The Pirate Book You've Been Looking For Read online

  Map

  Dedication

  For Jake and Sam

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Map

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Excerpt from Shivers!: The Pirate Who’s More Terrified Than Ever

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  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  SUDDENLY, EVERYTHING WENT DARK.

  Shivers the Pirate whirled around frantically, but all he could see was vast black nothingness. It was horrifying!

  What is happening?! Shivers thought. Just moments ago, his parents had been standing beside him, but now they were gone. Everything was gone!

  Did the lightbulbs break? Did the sun burn out? Did somebody steal my eyes?!

  Panic bubbled up in his stomach like a stew left simmering too long on a stovetop. His whole body began to shake: his teeth were chattering, his arms were wiggling, the bunny slippers on his feet were doing a danger dance.

  Where had all the light gone? Was he dreaming? Was he nightmaring? No, this had a for-real feel.

  Shivers had spent his whole life trying to stay away from the dark, and now it was all he could see. He reached out in front of him, trying to find a light to turn on. But there was nothing there. His heart pounded in his chest so wildly it sounded like it was trying to tell a knock-knock joke.

  There was only one thing he could do.

  “AAAAAAAGH!” Shivers shrieked. He spun around in a circle then collapsed to the ground in a screap—which, if you don’t already know, is a screaming heap.

  Suddenly, all the light came flooding back. Shivers was lying in the sand on New Jersey Beach. His parents, Bob and Tilda, were standing above him. His mom was holding a bandanna in her hand.

  “I told you the blindfold was a bad idea,” said Bob, shaking his head.

  “I thought it would make the surprise more fun,” said Tilda.

  “What surprise?” Shivers asked suspiciously. He hated anything unexpected and generally lived by the rule “Surprises cause demises.”

  “This surprise!” Tilda said, yanking him to his feet and turning him around. Towering right in front of him was a brand-new pirate ship. It was magnificent. The polished wooden hull shimmered in the sunlight. The crisp white sails fluttered majestically in the breeze. There was even a ring of floaties surrounding the deck.

  “For me?!” Shivers asked.

  Tilda nodded.

  “My new ship!” he shouted with glee. “It’s finally finished! I thought I’d never move back to my beautiful beach!” He picked up two handfuls of sand and kissed each of them. “It’s been years!”

  Really, it had only been three days, but Shivers had been so uneasy and so queasy that it felt like much longer. When his old ship, the Land Lady, had been destroyed, Shivers had been forced to move out to sea with his parents. Bob and Tilda had tried their best to make Shivers comfortable on their ship, but everything about it terrified him to the core. He wailed at every wave that rocked the ship and screamed at every seagull swooping by. Bob couldn’t even toast the bread for a tuna melt without Shivers having a tuna meltdown. Shivers had a deep fear of toasters—they always pop up when you least expect it.

  With all the screaming that had been going on, Bob and Tilda hadn’t slept a wink. They knew they had to get Shivers out of the sea and back to the beach as fast as pirately possible. Luckily, Bob was an expert shipbuilder and Tilda was an expert at plundering all of Shivers’s favorite things.

  Shivers burst through the front door of the ship and squealed, “It’s perfect!”

  Bob and Tilda showed him all around the ship. His sleeping quarters were cozier than ever. He had brand-new curtains covered in pictures of kittens sitting in coffee cups. On top of his bed were hundreds of marshmallows sewn together to make the comfiest comforter imaginable. It also could come in handy as a midnight snack.

  Shivers had just one question. “Where are the night-lights?”

  “Where aren’t the night-lights?” Tilda replied. She flicked a switch and the walls lit up with floor-to-ceiling night-lights, filling the entire room with a warm glow.

  “Yes!” Shivers screamed. “Death to darkness!” He ran down the hall cheering. Which was a nice change, because usually he ran down the hall fearing.

  In just a few short steps, he reached his brand-new kitchen. Waiting for him on the counter was his first mate, Albee.

  “Albee!” Shivers cheered. “Can you believe this place?”

