“Whoa,” Petra said. “That was kinda scary.”
Mary Lou raised her hand and waited to be recognized. “I need to tell y’all something. There is somebody else on the island. A guy named Tane Ngata.”
“What?” Miss Montana said. “Have you been hitting the plant juice?”
“Listen! I didn’t know how to tell you this. He’s an eco-warrior and an ornithologist.”
Brittani gasped. “Ohmigosh. You’re into the freaky stuff, aren’t you?”
“An ornithologist is a bird-watcher,” Mary Lou explained.
Brittani recoiled. “That’s just sick.”
“If there is a guy on the island, why didn’t you tell us before?” Adina asked.
“I don’t know! Because I was scared. And then I wanted something that was all mine. And I just … I don’t know.” Mary Lou told them everything — about her nights with Tane, how special he was, about his theory that The Corporation had a secret compound on the island.
“Are you sure you didn’t just imagine it?” Nicole asked. “I mean, I’ve read about people getting kind of island-crazy after a while.”
“He’s real, I swear! We had awesome almost-sex,” Mary Lou insisted.
Petra put a hand on her shoulder. “Sweetie, sometimes I like to think that Heathcliff is waiting for me at Thrushcross Grange in tight breeches and leather boots. Doesn’t make it true.”
“Weren’t you wearing a purity ring when we got here? Aren’t you supposed to be saving yourself?” Shanti asked.
“Yeah,” Mary Lou answered. “And then I thought, for what? You save leftovers. My sex is not a leftover, and it is not a Christmas present.”
“See, now I don’t know whether to be all ‘Yay!’ because you’re empowered or sad because you’re having delusional almost-sex with an imaginary boyfriend,” Adina said.
“If you were my best friend, you’d trust me.”
Adina took a step back. She’d never been anybody’s best friend before.
“Okay, Mary Lou, I got your back. Show us.”
The girls trekked through the jungle over the path Mary Lou had traveled each night. They passed the waterfall and lagoon where she and Tane had gone swimming and she showed them the broken hammock trap where Tane had freed her when she was stuck.
“He held me by one hand!”
Finally, she reached the cove and the caves where Tane had held her sweetly, where he’d kissed her and helped her come to understand that there was no shame in her body or her desires. Tane’s boat was nowhere in sight. She didn’t see his lantern or bedroll. There wasn’t even evidence of a fire. It was as if he’d never existed.
“I don’t understand. He was here. This was his camp. He left his things because he was coming back.”
“Okaaay,” Shanti said. She widened her eyes at Petra, who nodded knowingly.
“I know you don’t believe me, but I’m telling the truth. Something must have happened to him. He would never just go off without telling me.”
“I get so mad when my imaginary boyfriend does that,” Miss Ohio snarked.
“Stop it!” Mary Lou growled.
“Okay, down, Cujo. Let me get this straight: You met some hot guy and your priority was getting down with him, not rescuing us?” Miss Ohio said.
Mary Lou’s cheeks reddened. “He only had his small boat. He promised to come back for us. Adina — help me out. You have to believe me.”
Adina shrugged. “I really want to, ML, but …”
The wind picked up sharply and clouds rolled in.
“Looks like we’re about to get a heck of a storm,” Nicole said.
High winds whipped through the trees, shaking free leaves and fruit. The air had the iron-tang smell of coming rain. The first time a storm had blown through, the girls had been at its mercy. This time, they were prepared. They headed back to camp immediately.
“Stations,” Shanti yelled once they got there, and the girls threw their supplies into the evening gown hammocks. Using a pulley system of airplane seat belts, they hoisted the hammock-bags high into the trees, free from the surging tide.
“Higher ground, y’all!” Tiara shouted. The girls fell in behind her as she led them up into the hills.
“What about Taylor?” Nicole asked.
“She’s protected where she is,” Adina answered. “Let’s get moving.”
Rain lashed their faces, but the girls kept climbing. When they reached the top of the hill they’d named Mount Awesome, Nicole pointed to the ocean.
“Hey, do you see that?”
“Ship!” Mary Lou shouted. “Ship!”
