Part Five: The End of the Beginning

Ben and I raced to the door of Jenna's quarters and found it locked. As Jenna continued to cry for help, and by the sound of it struggle as well, Ben pushed me aside and began throwing himself at the door like a crazed bulldog. But as strong as he was, the door was too well-made to give under his assault.

Everyone else came pouring out of the forecastle, a jumble of questions spilling from everyone's lips at once. Orde bellowed out over the confusion, “What in blazes is going on?!”

“Something's wrong!” I replied, stating the obvious. I jammed a paw toward the cabin. “In there!”

The captain grabbed hold of Ben just before the sea dog began his next charge at the door. “Save your strength, man. I'll handle it.” And so saying, he fished the key from his pocket and unlocked the door. With a rush, we threw the door open and charged in.

“What’s going on?” demanded Captain Orde. The question wasn’t really necessary. There was Jenna, now wearing a pale blue dress adorned with lace.  And with her, one arm entrapping hers to her sides and the other wound around her neck, was Steele.

“How did you get in?” demanded the captain.

He answered with a leering grin. “Next time you try to lock me up,” he spat, “You'd best pick someplace that hasn't got a window. Now, I’m taking what’s mine: the lady, the ship, and the treasure. Give me the keys to the brig.”

“Let her go, Steele,” I growled, feeling my fur rise. “We’ve got you outnumbered.”

He chuckled as he released his grip on her neck, pulled a pistol from his belt, and pressed it straight to Jenna’s temple. “Think so now?”

We stopped. Taking Steele on was one thing, but not with Jenna’s life at stake.

Luk mumbled something, which Muk meekly translated as, “What should we do?”

“Give me the keys and surrender control of the ship,” the pirate demanded. “I’ll give you to three.”

There were tears in Jenna’s eyes.

“One…”

“This is low, Steele,” spat Orde. “Even for you, this is low.”

“Two,” the sailor growled, cocking the pistol.

“Wait!” Reluctantly, the captain took the ring of keys from his belt and held them out. “Very well,” he submitted. “Now, release the girl.”

Steele grabbed the keys, but didn’t release Jenna. “One thing first,” he growled, pocketing the keys. He grabbed both of her wrists with one hand and stuffed the pistol into his belt before withdrawing a small object from his pocket. “I’m taking her up on her offer.”

Jenna struggled, but she was no match for him. But then, as he was about to put the ring on her finger, he stopped and stared at her hand. “What?” he cried.

Everyone stared in confusion.

Enraged, Steele flung his would-be-bride against a table and pulled the gun from his belt. “Who did it?!” he demanded. “Who…?”

“I don’t know,” came a voice from behind him. Jenna had something I couldn’t see pressed to the back of his head. “But if you don’t drop the gun right now, you’ll never know.”

Steele froze. “You couldn’t possibly…”

“I wouldn’t bet on it if I were you,” she snapped.

Raising his hands, Steele dropped the gun.

“Pick it up, Balto,” Jenna instructed.

I stepped forward and picked up the weapon, stunned at Jenna’s iron side. Would she really shoot Steele?

In answer to my unspoken question, she withdrew a wine bottle from behind his head and set it on the table. “And my mother always said those things had no earthly purpose,” she remarked as she walked past the pirate, giving him a wide berth lest he take her hostage again, and stood with us.

“Bind him to the mast,” commanded Captain Orde as we marched the fiend out of the cabin. “Hands tied good and tight behind it. We’ll decide what to do with him later.”

Once Steele had been tied securely to the mast and fitted with a rope muzzle, Squire Trelawney looked in confusion at Jenna. “What was it that so upset him when he tried to put that ring on your finger?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, looking at her left hand. Then she stopped, her face a mix of shock, disbelief, fear, a touch of sadness, and some anger for good measure. She held up her hand with the back to us. “This,” she replied.

Everyone stared. On Jenna’s finger, sparkling in the moonlight, was a ring. It was gold, studded with one large diamond. We were all silent until Ben asked the question on everyone’s mind. “Who put that there?”

“I did.”

Everyone’s eyes turned on me. “I meant no harm,” I added quickly.