  He looked around the kitchen, which was customized for all his cravings. He flung open the fridge door and found it fully stocked with his favorite soft snacks, from jars of Jell-O to plates of pudding.

  The pantry was packed with all kinds of mixes: brownie, pancake, and even trail. Albee had his own shelf, which was stacked with soft butter, his absolute favorite food.

  Shivers placed Albee’s bowl on the shelf so he could get a closer look. “This is all for you!”

  “You’d butter not touch it!” Albee said. But sadly no one heard him because he’s a fish.

  Shivers marveled at the rest of the room. There was a giant microwave so he could make popcorn and heat up old pizza at the same time. The windowsill was decorated with pots full of daisies and sunflowers.

  “We got you a flower bed,” said Bob, beaming.

  “Awww,” said Shivers, “I’ll have to get some flower pillows and a cozy flower blankie!”

  Before Bob could explain what a flower bed actually was, Shivers saw something very disturbing on the counter. “AAAGH! A toaster!” he screamed.

  “Don’t worry,” Tilda said, putting her arm around him and walking him carefully toward the device. “It has slow-rise popping action. See?”

  Two pieces of bread rose up slowly and silently from the toaster, like a sleepy jack-in-the-box.

  Shivers’s eyes popped open in amazement. “It’s a slow-ster! I love it! It’s sooo me!”

  And with that, he hopped through the door and out to the main deck, twirling with excitement. Once he reached the deck, he kept on twirling.

  “Hey, I could spin out here forever!” he exclaimed.

  “That’s what it’s made for! It’s a song and dance deck,” said Tilda.

  Shivers stopped short and gasped. The black surface of the deck was shiny and smooth. It stretched out in front of him for what looked like miles.

  “Somebody jump on the piano! Key of G!” Shivers opened his mouth to sing.

  Bob interrupted him. “Sorry, Shivers, we haven’t gotten you a piano yet. But we did get you this!” He held up a rotting fish skeleton.

  “It’s a fishbone xylophone!” said Tilda proudly. “You play it with a wishbone!”

  Bob demonstrated, clinking out a few flat notes.

  Shivers leaped back in disgust. “Albee would be horrified! You’re lucky he’s busy eating butter right now.”

  Bob shrugged and threw the fish carcass off the deck; it landed on a beachgoer (who quickly became a home-goer).

  Tilda smiled reassuringly. “I swear by all the squids in the sea, we’ll get you that piano. But for now, this will have to just be a dance deck.”

  Shivers sighed. “I guess I can live with that.”

  Tilda knew just the thing to cheer
him up. “You haven’t seen what’s in here!” she said, walking across the deck. She opened the door to an enormous closet and Shivers could see that it was packed to the max with brand-new mops.

  Shivers screamed in sheer delight. Next to singing and dancing, mopping was his favorite activity. He sprinted to the closet and grabbed as many mops as he could. He hugged them all, nuzzling his face into their soft fuzzy mop heads. “You know what they say—‘Mop till you drop!’” Shivers picked up a bucket and tossed it to Tilda. “You get the water, I’ll choose a mop, we’ll meet back here in eight seconds!”

  “No!” said Tilda and Bob at the same time.

  “What? You need ten seconds?” Shivers asked.

  “Shivers, you can’t mop the deck today!” Bob barked.

  “Why not?” Shivers was confused.

  Bob’s eyebrows furrowed into a stern scowl. His jawbone tightened with tension. Even his beard bristled nervously. He looked around cautiously, and then in a terrified whisper he uttered, “The Curse of Quincy Thomas the Pirate.”

  Shivers dropped all the mops. “The what? Of the who?”

  Tilda mashed her lips with concern. She hated to tell Shivers about something so scary because he always got so screamy. But it had to be done. “If a pirate lets a single drop of water hit the deck on the day he gets a new ship, he’ll be cursed by the ghost of Quincy Thomas the Pirate.”

  “Ghost?!” Shivers shrieked.