The girls screeched and hugged. Oh, salvation at last!37
“Come on!” Petra raced down the hill toward the shore.
When the girls reached the beach, the tide was high, and the ship — a magnificent reproduction of an eighteenth-century sloop built on a studio lot in Hollywood — listed and limped in the high winds.
“Oh my gosh! They’re going to crash!” Nicole shouted.
As if it were a tale of Greek myth and the gods had heard the cry, the ship banged against the skull-shaped jetty. A large hole could be seen in the starboard side. The boat took on water.
“We have to help them!” Nicole yelled.
“Wait!” Adina shouted over the wind and rain. “Look at the flag. The Jolly Roger.”
“Like the candy,” Tiara said. “I hope they have watermelon. It’s my favorite.”
“That’s Jolly Rancher,” Petra said.
“See that skull and crossbones? That’s the universal symbol for not good,” Adina explained. “We’re talking pirates!”
The girls looked out to sea where the ship was taking on water. Now they could see guys running along the deck, climbing up the mast and wrestling with sails. Most were shirtless.
“Pirates?” Tiara repeated.
“Pirates!” Nicole said in awe.
“Pirates,” Petra murmured, and her lips curved into a smile.
“Pirates,” Mary Lou squeaked. She felt a warning quiver in her belly. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, hell’s yes,” Miss Ohio said, lowering the neckline on her ratty dress. “Guys!” She ran toward the ship.
“Wait!” Adina screamed, but the girls were already racing into the choppy surf.
The ship had run aground and was taking a beating against the jetty in the rain and wind. Drenched pirates shouted and hoisted and scrambled, but there was nothing to be done. The ship was lost.
The girls had reached them and were pulling many of them toward shore. The disoriented pirates trudged after them and collapsed on the beach. They were young. Very young. High school or college-aged. And strangely familiar, though in the lashing rain it was hard to focus on just why.
Tiara bent over a prone pirate and swept the sopping hair from his face. “You’re pretty,” she said.
He opened one eye. “Are you a mermaid?”
Tiara giggled. “No, silly. Mermaids have sparkle bras like in MermaidTopia38. That comes with accessories. I used to come with accessories. Before we crashed.”
“Tiara, don’t scare the nice pirates away,” Petra whispered.
The pirate pushed up onto his elbows. “How do you think mermaids pee? I always wondered ’cause they have those tails and stuff?”
“I know!” Tiara nodded wildly.
Petra rolled her eyes. “A match made in heaven.”
“Ahoy, mates!” someone yelled from the surf. “Our captain is down!”
Several pirates staggered to their feet to meet the others, and they carried the body of a tall, well-built guy. He wore black breeches tucked into tall black boots and a full white shirt. He was soaked through and through.
“Put him down over here,” Nicole instructed, and they brought him to her doctor’s hut. The girls crowded around. “I need to examine him, make sure he doesn’t have any injuries.”
Miss Ohio’s hand went up. “I’ll help!”
A chorus of “me, too!” rang out.
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One of the guys stepped forward. A cool phoenix design had been etched into his close-cropped hair, and he wore a silver hoop earring in his right ear. He shook Nicole’s hand. “Ahmed. I got some basic training in the army. Happy to help.”
“Great. You can start by getting everybody out of here,” Nicole said.
The girls responded with awwws and pouts, but Nicole was resolute and Ahmed flashed a bright smile and promised everything would be just fine before shutting the thatched door.
Mary Lou rushed over to the other girls. “Do you know who these guys are?”
“Who?” Adina asked.
Mary Lou’s eyes were huge. “We’ve just rescued the cast of Captains Bodacious IV: Badder and More Bodaciouser!”
37Be prepared for any event in a Salvation mohair poncho. Perfect with jeans or evening wear. Your outfit will always be saved with a Salvation poncho!
38MermaidTopia, The Corporation’s bestselling aquatic doll line. Every girl wants to be a Utopian mermaid! Attachable legs, removable voice box, and swoon-worthy prince accessories sold separately.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“You through with the razor?” Miss Ohio asked Miss Montana.
The girls had lined up at the swimming hole. They’d pulped a coconut, which they were using for shaving cream.
