Blue Sea Burning by Geoff Rodkey Read Free Book Online Page A

at the sky. “Your mother’s watching. Make her proud.”
    I got a little lump in my throat at the mention of our mother.
    Adonis did, too. “Thank ye, please,” he told Healy in a scratchy voice.
    â€œYou’re quite welcome, thank you very please,” said Healy with a smirk.
    Then Spiggs called to him from across the deck, and he left us to make our way off the ship alone.
    All of a sudden, I didn’t want to leave. The thought of parting ways with Burn Healy, for the first time since I’d learned he was my uncle, didn’t sit well.
    Not that I had much of a choice. It wasn’t like he’d asked me to stay. And sooner or later, he’d be shooting it out with Ripper Jones and
Li Homaya.
I didn’t want to be anywhere near that battle if I could help it.
    Even so . . .
    Before I left him, I had to make sure of something.
    The others were already on the gangway.
    â€œJust one second!” I called out to them. Then I ran across the deck to where Healy and Spiggs were talking.
    My uncle heard me coming. By the time I reached him, he’d already turned toward me. His eyebrows were furrowed together, and he had a pained look in his eye.
    â€œI’m sorry, son—there’s dirty work afoot, and it’s no place for children—I mean, I would if I could, but—”
    â€œIt’s not that,” I said.
    â€œOh.” He looked a little flustered. “Then what?”
    â€œI’ve made a decision,” I told him. “I’m going to destroy Roger Pembroke. Or die trying.”
    He almost smiled. But not quite.
    â€œWell, in that case . . .” He dug in his pocket for a moment. “Take another five gold. You’ll need it.”
    He dropped the coins into my hand. Then he ruffled the hair on the top of my head and returned to his conversation without another word. He had a job to do.
    And so did I.

CHAPTER 7
    Housekeeping
    THINGS HAD CHANGED at the ugly fruit plantation since we’d been away, and not for the better.
    The lower fields were shaggy and overgrown, like nothing had been pruned in ages. Harvesting hooks lay here and there, spotty with rust. And there wasn’t a field pirate in sight, although I could hear hoarse voices yelling at each other down near the barracks.
    As we approached the house, the first thing I noticed was that the shark’s jaws Dad had hung over the front door were gone.
    Then I realized the front door was gone, too.
    Next to where the door used to be, there were two cannonball-sized holes in the wall. So it probably shouldn’t have come as such a surprise when we stepped inside and discovered a cannon in the middle of the living room.
    It was surrounded by a thick carpet of shattered bottles, chicken bones, bent playing cards, and some spectacularly broken furniture. Only the couch was more or less in one piece, along with the legless house pirate who was asleep on it with a copy of
Principles of Citrus Cultivation
open across his chest.
    â€œQuint?”
    â€œBack off, ye crapsacks!”
    He sprang to his feet—actually, his stumps, which ended where most people’s upper thighs are—brandishing a knife that must have been hidden under the book.
    Then he realized who we were.
    â€œ
Egbert!
And . . . Savior save us, is that Adonis? Thought ye was dead!”
    Adonis was furious. “Wot’d ye do to the house, ye stupid—”
    â€œRespect—” I reminded him.
    â€œFoo—ye—
thank ye very much
!” he finished, spitting out the phrase in a way that gave it pretty much the opposite meaning from its usual one.
    Quint looked sheepish. “If I’d known ye was comin’, I woulda . . .”
    â€œ. . . not blown holes in the wall?” I suggested.
    He shook his head sadly. “Bad night, that was. Lessons learned, I tell ye.”
    Then his eyes landed on Kira, and his face brightened. He