The Ship of Lost Souls 1 Read Free Page B

inherited an estate and moved his wife and their servants to another county, too far away for Jem to visit, even on holidays.
    So when Uncle Finn turned up at the King’s Cross to announce that he was whisking his nephew off on the adventure of a lifetime, Jem’s wasn’t the only jaw that dropped. Master Davis took one look at the aging explorer and shook his head in alarm. The somber schoolmaster had taken Jem under his wing from day one, when he confiscated Jem’s favorite adventure novel (“
Lost in the Wild
? Stuff and nonsense, Jem.”) and replaced it with his own beloved book (“
The Thinking Man’s Guide to a Life Without Surprises
. Now there’s a book!”).
    Master Davis had no imagination and a fierce, almost allergic aversion to adventure, but he meant well. He taught Jem that life at the King’s Cross wasn’t torturous, but “character-building,” and that someday all the unpleasantness—being away from one’s family, having one’s favorite books seized—would make him a strong and practical man. “The end justifies the means” was one of Master Davis’s favorite sayings, meaning the way in which a goal was achieved was less important than the actual achievement. Over the years Jem came to find his guidance sound and reassuring.
    Uncle Finn, however, didn’t see the schoolmaster’s appeal. He waved off Master Davis’s protests as if he were shooing away a fruit fly and produced a handwritten note from Jem’s parents stating that they hoped the trip would inspire Jem to become a scientist himself. (This, Jem knew, was his mother’s doing. The woman worshipped her brother Finn with such devotion that she’d row across the Atlantic herself if he suggested it.)
    Uncle Finn had surveyed the drab, gray walls of the King’s Cross courtyard and shuddered. “High time we got you out of this tomb, Jem. Not exactly conducive to learning, is it?”
    â€œDon’t worry, Master Davis,” he called out to the schoolmaster, whose ears were burning a fierce shade of crimson, “I promise you that no sharks or boa constrictors will harm my nephew on his adventure. In six months time I’ll return him back here, and he can continue to slowly die of boredom.”
    The notion that learning could take place far from a classroom suddenly filled Jem with hope and excitement, feelings that Master Davis squelched with a sharp frown. Immediately after Uncle Finn left to book their voyage, the schoolmaster began to advise Jem on how to build character while in the tropics.
    â€œKeep your head about you, Jem,” he’d say. “View everything with caution and healthy skepticism, and don’t let yourself get caught up in all the”—he wrinkled his nose disdainfully—“excitement.”
    And so he continued right up until the day Jem left.
    Jem was fairly certain Master Davis would faint if he knew how much excitement Jem had seen lately. After two months sailing across the Atlantic on the
Lady Eleanor
, they’d docked in Port Aberhard, the largest port town in the islands. There they’d found a boarding house where they’d hoped to spend a day or two readjusting to
terra firma
, as Uncle Finn called it, before hiring a boat to sail them to the island sketched on Uncle Finn’s map. But they’d barely been on land for two hours when these so-called pirates descended on them as they left the tavern after dinner. It happened so quickly Jem still wondered if it were all a dream.
    Light filled the cabin as the door swung open with a squeal, and a small, spectacled pirate sauntered in wearing an oversized blue coat that brushed his knees. He was followed by another man who was wrestling with Uncle Finn’s massive, leather-bound trunk.
    The small pirate walked, with strides far too long for someone his size, to the corner where Jem and Uncle Finn sat. He peered down at