“Ordinarily, double-dipping on a razor would skeeve me out completely,” Miss Ohio explained. “But I am not hanging out with a boatload of fine pirates looking like a yeti.”
“You in line?” Miss New Mexico asked Adina.
“No, I’m not.” Adina stepped back and let her go ahead. “And you should worry more about fixing their ship and being rescued than shaving your pits.”
“I can do both. I’m a multitasker.”
“This is going to make such a great story: How I nursed a pirate back to health and my love saved him,” Miss Ohio said with a contented sigh. “And then we can have our own reality show about our relationship.”
“Good luck with that.”
Petra grinned at Adina.
“What — you don’t believe in true love?” Petra asked. “The kind that can then be parlayed into awesome merchandising opportunities?”
“Isn’t it exciting?” Tiara said, grinning. “TV pirates!”
Brittani pouted. “I was still hoping for a vampire rescue.”
“I’m just interested in their ship and getting off the island, not some fantasy fed by a gazillion romance novels and stupid rom-coms starring Jessica Everett,” Adina snarked.39
“What’s your problem?” Miss Ohio said.
“Hey!” Nicole waved to them from down on the beach. “The captain’s finally awake!”
Captain Sinjin St. Sinjin had, indeed, awakened. He was a broad-chested guy of twenty with long, black, wavy hair, devilish sideburns, and a wicked smile that had charmed its way through many a port. The knuckles of his left hand had been tattooed with the word sexxy and his right with beast. He wore tight breeches tucked into tall boots and a puffy white pirate’s shirt unbuttoned to his navel. The other pirates sat near him. The girls hovered like satellites.
“Hello, mates. Feeling all right, yeah?” he called in an accent straight out of a posh London boarding school by way of the Eastside. “Say, could one of you lovelies get me something to quench my thirst?”
Four girls turned to go and Adina said, “You seem able-bodied to me.”
Captain Sinjin put a hand to his chest. “We’ve been through a shipwreck, luv. We’re exhausted and need to lie about.”
“Oh, I know how you feel,” Tiara said. “When our plane crashed here, and we had to bury the dead and deal with really bad wounds and Miss New Mexico got that tray stuck in her head —”
“Hi!” Miss New Mexico waved.
“— and the chaperones were all charred in the wreckage and it was really gross and scary and there was nothing to eat and no shelter and we had to build all that stuff and deal with giant snakes and bug bites and we barely survived a giant wave and mudslides and hallucinogenic plants and stuff, we were so, so tired.”
Captain Sinjin blinked. “Yes, luv, but we’re pirates. So it’s much worse for us.”
“Are you really the pirates from Captains Bodacious IV?” Miss Ohio asked. She lowered the neckline on her dress a tiny bit more.
“Absolutely!” Sinjin said. “You familiar with the show, luv?”
“Teen prep school guys in a British boarding school witness a murder by the mob and then they’re forced to hide out at sea on a stolen ship. Along the way, they become pirates and fight crime and act like rock stars with girls in every port,” Mary Lou recounted by heart. “I’ve never missed an episode.”
“Possibly the stupidest show ever,” Adina muttered.
“Pirate rock stars? Please, that’s like the heroin of television,” Petra said.
“I always wanted to be a pirate,” Mary Lou said softly. “All that freedom.”
“So what happened? How did you end up here?” Shanti asked.
The pirates exchanged nervous glances. Sinjin forced a smile and stroked a finger across Shanti’s cheek. “My, you are lovely.”
Shanti removed his hand. “How did you get here?”
“Right.” Sinjin lay back on his elbows. He was a big guy and he took up a lot of sand. “Well, we were getting ready to start filming the new season from a secret tropical location, and after a little too much rum, the boys and I said, ‘Hey, who wants to take the ship out for a little spin, eh?’ Am I right?”
“Right!” the pirates responded.
“And, eh, we took the boat out to sea, except we’d only had six weeks of sailor camp.”
“I can tie all my knots, though,” a football player–size pirate with a bleached-white faux-hawk said.
“I can tie a cherry stem with my tongue,” Miss Ohio said and licked her lips.
