Liberty (15 page)

Her jaw tightened. Dickens had to be safe.

Creaking and groaning, the
Liberty
ran into the shallows and foundered.

“Stay on board,” bellowed Captain Kingsley to his crew. “This is our fight. Frenchie, let's go.”

Before the pigs could do anything, Captain Kingsley swam the short distance to their boat. His huge paws clung to their railings, and he heaved himself over. On their tiny yacht, he looked like a beached whale.

Santiago pulled Penelope to the stern. “We have to swim for it.”

The polar bear easily ripped open the cabin's door. Penelope felt her heart rip, too. The boat was her home, and he was tearing it apart.

But Santiago tugged at her again. “Swim!”

This time, she dove with him into the shallow water and waded ashore. At a splash, Penelope looked back. Frenchie was swimming toward them, his wedge-shaped body flying effortlessly through the water.

Penelope's thoughts swirled.
Dickens, stay safe!
she silently begged.
Stay hidden.

Behind them, a roar erupted from their boat, and Captain Kingsley, glaring white in tropical moonlight, appeared, more enraged than ever. “Where is he?”

With a bound, the bear leapt into the water and waded after them. Frenchie pulled out of the water at the same time his captain did. He held two harpoons. He handed one to Captain Kingsley, and they came after the Talberts.

Though they ran, the pigs were easily overtaken again by the polar bear's longer strides. This time, he slapped Penelope with an open paw. Blinded with pain, she tumbled sideways and landed heavily. Santiago took a similar blow and fell beside her.

“Where is the sea serpent?” Captain Kingsley demanded. He straddled both of them.

Penelope blinked, trying to ignore the pain in her head, trying to erase the sight of the towering polar bear. Dully, she thought,
there's no escape.

The waves slapped gently on the boats. Otherwise, the island was silent.

The Captain's face contorted into anger. He snarled, “Tell me.” He reached for Penelope's legs as she lay on the sand. She kicked hard, but he grabbed her and jerked her upward. She hung upside down, swinging like a pendulum. Though her head swam with dizziness, the thought still pulsed through her: Stay safe, Dickens. Dickens. Safe.

Santiago roared with the frustration.

“Watch yourself,” the Captain warned. His voice raged like a storm. “If you move, I'll swing her around and throw her against those trees.”

Santiago froze in place, but his eyes never left Penelope as she swayed back and forth.

The pigs were utterly helpless.

The moon lit the beach with a warm glow. A calm descended on Penelope. So, this was how it ended. She had waited for Santiago in the moonlight, and he had come for her in the moonlight; they had moved into Liberty and learned to sail; they had lived a life of adventure. In this last adventure, she faced the hardest test. She needed to summon what courage she could because she must never tell the Captain where to find Dickens.

“Where's the serpent?” Captain Kingsley spoke into her ear.

Penelope said, “I'll never tell you.”

The Captain's one good eye flared in anger. He lifted her high and swung her around in wide circles, until her body was flying straight out. She closed her eyes against the blurry, spinning world.

Suddenly, he stopped swinging her. Dizziness washed over Penelope anew.

Panting slightly, Captain Kingsley repeated. “Where's the serpent?”

It's been a full life
, she thought.

Captain Kingsley lifted her again to swing her around. “No answer, eh? Maybe next time I'll let go, and you'll crash into those trees.” He looked over at Santiago, who was now guarded by Frenchie. “You want to tell me where they are?”

Santiago shook his head. “No.” His voice was tight with anger at the Captain and worry for Penelope.

“Then, here we go.” Captain Kingsley heaved Penelope upward and took a step to start her spinning.

Suddenly, from the palm trees behind them, burst a whirlwind of sand and in the midst of the whirlwind, Penelope glimpsed coils. Dickens. No! Stay hidden, she wanted to call.

But before she knew what was happening, Penelope was snatched from the Captain's paws, and laid—gently—on the ground.

Over her, Dickens' wide eyes blinked back tears. “Penelope,” he asked, “Did he hurt you?”

Penelope tried to smile at him, but couldn't. He didn't know what he'd done.

The Captain's face changed from anger to deep satisfaction. “At last,” he whispered.

Frenchie whistled. “Our collection will be complete.”