Orde placed a hand on my shoulder. “I’d like a word with you in private. Now.”

I think I can safely say that the talk I had with Orde was the most awkward I've ever had in my life. He asked question after question, and finally brought me out without giving any indication as to his decision. He stood me in front of the whole crew, asking Jenna to stand front and center among them.

“Mister Hawkins has told me everything,” he stated. “And although what he did leaves some room to question his sanity, I find nothing strictly wrong that he has done.”

“What about this?” asked Jenna, holding up the ring.

“I’ll leave it to him explain that to you in due time,” he replied. Addressing the group, he went on, “As for the present, here is my verdict. Since he has done nothing against Jenna’s honor apart from the ring, I will not punish Balto for this. However, Jenna has free reign of retribution – within the boundaries of honor – as she sees fit.”

“What does that mean?” Muk whispered to Boris.

“It means that she can do anything she vants to him as long as it is not dishonorable,” Boris translated. After a pause, he added, “In other vords, he’s a dead dog.”

Orde cleared his throat, breaking off the side conversation. “Also, Balto is not to speak to Jenna for the remainder of the voyage unless she addresses him first or I say otherwise. And they are not to be left unsupervised anywhere except on the top deck. Am I clear?”

I nodded glumly. “Yes Captain.”

Jenna nodded too. “Perfectly.” She pulled off the ring, walked over to the railing, and threw it out into the sea. I guessed that must have been part of her “retribution,” because in a way I felt like she was throwing away a part of me as well.

When the Captain came in to bed down that night, I was rather surprised to see him carrying a hammock.

“Captain?” I asked. “You’re not taking a bunk?”

He smiled, looking a lot more cheerful than he had not long before. “Hardly,” he replied. “For my purposes, a hammock is far more comfortable.”

I watched in confusion as he tied one end of the hammock to a beam. The other end he took, tied a large knot at the end of the rope, and stuck it through the top of the door frame before pulling the door shut on it.

“What…?” I wondered.

His smile continued. “Jenna may not like you very much at the moment, but it’s my responsibility to see to it both of you get to shore with no question of honor.”

It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about, and about half as long to grasp the setup he’d worked out. With the rope as it was, I couldn’t get out without giving him a very abrupt awakening in the process. “Don’t you trust me?” I asked, feeling insulted.

Easing into the hammock, he let out a chuckle. “I trust you,” he replied. “But as I said, I find this arrangement a great deal more comfortable.” His chortles were joined by laughter from the other sailors, even Ben. I groaned, wishing I could be so cheery about it.

Steele's trial was quickly arranged the following morning as the crew gathered around the mast where he stood bound. From the haggard look on his face, it seemed a night upright and exposed had not treated him well.

“Master Steele,” the captain said, addressing him formally, “You are in grave trouble. In light of your crimes: piracy, murder, mutiny, and attempting to take Miss Jenna here against her wishes, it would bring some question to my principles if I did not order you hung from the yardarm.”

Steele just growled. “However,” the captain went on, “In the words of Scripture, 'blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.' Because of this, as well as the fact that I think these young ones have seen enough death already, your life will be spared. You have been sentenced to a far gentler punishment.”  And his eyes turned toward the island.

Steele's eyes grew wide. “No,” he cried. “Not on this island. Darby's stll out there. He'll kill me!”

“We will leave you with adequate ammunition to defend yourself,” the Captain replied. “You have proven quite resourceful, I'm sure.” He turned to where Ben, Doctor Boris, and the two bears had just finished loading the smallest of our remaining lifeboats and boring a small hole in the bottom. It would get Steele as far as the island, but be pretty much useless after that. I helped the others to put supplies, including a pouch or two of gunpowder and a pistol, into the boat, which was swung out over the side. Orde nodded to Ben, who untied the ropes holding Steele to the mast and then trained a pistol on him along with the rest of us except for Jenna, the doctor, the bears, and myself.

“We will lower you into the water and let you row ashore,” said the captain. “If you stop at any time to load your weapons before you reach the sand, you will be shot. Am I clear?”

Steele's eyes were wide and pleading. “Please, have mercy,” he begged.

