Chapter Text
“What beats me,” said Nancy, frowning, “is why Uncle Jim should have got it into his head that you had anything to do with the burglars.”
John shifted from foot to foot, staring fixedly at the merrily dancing fire.
“Of course we didn’t,” he said, rather strongly, feeling his face heat up.
“Gaskets and bowlines!” said Nancy, and her tone was one that told him she’d be calling him a galoot if she wasn’t already occupied with swearing. He looked up to meet her fierce eyes across the circle.
“You needn’t tell me that,” she continued, and he watched as her eyebrows drew together. “What puzzles me is why he should think you did.”
Captain John felt very uncomfortable. The heat in his face returned threefold. He dropped his gaze from her, looking instead over Titty’s head to the rest of the campsite, strewn with the Amazons’ tentpoles and bundles.
“He didn’t believe me when I told him I hadn’t touched his houseboat, that time I went to tell him what the charcoal-burners had said.”
“But,” Nancy’s voice had hardened. “why wouldn’t he believe you?”
“Well,” John started. He paused, glancing back at her. “Look here, Captain Nancy, it really doesn’t matter.”
There was a muffled sound from Titty, punctuated by a swift but light elbow to her ribs from Susan.
—
Nancy barely spared them a glance before continuing, her gaze fixed firmly on John.
“Of course it does,” she said, the conviction in her voice strengthening her every word. “Old Sammy would never have come nosing around here if he hadn’t heard something from Uncle Jim.”
John suddenly wouldn’t meet her eyes. He stared down at the dirt and pine needles littering the earth under their feet. Out of the corner of her eye, Nancy saw Susan lift a hand to her brother’s shoulder and squeeze. She’d not seen John falter like this, like the words were reluctant to come out of his mouth. She just wanted to know what ridiculous thing her native uncle had made the Commodore think (the Commodore! A fairly earned title and here was Uncle Jim coming along to ruin John’s victory in that too.)
John swallowed and finally looked straight at her.
“It was that day we first saw you,” he said. “When we thought he’d fired at you. He saw us when we sailed up the lake to see where you went, and he thought it was us who put that firework on his cabin roof.”
Dimly, through the embarrassed rush in her ears, Nancy noted that there was not a single note of reproach in his voice. Which was very gracious of him. Considering.
—
John watched as Nancy’s face flamed bright red, even through her sunburn. Her mouth dropped open a little, then snapped back to closed as she set her shoulders and pressed her lips together.
When she spoke, it was measured and determined.
“I’ll put that matter right at once.”
When she spoke again, it was the quietest he’d ever heard her.
“Was he very beastly?”
“He did call me a liar,” he said, and she looked away, if only for a moment.
—
How dare he.
She felt her hands trembling as, horribly, a sudden lump came to her throat.
“But it doesn’t matter now, really,” he said quickly.
—
“It does.”
She was looking at him again. Her eyes were sharp and clear and focused. He couldn’t take his eyes off her all of a sudden, even as she whirled to face the Mate of the Amazon.
“Peggy!”
“Sir.”
“Empty the rest of our stores out of Amazon, take the mast and sail out of her and bring her round to the landing place.”
Peggy saluted smartly and ran off.
“Mister Mate, Captain John,” Nancy continued, in the same businesslike tone, “have you got a pencil and bit of paper in the camp? And I’ll want a scrap of charcoal out of your fire.”
John felt rather as though he had just been struck by a bus. He moved towards his tent, brought out the exercise book and the pencil, and handed them over to Nancy. Their fingers brushed.
—
She put the pencil in her mouth and sucked hard on the end as she flung herself down onto the ground, making sure not to accidentally crease the exercise book. The letter would have to be the most Ruth-less thing she’d ever written, making sure Uncle Jim knew exactly what a tremendous galoot he’d been. Her hand was still trembling as she pressed the pencil hard into the paper, slowly carving the words onto the page with as much force as she could muster, angrily sucking the pencil between each word.
‘To Captain Flint (alias Uncle Jim), John never touched the houseboat. When you told him he was a liar—’
The pencil lead snapped.
She swore under her breath.
A pocket knife came into view, held out by John, who had knelt next to her. She took it and quickly sharpened the pencil again.
‘—he wasn’t. You were. He had come at risk of his life to warn you that there was an attack planned on your houseboat. The Billies had given him a message for you. You wouldn’t listen.’
Here the paper was nearly punctured.
‘Instead you called him a liar. Talk about being ungrateful. Now you’ve been burgled. I’m glad. Very glad. If you want to know who singed your beard (see Philip of Spain) by exploding a mine on your cabin roof, it was the undersigned. You deserved it. This is the Black Spot. You are deposed from being an uncle or anything decent.’
The pencil snapped again, and she was grateful for it, because there was a swimming mist over her eyes all of a sudden. She blinked, hard, and felt John gently take the broken pencil out of her grip.
—
He sensed rather than saw her look up at him as he focused on sharpening the pencil.
—
She suddenly realized that Susan, Titty, and Roger were staring at her open-mouthed. She rubbed her eyes ferociously, casting about for something to say to them, before she felt a warmth on her shoulder. John’s hand sat atop her shirt sleeve and the other held the proffered pencil.
She took it, a slight smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, where she could still taste the graphite. She looked back at Susan.
“I suck it to make it good and black,” she explained.
—
John watched as she turned back to the letter and scrawled out her name, followed by ‘(Amazon pirate)’. She nodded decisively to herself and ripped the sheet out of the exercise book before leaning over and taking a piece of charred wood from the edge of the fire. She handed the book and pencil back to John with one hand and, with the other, smeared the back of the letter with burnt wood in a crudely shaped circle.
She stood. John stood with her, suddenly unsure what was going to happen next. There was still a glint in her eye as she folded the paper and put it in her shirt pocket. The mate’s voice broke the silence of the camp, making Roger jump.
“Boat ready, sir!”
—
Nancy marched down to the landing place, Swallows close behind. She could feel the paper pressing against her skin through her shirt. Peggy held the gunwale as Nancy stepped aboard and readied the oars, but before she pushed Amazon off, she leaned close to Nancy and spoke under her breath.
“You alright?”
“I—”
Nancy felt a wobble threatening to come out. Peggy’s eyes widened and she put a quick steadying hand on Nancy’s arm.
“Properly shiver his timbers, Captain,” Peggy whispered fiercely.
“Aye aye, Mister Mate,” Nancy replied, a grin spreading across her face.
She adjusted the oars and looked up at the landing place. John was looking at her, his mouth slightly ajar.
“I’ll be back soon,” she said.
“But what are you going to do?” Roger asked as she pushed off.
“Tip him the Black Spot,” she said fiercely, digging her oars in and pulling hard. Her gaze landed back on John, who had closed his mouth but had stepped forward so that the water was lapping at the toes of his shoes. His eyes were wide and very brown.
Her next stroke was not as neat and silent as an Amazon pirate’s should be, and neither were many of the ones after it.
She held John’s gaze for as long as she could, until she passed the promontory of Houseboat Bay and Wildcat Island disappeared from view.