The Caribbean by Rob Kidd Read Free Book Online Page A

things were very different. Now he had a whole crew and a ship to be reckoned with. Not to mention a quite excellent hat.
    He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Was he seeing things again?
    “Jean, mate!” he called down as the Pearl dropped anchor.
    A freckled, green-eyed young man with curly red-brown hair looked up from the line he was tying to the dock. “Jack!” he cried in delight, smiling broadly.
    “ Captain Jack!” Jack reminded him, waving.
    “Of course,” Jean Magliore said brightly. “ Captain Jack.” Jean had been one of the first crew members Jack ever had, back when there were just a handful of them sailing the Barnacle around the Caribbean. Jack hadn’t seen him in years.
    Jack didn’t even have to offer a place aboard the Pearl ; Jean was anxious to leave the ship he was working on. “The captain is so boring, Jack,” he said as they stood together on the dock, watching the hustle and bustle of ships loading and unloading around them. “You’d barely even know he was there. Not one grand adventure in all the time I’ve been with him. Not a single ghost or mermaid trying to kill us, not one cursed amulet turning things to bronze. I’m afraid once you’ve sailed with Captain Jack Sparrow, nothing else quite measures up. You’re sure you have room for me on the Pearl ?”
    Jack beamed. “Absolutely,” he said. “Especially now that you don’t have that dreadful feline, Constance, following you around anymore. I don’t know if I ever mentioned this, but I quite loathed her.”
    “Oh, you’ve always made that much perfectly clear, Jack,” Jean said. “ Non, mon ami , my sister is back in human form and having a very normal human life, finally.”
    “ Excellent ,” Jack said. “Then you’re welcome aboard!”
    “But…” Jean said nervously.
    “No, no, no buts,” Jack said, waving his hands.
    “I do have one tiny problem,” Jean said. “That is, not really a problem, more like a—companion—a duty, kind of—I mean, she has nowhere else to go, so…I’m kind of responsible for her.”
    “Oh, no ,” Jack said, burying his head in his hands.
    “She won’t be a bother!” Jean assured him. “It’s my, uh, cousin Marcella, you see. She’s been, um, orphaned, and she needs a protector, so that’s me, and…oh, Jack, say you don’t mind. She won’t be any trouble at all; she’s only a brat to me, really, I’m sure.”
    “I HEARD THAT.”
    Jack and Jean whirled around. A skinny girl stood on the dock behind them with her hands on her hips, glaring at Jean. She looked about the same age as Carolina, more elegantly dressed in a long gray gown, but not half so pretty. Jack blinked and rubbed his face. Her eyes looked brown—but then they looked yellow when she turned her head. Yellow eyes? His curse must have been making him see things again.
    “Jean!” Marcella said, stamping her foot. “I am not a brat! I’m not! You must stop saying things like that! It’s mean and it’s not fair!”
    “I’m sorry,” Jean said penitently. “Listen, I’m getting us a place on this fine ship here, isn’t that splendid?”
    Marcella’s gaze swept over the Black P earl , from one end to the other. She wrinkled her nose. “It looks like a pirate ship,” she said disapprovingly. As if the Jolly Roger at the top didn’t make that obvious.
    “And so it is, love,” Jack said. “The fastest, most glorious pirate ship ever to sail the Seven Seas.”
    The girl gave him the same long, considering gaze she’d given the ship, and her expression of disapproval didn’t change. “Hey, wait,” she said. “You look like…aren’t you…Jack?”
    Jack was startled. Surely he’d never seen this young lady before in his life.
    “Er,” Jean said quickly. “Give us a moment, Jack.” He seized Marcella’s arm and drew her away behind a stack of crates, while he talked quickly in French.
    Jack gave Diego and Carolina a puzzled look as they came down the gangplank, admiring the busy