“I don’t trust either one of you,” Sebastian had told them in front of the whole group that morning after breakfast. “And we can’t have you doing something stupid and messing this up for everyone.” The last Jonathan had seen of Colin, he was standing, pinching at his neck and frowning thoughtfully as he watched Sebastian stalk out into the courtyard, brandishing the Admiral’s sword. He also had the Admiral’s hat on his head. It was a new touch Sebastian had added that morning when he’d come down for breakfast. Either he had a huge head or the Admiral had had a small one. The hat fit him perfectly.
Jonathan squinted out over the green and white of the tossing waves. Somewhere, just beyond his eye’s reach, was the real world. Waiting. He breathed in, then out, and shivered. He wasn’t ready yet.
The mailbag was heavy over his shoulder. That was his job, to hand over their letters. Polite little lies scrawled in childish writing to keep their kidnapped ship afloat. In the bag was his own letter. And Jason’s new one, written that morning with Benny peering over his shoulder. Everyone’s letter was in the bag. Except Sebastian’s. Jonathan had noticed that: Sebastian never wrote a letter.
“Hey! I hear it!” Tony called out, and everyone snapped to attention. They waited.
“Aw, no, you didn’t,” Miguel said.
“I did!” Tony repeated. “I still do! There it is!”
All the eyes followed his pointing finger.
The boat was bigger than Cyrus and Patrick’s little mail boat. Its noise was a deeper one, more rumble than whine, more easily lost in the constant low roar of the waves clawing at Slabhenge’s walls. It pushed through the waves instead of rising and falling and hopping between them.
Gerald jumped up on his stool in the shadows by the gate opening and pulled the long coat tighter around him.
“Okay, boys,” Sebastian said. “Here we go.”
The boat rolled up sideways to where the staircase dropped into the depths. Sebastian and David ran down to the water’s edge, and a bearded man puffing a pipe threw a rope to them. Sebastian tied it off to the metal ring and the man slid a long wooden ramp over the rail of the boat.
The two men in the boat began sliding bags, crates, and boxes down the ramp, where they were grabbed by a boy or two and dragged or carried up the stairs and through the gate into the courtyard.
The boat rocked in the waves, and the ramp knocked and jostled, but it was all done in a matter of minutes. When the last crate was being hauled up the stairs, the bearded man waved to the fake Mr. Vander to come down to the boat.
The boys still on the stairs looked at each other.
“What do you need?” Sebastian asked the man.
“What do you mean? I need someone to sign that the order was delivered, boy!” The man waved a clipboard up toward Gerald.
“Oh,” Sebastian said, looking back at Gerald standing in the shadows. “I’ll bring it to him,” he added quickly, snatching the clipboard before the man could object. He dashed away up the stairs.
Jonathan watched him talking with Gerald in the darkened archway. The man was watching, too, a frown on his bushy face.
“Here,” Jonathan said to distract him. He shrugged the mailbag off his shoulder and handed it up to the boatman. The boatman coughed and spit. He took the mailbag from Jonathan’s outstretched hands and disappeared over the boat’s side for a moment, then reappeared with a different one.
“Here’s your incoming,” he growled, handing it to Jonathan. Sebastian ran back to the boat and handed over the clipboard.
“Mr. Vander signed it,” he panted.
The man looked it over.
“All right. And what about the next one?”
“The next what?”
The man pulled the pipe out of his mouth and shot Sebastian a withering look.
“The next order, boy. I assume ye all will still be wanting to eat next week, aye?”
Sebastian looked desperately up at Gerald, then over to Jonathan. Jonathan’s stomach twisted into a nervous tangle.
“Oh, yeah, about that,” Jonathan said, licking his lips. “The Admiral’s a little behind. He’s kinda sick, see. Most of us are. Bad flu going around. He told us to tell you that he’ll be sending you next week’s order in the mail in a couple days.”
The man squinted and looked back and forth between Jonathan and the overcoated figure in the gateway. He popped the pipe back into his mouth and blew out a few little clouds of thick smoke.
“All right. Tell him to see that he does, then. I ain’t coming all the way out to this damned rock to ask him what he wants.”
“Yes, sir.”
With a grunt the man heaved on the ramp, and Jonathan and Sebastian helped him pull it back on board the boat. The boat’s motor roared and gurgled and the boat throttled away through the waves toward the mainland. Sebastian and Jonathan stood shoulder to shoulder, watching it go.
“Nice save, Johnny,” Sebastian said.
“No problem,” Jonathan replied, hefting the new mailbag onto his shoulder. “And it’s Jonathan.”
They turned and walked up the stairs. The rest of the boys fell in behind them. In the courtyard, they swung the gate closed. The boat was already out of earshot, nothing more than a receding white-trailed dot in the green sea.
The shipment was piled just inside the gate. A few big burlap sacks of flour and oatmeal and rice. A dozen or so big crates, and some smaller boxes.