Captain Kingsley switched the harpoon from his left to right hand and reared back.

“No!”  Penelope had risen to all fours and saw it coming. She charged desperately at Captain Kingsley. From the corner of her eye, she saw Santiago charging, too.

Captain Kingsley hurled the harpoon, just as the pigs struck at his knees. The polar bear toppled.

Pigs and bear—together, they rolled down the beach, into the water. For a moment, the pigs had the upper hand; the Captain was stunned, and they were able to hold his head underwater. But he recovered himself, shook them off, and stood on all fours, shaking water from his fur and gasping for breath.

Something whistled in the air.

Penelope felt something strike her right shoulder. A harpoon stuck there. In wonder, she looked up and saw Frenchie at the edge of the water. He no longer held his harpoon. She staggered toward him. She stopped. The harpoon was heavy, somehow. She knocked at it with her forelegs, and it fell into the water. Dropping to all fours, she found it and picked it up. Why did she need it? Why did her shoulder hurt? She stood again, holding the harpoon.

Looking up, she saw Dickens on the beach with his coils in an untidy heap. He didn't move. A harpoon stuck out of his chest. Stupidly, she thought, now,
he'll have a scar. Why didn't he get up and show her?

She looked at the thing in her hooves. Why did she hold a stick? Where was Santiago? He would know what to do about Dickens, about this stick. She wheeled lazily around.

Captain Kingsley's great paws were wrapped around Santiago's neck. Santiago gasped hoarsely; his legs kicked, but the polar bear was holding him at arm's length, so Santiago couldn't reach him.

The haze of pain cleared, and Penelope understood what was happening again. “No!” she thundered.

Captain Kingsley let go of Santiago, who fell limply into the water. Was he alive?

“No!” Penelope thundered again. First Dickens, and now Santiago—no, it had to stop. She focused her anger and despair and revenge into the slender harpoon, and hurled it toward the polar bear.

It struck Captain Kingsley full in the chest. He staggered, then locked his knees and stood unmoving, staring at Dickens on the beach.  

Frenchie splashed to his friend's side. “Let me ‘elp.” He reached for the harpoon to pull it out, but it was too high. He leapt higher, but still couldn't reach it. Santiago was up and staggering toward them.

Suddenly, the polar bear keeled over. Frenchie tried to get out of the way, but Captain Kingsley's body fell half on top of him. He landed heavily. Both polar bear and penguin were knocked out.

Penelope looked down at her own broken shoulder. Then up at Santiago. She whispered, “Help.”

S
antiago carried
Penelope to shore and laid her beside Dickens. He couldn't move Captain Kingsley, who still lay in the water with Frenchie half under him.

From the
Hallowe'en
came cries:   

“Look!  The Captain's hurt!”

“That's a sea monster.  There's sure to be others about.”  

“Let's get out of here!”

The crew of the
Hallowe'en
didn't wait for their captain and first mate.  Unhindered by those on shore, they raised anchor, unfurled sails and left.

Penelope was sure her life had just ended. But she didn't pass out; she didn't go to sleep. Instead, she just hurt. Slowly, her breathing eased, and she found she could sit up.

She stood on her three good legs and limped to Dickens. Blood covered the sand near him, but Santiago had removed the harpoon.

“Is he alive?”

“Barely,” said Santiago in a deep, sad voice. He held a bunch of seaweed on the wound, stopping the bleeding.

Penelope nodded, sorrow filling her, too. She lay beside Dickens, holding seaweed to her own injury and watching the slow rise and fall of his chest. When her emotions eased off, she tried again to rise to help Santiago take care of things.

Penelope limped to the
Liberty
, where she was sunk in shallow water. Babying her injured foreleg, she finally climbed aboard. In the cabin, she found their medicine chest. She mixed sleeping powder into two cups of drinking water and brought them back to shore.

Together, Penelope and Santiago heaved the polar bear off the penguin. Captain Kingsley and Frenchie were still unconscious, so Santiago forced the sleeping potion down their throats. Sleeping would relieve the Captain's pains and keep Frenchie quiet until the Talberts could decide what to do with them. In fact, they'd have to stay drugged, or the pigs wouldn't be able to handle them.

