The Dragon of Lonely Island by Rebecca Rupp

Author:Rebecca Rupp [Rupp, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6000-0
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 1998-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

Jamie was tired. He was always tired these days. There was never any time to sit down. It seemed that he barely climbed into his hammock at night before some booted foot was kicking him awake, shouting at him to move his lazy bottom because there was work to be done. Everyone had chores for him to do. There were floors and pots to scrub, barrels to mend, boxes to haul, buckets to empty, sails to stitch, and endless sacks of potatoes to peel. He had to make the captain’s bunk, polish his boots, sharpen his knives, serve his meals, and care for his parrot, whose name was Ernestine. Ernestine was Jamie’s only friend on board the Albatross, except for the ship’s cat.

The ship’s cat was thin and black, with one white paw. Jamie called him Beetle because he scuttled about the deck like a bug, hiding behind ropes and barrels, taking care to keep out of the sailors’ way. When the sailors spotted him, which was seldom, they threw bottles at him. Sometimes they threw bottles at Jamie too. Jamie liked Beetle. He felt that he and the cat were kindred spirits, companions in adversity — though Beetle, Jamie thought, was certainly less fortunate than he was. Beetle had never had a home at all. Whenever he could, Jamie saved bits of dried beef for Beetle from his meager dinner. Sometimes, late at night, the black cat would leap up into Jamie’s hammock and lie next to the boy, purring and kneading him with his paws, keeping him warm.

Without Ernestine and Beetle, Jamie’s life at sea would have been pure misery. And the more Jamie learned about the Albatross, the unhappier he became. As he watched and listened, he became certain that this was no ordinary trading voyage to the islands of the Indies. Each day, morning and afternoon, the captain mounted the poop deck, spyglass in hand, and scanned the horizon, searching, ever searching, while the crew seemed to hold its collective breath, each man straining his eyes in one direction and then another, waiting. For what? Jamie wondered, and in spite of himself, he found his eyes straining and searching too. Sea monsters? Whales?

Finally, one afternoon as he worked at peeling potatoes in the ship’s galley, his curiosity became too much for him. The cook, a fat bald sailor in a greasy red shirt, sometimes liked to talk. Jamie risked a question.

“Please, sir,” he asked, “what is everybody keeping a lookout for?”

The cook growled. “None o’ yer business, boy,” he rasped. “The captain has his reasons.”

Disappointed, Jamie bent his head over the bucket of potatoes.

Then the cook relented. “There’s a ship out after our captain,” he confided, “an old mate it is, who thinks our captain did him wrong. They fought in the old days, the story goes, and our captain left him for dead and made off with his gold. But he wasn’t dead, not by half, and he’s been after the captain’s blood ever since. Red Jack, his name is.

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