Blackwells and the Briny Deep Read online

  “You aren’t leaving them, Emma,” William said, clutching the wheel. “I am. Blame me. It’s my decision. I’m the captain.” William had never looked so fierce, or so grown up, as he steered Peregrine toward the pirate ship.

  Emma watched the war in the waves fall behind them.

  Then suddenly, with the leaping forth of a thousand bodies, the dolphins arrived! Finn must have called them with his conch! They looked like Finn — fierce, thin, and tall as they leapt beside him. Now there were almost as many figureheads and wandering sea spirits as there were mermaids, battling in the waves.

  The tide had turned! The Mermaid Queen vanished beneath the spray, and her army fled, each mermaid chased by a dolphin — or something that might be a dolphin, anyway.

  Emma cheered! Good luck, figureheads, she thought. I hope you break the Mermaid Queen’s curse and return to the sea forever!

  “Emma, help!” William called, and she turned away from her friends in the sea. She grabbed the life-ring, ready to rescue Jonah.…

  The pirate ship was close now. Jonah waved frantically from the bow. William steered Peregrine as close as he could to the big black ship. Soon the two boats were bow to bow, passing each other quickly. Jonah stood on the railing.

  “NOW, JONAH! JUMP!” William shouted. Jonah took off the swords and the hat and then leapt for Peregrine with all his might.

  He landed on the main sail and rolled into the cockpit. Emma caught him and pulled him to his feet. Jonah looked at his sister and brother, then he looked at his feet.

  “Next time, Emma … I promise I’ll catch your shell,” Jonah said quietly, looking up.

  Emma and William exchanged astonished glances. Then, for the first time in ages, Emma gave her twin a quick hug.

  “Welcome aboard, Jonah,” William said. That’s when Captain William Blackwell of the good ship Peregrine actually smiled, his first smile since the whole adventure began.

  The drifting pirate ship sailed past. It sailed through the battling mermaids and sea spirits, toward the beach, faster and faster. With a distant crunch and splintering of wood, the pirate ship crash-landed on the beach.

  “There goes your ship, Pirate Jonah,” Emma said. “And your pirates,” she added, as Eye-Patch and Gold-Tooth ran down the beach, chased by the giant snake.

  They watched as the green parrot flew into the tall trees. “Boil his bones! Shiver me timbers!”

  “Farewell, bird!” Jonah called. He suddenly felt a little sad to see it go. But at least it was free of the zombie pirates.

  The war in the waves raged on behind them. Figureheads battled, dolphins leapt, mermaids swam for their lives without their queen, and the good ship Peregrine and her crew, together at last, headed out to sea.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE SEA SPIRIT

  Emma woke first.

  A heavy fog surrounded the ship.

  CLANG. CLANG.

  Somewhere in the fog, a harbour buoy rang out. She sat up.

  And spat seaweed out of her mouth.

  Her brothers slept nearby. Jonah lay on a cockpit bench, and William was slumped over the wheel. They both stirred, woke, and spat seaweed out of their mouths, too.

  “Ew,” said Jonah.

  “How did I get seaweed in my mouth?” William asked. He stretched and rubbed the back of his neck. The thick white fog surrounded them. There was nothing to see. There was no wind. Peregrine was becalmed.

  “Where are we?” Emma asked.

  Jonah got up to look.

  “Stuck in this fog.”

  Suddenly, the marine radio crackled.

  “Peregrine, Peregrine, Peregrine, this is DaddyOne, over.” Jonah scrambled down into the cabin and grabbed the radio. “DaddyOne, DaddyOne, DaddyOne, this is Peregrine, over!”

  “Peregrine, Peregrine, Peregrine, it’s good to hear your voice! Is everyone okay? Over.” Emma, William, and Jonah looked at each other. William shrugged then nodded.

  “DaddyOne, DaddyOne, DaddyOne. Everyone’s okay, over,” Jonah said. He raised an eyebrow at his brother and sister.

  “Peregrine, Peregrine, Peregrine, the storm must have knocked out your radio and cellphone for a while. I’m in a tugboat close by. Blow your foghorn now, over.”