  “Ghost?!” Bob bellowed, diving into the mop closet.

  “Who said ghost?!” Tilda screeched, jumping in after Bob. Shivers followed close behind her and slammed the closet door.

  They all stood in the dark closet screaming until Tilda shouted, “WAIT!” She clapped her hands over Shivers’s and Bob’s mouths. “Why are we in here screaming? There’s no ghost on the ship. I was just telling you a tale about a ghost. A grave tale.”

  “Grave?!” Shivers screamed.

  “Like the grave of a ghost?!” Bob wailed.

  “GHOST!” Tilda hollered.

  This happened seven more times.

  Normally, Bob and Tilda would never get worked up into such a frantic frenzy. They were two of the bravest pirates at sea, you see, but any mention of ghosts sent them down a tunnel of terror. And it wasn’t just them. All pirates had a boot-shaking, pantaloon-quaking, parrot-pooping fear of ghosts. That’s the way it had always been and the way it would always be. It was the one thing that all pirates had in common with Shivers.

  Finally Shivers and his parents managed to pull themselves together and push each other out of the closet. Tilda tucked her frayed hairs back into her bandanna. Bob un-bristled his beard.

  “Let’s pretend that never happened,” he said. “Well, Shivers, I hope you liked the tour of your ship! We’d better get going. We’ve got some very important plundering to do with your brave brother, Brock.”

  “What about the curse?” Shivers asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Tilda assured him. “Your ship is parked in the middle of the beach, about as far away from the water as a ship can get.”

  Bob turned to go but then stopped short. “We almost forgot! What’s your new ship’s name?”

  Shivers wanted to give the ship a name that honored its best feature, which was the fact that it sat so safely and securely on the sand. “The Groundhog!” he announced proudly.

  Bob and Tilda agreed it was the perfect name.

  Shivers thanked his parents and waved as they sailed their own ship toward the horizon. He decided that now was the perfect time to test out his marshmallow comforter with a midmorning nap. As he went inside and closed the door, he didn’t see the thick stack of angry gray storm clouds gathering above New Jersey Beach.

  Shivers sat up in bed with a start. He had been dreaming about growing his own pillows on a feather farm, but all that was gone now. He heard the sound again.

  BOOM!

  It was coming from outside. He ran to the porthole and saw just about the worst thing he could possibly see.

  “CLOUDS!” he screamed. The smoke-black rain clouds were swirling above Shivers’s ship, and they were about to burst. If one raindrop spilled from those clouds and landed on his deck, he’d be cursed forever. There was only one thing to do: run around screaming like a crazy person.

  Then, after that, there was only one other thing to do. “Protect the deck!” Shivers shouted, grabbing his comforter and scrambling outside. He spread it out as far as he could over the dance deck, but it hardly made a dent.

  He dashed back into his sleeping quarters and ripped the kitten curtains off their rods. He dragged them out and laid them down next to the comforter. But it still wasn’t enough.

  BOOM!

  More thunder rumbled from the sky. Shivers desperately wanted to cower in a closet next to a night-light, but he knew he had to get the deck covered before he could duck for cover.

  He ran to the kitchen in search of more supplies. In one drawer he found a roll of plastic wrap, which he normally used to store leftovers. He also found some tinfoil, which he used to keep the plastic wrap company—it’s dark inside the kitchen cabinets! Shivers stretched the foil and plastic wrap as far down the deck as they would go. But there was still one corner left uncovered.

  Shivers spun around frantically, looking for something that might save him.

  Shower curtain? he thought. But he only took baths.

  Pancake platters? he wondered. No, too precious.

  Then, an idea hit him like a spoonful of baby food.

  “Bibs!” he cried. During his last adventure, bibs had become his most favorite fashion statement, and since then he had accumulated quite a collection. He sprinted to the hall closet, flicked on the night-light, and grabbed every bib he could see. Shivers ran back outside as the clouds cracked open. He flung the bibs like Frisbees and watched them land on the last uncovered corner just in time to catch the first drops of rain.

