Pirates of the Caribbean 06 Silver by Rob Kidd Read Free Book Online Page A

would you?"The aristocrat did as he was told. He set it in the middle of the thick wooden table. Jack carefully laid the medallion out in front of him. It glinted, reflecting the lantern's flames. Then he took out the silver gem he had swiped from Silverback and laid it next to the medallion."Where on earth did you get that? Fitzwilliam asked in surprise. None of them had seen the fight with Silverback, or seen Jack take the gem from him."A pirate gave it to me," Jack said whimsically. "Looks like a good fit, doesn't it?" He moved it so it was near an open setting in the medallion, next to the bronze one."That g em--it's mine!" Tim cried out. Everyone stared at him. The crew was taken aback. They didn't know him very well--they had only just picked him up in New Orleans, and he had previously been working with the villainous Madame Minuit. Had they trusted him too quickl y?
    Tim shrank back a bit. "I mean, my family's," he explained more calmly. But he never took his eyes off the silver gem."This whole medallion thing is getting stranger and stranger," Jack said slowly. "Maybe you'd better explain yourself, lad. Start from the beginning."Tim cleared his throat, a little reluctant to tell his sad story. "It's been in my family for generations. My great-great grandfather, Jebediah Hawk, acquired it on one of his expedition s to the New World--the Hawks still lived in England back then. My da never thought it was anything special, just a souvenir from a trip. A charm. It's just silver, after all. But it was one of the few things our family had, you know?" His face darkened, remembering. Silverback came looking for it two years ago. ... It was a horrible night . . . his leg and terrible grin all glowing red like fire . . . everything in the house flying around . . . I'd never seen anything like it. Before that time, nothing out of the ordinary had happened to me--or anyone I knew for that matter. Wizards and magic and supernatural things were things you read about, not things you lived. I didn't know there really were wizards! Or pirates. Or pirate wizards. I thought they was just stories my da' told me."He took a deep breath.
    "Silverback destroyed everything, lookin g for the gem. R emember him screaming like a madman. Where is it? Where’s the silver bullet?' Then his leg and face glowed this horrible yellow. And he turned, looking right at me. My father grabbed me and pushed me out the back door and made me run away. When I looked back all I saw were flames--and Silverback still grinning. I don't know what happened to my mom and da'."His eyes were very bright with memory in the lantern light."There now, lad," Fitzwilliam said a little awkwardly.
    "Go on," Jack prodded the boy."I stowed away on the first fishing vessel I could find that was headed to Barbados," Tim continued after collecting himself.
    "My uncle lives there. I thought I could live with him, and together we could find my family. Maybe they were still alive. Maybe they we re already on their way to see him. But then we made a port of call at the mouth of the Pantano River. I left the boat for a little while--just enough time to find or steal some food. A stranger approached me. He was dressed all in rags and looked crazy, with all these dead snakes hanging around his neck. . . .Jack's eyebrows raised. He immediately recognized the description of the old man in rags. It was the same disguise Madame Minuit used when the crew confronted her in New Orleans.
    "Madame Minuit!" Jack said.The boy nodded grimly."She grabbed my arm and told my own story back to me. The gem, my home going up in flames, the fact that I was looking for my parents . . . and she told me she would help me, if I did as she said."
    "What did you do?" Fitzwilliam asked.The boy gave him a look. "A crazy 'man' with dead snakes hanging around his neck who can read your mind asks you to 'do some things for him'? What do ya think I did? I told him I would seriously think about it. And I seriously