“I am having mercy, far more than you had on all the poor chaps you killed,” Orde snapped. “It's your choice, Long John Steele. Live in exile...” he tapped his pistol, “...or not at all.”

Steele lowered his head in defeat, and even after all he'd done I almost felt sorry for him. But I looked at Jenna and knew this was the only way short of execution that she, or any of us, could be safe.

Steele climbed into the boat and was lowered to the water. As soon as it reached the waves and the ropes were hauled up, he began to row for the island. He looked back at us, and even at a distance I could seen the hatred in his icy blue eyes.

As the pirate climbed out on shore and unloaded his craft, Orde turned away. “All right, gents,” he announced. “Let's head for home.”

Sailing the ship with only ten of us on board proved difficult. Longer shifts, heavier loads, and slower going thanks to the ship sitting lower in the water than it had. Billy Bones hadn't been exaggerating when he spoke of Flint's hoard. The hold, the ballast, even some of the quarters were occupied with a treasure fit for ten kings. But gold did little to ease our work, or to improve the food. Salted goat's meat got old fast, especially with next to no bread to go with it. Boris asserted that if the pirates hadn't all but ignored the stores of dried fruit, we would have all died of sickness on the way.

Ben was an all-around godsend on that voyage. Before the first day was up, he had devised a system of ropes and pulleys with which we could adjust the sails all at once instead of one at a time. And his cooking wasn't half bad either. Being a world unto himself all those years had treated him surprisingly well, and now that he was back with other dogs, he seemed determined to make himself useful.

Unfortunately, there was one thing Ben couldn't help with: the silence from Jenna. She wouldn't speak to me at all, and since she was up in the crow's nest most of the time (the captain gave her permission to dress as a man while she was at work in the rigging), I hardly ever even saw her. But that didn't stop me from wondering.

Why had I used the ring anyway? She was beautiful, it was true, but I had done it mostly to protect her. She had been through so much, she deserved some protection. But now it seemed I had become an enemy to her. Why? It would have been so easy to just tell her what I had in mind before I did it. But instead I had acted without consent, no better than a thief. No wonder she wanted nothing to do with me.

None of the other sailors mentioned her around me either, though I suspected more than once that it was on their minds. Only Ben broached the subject with me, about five days into the voyage as I was helping him prepare supper.

“That lady husky still not jawin' to yeh?” he asked.

It took me a moment to understand. “No,” I admitted. “And I don't see why she would.”

He laughed. “Ah, cheer up, lad. She'll get over it. An' if'n ye don't mind me sayin' so, she be a good one for ye.”

“Too bad I can't offer her the same,” I mumbled. “I'm just a sneaky half-breed. Besides, her father would never allow it.”

His face took on an odd smile, and he reached into his pocket and handed me something. It was a carving of dark brown wood, and it looked exactly like Jenna. Exactly. The shape of her face, the angle of her ears, even the fur of the figure looked just like her but for the color.

“I can't give her to yeh,” he said, patting me on the back, “But think o' this as a bit o' luck to carry with ye. An' for what it's worth,” he added, leaning in with a conspiratorial whisper, “If I was her father, I'd let ye have her in nothin' flat, if'n she was willin'.”

I smiled, more to humor his kind remark than because I really believed it. After all, she'd never be willing. Why would she be?

Weeks passed, and I admit that even with the exhausting work on the ship, I lost more than a few hours of sleep. Eventually I took to walking up on deck in the evenings. One night about two weeks into the voyage, these walks brought me into touch with the good doctor, who was staring out to sea off the port bow, or front left, of the ship.

“Beautiful isn't it?” he asked when I had stood in silence following his gaze for a few minutes.

I looked out and nodded, but added, “I'll be happier to see the coast of England and the Black Cove again.”

He nodded. “Yes, I know vhat you mean.” He ran his index feather under his beak. “I too miss the simple days in good old England, vitout all this nonsense about pirates and vhatnot.”

“This sure has been a crazy trip,” I agreed. “Double-crossed by a friend…”

“Rescued by a stranger…” added Boris.

