Come on, guys, grab a weapon! Let's go!
SPARKY
Watch out for Elwood! He's up there somewhere!
The pirate crew starts to boil out of the fo'c'sle, waving cutlasses and firing pistols. The Gang fights them off as Sparky hurries forward. BLUEBEARD the pirate captain steps from his cabin.
BLUEBEARD
So, Sparky, you've escaped again! Well, you'll not get away this time. (Draws his sword)
SPARKY
It's you who'll be walking the plank tonight, Captain!
He grabs a sword and the two fight. ELWOOD comes running from the magazine.
ELWOOD
The fuse is lit! Let's get out of here!
SPARKY runs the captain through, pulls out his sword.
SPARKY
There's an end to your career of looting and plundering, Captain! (Laughs) Get the point? Come on, guys! There's no time to waste! Over the side with you, and swim for your lives!
The gang leaps into the air as the ship explodes behind them.
" 'Hurry, Sparky. I think I hear the pirates coming.' "
Silence.
" 'Hurry, Sparky,' " Moe started again, but Larry, who didn't seem to like Dodger at all, interrupted.
" 'Samattah, kid? Forgot 'em again?"
"What's my motivation?" Dodger asked.
"Motivation?" Larry wanted to know. He looked baffled.
"Yes, my—"
"Motivation? Motivation?" Peppy asked, around his lollipop. "What's this motivation crap? Suddenly I don't like this kid so much. Your motivation is get loose and kill pirates. Capishe?"
"No, sir," Dodger said. "I mean, who is Sparky? I can't give a good reading unless I know a little about him." There was no response, so he hurried on. "Is he happy? I mean, does he enjoy his life? Or does he worry too much? Is he stupid? I mean, he got captured, didn't he? So... is he worried about the mistake he made? What is his attitude, is the main thing. Should I play him like Errol Flynn, or John Wayne, or the Eliminator?"
Peppy leaned forward and his lollipop stick rattled in his mouth as he talked.
"Sparky is a happy-go-lucky, smart little fuck, but not so smart he don't get outnumbered from time to time, you see what I mean? He is self-confident but not obnoxious about it. His troops like him, and so do the dames, people are alla time buying him drinks. He's a good boy to be with in a tough situation, 'cause nothing bad never happens to him for too damn long. He's the man with the charm but he don't have no big head about it. It ain't he's too stupid to know it, it's he's modest, see? Also trustworthy. Also helpful, brave, clean, and irrelevant. He don't kick his dog, he pulls down about forty-five gees a year, goes to the church of his choice, votes as many times as he can, always for the right people. He's a schlemiel, you hear what I'm saying? Errol Flynn, definitely Errol Flynn." He leaned forward even farther. "With maybe just a touch of Daffy Duck. Now can we read?"
Dodger was not acquainted with Daffy Duck, but stripped of the sarcasm, he thought he might be getting a picture of Sparky.
"There's a big pirate ship, just across the hall," he said.
"You want we should go read in there? Will that help you find your 'motivation'? That's where we'll be shooting this scene."
Oh, yeah? Dodger thought. I thought you dashed it off this morning.
"Could we have just a second?" he asked.
Peppy sat back and looked at the ceiling again.
"Take a second, take a second." He found Dodger again with his eyes. "I'll let you in on a secret. Only reason you're still here is most kids stink at this stuff. We get most of 'em out of here in thirty seconds, am I right? Tell him, Debbie, do I speak the truth here?" Debbie nodded, quickly. "I thought I saw something when you were reading that other crap. Now I'm not so sure. But I'm hardly ever wrong, so you get a second. Hell, two seconds. Find your motivation. Wake me up when you're ready." And he leaned back again.
Dodger closed his eyes and tried to find the key to the scene. "There's always a key," his father had said. "It may be a key to the whole play, or just to a scene. Hitchcock called it a McGuffin."
Well, there was the padlock, wasn't there? Maybe it wasn't a key, but a lock. If Sparky doesn't pick the lock there is no scene, just guys squatting in the dark.
He opened his eyes and looked down. He made his hand hold the lock, shaped his fingers around it, felt the cool metal. How did it look? Well, it was a little rusty. Everything metal on this ship was a little rusty. It was a great big, old-fashioned padlock, round, heavy, with a big keyhole in it. The wards inside would be big clunky things, iron bars meant to be moved by a thick skeleton key, that might be moved by a splinter of wood pried from the deck of a pirate ship.
He saw it in his hand. Felt the weight of it.
Now, how would Sparky pick a lock? He thought of people who squinted at a task like that, who bit down on the tips of their tongues. No way. Not Sparky. He's frowning, but one eyebrow is raised. He knows he can do this. He's confident, it's only going to be a matter of time, and part of his mind is already occupied with what he's going to do when he gets free. Dodger felt his shoulders rising a little, his elbows moving out from his sides. Jimmy Cagney? Just a little bit of that, but without the meanness. One side of his lip curled up. He was going to beat this damn lock, it didn't have a chance.
He started to work.
"Hurry, Sparky! I think I hear the pirates coming!"
That Elwood, Sparky thought. Always jumping at ghosts. Sparky had been listening, and he hadn't heard a thing. He shrugged it away.
"Don't make me nervous." He felt the rusty ward moving, moving just the tiniest bit. But the splinter wasn't very strong, it could break at any moment.
"I think I've..." With a satisfying clink the shackle popped up.
"There! It's open. Come on, guys, pull the chain through the rings. Don't let it rattle! Quietly! Quietly!"
(Dodger stood up in his chair.)
"Now, Basil! Robin! Elwood! You go up through the rear hatch." He gestured to his right. "Elwood, find the powder magazine and try to light a fuse." He watched his men hurry away in the darkness, then turned to the rest of them. "Boots, me and you and the rest will go up front, where the guns are. We're outnumbered, but maybe we can send this old bucket to Davy Jones, even if we have to go down with it!"
(Dodger stepped up onto the conference table and crept away, toward Gideon Peppy.)
Sparky carefully pushed up the hatch cover and looked through the crack. When he saw the sleeping guard he leaped out and popped him one in the jaw, then took his flintlock pistol as he fell. The gang swarmed out behind him.
"Come on, guys, grab a weapon!" said MoeBoots. "Let's go!"
Then the pirates were all over them. Sparky fired his pistol, then threw it in a pirate's face. He grabbed a sword and began slashing right and left, until suddenly there was the evil figure of Bluebeard, his longtime nemesis.
"So, Sparky, you've escaped again! Well, you'll not get away this time." He drew his sword and assumed the en garde position. Sparky stood straight, tossed his head, and saluted the captain with his sword. He laughed, defiantly.
"It's you who'll be walking the plank tonight, me bucko!"
They battled back and forth across the seething deck, slippery with blood. Their steel rang in the night, and flashed in the orange light of the torches. Suddenly there was a cry.
"The fuse is lit! Let's get out of here!"
Sparky, who had been toying with the captain, now lunged forward and thrust his blade through Bluebeard's vile black heart. The pirate fell, mortally wounded. Sparky planted his foot on the beribboned and lacy shirt, pulled his sword free.