8 : Blackbeard the Pirate
THE NEXT MORNING, Bob Andrews rode his bike through
the main gate of The Jones Salvage Yard and saw right
away that The Three Investigators weren’t likely to have
a conference that morning. Pete and Jupiter were hard at
work, while Mrs. Mathilda Jones supervised.
The minute he got inside, Mrs. Jones spotted him.
“You’re just in time, Bob Andrews!” she called. “We’re
taking inventory to-day.”
Mrs. Jones had a very big heart but when she saw a
boy, she had only one idea—to put him to work! She had
Pete and Jupiter working so hard they scarcely had time
to mop the sweat off their faces. They were counting bath-
tubs, and sinks, lifting bunches of iron rods to count them,
moving other junk to see what was behind it, and calling
out the amount to Mrs. Jones.
“One 18-foot I-beam!” Pete called.
“One 18-foot I-beam,” Mrs. Jones said, and wrote it
down. Then, as Bob got there, she handed the pad and
pencil to him. “You take over, Bob.”
He barely had time to grab the pencil before Jupiter
yelled, “Twelve cast-iron sinks!” Bob wrote it down.
Then Jupiter moved over close and whispered, “We’re
trying to make some money, Bob. I have an idea I want
to try out.”
They were working busily when Bob noticed that Mrs.
Jones was poking around near their Headquarters. She
was looking at the big stack of old rusty boilers, steel
pipes, building material and other large pieces of junk that
Jupiter had had Hans and Konrad, over a period of a
year, place in such a way that they completely hid the 30-
foot mobile home trailer they used as Headquarters.
Mrs. Jones stared at the pile of material and frowned.
“Jupiter!” she called. “Why haven’t you boys been list-
ing this material over here?”
Jupiter looked at Bob and he looked at Pete and Pete
looked at both of them. No one spoke.
“Jupiter!” Mrs. Jones called. “Do you hear me? Come
over and help me see what’s here!”
She started tugging away at pipes and boilers, and
Jupiter and Pete hurried over. They were afraid that in
another minute she’d have Headquarters uncovered.
“Excuse me, Aunt Mathilda,” Jupiter said, “but that
material is not very valuable. It’s hardly worth bothering
with.”
“Hardly worth bothering with!” Mrs. Jones snorted.
“Look how big that pile is! I want to know what’s inside
there,” she said. “Maybe we should just get rid of all this
stuff and use the space for something more valuable.”
Just then a horn sounded three times, and the big
salvage-yard truck, with Konrad at the wheel, came roll-
ing into the yard. Mrs. Jones turned to look and the
minute she saw what was on the truck, she forgot about
the pile of material that hid Headquarters.
“Mercy and goodness and sweetness and light!” she
cried. “Titus Andronicus Jones, what have you bought
now?”
Most what he had bought was ordinary junk, but
perched up at the back end of the truck was an iron deer.
It was life-size, with huge antlers.
“Hmph!” Mrs. Jones said. “Well we can sell it to a
collector, I suppose, but I’ll bet you paid too much money
for it.”
“I didn’t buy it to sell,” Titus said. “I’m going to set
it up outside the gate.” He hopped down off the truck and
gave his wife a squeeze around the waist “Now I’ll have
two dears,” he said.
It was a pretty terrible pun, but Mrs. Jones giggled, and
forgot all about looking into the pile of material that hid
Headquarters.
“Mercy and goodness,” she said, looking at the sun,
“lunchtime. You men must be hungry. Where have you
been all morning?”
“Be warned. Don’t open the parcel outdoors.”
Without waiting for an answer, she started out of the
salvage yard towards their little white house, which stood
just outside the walls.
“You boys want a regular lunch, or do you want sand-
wiches?” she called back.
“Sandwiches, please, Aunt Mathilda,” Jupiter answered.
“We want to have a meeting.”
“Oh yes, your club,” she said in a vague way, and kept
on going. Jupiter had told her they were starting an in-
vestigation firm, but the details hadn’t registered very
strongly in her mind. She kept thinking of it as a club.
Jupiter went after her to bring back the sandwiches, and
Pete and Bob helped unload the truck. Then Bob wrote
down a quick tally of everything that was unloaded.
Hans and Konrad, the two helpers, did all the heavy
work. Konrad took time to tell the boys what had delayed
them.
“We find we be down there where your friend, this boy
Carlos, live,” he said. “So we run over and give a hand
fixing up the house. Got everything nice and tight now.
That’s a good boy, that Carlos. His uncle feeling better,
too.”
They were glad to hear that Carlos and his uncle were
coming along all right They admired Carlos’s spunk.
“Mr. Jones, he see they don’t have money,” Konrad
said. “So he pretend Mrs. Jones make mistake in charging
for material. He give Carlos back five dollar and seven-
teen cents. He’s smart, Mr. Jones is. Five dollar sound
like a present. Add on seventeen cents and it sounds
hokay.”
Then Konrad gave them a big wink.
“Got surprise for Jupe,” he said. “Carlos send him
present. I get it out of truck.”
A present? Pete and Bob looked at each other. What
could it be?
Konrad climbed into the cab of the truck and came out
with a cardboard box. It was tightly tied with string and
there were holes punched in the top. Konrad handed it to
Pete.
“Carlos say, don’t open it outdoors,” he told them.
“There’s a note inside to explain.”
Then he went back to help Hans and Mr. Jones finish
unloading.
“Come on, Bob!” Pete said. “Let’s go into Headquar-
ters and open it. I have a funny feeling it’s something Jupe
is going to be awfully happy to see.”
Inside Headquarters Pete closed the roof ventilator.
“No use taking chances,” he said, as he cut the string
round the box. He opened the cardboard flaps, and there
squatting in a corner and looking miserable, was a
medium-sized dark bird with a yellow beak.
“It’s Blackbeard!” Pete yelled.
There was a piece of paper in the box. Bob picked it
up. It had writing on it that looked as if someone had
spent a long time trying to get the letters into the right
shape.
Dear Señor Jupiter,
Here is Señor Blackbeard. He come home at din-
ner time. I send him to you. I wish you to have him,
for he is my friend and you are my friend. Besides,
I have fear the fat man try to steal him. We now have
nice house and I thank you one thousand times.
Carlos Sanchez.
When Bob finished reading the letter out loud, the
mynah bird fluffed up his feathers and hopped on to the
edge of the box. He looked at Pete’s fingers as if they
might be good to eat. Pete jerked his hand away.
“No, you don’t!” he yelled. “You tried my ear yester-
day. You’re not getting any more of my blood. You might
turn into a vampire mynah bird.”
There was a noise behind them. Jupiter had crawled
into Headquarters and started to stand up. He was only
halfway straightened up when he came eye to eye with
Blackbeard sitting on the edge of his box.
Jupiter and Blackbeard froze. For a moment they
stared into each other’s eyes. Then Blackbeard flapped his
wings.
“I’m Blackbeard the Pirate! I’ve buried my treasure
where dead men guard it ever!” he croaked. “I never
give a sucker an even break, and that’s a lead pipe cinch!”
And he laughed, in a phony way, like a man who knows
No comments:
Post a Comment