Santiago and Penelope sat on the white sand by Dickens. He still breathed, but he wouldn't wake. 

Santiago gently helped Penelope lie down to rest and lay close to her for comfort. “We fought,” he whispered. “Against such evil, that's all you can do.”

As dawn came, Santiago carried Dickens inland to a small, fresh-water spring and came back to support Penelope as she staggered weakly to the make-shrift nest. All day, they watched over Dickens. Santiago left only long enough to help the groggy Frenchie and Captain Kingsley stumble into the shade of the trees before giving them more sleeping potion. The Captain's injury was already healing, as was Penelope's.

Once during that day, Dickens' eyes fluttered, and Penelope thought he would awake. Instead he moaned, and then was quiet. Sometime in the afternoon, Santiago forced Penelope to eat some fruit. But mostly, she sat beside him and watched. By evening, when Dickens started to run a fever, they despaired.

Santiago went back to the
Liberty
again and found a packet of Chinese herbs that were supposed to help break a fever. Santiago brewed a tea, and Penelope spoon-fed it to Dickens. Then Penelope watched over him without sleeping herself. Every four hours, she fed him more medicinal tea while Santiago changed the seaweed on his wound.  

Finally, at dawn on the third day, Dickens' eyes opened.  

“Mother?” His whisper was as still as the ocean in the tropics.

“I'm here,” Penelope reassured him. She wanted to weep at the word, mother. Dickens had never used it before.

“Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.” Her own foreleg was still sore, but she hardly noticed it in her anguish over Dickens.

“Story. Tell stories,” Dickens said.

So Penelope told stories of their sailing for a year and a day. And she had much to tell. She told of finding Dickens wrapped in Spanish moss, and how he cried and cried. She told of how sailing calmed him, so that they were always upon the high seas those first months. She told of his first steps, his first swim, his first word. She told of the black sand islands they had explored. She told of the songs of the humpback whales and swimming with the pod. She told of the ocean and the stars.

It was Dickens who finally whispered, “Shhh!”

Then he turned over and slept—without fever—and when he awoke, he was hungry.

They stayed on the island while everyone healed. They were careful to keep Frenchie and Captain Kingsley drugged the whole while. Santiago worked steadily on boat repairs, so that after ten days, he sailed alone back to St. George's. He found Captain Brice and brought Penelope back her journals and harp.

Captain Brice arrived herself in the
Endurance
a day later. She waded ashore carrying huge shackles. Her curly hair was escaping her captain's hat, as usual, and she was grinning widely. “Caught the villains, did you?”

Captain Brice and her crew loaded Captain Kingsley and Frenchie into her brig.

“Authorities have found the horrible collection on the
Hallowe'en
. There's a bounty out for their capture,” Captain Brice said.

“Will you collect the bounty?” Penelope asked.

“Ah, no. That would be too easy a thing for Captain Kingsley. Instead, I'll keep them in my brig and keep them half-sedated while we sail around Cape Horn. Somewhere in the middle of the South Pacific, I'll find a deserted island and leave them there.”

Penelope nodded. It was a fitting punishment.

Finally, everyone was well enough to climb on board the
Liberty
. The year and a day was almost over, and they didn't want to be late. They set sail for a distant bayou.

T
wo weeks later
, the evening tide carried them toward the dark waters of the bayou where they had found Dickens. While fog puddled over their boat, Penelope worried about Dickens' mother. Was she still alive? Would she come for Dickens? But Dickens sat beside her and sang sea shanties, and Penelope was captured afresh by his voice that held a hint of whale songs, of tides that rise and fall and sweet rains upon the waves. Slowly, her heart quieted.

They slept late, ate late. That afternoon, Santiago paced the deck, worrying, until Dickens paced right behind, imitating Santiago's every move. Finally, they both collapsed in laughter. Santiago pulled Dickens up, and they danced a jig around the mainsail while Penelope sang shanties.

By now, Dickens had grown so long and thick that he couldn't go below to their cabin.

At sunset, when the fog crept in again, Penelope and Santiago put on jackets and sat on deck with Dickens.

Once they were settled, Dickens asked Penelope, “Tell us stories of our year and a day.”

And Penelope had much to tell. There were tales of joy about teaching Dickens to read, to sing, to fish, and to live among the intelligent creatures of the world with integrity and honesty.