  The three Blackwells looked at each other. Emma raised the foghorn to her lips.

  BUUUUUU! BUUUUUU! BUUUUUU!

  Soon they could hear the chug chug of the tugboat in the fog. Emma blew the foghorn again and again, and then, like a magical beast, the tugboat appeared out of the fog cloud. Jonah threw a line from Peregrine, and soon the Blackwells clambered aboard the tug.

  After their father hugged each of them and made sure they really were okay, he seemed a little lost for words.

  “How did you and Peregrine survive the storm, William?” he finally asked.

  William shrugged. “It was pretty bad, but we threw out the sea anchor. It helped. We lost it, though.” He showed his father the torn line.

  “William fell overboard, and Jonah and I had to steer,” Emma said.

  “But William was a good captain,” Jonah added.

  “Emma and Jonah were a brave crew. We managed okay,” William said.

  The Blackwells looked at each other. They were a brave crew. William was a good captain. They did manage okay. There wasn’t anything else they could say.

  “The motor handle broke, and the jib ripped,” William said, scratching his head.

  “We lost a few paddles and the boat hook, too,” Jonah added. The losses were mounting.

  “You lost your ensign?” their father said, squinting up at the top of the mast.

  William eyed Emma, who nodded. “Yes, the wind took it during the storm,” she said.

  “That’s never a good sign,” their dad said. His children just looked at him. “Well, you know, according to the old sailors.”

  “No one believes those stories, Dad,” Jonah said firmly.

  Their father smiled. “Well, you’re all right, that’s all that matters. We can replace motor handles and boat hooks and ensigns. I’m proud of you. You must have worked together really well to get through the storm.” The Blackwells nodded.

  Yes. They did.

  The tugboat towed Peregrine slowly along. They were heading to harbour. It wasn’t far, less than an hour by water.

  The three sailors sat in the cockpit while their father and the tugboat driver took them to safety. They sat quietly, gently rocking with the waves, their heads nodding with exhaustion, too tired to do anything but look over the water. Soon the fog cleared and the sun sparkled on the waves.

  “You made a great pirate, Jonah,” Emma whispered sleepily.

  “Thank you for blowing the foghorn,” he whispered back.

  “I have something better than the foghorn,” she said. Emma reached into her backpack and pulled out the conch. She raised it to her lips and blew a thin, fine note, high and true. Her brothers both looked impressed.

  “Thanks for saving me from the briny deep, too, both of you,” William whispered. “But no more talk of mermaids for a while, okay?”

  They sat quietly for a while longer.

  “Look.” Jonah nodded out to sea.

  There on the horizon, a bright red flag fluttered above the waves, held in a seaweed-covered hand. Beside it what could only be a boat hook glinted in the sunlight, held by a figure that looked surprisingly like a gladiator astride a horse. And … was that a knight, too?

  The boat hook and the flag sank, and a moment later a pod of dolphins leapt into the air. There must have been ten of them or maybe more.

  The Blackwells smiled.

  Their boat hook and their ensign weren’t lost. They were just their gifts to the sea.

  Soon, Emma and Jonah fell asleep, leaning on each other. William yawned.

  Their father drove the tugboat with his sleeping children, towing Peregrine to shore.

  And the tugboat’s name?

  It was, of course, The Sea Spirit.

&nbs
p; THIS PART IS (ALSO) MOSTLY TRUE

  So you’ve made it to the end of the story. I told you when we started that it was weird and strange and more than a little frightening. You’ll probably never look at conch shells the same way or seaweed or even sailboats for that matter.

  In fact, this kind of story (and many other sea stories like it) might just be enough to keep you firmly on land for the rest of your life. But that would be a pity. There’s nothing like a calm sea and a gentle breeze to bring the sea adventurer to life in all of us.

  Still, strange things do happen at sea. And every sailor will tell you hair-raising stories about storms and fog and running aground and people falling overboard. In fact, I’m one of them.

  But I suspect what you’d really like to know is this: was the phantom ship real  ? Did Emma and William and Jonah really see one? And did it set them on their strange voyage that day?

