The Crims #3 Page 9

  Imogen could see the crew of the Golden Bounty looking around, confused. She ushered them into the cabaret theater.

  “Look,” she said. “If you guys pretend to be really excited about going to Norway, we’ll let you out in Barbados with the tourists. Otherwise, we’ll let Henry conduct his fire experiments on you. Which will involve being burned to death by a really incompetent pyromaniac. The choice is yours.”

  The crew were on their very best behavior after that. Although the captain did eat all the bacon at the buffet at breakfast.

  When the ship docked in Barbados, the cruise passengers and the crew of the Golden Bounty happily walked down the ramp off the ship, snapping photographs of the clear Caribbean waters and the flying fish and the stalls serving coconut bread.

  The Crims waved them off happily. All except Uncle Knuckles, who waved them off sadly; he had grown rather fond of Barbara, who had taught him various herbal remedies to help him sleep, and Kevin, who had taught him the names of every species of Norwegian bird. “DON’T FORGET TO WRITE!” he shouted as the last tourist left the ship.

  “Please don’t tell me you’ve given them your address,” said Ava as Uncle Knuckles cried massive tears into the sea, which raised the sea levels and caused a major flood in a nearby fishing village.

  Uncle Knuckles cried even harder. “I FORGOT!” he cried.

  “Thank badness for that,” said Ava as the tourists started looking around them and muttering about not being able to see glaciers or the northern lights and asking why people were speaking English. “Isabella, start the engines!”

  As the cruise ship pulled away from the port, Ava wiped her hands (taking care not to smudge her nails) and said, “Right. That’s taken care of.”

  The Crims all cheered—apart from Delia, who rolled her eyes, and Sam, who looked very sad, even though he was wearing a sequined cabaret outfit, and it’s very hard to look sad in a sequined cabaret outfit.

  “What’s the matter with you?” asked Ava.

  “Nothing,” said Sam. “It’s just— I’ll miss them. I’ve never had fans before.”

  “You still have me,” said Uncle Clyde, clapping Sam on the shoulder. “I’m really looking forward to your twelve o’clock show. Will you do that Wicked medley again?”

  “We don’t have time for bad off-off-off-Broadway performances,” said Ava. “It’s time to find Captain Glitterbeard’s treasure.”

  “That’s my favorite time!” said Uncle Clyde.

  “Good,” said Ava. “I hope you’re all ready.”

  “We were born ready,” said Big Nana, who occasionally said things that made her sound like an eccentric motivational speaker. “This treasure is our birthright!”

  Imogen felt a flash of guilt—she was about to give most of her family’s birthright to Ava. But then she remembered that Big Nana was born a Kruk before fleeing the family in her twenties . . . so wasn’t the treasure Ava’s birthright too, sort of?

  (That’s the good thing about being as clever as Imogen. You can justify anything to yourself.)

  The cruise ship did seem very big and empty without the tourists. The Crims felt deflated without their new friends, like lonely car tires. Since they hadn’t arrived at the island yet, Sam performed his twelve o’clock show as usual, but Uncle Knuckles was the only one who went to see it, and he tried to sing along, which was very upsetting for everyone on the ship. Uncle Knuckles tried playing table tennis on his own, but there was no one to return his shots, so all the balls sailed into the sea. Big Nana had a Jacuzzi to herself. (She was quite happy about that, actually.)

  Isabella was steering the ship to the island off the coast of Jamaica, where Captain Glitterbeard’s treasure was hidden. According to Big Nana, they just had a few miles to go. And the closer they got to the island, the more nervous Imogen became. How was she going to save her family if the treasure didn’t exist? How was she going to save them if it did exist? Imogen wished there was someone she could talk through her dilemma with. She wished she could confide in Delia. She looked over at her cousin, lying on a lounger, music blaring out of her headphones, wearing a black T-shirt with a slogan on it that said “I Hate You. Yes You, Imogen Crim.” She suddenly wished she was back in Delia’s bedroom, eating pizza and planning a nice simple crime, like a mugging or a school bus hijacking.

