Peter and the Sword of Mercy by Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson Read Free Book Online Page A

at Peter. “I must get them off the island. Soon, before they learn anything more.”
    Peter felt relieved that Fighting Prawn wanted only to make the sailors leave. There was a time when the Mollusk chief would not have hesitated to kill the intruders.
    “But how will you get them off?” Peter asked.
    Fighting Prawn stared out to sea. “I had planned to wait for a ship to pass, and put them on it. But so few ships come near this island…it could take months, or even years. We need a ship now.”
    Peter thought for a moment, then said, “There’s the ship in the pirate lagoon.” He was referring to the ship that had flown from Rundoon to the island years earlier, carrying Peter, Starcatchers, the Lost Boys, Captain Hook—and a hull filled with starstuff, which had kept it aloft.
    The chief frowned. “That ship’s been sitting on the bottom for decades,” he said.
    Peter nodded. “Yes, but aside from the hole in the hull where the starstuff fell out, it seems to be in decent condition. What if it could be raised and repaired? O’Neal and his men are quite handy; they repaired our hut quick as you please. With the help of your men, they might be able to do the same to the pirate ship.”
    Fighting Prawn pondered that, then said, “How do you think Hook would feel about your idea?”
    “I should think he’d be happy,” said Peter. “He’s always saying he wants to get off the island. With the ship repaired, he could sail away, a captain again.”
    “So,” said Fighting Prawn. “We would rid ourselves of our troublesome guests, and our unhappy neighbors.”
    “Yes,” said Peter.
    Fighting Prawn nodded, a smile spreading slowly over his sun-baked face.

CHAPTER 8
     
    W ENDY L EARNS THE S ECRET
     
    N OT ANOTHER WORD OF THIS NONSENSE! I forbid it!”
    George Darling rose from his chair and stood over Molly, his face a deep, angry scarlet. Molly studied her husband, wondering how this could be the same George Darling who once took command of a flying ship in a raging battle over a distant desert. He looked much the same—a bit heavier, with a touch of gray in his hair, but still quite handsome. Yet he sounded so stuffy, so… old.
    “You forbid it?” she said.
    “Yes, I …” George hesitated, seeing the defiance in Molly’s glittering green eyes. “Well, I…I mean…Dash it, Mary! How could you go to the police? Do you have any idea what would happen if word of your little escapade got to my firm?”
    “Escapade?” hissed Molly. “It was not an escapade when the constable tried to grab me.”
    “You have no reason to believe he meant you harm,” said George. “He was probably just trying to assist you.”
    “He was not trying to ‘assist’me.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “I just know.”
    “You just know,” mocked George. “The same way you just know that James has discovered that the prince—the prince —has fallen under the spell of a…ghost.”
    Molly glanced toward the stairs, concerned that the children would overhear. “It’s not a ghost,” she said. “You know very well what it is.”
    “I know no such thing,” he replied. “I know only that James felt a chill in Buckingham Palace, and now my wife is jeopardizing my career by traipsing off to Scotland Yard and—”
    “Your career?” interrupted Molly. “Is your career more important than James’s safety? Than mine? Is it more important than the future of England?”
    “There is no evidence that either England, or James, is in any danger,” George said, using his barrister-arguing-before-a-judge voice, which Molly found quite irritating. “You said yourself that James’s superior explained how he’d gone on holiday. We have no reason to disbelieve him. Sounds to me as though James was under quite a bit of strain, imagining this preposterous tale about von Schatten. A bit of holiday makes perfect sense.”
    “But what if it’s not preposterous?” said Molly. “What if it’s true?”
    George leaned