Port of Spies Read Free

himself!”
    â€œAye,” I said. “But Rotten Tooth also told us to keep our eyes and ears open. That means we have to start spying. It’s our secret duty.”
    â€œAye aye!” Gary said. Then he scratched his head. He always did that when he was thinking really hard. “Pete?” he asked. “What are we spying for again?”
    I called everyone over and we made a huddle.
    Then I made sure no one was spying on us.
    The coast was clear, so I whispered real quiet, “We’re spying for rival pirates.”
    Everyone gulped! Rival pirates were serious business.
    Aaron made a fist. “If I see any of those pirates, I’ll show them who’s boss of the seas!” he said in a loud whisper.
    Vicky rolled her eyes. “Blimey! You won’t see them, because they’ll be in disguise, blunder head!”
    â€œOh, yeah,” Aaron said. “I forgot.”
    â€œVicky’s right,” I said. “They’ll be sneaky like us. We have to look for anything suspicious and report it back to the ship.”
    â€œI vote we look in the jewelry store,” Inna said.
    â€œI vote we look in the sword store,” Aaron said.
    â€œI vote we look in every store,” I said.
    â€œAye aye!” everyone agreed.
    We put our hands in a circle and whispered our pirate cheer. “Swashbuckling, sailing, finding treasure, too. Becoming pirates is what we want to do!”
    We picked up the boxes and headed into the candle store. The lady in that store gave us a mean look as soon as we walked in. In fact, everyone in the store gave us mean looks. I was starting to think that King’s Island was full of spies!

Chapter 4
    I Spy!
    â€œThat seems pretty suspicious to me,” I said when we walked by a hat store. “They don’t have a single pirate hat, only tall hats and straw hats.”
    â€œThat is pretty strange,” Vicky said.
    â€œAye, it means other pirates must have bought them all,” Inna said. Then she started to make a list of suspicious things.
    Next we passed a store that sold maps.
    Aaron stopped to look. He squinted his eyes and looked real close. “Sink me! There’s not even one treasure map in there.”
    â€œWho would want a map if it didn’t show you where treasure was?” Gary asked.
    Vicky shrugged her shoulders.
    â€œAye, it doesn’t make sense,” I said.
    â€œMaybe those pirates who bought all the pirate hats got the treasure maps, too!” Inna said.
    â€œAye, that makes sense,” I said.
    Inna sure was one smart pirate. She added the part about the maps to the list, too.
    Just then, I thought I saw a pair of eyes peeking at us from a doorway. “Arrr! I think we’re being followed,” I whispered.
    â€œBy who?” Gary asked. Then he turned around to check.
    Vicky nudged him. “Don’t look, blunder head,” she whispered. “You’ll give us away.”
    â€œAye,” I said. “I think we’ve been followed into every store.”
    â€œBlimey! Why didn’t you tell us?” Inna asked.
    â€œBecause I wasn’t sure,” I explained.
    I made a shh noise to my friends and sneaked over to where I saw the peeking. I took a deep breath and jumped around the corner.
    No one was there.
    â€œMaybe it was nothing,” Vicky said.
    â€œOr maybe it was a spy and they spied you coming and sneaked off,” Inna said.
    â€œI don’t know what it was. But there’s definitely something fishy about this town, and it isn’t just the smelly fish market.”
    â€œAye,” my mates agreed, and we kept walking.
    By the time we walked past the bakery, we were starving. It was hard work looking for suspicious stuff and shopping at the same time. So we decided to buy some cookies to keep up our strength.
    Just to be safe, we asked Gary to wait outside with the boxes.
    â€œMmm,” Inna said as we walked in. “It smells