“Right, you I like,” Captain Sinjin said. “Anyway, we blew off course while we were sleeping it off, if you know what I mean. Woke up and hadn’t any idea where we were. You can’t believe how bleeding scary the sea is. There’s, like, whales and storms and shit! They don’t bloody tell you that. And the rocking. I didn’t stop puking for three days straight. Plus the world’s in a barmy spot what with the threat of war and terrorism and all. But we kept on. Because we’re men.”
“Men!” the pirates shouted.
Sinjin cupped Petra’s chin in his hand. “And it’s girls like you who give us something to keep fighting for, luv.”
Adina snorted. “For the record, you’re not soldiers. You’re pirates. And not even real pirates. You’re reality TV pirates.”
“Don’t harsh my moment, Adina,” Petra sang under her breath.
“There’s a reality in reality TV,” Captain Sinjin said. “I mean, once you get past the manufactured drama for the ratings and the product placement, the knowledge that there are cameras on you at all times and that you want to seem natural while still making sure that your abs look fantastic — once you get past that, it is absolutely genuine.”40
“They gave me this cool haircut,” said the pirate with the faux-hawk. “I’m George.”
“Jennifer gave me a cool haircut, too. With a machete,” Tiara said.
“Awesome,” said George the Pirate. He stared at Tiara as if she were a kitten he hoped to take home.
“So why not just radio for help and get us all off this island?” Shanti asked.
Again, the pirates averted their eyes.
“W-well,” Sinjin said, “the radio’s not working.”
“Not at all,” blurted a pirate with a perfectly shaggy haircut and a blue bandanna wrapped around his head. “I’m Chu, by the way. Nice place you’ve got here. Cheers!”
“I might be able to fix your radio,” Jennifer said. “I’m pretty mechanical. Got ours up and running. For a minute anyway.”
“Sorry. Erm, it’s not just broken. It’s smashed to bits. Drunken revelry,” Sinjin explained. “Arrrrgggghhhh!”
M
ary Lou sank into the sand. “So … you don’t have any way of calling in for help? You’re stuck here?”
“ ’Fraid so,” Ahmed, the ship’s boatswain, said.
Adina appealed to the sky. “We asked for rescue and you sent us incompetent rock-star pirates with a broken ship and perfect abs?”
“Thank you, God,” Petra said.
“Don’t you worry, superfoxy babes,” Sinjin said, putting his arms around Petra and Miss Ohio. “I know it’s been rough. But we’re here now. Everything will be okay.”
“Actually,” Adina said. “We’re doing fine. See those huts, the irrigation system, fishing lines, the rain-catching tarp, and desalination still? We built all of that.”
“Really?”
Nicole crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah. Shocker.”
“Cool!” Captain Sinjin St. Sinjin inspected the huts, finally choosing to lie down on Tiara’s soft palm frond bed. He made himself comfortable. “Very nice. Can I get something to eat?”
Adina glared. “That’s Tiara’s bed.”
Tiara backed away. “Oh. It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“She doesn’t mind,” Captain Sinjin said. He winked at Tiara. “Thanks, luv! You’re gorgeous. Something to eat? Mangia? Yum-yums?”
“You didn’t even ask,” Adina said. “You just sat right down.”
Captain Sinjin took off his boots and tossed them in the sand.
“Can I get you something to drink, too?” Tiara asked. “We have rainwater or coconut milk.”
“Fantastic. I’ll take the coconut milk. Ta, luv.”
Tiara turned to leave. Adina stopped her. “Stay right here, Tiara. If he wants it, he can get it himself.”
“But …” Tiara seemed torn. “I don’t mind.”
“She doesn’t mind,” Captain Sinjin said. He batted his lashes at Adina.
Tiara looked from Adina to Sinjin and back again. She jogged in place like a kindergartner who needed a bathroom.
Finally, George raised his hand. “I’ll go with you to get it. I get him stuff all the time since he’s the captain.”
“Thanks!” Tiara beamed, and she and George walked hand-in-hand toward the coconut storage.
Adina threw up her hands. “Right. Just forget everything. Hey, maybe they have some laundry they need done, too,” she grumbled. “I’m going to go check the fishing lines.”