  Well, there are countless stories of sailors and even people on land — quite sensible people otherwise not given to seeing things — who have seen ghostly ships. The story of a ghost ship is one of the oldest kinds of sea stories and there are stories like it from all over the world.

  If you look up The Flying Dutchman, for instance, you’ll read one of the best-known ghost ship stories of all. The story of the Mary-Celeste is a pretty scary tale, too.

  So it’s entirely possible that the Blackwells saw a phantom ship that day. Plenty of sailors claim they have, more experienced and much older sailors than them.

  But you’re probably also wondering about Finn. Well, again, all I can tell you is that there are plenty of stories about dolphins saving drowning sailors. Plus, there are sailors who believe that ship figureheads hold sea spirits (also known as kaboutermannekes in Dutch sailing lore) who lead lost sailors to safety.

  As for the seaweed in the mouth, well, why not?

  And the strange, enchanted island? All I can say on that score is that all sea stories lead somewhere, some to white whales, some to buried pirate’s treasure, some to lonely castaways, and some even lead to enchanted islands. (Mr. Shakespeare has a wonderful shipwrecked-sailors-on-an-enchanted-island story, for instance.)

  Finally, what about the pirates and mermaids? Well, almost any sea story worth its salt has a pirate in it. And many of them have mermaids, too. (A famous sailor named Odysseus met some interesting mermaids.)

  But more than all of that, I suspect you’re wondering about the Blackwells. Did they really have all those adventures that day? Well, true or not, they had a gripping sea story to share together for the rest of their lives. A good story is a good story, after all, and a good sea story is one of the best stories of all, in my opinion.

  And I can tell you this, too: after their adventure at sea, the Blackwells rarely quarrelled again. Together they survived a phantom ship, a terrible storm, a fog bank, possible drowning, zombie pirates, and monster mermaids. They befriended cursed figureheads and a wandering sea spirit on a shipwreck island, too. All that does something to a family.

  In fact, the Blackwells grew closer and closer with age.

  There were only two things that were a little strange about them.

  One: at family gatherings, the three of them would always retire to a corner after dinner with a conch, a foghorn, and a boat hook. They talked quietly among themselves, late into the night, shooing everyone else away. Their children, and then many years later, their grandchildren, would sneak close and catch the words “Finn” and “Mermaid Queen” and something that sounded like crab-outer-manatees, but probably wasn’t.

  Two: if you ever asked one of them to go for a sail, they’d get deadly serious, pull you close, and whisper, “But does your boat have a figurehead?”

  SAILING GLOSSARY

  Aground: any boat stuck on land is “aground”

  Becalmed: a sailboat without wind

  Boat hook: a long pole with a hook

  Boom: attached to the mast at right angles, the boom holds the bottom of the main sail

  Bow: the front of a boat

  Brigantine: an old-fashioned, two-masted sailing vessel

  Bunk: bed, in the cabin

  Buoy: a marker for safe passage into a harbour, sometimes with a bell or light

  Cabin: the covered portion of a sailboat, for sleeping, cooking, and shelter

  Cockpit: the outside area of a sailboat, used for steering and navigation

  Dock: a bridge from land to boat

  Ensign: the ship’s flag

  Figurehead: a carved wooden statue on the bow of old sailboats, to bring luck or to strike fear, sometimes believed to harbour sea spirits (see Kaboutermanneke)

  First mate: second in command, below the captain

  Flotsam: wreckage floating from a sunken vessel

  Foresail: sail at the front of the boat (not the main sail)

  Galley: kitchen, in the cabin

  Gang-plank: a board placed over the side of the sailboat, usually over the water

  Halyard: any rope or wire used to pull the sails up or down

  Handrail: a sturdy rail on top of the cabin, for crew safety

  Hanging locker: a closet in the cabin

  Head: bathroom, in the cabin

  Jib: small foresail

  Jolly Roger: the pirate’s flag, sometimes with a skull, crossed bones, or swords

  Kaboutermanneke: a helpful, wandering sea spirit, sometimes believed to be found in wooden figureheads in Dutch sailing lore (see Figurehead)