“And now we’re heading home with a shipload of treasure,” I wrapped it up.

Boris cleared his throat. “Speaking of treasure,” he added slowly, “Vhat about you and…”

I knew before he finished what he was going to say, and in the fraction of a second between words I hoped somehow he wouldn't finish.

“Hello, Balto.”

I turned my head to see Jenna walking across the deck in our direction, and swallowed hard. Maybe Boris finishing his remark wouldn't have been so terrible after all. The sway of Jenna's pale-blue dress, combined with the rocking motion of the ship, made it look like she was dancing. Her expression said something else.

“Well, what are the odds?” I asked, trying to mask my unease. She did look nice in a dress. “We were just talking about you.”

She stood beside me and put her hand down on the railing. I could hear a soft click of metal on wood as the palm side of the ring struck the rail. “I’m sure you were,” she answered.

I blinked. The ring? I thought. It was plainly the same one. A gold band with a large diamond glittering in the center.

Boris craned his neck to look past me. “Didn’t you trow dat overboard?” he asked, apparently as confused as I was.

She shook her head. “I only made it look that way,” she answered.

I chuckled nervously. “I guess you’re probably wondering about it, huh?” I asked.

She looked at me with her eyes narrowed to slits like a cat’s. “Well, as a matter of fact, yes.”

I gulped. “Uh, yeah. See, I figured one of the pirates might try to hold you to what you said. I found the ring while I was wandering the island, so I slipped into your room that night in the palisade while you were asleep and put it on your finger as a backup plan. I thought if they saw it, they would start arguing among themselves and give you a chance to escape.”

“A clever, if highly unorthodox, method of ensuring your safety,” Boris put in.

“Stay out of this, please,” I muttered.

If my explanation made Jenna feel any better, she showed no sign of it. I was beginning to feel like I was in a staring contest with a statue of Medusa. “Let me see if I understand you,” she said in a low voice. “You wanted to protect me from a bunch of pirates, so you put a ring on my finger while I was sleeping, engaged us without asking me, and you think I’m going to be happy about it?”

“Actually,” Boris interrupted again, “Your promise isn’t binding. You said you vould marry the first dog to put a ring on your finger, but Balto is still really a pup.”

“Stay out of this,” grumbled Jenna without taking her eyes off me.

I gulped. For a girl, she could be very intimidating when she wanted to. “I only did it to protect you. If Steele hadn’t tried to put one on your finger, I would have just taken it off some other night or pretended I didn’t know where it came from when you realized it was there.”

“In other vords…” Boris began.

Jenna and I both snapped our heads in his direction. “Stay out of this!”

He raised his wings as if we were pointing guns at him. “Okay, okay, I’ll go.” And he waddled off, looking about as indignant as a goose can manage.

Jenna focused her eyes on me again. “If you wanted to take it off, why didn't you? It was there over a week before I noticed it.”

I lowered my shoulders. “I tried,” I admitted. “But you sleep different on a bunk than you do in a hammock. Every time I tried to take if off, I couldn't move your hand without waking you.”

She bit her lip, processing this information. “So,” she said slowly, “You weren’t actually planning to hold me to it?”

I nodded. “Honest,” I assured her. “I just wanted to be prepared in case one of them pulled something.” After a long awkward silence I admitted, “I'm sorry, Jenna. I never should have done it without asking like that. Can you forgive me?”

She lightened her focus a little. “There’s one more thing I want to know,” she persisted. “Did you do it because you thought you owed me a favor for buying us the extra time, or did you really mean it?”

I shivered in the cold twilight breeze.   “Well, I really wanted you to be safe if that’s what you mean.”

She shook her head. “No, that’s not what I mean.” The edge was returning to her voice, and she prodded my chest with a finger. “Did you really do it just to protect me, or did you do it because deep down you wanted to do it?”

I grinned nervously. “I guess I did want to,” I admitted.

She nodded. “In that case…”

I never saw the blow coming. I only knew two things as I stumbled back in surprise: my face was suddenly sideways, and it hurt worse than it had ever hurt in my life. “Ow!” I cried, my paw flying up to the injured area. Who knew such a soft paw could be such a horsewhip?

