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

map

led them right to….to what? The blind man’s hungry tiger?

I take a deep breath and plunge ahead, too curious to be smart because if I was smart I’d

sure be a lot more afraid…

Now I can tell I’m getting close. I smell the ocean. Or maybe the museum people

Field Trip Pirates --58

are being real genuine with the exhibit and came up some special ocean smells. Just use some

of Huey’s old socks. That would make a good low tide smell.

The exhibit’s locked up of course. Everybody is downstairs pushing and shoving in

line trying to be first to go through when they open the doors.

* * *


Field Trip Pirates --59

Ms K led her group into the pirate exhibit. All the kids oohed and aahed when they

found out about John King, the nine year old runaway who became a crew member aboard a

famous pirate ship.

The cannons looked pretty cool but they just lay there doing nothing. The kids wanted to

watch pirates firing them, blasting holes in the walls and wrecking stuff, making lots of noise and

smoke. So everybody sort of nodded at the cannons and walked on hoping the next exhibit had

more kick to it.

That was the display of pirate treasure. Expecting to see mountains of gold

and precious gems, The students groaned again in disappointment when they saw the feeble pile

of coins in a glass case.

A sign posted next to the case noted the small amount of actual money found at the

site of the ship. There were several guesses as to what happened. Maybe it was washed away by

currents. Maybe another treasure hunter had beaten the museum experts to the site at an earlier

time, before such things were such a big deal for history’s sake. Or maybe, the pirates, who

trusted no one, especially one another, hid it somewhere else.

“Maybe their ghosts came and took it away.” One impressionable fifth grader whispered.

The next room showed what was supposed to be a typical pirate tavern with buccaneers

hoisting mugs of rum and singing their yohoho songs. What the kids assumed was a tape

recorded voice came from one of the manikins.

“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest, yohoho and a bottle of rum” it sang out.

“It’s Johnny Depp.” A kid yelled.

“Gimme me some of that rum.” Another chimed in, thinking he was being cool.


Field Trip Pirates --60

There were more glass cases filled with sailing instruments, as well as the frayed remains

of some of the clothes pirates wore. Even the adults were yawning by the time Ms K came to that

display, having insisted on reading every word on every card as she went along since Mr. J was

nowhere to be seen and wasn’t doing his usual job of slowing up the field trip.

“After all, this is a book club. Reading is what we do.”

After everyone had passed through the tavern scene, the eyes on one of the manikins

moved. Then slowly a hand. Then another manikin stretched a stiff leg, groaning in discomfort

as it did so. Slowly, the two dummies stealthily rose to their feet. They crept out of the light

and into the shadowy corners of the exhibit. One of them opened a hidden door in the wall

behind the display. The pair slipped inside.There to wait for the signal that they were needed.

A third manikin, waited until the pair disappeared. Then he too rose and made his way to

the trap door. He listened a while. Then, satisfied that the others had moved on, he slipped

inside the doorway and quietly followed.

* * *


Field Trip Pirates--61

Huey Dewey and Louis were still no where to be seen but they made their presence felt.

Further along the exhibit, a couple of the younger kids ran crying to Ms K that they were

scared. Ms K explained that the pirates were just manikins but the kids cried. They weren’t

afraid of the manikins.

They were afraid of Huey Dewey and Louis.

The boys had paused on the race to follow their special treasure map when they reached a

door way with a curtain hanging down to conceal what was on the other side. The map pointed

them toward what was on the other side of that curtain. They guessed the curtain was there to

hide something cool on the other side. All the goody goods that come to museums would stop at

the curtain. Then they’d read the sign that advised them to keep out and that would be the end of

their adventure.

But with Huey, that sign might as well have read, “please enter and do whatever you

want as long as it’s mischief”.

The boys were annoyed when they did just that and found themselves in an empty

corridor leading toward another exhibit room in a part of the museum that had been closed for a

long time. It was dark for one thing

Cobwebs hanging down all along the corridor was another clue that no one had been back

here for a while.

The huge rats were the best clue. The rats were pretty much in charge of the area. They

must have recognized some distant relatives come for a visit because they left the boys alone.

