"Hook's hook, right enough!"
"Well, girlie, you should know, shouldn't you, now?"
"It's 'is symbol of fortune and fame, yoho!"
"Keep the fame, it's the fortune for me!"
They spun and danced about Smee and back through the crowd, a dozen more appearing from nearby doorways to join in. Peter, anxious to keep Smee in view, had gotten too close and was suddenly swept up in the whirl of skirts and cheap perfume.
"James Hook, son of a sea cook!"
"Hey, that's not all, he's a son of a…"
"Jimmy Hook, our claim to fame."
"Him and few hundred more I could name!"
"Swordsman, poet, and debauched Sailing to plunder and torture!"
"James Hook, Captain Hook, the sharpest blade on the seven seas! Our Hook!"
They sang and danced away, leaving Smee flustered and smiling and Peter trying desperately to avoid being seen, even though he had ended up almost nose to nose with the pirate. But Smee seemed not to notice, turning away with a blissful sigh and continuing down the walk.
A moment later he veered into the door of a barber shop. "A bad-boy chop," he ordered of the barber, who swung him into a chair, hacked a bit with a razor and knife, and stepped away. Smee rose and tossed the barber a gold coin. As the barber reached eagerly for it Smee jerked it away again-a string bound it to his finger. "Have to be quicker than that, mate." Smee grinned and tossed him a copper coin instead.
Back down the walkway he went, Peter and Tink in pursuit once more. Pirates shoved and jostled Peter as they passed, a few offering curses and promises of dreadful things to come. Peter tried to ignore them, his eyes on Smee. His peg leg was killing him by now, enough so that he really did feel like growling. He was beginning to wonder if he had any idea at all what he was doing.
Smee slowed and turned in to a tavern where a player piano was hard at work and a collection of rummies sang lustily before a sagging wooden bar. The rummies were an aged and worn lot, pirates possessed of an entire inventory of glass eyes, peg legs, false teeth, wooden hands, and other replacement parts.
Their voices rose raggedly in song.
Smee sauntered up to the crowd, displayed the hook imperiously, and announced, "Drinks are on Smee, for all those who've got a knee that was once a tree!"
He tossed down some coins amid shouts of acclaim and bounced out the door again, nearly running over a harried Peter, who was hanging on the frame, exhausted from trying to keep up.
Ahead, the pier tunneled into a cluster of old ships, a hazy corridor of torchlight and smoke. Smee skipped along, the hook balanced on the pillow, and disappeared into the gloom. Peter hurried after, growling now and again when other pirates approached, losing enthusiasm for the whole business. But Jack and Maggie depended on him, so he could not turn back. He groped his way along the tunnel, his eyes watering. Ahead, he could hear pirates singing and shouting, "Hook! Hook! Hook!"
Peter pushed clear of the tunnel, free of the haze of stinging smoke, and blinked against the sunlight. Smee was just ahead, slowing at a pen tended by two rangy pirates wielding whips. Within the pen were four cowering boys in the process of having their shirts stripped from their backs. They whimpered and cried out pleadingly.
"Misters Jukes and Noodler," Smee greeted cheerfully, nodding first to the one whose muscular body was as black as ebony and then to the one whose blond hair and beard had the appearance of a rat's nest. "Top of the morning, mates!"
He skipped on, whistling once more, but Peter slowed in spite of himself, horrified at what he was seeing.
"They're just children," he whispered up to Tink.
He could hear her hiss with disdain and anger. "Hook's a scummy slaver. He makes his prisoners count his treasure for him-over and over and over again."
Suddenly there was a roar from behind Peter, and a flood of pirates surged out of the smoky tunnel, singing and chanting. Peter had no time to get clear of the rush, and he was quickly caught up and swept along. Down the wharf front the crowd flowed, past the collection of scavenged ships that formed the town's entrance, out from the huge sign that hung over the tunnel and read in bold letters good Form pier, to the end of the dock and the gangplank leading up to the only vessel moored in the entire harbor.
But such a dark and sinister craft it was! A brigantine, fully rigged and outfitted, cannons bristling from its gun ports, its hull rakish and gleaming in the light. A skeleton with an upraised sword formed the spine of its prow, its death's-head grinning with the anticipation of its next victim's demise. A huge cannon, four times the size of any other, sat alone atop the aft deck behind the wheel, its massive barrel swung about to guard the harbor entrance, its cradle mounted on a revolving base. Below, the captain's quarters were framed by a stern crafted like a huge skull with windows forming luminous eyes and gilt the outline of its jaw, nose, and brows. The railing above was shaped like a captain's hat with serpents hissing at the corners. The hull was painted red and black with gold trim, and brass fittings gleamed in the sunlight. The pirate ship looked fast and wicked, like a cat prepared to pounce.
Atop its highest mast flew a gold shield and crossbones on a field of black with banners proclaiming good form and jas. On the port side of the main deck, protruding like a tongue, was the dreaded plank.
The pirates about Peter chanted wildly: "Show us the Hook! Hook! Hook! Show us the Hook! Hook! Hook!"
One thing Peter Banning was not was a coward. But he also understood that at times discretion was the better part of valor. He found himself wondering if now wasn't one of those times. Perhaps Tink had been right. Perhaps he wasn't ready for Hook.
Unfortunately, it was too late to worry about that now. The pirates were sweeping up the gangplank and onto the ship, and Peter was being swept right along with them.
Hook Confronted
Crammed port to starboard and bowsprit to mainmast aboard the brigantine Jolly Roger, the pirates roared out, "Hook! Hook! Hook!" Arms raised, some brandishing weapons, some bare fists. The pirate ship rocked with their cries.
Atop the quarter deck, Smee stepped forward and signaled for silence.
"Good mawning, Neverlaaaannd!" he bellowed, cheeks puffing out, belly shaking. "Tie down the mainsail, mates, 'cause here he is-the cunning kingfish, the baaad barracuda, the sleaziest sleaze of the seven seas, and a shipshape dresser to boot, a man so deep he's nearly unfathomable and so quick he's even fast asleep! I give you our very own steel-handed stingray-Cap'n James Hook!"
A pirate named Tickles pumped wildly at a concertina white cannons exploded in sheets of fire and the cheers of the pirate crew rose to new heights.
From behind Smee, the doors to the captain's cabin burst wide and out strode the infamous James Hook.
At first glance he looked very like his ship-or perhaps it was the other way around. He was sleek and narrow and wicked looking from his sharp-nosed face to his pointed toes. His captain's coat was cut from red and black cloth and trimmed in gold filigree. He wore a gold-fringed sash across one shoulder with a cutlass sheathed at its loop. Ruffled white lace hung at his neck, and the angular face above it was reminiscent of a ship's prow cutting through a sea's white froth. His black hair hung down about bis shoulders in ringlets like the rigging from a mast. His captain's tricorne was broad-brimmed and tailored and looked exactly like the aft railing of his vessel save for the absence of serpents hissing at its corners. What was lacking in serpents, however, was more than made up for in Hook's face. Cruel, hard, sneering, with mustaches that coiled like vipers and eyes that could freeze a bird in flight, he was a formidable-looking figure standing there before his riotous band of brigands.
At the end of his left hand he had affixed the dreaded hook for which he was so well known, its newly sharpened hook point gleaming in the sunlight.