“That’s for doing it without asking,” she snapped. Then her face softened. “And this…” she reached up with both hands, took me by the face, and pressed her lips against mine.

What in the world?! I thought. I wanted to pull back, but something stopped me. Her lips were so warm, so soft. I closed my eyes, and like two ships set adrift my arms encircled her of their own accord. We stood like that, how long I don't know, but probably no more than a minute. When I finally pulled away, my brain was as jumbled as a ship’s hold after a hurricane. “What was that for?” I managed to ask.

She smiled. “That’s for doing it.”

I started to stammer. “D...does that mean you…?”

She shrugged. “Well, I’ll take you over anyone my father’s likely to choose.”

To this day I sometimes wonder if that statement was flattering or an almost-insult. For the moment I just shrugged, took her by the hand with the ring on it, and gently kissed the back of her palm.

“I had a feeling this would happen,” came a voice from overhead.

Jenna and I looked up. “Captain!” I blurted. There he was, perched on the mast’s lower crossbar like Steele's parrot. How he got up there with his bad arm I didn't know and still don't, but it didn’t take a genius to know he’d seen everything.

He smiled a tiny bit. “Just behave yourselves,” he warned us. “I run a tight ship, you know.”

I let go of Jenna’s hand very quickly. “Yes, sir.”

Jenna and I were hoping to keep the engagement quiet, but unfortunately, that didn't work out too well. The next morning, as Muk and Luk followed Doctor Boris into the ship's dining room for breakfast, I heard them snickering as soon as I turned my back. I looked behind me and saw them elbowing each other, although they immediately stopped and put their paws behind their backs, whistling innocently and looking in any direction but mine, the moment they knew I was watching. I looked to the doctor for an explanation, but he just shrugged and looked away.

My worst fears were confirmed when Jenna came down the stairs, and Muk promptly burst into an ear-splitting rendition of “Here Comes The Bride,” accompanied by Luk's nasal humming of the tune.

I could have dropped from embarrassment, and Jenna's cream-colored face took on a hue beneath her fur as red as the rest of her. Captain Orde, for all the effort he made, couldn't stop laughing. And once the wave began, there was no stopping it. Almost as soon as the song began, the crew realized its meaning. Any hope of a quiet breakfast was shattered.

As I lowered my head into my folded arms on the table, Ben nudged me in the ribs. I looked up to see him grinning from ear to ear. “I told ye that woodcarve'd bring ye luck,” he whispered.

I just groaned.

Luckily the excitement among the crew died down as quickly as it had begun. Everyone congratulated us, as you'd expect (my arm still hurts sometimes from the squire's powerful handshake), and then went about their business. Aside from some advice from the captain, which we welcomed, and some from Doctor Boris, which we endured, the voyage passed without notable incident. In fact there were only three other matters which need to be mentioned here. One was that the three pirates in the brig turned up missing, along with some supplies and a small bag or two of gold, a few days after Star's leg had healed. Ben confessed to having done it, on the grounds that if he, as a pirate, had received mercy, he didn't feel right shipping them to their deaths. They were, he said, honest enough chaps when Steele wasn't there to order them. The other sailors seemed bothered by this, but Captain Orde decided that there was nothing to do for it now anyway. If they chose never to raise their heads again, that was fine with him. 

The other two events, which I mention here because the end of this story wouldn't make sense without them, both happened on the same day, a few days before we reached England. One was that Ben's beard managed to get itself caught in some ropes and a large piece of it had to be hastily cut off with a knife to spare him a painful ordeal.

“Somebody should give that whole lot a proper trim before we get to port,” observed the squire when he saw it.

Ben rubbed his uneven mess of a beard. “Yeh think so?” he asked.

Captain Orde cracked a smile. “Unless you want somebody from the zoo to try and pick you up when we get back.”

“I could do it,” volunteered Jenna.

“You?” asked Boris. “But you are not a hairdresser.”

She shrugged. “Well, I used to help my mother cut cloth to make dresses,” she replied. “How hard could it be?”