  Lifeline: fixed ropes or wires for safety aboard a boat

  Life-ring: a life-saving flotation device kept at hand to toss to sailors in the water

  Line: any rope used to tie the boat to shore or another boat

  Main sail: the biggest sail on the sailboat, attached to the main mast

  Mast: a tall vertical post (wooden or metal), which holds the main sail, boom, and halyards

  Overboard: swept off the ship into the water

  Phantom ship: a ghostly ship at sea, which appears and vanishes in moments

  Ready-about: the captain’s orders to prepare the sailboat to turn across the wind and change direction

  Scuppers: pipes or gutters to drain water

  Sea anchor: a large net-like bag attached to the boat, dragged in the water for stability in a storm

  Sheet: any rope used to control the sails

  Ship log: a journal kept by the captain or crew, telling the ship’s position and events

  Stern: the back of a boat

  Wheel: sailboat steering system aboard the Peregrine

  More Books by Philippa Dowding

  The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden

  Book 1 in the Night Flyer’s Handbook series

  This morning, I woke up on the ceiling …

  So begins the strange story of Gwendolyn Golden. One perfectly ordinary day for no apparent reason, she wakes up floating around her room like one of her little brother’s Batman balloons.

  Puberty is weird enough. Everyone already thinks she’s an oddball with anger issues because her father vanished in a mysterious storm one night when she was six. Then there are the mean, false rumours people are spreading about her at school. On top of all that, now she’s a flying freak.

  How can she tell her best friend or her mother? How can she live her life? After Gwendolyn almost meets disaster flying too high and too fast one night, help arrives from the most unexpected place. And stranger still? She’s not alone.

  Everton Miles Is Stranger Than Me

  Book 2 in the Night Flyer’s Handbook series

  I wander around like any normal self-absorbed teenager. Do we all think we’re being chased by deadly entities? Probably, but how many of us actually are?

  Gwendolyn Golden, Night Flyer, floats over the cornfields all summer. What draws her to the same spot, night after night? All she knows is that change is coming: she’s starting high school plus there’s a strange new boy in town.

  He’s Everton Miles and he’s a Night Flyer, too.


  Soon the mismatched teenagers face dangers they never imagined, including a fallen Spirit Flyer, a kidnapping, and the eternal darkness of The Shade. How will Gwendolyn handle her new life and grade nine? With help from The Night Flyer’s Handbook and her strange new friend, it might not be that hard.

  CCBC’s Best Books for Kids & Teens (Spring 2017) Selection

  ALSO BY AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR PHILIPPA DOWDING

  THE LOST GARGOYLE SERIES

  THE GARGOYLE IN MY YARD

  What do you do when a 400-year-old gargoyle moves into your backyard? Especially when no one else but you knows he’s ALIVE? Twelve-year-old Katherine Newberry can tell you all about life with a gargoyle. He’s naughty and gets others into trouble. But if you’re like Katherine, after getting to know him, you might really want him to stay.

  Commended for the 2009 Resource Links Best Books, for the 2010 Best Books for Kids and Teens, and shortlisted for the 2011 Diamond Willow Award.

  THE GARGOYLE OVERHEAD

  What if your best friend was a naughty 400-year-old gargoyle? And what if he just happened to be in terrible danger? It’s not always easy, but thirteen-year-old Katherine Newberry is friends with a gargoyle who has lost his greatest friend. Gargoth’s greatest enemy is prowling the city, and it’s a race against time to fi nd her fi rst!

  Shortlisted for the 2012 Silver Birch Express Award.

  THE GARGOYLE AT THE GATES

  Christopher is astonished to discover that gargoyles Ambergine and Gargoth are living in the park next door and that Katherine, a girl from his class, knows the gargoyles, as well. When the Collector steals Ambergine, it’s up to Christopher and Katherine to get her back, as long as something else doesn’t catch them along the way.

  Shortlisted for the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award, the 2013 Diamond Willow Award, and commended for the 2013 White Raven Award.