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Israel Hands is not the youngest of the boys on the ship, that dubious distinction is Sam Bellamy's.
He's not the roughest, that belongs to a freedman everyone calls Saul, but whose name, he'd told Israel in private, was Soloman.
He's not the tallest, or the fastest. What he is, according to the Captain, is the smartest. And that the British Navy values.
And that's why, when his ship was attacked by the Marianne, and his Captain was killed by Captain Hornigold, Israel pulled Sam and Saul along with him to serve, and live, aboard the pirate ship.
Saul gets off at the next port. He has, for all his rough ways, no taste for sailing, and Haiti is a good place for him. Sam and Israel, and Jack and Edward, because there were more boys on Hornigold's ship than on the naval vessel, wish him well and see him off.
And Israel starts sizing up his companions for his next mark.
Sam is soft, and what's more, everyone seems to want to keep him that way. Including Israel.
Jack is wild in ways that can't be managed or aimed.
That leaves Edward.
Israel studies the other boy for weeks, up close and from afar. He brushes off the rough jokes, and even ends up in a few fights over his obsession.
Edward, it seems, is perfect for his purposes. He's brilliant, possibly smarter than Israel himself. Good at swordplay, not squeamish about blood, a little about actually killing but that's not necessarily a problem - Sam doesn't kill, either.
He's going to be tall, and it looks like he'll fill out to be imposing, too. He needs a nickname. "Edward Teach" isn't someone anyone will flee from.
Israel starts small. Stealing rations or rum, and leaving evidence that the other boy is responsible. Nothing big enough to lose a hand, or for death.
And nothing when things were running low.
He has no illusions about if he's "good" but he's not stupid.
He also makes sure to frame Jack at least a third of the time, and to get "caught" some times, as well.
And then he works on becoming the go to for the kinds of injuries that punishments - whether extra work or floggings - brought.
He becomes the confidant to the younger - read more hot-headed - members of the crew.
And he talks. A word here, an idea there. Pushing the narrative that they would do it better. And always, always presenting Edward as a leader. Deferring to him in small ways, presenting ideas to him in private first, then giving him credit later.
It is just starting to work when Jack decides to nickname them all.
He calls himself "Calico" and Sam "My Prince" (Israel doesn't think they're sleeping together, unlike most of the men in the ship who will take what they can get, when they can, Sam seems devoted to some girl he met in port).
It takes longer for Jack to settle on nicknames for Israel and Edward. Israel refused to answer to "Handy" or "Handsy" and both "Dizzy Izzy" and "Jizzy Izzy" has caused a fight that Jack did not win.
Edward adopts "Izzy" though, and because Israel has set him up as the leader, that sticks. It almost feels good.
Edward's beard is finally growing in full, a man's beard, not the patches of a teen, when Jack starts calling him "Blackie." Edward accepts it from Jack, and only from Jack. The one time Israel calls him that it takes three days before he can see out of his left eye again.
But "Blackbeard" now, especially when the older pirates start using it. When the wanted sheets start using it. And the first time a sailor on a ship they're raising calls him that, Israel knows he has him.
Mutiny against Hornigold is only a matter of time.