There was some debate, but in the end Jenna won out. Ben sat down in a chair, and Jenna began to cut away at his beard with a pair of scissors borrowed from the doctor. After about an hour of awkward trimming, she stood back to examine her handiwork. “What do you think?” she asked us.

I stifled a laugh when I saw the fruits of her labor. Ben’s beard looked as if it had been pruned by a vinedresser working with his left hand and wearing a blindfold. “It’s… it’s…” I stalled, trying not to say anything that would offend her. I needn’t have worried. She was much too busy glaring at Muk and Luk, who were rolling on the deck in hysterics.

“I hope she is better at cooking than trimming,” Boris whispered to me, “Or you vill be dead in veek.”

I shook my head. Jenna did have her talents, no doubt about it, but she could learn a few things from my mother.

The last thing was that we happened to cross paths with another, somewhat faster ship heading in the same direction, called the Wydah. Since they would reach port a day or two ahead of us, Captain Orde ahoyed them and asked if they would deliver a few letters for us in advance. They said they would, and the Squire sent letters to his estate and servants to notify them of the large shipment of gold to come. The captain wrote to the harbor master, informing him that we had important cargo coming in and would need to pull up directly to the docks. I wrote a brief letter to mother, telling her that I would soon be home.

No words could express the joy when we heard Jenna shout “Land ho!” a day or two later. We were close to shore just a few miles up from Black Cove. Every throat on board released a loud cheer.

Captain Orde’s letter appeared to have done its work. As soon as the lookout spotted us, he ran up a series of flag signals reading, “Right in.” The harbormaster had arranged everything, and we had a swift and easy path right up to the docks.

As we disembarked, it seemed every one of the Squire's servants was there with a horse wagon to receive our valuable treasure. I hardly noticed them, but surveyed the crowd for my mother’s white face until finally I saw her weaving frantically through the throng towards the gangplank. I called out to her and then plowed through the gathering and straight toward her like a shot from a cannon. We wrapped our arms around each other for a long moment. I’d forgotten how good it felt to be home.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

I nodded. “More than alright. We've got enough to double the size of the Admiral Benbow and more.”

“Forget about the treasure,” she scolded. “Do you have any idea how badly I've missed you?”

I choked back a sob.  “I told you I'd be back.” Then I remembered my manners. “Oh, there’s some people I’d like you to meet.” I stepped aside and held out my paw, indicating Jenna. “Mother, this is Jenna.” I wondered how I could introduce them without mentioning that Jenna and I were engaged, or that she had a history of dressing like a man. “We rescued her from some pirates on the voyage.”

Mother’s eyes opened a bit at that. “Pirates?” she asked. “That must have been terrible. Did they hurt you?”

Jenna shook her head. “Not really.” Apparently as eager to change the subject as I was, she curtsied. “It’s very nice to meet you, Miss…”

“You can call me Aniu,” Mother answered. “And it’s Mrs., by the way, even if…”

Jenna nodded. “Yes, Balto mentioned his father being gone. I’m very sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Mother reassured her quietly.

I cleared my throat and pulled at my shirt collar. “And this,” I said, pointing to Ben, “is…” I stopped. Mother was staring at him, her eyes as wide as saucers.

“Kodan?” she asked. “Is it really you?”

“What?” I asked. “No, his name's Ben.”

“Ben…” Mother whispered softly. “That was the name he sometimes used at sea. Ben Gunn.”

“How’d ye know my last name?” asked Ben.

Jenna and I just stared at the two of them. “I think your mother might have hit her head while you were gone,” Jenna whispered to me.

Then Mother caught sight of Ben’s pocket watch dangling on its chain. He had kept it with him all the time since we left the island, though he'd confessed he had no idea why it was important.

“That watch!” Mother cried, holding up her locket. The two looked exactly alike! “It is you!” And to my surprise, she wrapped her arms around Ben and pressed the top of her head up under his chin. “Where have you been all this time?”

“Eh, ma'am,” said Ben, looking as if he wanted to escape, “I don’t think… well, I've a sort of idea that we’ve met somehow before, but…”

Mother looked like she might cry. “Your voice hasn’t changed a bit,” she whispered, seemingly oblivious to the actual words that voice was saying.

