Perhaps you’re wondering why Huck had so quickly fallen in with Tress. Well, there are a lot of things I could tell you here—but suffice it to say that in the short life of Huck the rat, every human he’d met had tried to kill, capture, or sell him. Every human but Tress. He didn’t know a lot about people, having spent most of his life isolated—but he did like Tress. He would rather she not die. So, spying it was.
Tress began scrubbing furiously to work out her anxiety. Minutes passed with the weight of hours, as she worried about sending Huck into danger to satisfy her curiosity. That wasn’t something she would normally have done. Life as a pirate was already affecting her.
Yet Charlie was out there somewhere, afraid, hurting. She had to find a way to escape, then continue her quest. So maybe learning to impose on people a little was all right.
“Hey,” Huck said, scampering across the railing next to her, “you got anything to eat? Spying is hungry work.”
Tress glared at him as her stomach growled.
“Just asking,” Huck said. “Moons, girl, no need to look at me like I ate the center of the loaf and left you the heels.”
“Did you hear anything?” she asked.
Huck twitched his nose in a way he seemed to think she would understand, then he hopped down and scurried over to a more sheltered section of the deck. She followed, her back to the Dougs. To anyone watching, she’d simply be doing her thing, scrubbing away. They wouldn’t be able to see Huck.
“All right,” the rat said from the deck in front of her. “I’ll tell you what they said. Let me get into character.”
“…Character?” Tress said.
Huck went up on his hind legs, holding his little ratty paws before himself with his nose up in the air. “I am Captain Crow,” he said in a surprisingly good approximation of her aristocratic accent. “Hip, hop, do as I say. My, this canteen water is tasty. Laggart, what news of the cannon? Is everything ready?”
Tress waited, her head cocked.
“You be Laggart,” Huck hissed.
“I wasn’t there! I don’t know what he said.”
“You’ll do fine.” Huck waved his paw at her. “Go ahead. Be Laggart.”
“Uh…the cannons are…ready?”
“Voice needs more crust to it,” Huck whispered. “And stretch out your neck like his. It will help you get in character.”
“But—”
“Excellent, Laggart,” Huck said in his captain voice. “But I have unfortunate news via a raven from my contact in Kingsport. The remnants of the ship we sank have been found, but there were no survivors, just a single corpse. That man we left alive appears to have rejected my bountiful generosity and done me the insult of dying from wounds we didn’t realize he had.”
“She said that?” Tress whispered. “Those exact words?”
“It’s a dramatic recreation,” Huck hissed. “What, you think I wrote it down? With these?” He waved his paws at her. “That’s as close as I can remember. Now do Laggart’s part.”
“Um…that’s sad?” Tress said.
“Tress, that’s not what he said. He said, ‘All that work for nothing? We’ll have to sink another then!’” He waved a paw for her to continue.
Tress sighed. “All that work for nothing. We’ll have to sink another then.”
“Moonshadows, could you put less emotion into it?” Huck said. “I feel like you’re not taking your role seriously.”
“I don’t—”
“This is a problem, Laggart,” Huck said in his captain voice, falling to all fours and stalking back and forth with his nose in the air. “The crew is upset. I’m worried about some of them running off.”
“But why?” Tress said.
“We’re getting there,” Huck said. “Look, why don’t I just do Laggart’s part too? You take a break. Memorize your lines next time, all right?”
“But—”
Huck stretched out his neck and spoke with a creepy, scratchy voice. “As well you should, Captain,” he said. “Fort is brewing trouble, and maybe Salay too. We need blood binding them to this ship if we’re going to do what you want.”
Huck moved over to be the captain again, standing up on his hind legs with his front paws on the gunwale, as if mimicking the captain gazing out the window. “The crew will never follow us to dangerous seas unless they have no other choice. Unless they’re desperate. We will sink another ship, Laggart, and leave a couple sailors alive this time.”