voice as if she’s telling me a secret, ‘These bottles are made of solid silver, so it’s extremely expensive. It’s called ‘Status’.’

And I think, ‘Why am I not surprised?’

I don’t know what to say, so I just do a stupid half smile. The pilot turns slightly towards me. He raises his eyebrows and shakes his head, glancing in Doctor Baines’ direction as if to say ‘Can you believe this woman?’ Then he turns back to Dad who’s anxiously asking him how long the flight will take.

Dr Baines inspects her makeup in a mirror and runs a tiny brush over her eyebrows. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep in case she starts talking to me again.

‘This is going to be a long flight.’

I eventually fall asleep and into a long, horrible dream where Sophie’s just lying there, heart stopped, not breathing…

I wake up with a start, heart pounding and check the time on my mobile. I’ve been asleep for an hour; that means we’re not even half way there. Behind me I can hear Mum talking quietly to Jamie. I don’t move in case she stops; she treats Jamie and Sophie like adults, she treats me like a child.

‘She’s on a life support machine, love.’

A life support machine? Just the sound of it sends a cold chill through me; that’s the thing they hook you up to so your family gets a chance to say ‘Goodbye’. Then, with one flick of a switch, the machine stops working and you die. How can that apply to Sophie? She’s the most alive person I know. Everybody loves Sophie. She’s always laughing, always enthusiastic about everything and everyone. Even me, her wimpy little brother.

I stare out of the window. While I’ve been asleep, the sky has turned steely grey and threatening. The vast expanse of sea below us, which was a stunning bright blue earlier, now looks dark and menacing. A sudden, terrifying string of jolts and shudders soon has me tightening my seat belt as a wild multi-coloured electrical storm approaches and quickly surrounds us.

I feel Mum squeeze my arm from her seat behind mine and I turn round to her. She looks terrified. Her face is pale, almost grey. I follow her gaze out of the window. Blinding flashes of lightning shoot out one after another. In between each of the flashes, the sky turns blood red.

Suddenly the plane plummets so unexpectedly that Mum screams, leaving the pilot struggling with the joy stick. He wrestles it back under some sort of control but we’re still losing height fast.

He shouts to Dad, ‘It’s no use; we’re going down. Grab those flight charts and strap yourself in!’

Dad just sits there like he doesn’t understand.

‘Move yourself man! We need to work out where we are from those charts. Don’t lose them!’

Dad frantically stuffs the maps down the front of his shirt as the pilot shouts into the radio, ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday…’

The first time the plane hits the sea, my seatbelt locks across my middle like a kick in the stomach. The second jolt is even more brutal. This one slams me back into my seat so the breath explodes from my lungs. When I inhale again, they fill with bitter smoke that scorches my throat.

‘Oh God, we’re going to die!’ Time becomes scrambled. Things happen so fast, yet at the same time everything is so vivid that it’s like watching it all in slow motion. I’m jerked sideways and my face smashes against the window. I can feel the plane bouncing off the surface of the water and I suddenly have a flashback to when I was six. Jamie was eleven and he was teaching me to skim a flat stone on a pond: three, four, five times it skipped across the surface before it sank without a trace. Then we crash into waves again, jolting me back into reality, and I think: ‘Oh God, how many more until we go under?’

Jamie’s thrown out of his seat as we hit the sea again. The impact forces him clear across the cabin and slams him into the wall with a sickening crunch. He lets out a harrowing scream, then falls silent.

I sit there, paralysed; watching the chaos, hearing my family screaming, but it’s as if I’m not really there, as if it’s all happening to somebody else. Dad’s voice snaps me out of my daze, ‘Get out, Robbie! Get out!’

I go into automatic pilot, grappling desperately with my seat belt but I’m blinded as seawater starts pouring in from all directions. It tastes of petrol and makes my face sting. The sudden, thick smell of burning plastic makes me gag.

The water’s rising so fast, I flail and stagger like someone drunk. Arms and legs thrash all around me. A rucksack floats past, level with my chin... and still the water keeps rising!

‘Oh God, where’s the door?`

The gap between the water and the roof of the plane is shrinking by the second. I press my face up as close as I can to the ceiling. I want my mum.

‘Mum! Dad!’

The desperation in my own scream scares me. I sound more like an animal than a person.

I look around but the smoke and stinging seawater in my eyes make it pointless.

‘Where’s the exit? Where’s the exit!’ I’m screaming it out, but I can’t hear myself. My voice is drowned out by the deafening screech of the engines as they churn in the sea. The plane has stopped skimming the surface now. I know what’s coming next.

Someone thrashes about under the water by my legs, then breaks through to the air pocket.

‘Dad!’ I roar.

He grabs me and bellows down my ear, ‘I’ve found the door but it’s jammed!’ He fills his lungs with fume-filled air and dives back under.

‘Come back Dad!’ I plead in terror, ‘Dad! Dad!’

My screams are a waste of precious oxygen as the plane starts its final descent. I don’t want to die like this.

