Chapter 106
Boggo the Captain
(Boggo)
Ella shouted in panic. “Bail! Bail!”
The sky was nearly the color of charcoal. Waves reared from the sea in slapping chopping chaos. Rain plummeted in fat drops. The sea screamed and hissed from the rain. Those fat drops beat my ears flat and beat my snout down. Nothing could be seen through the rain, but we had made it to the marsh. Bamboo branches and leaves came whipping at us from the storm. A bamboo stalk whacked the Craft and dented the gunwale. The dent was deep enough to hold the handle of an oar.
I dropped my oar. I hunkered down like a wet cat and hunched against the rain.
“You can do it, Boggo! Bail!”
It wasn’t just me that was in trouble. Ella… Trembling fiercely, I gripped the oar and battled the sea. We had to paddle. What was there to bail with? We needed to stay close to the bamboo. And every so often when a stormy gust blew the rain, I caught glimpses of bamboo above deep water. Ella bailed, and I paddled, and Ella bailed, and I searched for safety in the bamboo.
The Craft took a hit. Had we hit land? I looked starboard and peered under the cover of my paw. The Craft took another hit. There in the water was a floating chest! There were more chests all around us. And there were great, big, round luminous orbs in the water too. Gigantic onions and gigantic garlic! Our Craft was barely afloat amid what seemed like wreckage.
Ella continued splashing water with her little bestie paws. “Which way? Can you see the fleet?”
I couldn’t answer. I could barely breathe! The Craft received a massive hit that nearly rolled us sideways. Then we began bumping into everything all at once. The corners of Barnacle-eyes’ loot chests stabbed at the hull. Chest latches scraped against the wood. Chest lids banged at the prow and cracked.
Then my worst fears came to life. Those chests came beating and ramming and knocking so hard against the Craft, that they opened. Latches swung open and lids flung out.
No…no…No!
Big black boots floated out of those chests. They came kicking and stomping at the Craft and tumbling along the hull. I looked at Ella for help. We needed to get away from the boots! But she was bringing one aboard, fishing it out by the laces.
Ella was up to her waist in water. She scooped up water with the boot and looked at me with the widest eyes. “Bail!” With her boot, she began bailing.
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I trembled so much that my oar fell from my paws. It floated in the water that the Craft had taken on. There was no doubt about it, I had to help bail. But bailing with paws was useless.
The floating boots leapt with the waves. They surfed at the Craft as black as the backs of killer whales. My attempt to grab one was thwarted when it lunged at me, and I fell back in fear, protecting my ribs.
We sailed right into an onion. It revolved in the water along the gunwale. As it turned, a shark bite was revealed. Around the luminous vegetable, shark fins spiked the waves, making the sea seem like it had grown thorns.
Ella dumped another boot full of water overboard. “The dreambon ale!”
I fetched the slippery bottle of dreambon ale. With the craft pitching and heaving, with chests and onions bumping into us, and with boots attacking me, I did my best to hold onto that bottle.
But I fumbled it overboard. It rolled in the waves and clinked against shark fins.
I reached out as the colors of the bottle dimmed behind the curtains of rain. “Thrush! Thrush!”
Ella and I looked at each other for a long moment while the Craft heaved up a wave. Rain beat our ears flat. The wind made us squint. Water dripped from Ella’s bailing boot. Chaos surrounded us. The noise of the rain was chaotic.
“...I don’t want to be Captain anymore.”
Something passed over Ella’s eyes. I knew my bestie, and I recognized the love and understanding in her gaze just then.
She had nearly bailed out the Craft completely. After throwing her bailing boot down she raced over the thwarts and rummaged through our things.
She took a deep breath. “I need you to drink this.” And she handed me the Anti-gravity ale. “Drink this, and hold onto tight to the thwart.”
“Oh no! Not again! I can’t!”
“I need you to start drinking and hold on.”
The uncorked bottle was thrust into my arms. I held it with all my might while my snout chased the lip of the trembling bottle. I drank and I drank. While shark fins slipped through the water, and the Craft crashed into debris, and Ella shooed the water, foam dribbled between my canines.
I began floating, and I scrambled for the closest thwart. I wrapped my limbs and tail around it. With every little burp, the Craft began rising from the water. The thwart pressed against my arms and legs until I could feel it pinch my skin against my bones. It was too painful to keep hold.
“I’m slipping! Don’t leave me!”
“Hold on! You have to hold on!”
“I can’t! Thrush!”
Ella stopped bailing to gaze at the boot in her paws. Her gaze rose, and she looked at me like she’d never been so determined.
“E-Ella?”
She pounced upon the boot like a feral cat and dragged the laces from the eyelets. She held the freed laces before her and looked at me with a gaze that went soft. She came at me with those laces.
“Ella, no!”
“I love you, Boggo!”
She strapped me to the thwart, and then she brought the bottle of anti-gravity to my snout. “Drink! Little sips!”
I took breaths like I was barely treading water between sips. Burp after burp, the Craft began lifting out of the water. It rose at an angle, as though hooked upon fishing line.
“Keep drinking, Boggo!”