a pirates field trip by ray rebmann (bill gates book recommendations txt) 📕

school or even worry over a day job ever in

your life…”

I look away for an instant, pretending to think about it. Seeing his words take effect, the

pirate pushes his best line…

.”.and you’ll be able to buy the house back for your poor sainted mother as well.”

That’s too much. I look him straight in the eye, real cold. He knows I see the him for

what he is.

“A liar’s sales pitch. You even sound just like my dad.”

“Arrrgggh I’m gonna cut out that unwanted little heart of yours and feed it to the sharks.”

he shrieks, slashing out at me with an awkward blow that ’s part punch, part slap. It leaves a red

welt on my cheek. But I don’t feel a thing.

I cut the last strand sending the pirate plummeting down to the deck below. But not

before he strikes with his concealed knife, wounding me in the left shoulder.

“Makes no never mind, I’ll always be there boy. Right behind you. You’ll hear me steps

comin closer and closer until you feel my breath on your scrawny little neck scorching away the

hairs like the hottest fires of Satan’s kitchen”

Before he can finish his idle threat, the pirate lands with a thud, cracking his skull

Open. But he’s still not through. He pulls himself to his feet in order to stage a long exaggerated

death scene complete with swoons, and moans, and calls for one last yohoho and one final bottle

of rum.

Field Trip Pirates--87

What a pirate!

After the villain falls overboard and slowly sinks to the bottom of the sea, I feel the

wound to my shoulder. It’s bleeding and really begins to hurt. Then, everything starts to go

black. I never knew what that meant before now. Now I see. The room starts darkening in parts

as the room changes back to a museum exhibit

The sharks swim away and are lost inside the hologram. Huey, Dewey, and Louis are out

of the water and running back along the corridor toward the nearest exit. A bunch of rats are

chasing them. Davy Jones gives one last wave and vanished with his lockers, one more pirate

stuffed inside. Then, the ocean vanishes and the whole thing becomes just a fancy three

dimensional painting on a museum wall.

In the dark, all I hear is a loud obnoxious sound like a car horn stuck. Then, I pass out.

* * *


Field Trip Pirates--88

All the lights in the exhibit had been turned off. Only the red emergency lights glowed in

the pitch black. Smoke filled the pirate exhibit and it was only Mr. J’s clearheadedness, leading

everyone to the fire exits, that saved a lot of people from getting hurt.

Jason lay unconscious on the carpet just as a man wearing a cape swung down from the

ceiling and taking him in his arms, swung away again just as a swarm of police officers and

firefighters, wielding flashlights and their night sticks, burst into the exhibit chamber.

Mr. J had been first to reach him.

“You’re all right.” Jason said to him, still feeling faint.

“If it wasn’t for him thinking quick, you might not be alive right now to be a hero, young

man.” An officer said, as Jason fainted again.

When Jason finally came to, he was in the museum manager’s office. Mr. J was still

wearing his cap and puffed on his pipe as he paced nervously back and forth, talking non stop.

Everyone in the room followed his steps and tried to concentrate on what he was telling them

about the pirates.

“They even were able to wire the room so the ship would move.” He explained. They had

somehow gained access to the back areas and had set up a computer to create a virtual reality

seascape that, with the right lighting, sound effects, and the power of suggestion, might convince

some gullible boys that they were aboard a real pirate ghost ship.”

Why did the pirate need Huey, Dewey, and Louis?

“Slave labor, plain and simple. He figured he’d use them and since no one would miss

them, dispose of them afterwards. Cold blooded villain.”

Ms. K asked how he knew so much. He’d been tipped off at the bridge.

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The jumper!

Turns out, she had been part of the gang. The pirate set up the jump as a

diversion to distract the police and delay the grand opening of the exhibit until he and his stooges

could get everything in place. Even down to the blind vendor setting up his cart in front of the

museum to watch for the bus from ______ and send the boys on their way

“What they didn’t count on was my being able to dissuade her from her criminal path.”

Mr. J explained. “A former student, long ago. She told me the whole set up, even down to using

the boys. They also didn’t count on a certain very brave young man who, no doubt, will be

remembered as the hero of this “sinister case of the school field trip pirates ”

Mr. J then related the story of why the pirates set up the elaborate scheme at the museum.

