Chapter Four: A Frantic Search in the Name of Rum

"What, by god, are you looking for?" Carly scrunched her face at me.

"He leaves a mark…" I squinted out at sea as if to see something in the distance.

"What?"

"Snarl." I glared at the girl.

Carly had a blank face, "And that means…?"

"The man we're looking for! Do you ever catch on, Carly?"

"Apparently not," she rolled her eyes at me.

"Well, he's not subtle. Snarl actually prefers not to be. He likes to leave something behind everywhere he travels."

"Why would he do that?"

"To taunt us, child."

"I'm not a child."

I gave her a glare as I went below deck to check on David. He had been searching high and low—quite literally—for rum. We had run out about seven days before and he had been in a stupor ever since.

Within only mere seconds I found him, sitting in a pile of silverware with an empty box over his head.

"Where'd the rum go?" Dave acted as if there was someone inside the box with him to answer the question.

"You drank it," I interrupted his musings, "We need you up on the deck. I think we may have found Snarl."

David took the box off of his head and look at me like a puppy with scurvies.

"If you come up and help, we can go back to shore and stock up on rum."

"Aye!" before I knew it, Captain Cole was up on deck, eager to help.

"I'm quite sure that that barrel out there has his insignia, but I can't quite tell…and even if it did, I wouldn't know where to go from there."

"That certainly is his mark…and it seems to be pointing eastward, so I say we go east."

"What if that's wrong, it's just the current that made the barrel point east?" Carly had yet to learn that Jack was never wrong.

"And that's why I call you a child." I went and sat towards the tip of the ship.

"Are we going in circles? I think we're going in circles. I could have sworn I saw that bird fifty times already!" Carly was anxious to get off the ship, as were we all.

"There's a lot of birds in the world, miss." Peter had been keeping to himself most of the time, much like my crew, but he decided he needed fresh air. He hadn't been up on deck along with us in what seemed like ages.

"Aye. It's not their fault they all look agitatingly alike," I smiled at Carly and pushed a plate towards her, "Fish?"

"Ew, no. It's old and very disgusting! I can get my own if I like—and cook it too. You don't cook them very well."

"It's called Sushi. I hear it's very popular in Asia."

"Well, whatever Sushi is, I don't want it."

"Land!" Cole called, taking hold of the helm.

"Where? I don't see anything," Peter pondered, trying to look in the direction that David was looking in.

"I have to agree with the boy, there's nothing there," Carly sighed and went below deck.

"You'll all see. Captain Cole is never wrong. Never," I stated, although I couldn't see anything either.

Another day passed before anybody besides Dave could see land. Once we saw the land, we knew it wouldn't be long. In his excitement, David almost forgot about the lack of rum. Almost.

When we got to the shore of this unknown but very well populated island, David took off to find rum to stock up on.

Author's Note: Been awhile, eh? Yeah, I know…I'm sorry. I want to do something to catch you off guard…hmm… Okay, sorry that this is short. At least I think it is… I have a tendency to linger in certain scenes, but skip through other ones. Also, I don't like adjectives. I can't read things with lots of description. My motto is pretty much just keep it simple and get to the point. Don't you hate when people go on and on like I'm doing right now? Me too! Hehe. Enjoy and stay tuned I guess. Who wants to be shocked? I don't know what would shock you but oh well…

I have an outline of what's gonna happen…I just have to write everything. Okay so all four main characters have connections between them…hmm…..Did I get you wondering? Probably not, oh well. I tried. It's spring break…I've had this finished for awhile but last time I tried to put it online there was something wrong with…something. I don't know. Anyway, hopefully it'll work this time and then I'll get back to writing! Yay for updates!