  Shivers stumbled back into the kitchen and collapsed on the floor. He was proud of himself for covering the deck so quickly. He was glum about his new comforter getting soggy. And he was still disappointed that he wasn’t really a pillow farmer. But most of all, he was very hungry.

  He stood up to get a snack. When he opened the pantry door, he saw Albee still perched on his butter shelf.

  “Albee! I forgot you were in here!” said Shivers, delighted.

  The butter was gone and Albee looked very full. Shivers always wondered how Albee was able to get out of his bowl and eat entire sticks of butter when no one was watching. Then again, there were lots of things Shivers wondered about Albee.

  Albee was so excited about all the butter in his belly that he was swimming around in sloppy, speedy circles.

  Shivers reached out to grab the bowl, but at that moment, Albee careened into the glass. The bowl teetered on the edge of the shelf and crashed to the floor.

  “My first mate!” Shivers screeched as he gathered Albee in his hands. He filled a ziplock bag with water, then dropped Albee inside and breathed a sigh of relief. But then he looked at the mess on the kitchen floor. Trickling out from under the broken bowl was a steady stream of water. Shivers watched in horror as it leaked through the doorway and out onto the deck.

  He clutched Albee’s bag tightly and held it up to his face. Shivers and Albee locked eyes, and Shivers screamed,

  MARGO CLOMPS’N’STOMPS SAT IN the back of Mrs. Beezle’s fifth-grade class and worked on her rubber-band ball. She was hoping that soon it would be so big that she could grab on to it and bounce right out of school. For now, it was about the size of a softball, so she had a long road ahead of her.

  At the front of the room, Mrs. Beezle was going on and on about the geography of Antarctica. Margo was trying her best not to listen and had even stuck erasers in her ears to help (which Mrs. Beezle had told her again and again was not safe and not something to encourage in other kids and that some day those erasers might get stuck and never come out). Margo knew she would go to Antarctica someday,
and she didn’t want Mrs. Beezle giving away any surprises. All she could do now was hope that the rain trickling down the window would stop before recess.

  She looked down at her brand-new bright-yellow watch. The second hand plodded along more slowly than a sleepy sloth on a stroll. Her dad had bought her the watch, insisting that she start coming home on time. But all it had done so far was dissect Mrs. Beezle’s lessons into thousands of endless seconds.

  When the morning announcements finally came on, Margo perked up and took the erasers out of her ears. She needed a break from the Beezle blabbing. Plus, she loved pretending that the sound coming from the speaker was actually a ghost haunting the classroom. Seriously, you should try it. It’s awesome.

  “Good morning, students!” said the crackling voice of the principal. “Hope you New Jersey Jaguars are having a roaring good morning!”

  All the students rolled their eyes at the same time.

  “Today, lunch will be ham in ham sauce. The chess club has officially been changed to the checkers club. And skateboarding will no longer be allowed on the roof. I don’t know why we thought that was a good idea. Now learn a lot and show off those spots! Go Jaguars!”

  The speaker clicked off. Then suddenly, it clicked back on again.

  “Oh, one more thing,” the principal added. “Can someone please come to the front hallway and help the kid dressed as a pirate get his head unstuck from the stuffed jaguar’s mouth? He won’t stop screaming.”

  Margo gasped. The rubber-band ball dropped from her hand and landed with a THUD . . . thud . . . thud. She only knew one person who dressed like a pirate and screamed all the time. And it was probably the same person who would get his head stuck in a fake jaguar’s mouth. She had to get to Shivers right away. Luckily, the ball was bouncing all over the room, and it distracted Mrs. Beezle long enough for Margo to dart out the door.

  Margo sprinted down the long beige hallway, following the sound of the screaming. When she got to the front entrance of the school, she saw two pantaloon-clad legs flailing from the mouth of Fluffy the Jaguar, the giant stuffed school mascot. She grabbed onto Shivers’s ankles and pulled. He popped out and fell to the floor, wheezing uncontrollably and clutching Albee’s bag in his lap.