A long time ago, there were pirates right here. They sailed up and down the coast, attacking ships

coming and going to Europe.

One pirate was especially successful. He was a dandy, had been a

school master in merry old England but took to piracy to make enough money to marry the

beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant who wouldn’t let his daughter marry a poor school

teacher.

The pirate captured plenty of ships and lots of treasure. Legend had it that he buried it on

one of the islands up river and away from the main shipping lanes.

Over the years, that island was settled. For a short while a fortress, then a prison were

built, right over the spot where the pirate buried his treasure.

He and his men tried to get it. They attacked the fort but were beaten off. They waited

years and despaired of ever having a chance at the loot. When the fort became a prison, the

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pirate was finally captured and locked up at the prison right near the spot where he supposedly

buried the treasure. He bribed his guards who joined him to dig an elaborate system of tunnels

some leading toward the treasure, some away, and some were booby trapped.

But before he ever had the chance to actually dig the treasure up, he was hanged

for being a pirate and his secret went with him to his grave. He was such a headstrong fellow that

it took the hangman several tries to do the job.

Hence, legend has it, the pirate was hanged three times for his crime.

There was also a legend about his treasure map and over the years, fortune hunters sought

the map which would show them the place on the island where he buried it.

The prison closed and was turned into a museum. The same museum in which we were

listening to his story. And the legend has it that the treasure is buried right beneath this very

room. But, Mr. J laughed.

“It’s all just a “kid” legend,” he whispered for the boys to hear. “You know how kid

legends are.”

“But who was the pirate?” Huey asked. “Was he a ghost?”

“That’s what he wanted you to believe, Master Hubert.” Mr. J got that funny look of his

and smiled. “Maybe he was a ghost. Maybe he just a very bitter and greedy man who knew a lot

of history and tried to trade a quest for knowledge into a hunt for gold that wasn’t his. Ask

Jason. Last time I asked, he didn’t believe in ghosts.”

“What do you think now?

Jason didn’t know what to think. But he did wonder how it was that the pirate knew Mr. J

very well indeed.

Field Trip Pirates--91

“A youthful indiscretion.” Mr. J answered, looking hard at the boy.

Don’t look at me that way lad. I was young… once upon a time. Anyway, it happened a

long time ago when I first went out into the world on my own. Before I understood the true

power of what I had.”

He pointed to the pouch and then his head.

“Too late to keep the likes of him from getting loose in the world.”

“Is he really gone now?”

“I don’t know that for sure Jason. Just because you sent him to what appeared to be his

watery grave….may not be the last of him. His type always seems to be around. They survive.

Like a cat that way. With lives to spare and no care to what they do to others. I guess the best

Way to understand is by reading another of Stevenson’s books, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

He kept giving that funny look. But finally, he assured Jason, they were out of danger for

now.

* * *


Field Trip Pirates--92

Huey Dewey and Louis find themselves sitting on a bench outside the pirate exhibit in

the museum’s main hall. They’re embarrassed because of all the geeks and dweebs obediently

tagging along with parents and teachers, are gawking at them.

Ms. K is standing over them talking, wringing her hands. The head curator stands

behind her, her untied arms folded. She’s scowling. She looks deadlier than any pirate who

ever sailed the Spanish Main

“Not only could you boys have been hurt which would have served you right but you

might have damaged a priceless historical artifact.” She says in a voice that had the musketeers

wishing she’d holler instead.

None of the boys know what an artifact was but they’re glad to be away from that old

pirate ship. They’re dry, too.

Ms K orders the boys to stay glued to the bench while she rounds up the rest of the

kids.

Of course, Huey Dewey and Louis quickly forget their ordeal aboard the pirate ship.

Being antsy types, there’s no bench in the world large enough to contain them or glue

powerful enough to hold them down in one place for more than a minute.

Soon, they forget all about why they were sitting and are looking for more mischief to

get into.

High overhead, a wire runs across the ceiling. Mr. J had explained that the bad guys had

run the line a few nights before the exhibit opened. The wire was connected to a generator and