a pirates field trip, ray rebmann [i love reading .txt] 📗

/> some computer equipment they had set up in a van across the street from the museum. Somehow,

no one noticed it or they thought it was needed to run the new exhibit.

Field Trip Pirates--93

Blind Pugh sat in the van operating the computer to make all the special effects work.

The computer stuff was even labeled in Braille so he’d be able to run the show without

any hitches. How about that. Blind Pugh, a techno geek! What’ll the crooks think of next?

Anyway, now that all the commotion with the pirates died down, some genius college

kid, an intern history student from the college is slacklining up on the wire, entertaining the

crowd before the cops chase him down and throw him out of the museum. But he inspires the

three musketeers with a brilliant idea to keep the field trip interesting.

Dewey dares a girl, Angela Kravitz to walk the tightrope. I’m something of

an expert on fifth grade girls since I have to put up with them all day at school. What I know is

that all Fifth grade girls are dumb. All they care about is boys. They’ll do anything if they think

it’ll get an older boy at all to like them. Any older boy at all.

Even a Dewey.

Angela is just like all the others. I would sometimes stare at her in math class. She’s taller

than most of the other kids and kind of mature looking, if you know what I mean. I guess I kind

of like her. I like the way she always fluffs her hair before she raises her hand to ask a

question. Like a movie star getting ready for her big scene.

But she’s stuck up and doesn’t talk to “little boys” like me. She even tries hanging out

with the eighth graders but they just laugh at her. That makes her feel bad and I feel sorry for her.

She looks pretty scared right now but Angela actually manages to tiptoe halfway across

the wire before anyone notices what she’s doing. And they only notice then because she

starts crying when she realizes what a stupid thing she is, being fifty feet in the air and only a

wire to keep her from crashing. She freezes, too scared to go any further.

Field Trip Pirates--94

She calls out to Dewey to help her but he isn’t going out there. That wire is high off

the ground. And so thin.

“Besides, Ms K told us me I had to stay on this bench. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

The angel replies.

Another crowd of angry, flustered adults gather around the group from ____.

Ms K and a new bunch of official looking grown ups are frantically try to calm the girl

down until the fire department can get there with a safety net and she can drop down

safely.

“We’ve got to save her Mr. J.” I say, not sure if maybe the world might be a better place

with one less Angela Kravitz to distract guys like me.

I look at the old man, not doubting for an instant that he could do it. He looks at me with

that strange look he gets, the one that lets you know he’s seeing right through you and knows

more about you than you know about yourself. Another one of those looks kids always hate to

get from adults.

“He can’t do nothin’. He’s just a dumb old man.” The three numbos, Huey, Dewey and

Louis snicker.

“Why ask me?” Mr. J says. That’s all. He’s still giving me that look.

I’m standing beside Mr. J, at the edge of the crowd. I whisper in the old man’s ear. Mr.

J smiles down at me, then nods and hands me his umbrella.

I take the card he hands me out of his pouch.

It reads:

Matinee Idol. Death defying feats of heroism.
Fearless acts that defy nature. Good always beats bad.
Field Trip Pirates--95

Damsels in distress rescued and romanced by dashing handsome dude.
Little children saved, thrilled, and otherwise amazed speechless.
Money back guaranteed if not completely charmed and amazed.

I open the umbrella and step onto the wire before the adults can stop me. Next thing you

know, there I am, tightrope walking using the umbrella for balance. And me so afraid of heights I

don’t even want to help mom put the angel on the top of the Christmas tree.

“Way cool.” Dewey says and even Huey has to agree.

I slowly cross the wire until I reach the girl. As I stretch to take her hand, the wire

wobbles, then snaps.

Thinking quickly I wrap my sweater around the wire and hold on tight. With

Angela clinging and digging her girl claws into my shoulders I swing back to the platform

and land gracefully with a “tada!” right in front of the crowd of adults who are watching in

amazement.

Even the teachers had stopped yelling at Huey, Dewey, and Louis to gawk.

Then I bow.

The crowd goes ballistic with applause.

I’m still holding the card Mr. J had given me as everybody slaps me on the back to

congratulate me and Angela is giving me this funny look that she’d never given me before. Then

she throws her arms around me and tries to kiss me.