Suddenly, I’m aware of light; brilliant, blinding light. I’ve heard about this; how people see a bright tunnel of light just before they die. So this is it. I’m dying, alone and terrified. The tunnel of light grows wider and I stop fighting. I’m mesmerised, strangely calm.

I’m brutally jolted back to reality as hands grab me and shove me towards a widening hole in the roof where the plane’s ripping itself apart above my head like a giant metal zip. The agony of my nose hitting the edge of the jagged fuselage makes me gasp.

Fresh air fills my lungs.

I’m outside. I’m alive!

I know I’ve got to get as far away from the plane as I can or I’ll be sucked down with it as it sinks. Massive waves push me back towards wreckage but I fight against them for all I’m worth.

‘Don’t look back, don’t look back,’ I warn myself silently over and over.

I don’t want to see what’s behind me. If Mum and Dad are still alive they’ll shout my name. I battle on, praying to hear them.

I’m exhausted. My lungs hurt and there’s a stabbing pain deep in my chest. It’s no use; I can’t go any further. A wave lifts me high and I look up for the first time to see where I’m headed. There’s nothing there. Just miles of empty sea and sky.

Above me, the lightning storm continues to rage, spitting out bolt after bolt of electricity in every colour, including some I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

I tread water… and listen. My wet clothes are a dead weight, slowly dragging me down. I’ve got to take them off. I start with my jumper but get tangled up in the sleeves so I give up; I’ve got no strength left.

I feel the pain of every passing second. My arms and legs are heavy and numb. I’m moving them so slowly now that my face is barely above the water. Still no sound from anyone.

I don’t want to acknowledge what this means. I think about being left alone with no Mum, Dad, Sophie or Jamie. The whole idea is unbearable so I give in to the temptation of letting myself sink. I don’t want to live without them; I just want it to be over. As the water closes over my face, I feel light-headed and peaceful again.

But something hard hits me in the back of my head and I yelp in surprise as the shock brings me scrabbling back to the surface, coughing up sea water. I smile sadly when I see what’s hit me: my dad’s briefcase. Instinctively, I grab it and cling on tight. As I wipe the water from my eyes, another searing pain shoots up through the bridge of my nose from where I hit it on the way out of the plane. When I pull my hand away, my fingers are covered in blood.

‘Oh God!’

Now I’m petrified by every ripple on the choppy water, as my imagination turns it into a pointed black shark’s fin. I know they are all around, I know they can smell the blood, I know they’ll be here soon and I know there’s no point trying to out-swim them.

I squeeze Dad’s briefcase to my chest and float on my back, my heart pounding. I won’t survive the attack so there’s no point in fighting. All I can do is hope it will be quick. But it’s not quick, so I drift for an age, terrified, until something moves right next to me: shark! I scream and lash out. But I’m caught instantly.

‘Robert! Robert! It’s me!’

Mum’s voice! My parents haul me in over the side of the plane’s inflatable dinghy. I kick and claw my way out of the water and land with a thud in the bottom, still clinging on to Dad’s stupid briefcase. The sharks brush their unblinking faces along the thin rubber sides and then circle back to look for me.

I lie face down, panting. I can smell the rubber of the dinghy floor and I wonder helplessly if it will be enough to keep us safe. The muscles in my arms and legs tremble and twitch with exhaustion as I pull myself up to hug Mum and Dad, sobbing like a toddler. Then I catch sight of the crumpled shape behind Mum. My stomach lurches.

‘What’s wrong with Jamie?’

He’s unconscious; his leg’s sticking out at an odd angle, like a snapped twig.

‘He needs help,’ is all she says.

The image of Jamie being tossed into the air and smashed against the wall of the cabin flashes through my mind as clear as a film-clip. I shake my head to erase it.

I sit and stare blankly ahead. I still can’t take in what’s just happened; we’re supposed to be living the American Dream. We only moved from England to Florida six months ago. Dad’s a scientist and when he was made redundant he got a job in Dr Baines’ brand new laboratory. Then Sophie wangled a university place in Bermuda. We were all so excited about going out to see her there in the next holidays. But today, the American Dream’s turned into a nightmare.

‘What happened to the pilot? Where’s Doctor Baines?’ I ask, but there’s no reply.

We sit in silence, dazed, staring at each other as the stormy red sky crackles overhead and throws an unnatural glow over everything in the boat.

Every so often Mum or Dad check Jamie’s pulse. I can tell from their expressions that he’s in a bad way. I study his lifeless face and feel sick.

Jamie drives me mad at times because he’s so perfect. He’s good looking, clever, sporty, but he’s exactly the kind of person you need in an emergency like this. He wants to be a marine biologist and he knows everything there is to know about the great outdoors. He knows how to start a fire, build a waterproof shelter, set up a camp and hunt for food. I wrack my brains to think of what he would do now, so that I can do it instead. But the idea of me rescuing the family is ridiculous. I feel completely useless.

Dad moves over to check the automatic beacon. Its regular distress signals are supposed to tell the air-sea rescue exactly where to find us. He straightens up slowly and says, ‘It’s not working.’

‘How will anyone know where we are then?’ Mum asks uneasily.

At first Dad says nothing. He looks for a long time at Jamie slumped