The musketeers were afraid to go forward but none of them wanted to admit it so Huey

managed to save the day.

Field Trip Pirates--62

“We can hang out here, behind this curtain, and scare all the little kids as they pass.”

And that’s just what they did.

Their first victims, a group of younger students, were soon racing back through the

exhibit like a herd of those animals you see on the safari videos after a lion shows up on the plain

and starts chasing them.

That started Ms. K running around too, flustered and trying to round up the herd.

Meanwhile, the boys had grown bored with that educational experience. They were also

feeling braver thinking that if the rats could go back there so could they. They pushed

through the cobwebs, ignored the eerie squeaking floor, and ran down the corridor that had been

posted off limits.

What they found was better than pirate treasure.

The room was lit by torches. The boys thought the flames coming out of the walls were

neat. They cast a gloomy glow over the room. It was hard to make out at first but at the far end of

the room was a pirate ship.

They immediately ignored the “Keep Off” sign and climbed aboard. The ship creaked

and moaned like the way Dewey’s old grandpa sounded trying to move after laying on the couch

watching television all afternoon,

No one was watching which for the boys meant that anything goes. So they went wild

and set out exploring the ship, wild kid style. They made the boat rock as they shook it from side

to side.

Had to give it to those idiots, they worked together great as a team.

Then they made bloodcurdling yells and threatened to keelhaul anybody who came

Field Trip Pirates --63

aboard. Of course, they still didn’t know what ‘keelhauling” was. But being natural born bullies

and numbskulls, they were sure to come up with something annoying and pass it off as

keelhauling..

After running a million times in a matter of minutes from top to bottom and from end to

end they got bored being pirates. They’d forgotten all about the map and all the treasure and

adventure that awaited the three musketeers at the end of that map.

They decided to play a trick on the rest of the field trip. They’d sneak back and take

down the “Keep out” sign by the curtain. This would be their chance to scare all the little kids.

Settle some scores with a few super nerds like Jason. If they were really lucky, maybe give a

teacher or two a heart attack.

“We’ll keel haul the whole bunch of them as they come through.” Huey announced.

His buds loved the plan.

“But first, we have to get rid of that sign. And that curtain.”

And somebody had to figure out what keelhauling was, fast.

* * *


Field Trip Pirates --64

The line moving through the exhibit had stopped moving. It couldn’t

move forward because a number of heavy cannon and seamen’s chests blocked the path marked

along the exhibition route.

The only way through appeared to be along a dark corridor that hadn’t been dusted in a

long time. The adults figured the cobwebs were there for effect. Ghost pirates and all that. They

Rolled their eyes and pretended to be scared to go along with the kids. Then they saw the rats.

No one was in any hurry to go forward since there were lots of rats running around. Since

the line couldn’t move forward, it started backing up. Smaller children retreating to the rear

collided with older kids who became annoyed with having stampeding children screaming all

around them and then that whole confused mob began shoving back even farther finally reaching

the slower moving adults who were just as confused as ever.

The teachers tried herding their charges, while the curators ran about looking for the

curtain, hand writing a new “keep out” sign and shushing everyone as if the group was disturbing

the pirates or something.

And no sign of Mr. J anywhere.

* * *


Field Trip Pirates--65

Huey and company hadn’t counted on a museum curator catching them before they

could keelhaul even one fourth grader.

But there they were, the pride and joy of _____book club looking down at their feet and

shuffling in their clodhopper sneakers while being lectured at by a little old lady who didn’t

come up to the shoulders of any of them.

Suddenly, her speech was interrupted by a noise from below deck on board the ship. The

curator, figured it was another juvenile delinquent. She got ready to pinch another boy by the ear

but instead, didn’t she get a surprise.

“Avast me hearties. Belay that wench’s squall.” A voice growled at them from the

shadows. The boys turned to face a grinning skeleton leering back at them. Lights flashed and

flares fired up behind the skeleton so the boys could just make out the outline of a face that

looked like the jolly roger on the pirate flag.

They drew back. Each boy wanted to