Arrrgh. Maybe I should have left her out there, I think. And now I’m embarrassed

because maybe I wouldn’t have minded her kissing me after all. And all at once, I’m

the one who’s confused.

“Well done Jason. I see you have one of his cards.”

Field Trip Pirates--96

It’s Mrs. J. She’d made her way through the crowd and quietly steers me away from

Angela and the rest. She takes the card out of my hand. I’d squeezed it so much when I was

saving Angela that it looks pretty crumpled.

“This one’s special.” She whispers. “He was holding it the day he met me. He looked just

like Errol Flynn”

My eyes bulge wide open and she laughs and puts a finger to her lips.

I wonder who Errol Flynn is.

* * *


Field Trip Pirates--97

“We didn’t even get a chance to shop at the store.” The boys complain after they’re the

last ones herded aboard the bus for the trip back.

“You’re lucky the museum doesn’t have you three arrested and _____ banned from any

future field trips.” Ms. K scolds

“Oh well, now we’ll never get our pirate’s treasure.” Louis sighs.

Mr. J reaches into his coat pockets and finds the leaves he’d plucked from the ground

yesterday. He hands them out to the kids on the bus.

“Aw they’re just a bunch of dried up old leaves.” Huey Dewey and Louis whine.

But for me, the leaves turn into a pile of silver coins.

“Pieces of eight.” Mr. J winks

Huey smirks at me with that clueless “whatever” expression that’s as much a part of his

face as his nose. So for him, it really is a bunch of dead leaves. They crumble in his fist.

Huey and his buds didn’t get anything out of the field trip. They had found no treasure of

any kind on their day’s adventure so they whine and are just as annoying on the ride home as

they had been on the ride to the museum. The rest of the kids all cheer for Mr. J and count their

treasure and chatter away about what they saw and learned on the field trip.

The kids unanimously agree that they want to be in Mr. J’s group for the next trip.

“Even you Jason?” he asks. “Take another bus ride with an ancient old man?”

“Especially Jason.” I exclaim.

“Then it’ll be our group. How ‘bout it kids, who wants to be in the group led by the Two

J’s?”

The kids all cheer. Angela Kravitz, still making googoo eyes at me from four rows back,

Field Trip Pirates--98

cheers loudest. Look at me, Mister Popularity all of a sudden. I sink down in the seat but the

truth is, I feel pretty good. Even about the Angela bit. Maybe, especially about the Angela bit.

“By the way lad, that trip would be where?”

“The Outer Space exhibition at the science museum.”

“I’ve been there.” He winks at me.

“Or at least, so kid legend has it.”

* * *


Field Trip Pirates--99

The rest of the bus ride home goes real fast until Huey and the boys’ pirate sword

swallowing contest. That ends with a side trip to the emergency room at the hospital after

Louis really does swallow his sword and nearly chokes himself trying to say that Huey and

Dewey did it.. He ends up spitting up some blood but no body parts come out.

I guess that proves that kids are held together better than old people and don’t start to fall

apart and lose bits and pieces of themselves until they get real old.

So we take a detour to the hospital. We leave Louis there with one of the teachers to wait

for the principal and for his mom to come deal with him. I hope his insides didn’t explode and

come pouring out of his ears.

I wonder what would happen if something happened and he never comes back to our

school.

The three musketeers would have to become a dynamic duo. They may not be up on the

classics as Mrs. J calls them but I’m pretty sure Huey and Dewey read comic books…at least

they saw the Batman movies. Maybe they’ll know how to act in that case. They were lousy as

musketeers.

* * *


Field Trip Pirates --100

The museum people never did figure out where that extra pirate treasure that turned up

came from. Mr. J had found the hidden trap door under the hidden room that had to be reached

by the first trap door.

The museum people were amazed to learn that all these hidden rooms and

trap doors and secret passageways were right under their noses. I mean, they’re great for going to

the far reaches of the world, to Africa and the North Pole and places like that. But they didn’t

even know what they had right there in their own museum.

So Mr. J was strutting around, proud as a peacock the day he got to teach them a thing or

two about treasure hunting when he led them through all the secret stuff and they found….

TREASURE!

Money from all over the world, from countries that don’t even exist any more. Gold and

silver