It was Dickens who finally whispered, “Shhh! Something comes!”

Around the
Liberty
, the waters swelled, rocking the boat until the ship's bell donged gently.

Penelope hugged Dickens one last time. “Now. Go and meet your mother.” Her heart was both full with the joy of living and empty from the joy of letting go.
How could it be both at the same time?
she wondered.

Dickens hesitated.

Santiago said quickly, “We're here.”

Together, Santiago, Penelope and Dickens stood and faced the water.

Out of the fog, words came: “Where is the child?”

Penelope nudged Dickens.

He turned his head, trying to see through the fog. “Mother?”

From the murk, a narrow nose appeared, and then, a massive head followed by endless coils.

Dickens looked up and up and up. He squeaked, “Mother?”

“No. I'm your father.”

Such a joyous reunion! Father and son cried, laughed, studied each other, and talked with voices that were almost identical, except that Dickens' was still high pitched.

Santiago put his foreleg around Penelope, and they watched with glad hearts.

At last, Dickens' father turned to them. “Thank you! You saved my son's life.”

“Kind sir,” Penelope asked, “where is Dickens' mother?”

“I know not. I only know that I lost her in the storm. I swam for months searching for her until one day, I heard a voice singing. It was Dickens. And I heard you telling him the story of how you found him.”

Penelope understood now. When she had thought whales were making the waters swell, it had really been this sea serpent watching over his son.

“You were there,” the sea serpent explained, “with that brute of a polar bear. When he threw the harpoon, it hit her. Here.” He brushed his foreleg against his right chest. “I tilted the boat so you could escape. But then, she was gone.”

Dickens touched the scar on his chest. His eyes never left his father's face.

“She knew,” Penelope whispered. “She couldn't survive, and she had to send Dickens out on the waters of the ocean, so you would find him.”

“I wanted to claim him much earlier, but I didn't know if I could trust you. I had to wait, so you would lead me back here. I hoped to find my wife.” The sea serpent bent his head and nuzzled Dickens. “You look like your mother. She had a green hide, too.”

And now they noticed that the father sea serpent was mostly brown. If you judged by his father's size, Dickens was barely a third grown.

Dickens said, “Tell me stories about my mother.”

And there was much to tell of the love between two sea serpents and their hopes for their child.

From the
Liberty
, the Talberts watched in wonder. Penelope wrote her first sea shanty about creatures seeking for a home. Santiago took out his most recent map and decorated it with monstrous coils. Finally, they strung hammocks, so they could keep watching the family reunion, and eventually, they slept beneath the stars. Dickens, for the first time in his life, slept safely tucked inside the coil of his father's tail.

The next day, the sea serpents and the pigs had a conference.

“Where can I go and safely raise my son?” asked Dickens' father.

Penelope pulled out a sea chart Santiago had drawn. Santiago nodded and tapped it.

Penelope said, “We've found an island where you can be safe.”

“The Black Sand Island?” Dickens asked. “Oh, father, you'll love it there.”

“Will you come with us?” asked Dickens' father. “You can come for a visit, or maybe it will be a safe place for you, a place you'll want to stay.”

“Yes,” Penelope and Santiago said together. And Dickens hugged Penelope until she squealed with joy.  

Penelope and Santiago set sail that day, with Dickens and his father swimming along beside them. By now, Dickens was swimming most of the time and only came on deck at evening to sing and visit.

The
Liberty
, followed by two sea serpents, sailed back to the Atlantic and down to the south Caribbean. At long last, they came home to a harbor of a green island with black sand. The evening tide pushed their sailboat far up a river, where Penelope and Santiago tied up.

“Look!” Dickens cried.

A broad marsh—with lots of black mud—spread out before them.

“Home!” Penelope said happily.

Santiago agreed. “Home.”

Later that year, Penelope gave birth to a litter of black and white piglets. She named the first-born, Victoria Marie. Cricket visited soon after in the
Mercator
, and agreed to be the piglets' god-mother.

So it was that Penelope and Santiago Talbert spent their days beachcombing with sea serpents who quoted poetry. And dancing jigs in the mud with their piglets. And singing, singing, singing, shanties of the seas.