“You’ve met?” I asked, confused.

“I should hope so!” Mother stated emphatically. “Son, this is Kodan. Your father.”

I stared from one of them to the other, pinched myself to see if I was dreaming, and stared some more. Finally I focused on Ben… no, on Kodan. My father, who had gone away when I was just a pup? “Father?” I asked. “Is it really you?”

“Uh, I think there may be a mistake here,” said Ben a bit uncomfortably. “You look familiar, madam, but I can’t recall ever being married to you.” Turning to me, he added, “And I can’t say I recognize you at all.”

My mother’s face fell and she drew back enough to look him in the eye. “How can you have forgotten?” she asked.

“Ve know he is suffering from amnesia,” explained Doctor Boris, “So it is possible dat he is your husband.” Seeing the baffled look on “Ben’s” face, he added, “Or dis could just be misunderstanding.”

Mother couldn’t stop staring at the face in front of her. “I’d know him anywhere,” she insisted. She ran a paw over his beard, or at least what Jenna had left of it. “But what happened to your face?”

Boris cleared his throat. “That vould be the vork of new daughter-in-law.”

Mother froze, turning slowly to stare at me and Jenna. I glared at Boris. “Nice one,” I growled.

He shrugged. “You should not beat around bush, boychick.”

As she always did, Mother took the situation quietly. She quietly stiffened up like a board, her eyes quietly rolled back in her head, and she ever-so-quietly... fainted.

Epilogue

That was years ago. We rebuilt the Admiral Benbow with a few improvements, helped by the gold recovered from the voyage. Doctor Boris still visits us at least once a week, patients or no patients, for dinner and a quiet evening, and the Squire stops by now and then too. We even see Captain Orde once in a while, when he's in port. We always see to it he gets the best room in the house.

Father has recovered his memory, although he still occasionally slips into the broken English he used while on the island. Mother doesn't seem to mind though, she's so glad to have him back. I wish I could describe the look on her face as she was working with him reconstructing his past, the way she would just glow every time she described something and he actually remembered it. He remembers me too, now, and said one day that he felt bad about having been missing from most of my life. Me, I don't care that he was gone all those years, as long as he's home.

The portrait of him has been repaired by one of the finest artists around, but we keep that rolled up and tucked away now. In its place – in the same frame, even – is a painting we had made to celebrate when Doctor Boris declared Father's amnesia cured. It's a painting of all four of us: him, Mother, myself, and Jenna.

Speaking of Jenna, she lives with Mother's friend where we lived while the Inn was being rebuilt. Even though the Benbow has plenty of spare rooms, Mother and Father said it wouldn't be suitable for her to live here yet, since she and I are engaged. She visits often, though, and has been very helpful in the day-to-day comings and goings of the inn. She gets along quite well with Mother, and with the twins, my brother and sister. That's right, I'm a brother now. My brother's name is Ben, and my sister Jewel, a sort of memorial to the voyage that brought our family back together. Jewel's pretty mild and likes to just sit and listen, especially to stories. Ben, on the other hand, must be born for adventure, and trouble. But both of them are just great to have around.

Yet, as much as I enjoy the life I now live, with a complete family, my home back, and enough money that I know the inn will never be in debt again, I still often find myself gazing out to sea, thinking of the island and the adventure we had there. And often on windy nights, as I lay in bed listening to the gusts howling outside, I can still hear the tales of Billy Bones, the laughter of the pirates, and the voice of Long John Steele's parrot.

“Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”

Author’s Note

I have taken some license with the original book to make it better fit the characters of the Balto series. With one or two minor exceptions, though, I have tried to make my historical references, if not all the literary ones, as true as possible to the original setting of Treasure Island, and in fact I was surprised to discover, rather late in the writing, one resemblance that occurred purely by accident: like my own rendition, the original Treasure Island was written as a serial, published between the years 1881 and 1882.

I have been told by a number of people that Treasure Island was a favorite of theirs, a fact which pleases me to no end. My hope is that if you haven't read the original, my own tribute will convince you to read it yourself. And if you have already read this Stevenson classic, pick up another and get started.