  A few hours later, the Crims’ ship drifted up to the white-sand beach of Captain Glitterbeard’s island. Imogen closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh air. Birds were tweeting relaxingly. Waves were lapping at the shore soothingly. Palm trees were swaying in the wind calmingly. And Big Nana was shouting at all the Crims. “Hurry up and steal black clothes from the tourists’ cabins now, you burned roast potatoes, before I garrote you with my dental floss.” Which wasn’t very relaxing at all.

  “Why do we need to wear black?” asked Sam.

  “Because it’s the coolest color,” said Henry, who only ever wore black, anyway; he thought it reflected the darkness and depth of his soul.

  “We have to wear black because that’s what cat burglars wear,” said Big Nana.

  “Why would we want to burgle a cat?” said Nick.

  “Yeah,” said Nate. “Cats don’t have anything to steal. Except cat food. And that really doesn’t taste good, unless you eat it with a lot of mustard.”

  Big Nana closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “We aren’t going to burgle a cat, you twin pack of store-brand cereal bars. We just don’t want anyone to notice us while we’re hunting for Captain Glitterbeard’s treasure. Now, weigh the anchor and lower the lifeboat into the water, so we can get closer to the shore.”

  Nick and Nate lowered the lifeboat into the water, and everyone climbed in, one by one, until the little ship was positively infested with Crims. Ava was the last to climb in. She sat on Imogen’s head. “What?” she said when Imogen tried to shove her off. “This is the cleanest place on the boat.”

  Imogen decided to take it as a compliment. She had just shampooed her hair that morning. It was nice that someone had noticed.

  “To the island!” cried Big Nana, and Nick and Nate took an oar each and began to row to shore.

  “There’s a hole in the bottom of this lifeboat,” said Nick, looking down. Water was flooding in and was up to their ankles.

  “Then you’ll just have to row quickly, won’t you?” said Big Nana.

  The Crims sang pirate shanties as the twins rowed the little boat through the water. But by the time they reached the beach, they were practically swimming.

  “We made it!” said Nate, as the Crims tumbled out onto the beach. But then he looked out at something in the distance . . . “Wait,” he said. “Where’s the cruise ship gone?”

  Imogen turned to look. Sure enough, the cruise ship was not where they’d left it. And then she spotted a teeny, tiny ship just disappearing over the horizon.

  “You revolting ready meals!” screamed Big Nana. “Didn’t any of you weigh the anchor like I asked?”

  “Isabella was the captain,” said Uncle Clyde. “That was her job.”

  “Captain,” babbled Isabella, pointing to herself.

  “She’s practically a baby!” shouted Big Nana.

  “Then the actual captain should have done it,” said Nick.

  But the actual captain was still on the cruise ship, drifting off into the distance, dreaming about laying some eggs.

  “Don’t tell me we’re going to be stuck here forever,” Imogen said.

  “Okay,” said Sam. “But that won’t make it any less true.”

  Ava let out a roar—the sort of roar someone would let out if they were descended from dinosaurs but didn’t know it yet. (In fact, the Kruks were distantly related to the Tyrannosaurus rex, which is why they all had such powerful bites and tiny hands.) “You morons!” she shouted. She wasn’t as good at coming up with insults as Big Nana, but then she was young, so there was still time to grow. “How are we going to get out of here now?”

  “Well,” said Imogen
, “once we have the treasure, we’ll be able to rent a ship. Or buy one. Or pay a ship designer to make one especially for us, complete with a karaoke machine. Depending on how big this treasure haul turns out to be . . .”

  “I think we could do without the karaoke machine,” said Ava. “But okay. I get your point.”

  Big Nana clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Seeing as we have lost our only way of escaping the island,” she said, “it’s more important than ever that we find Captain Glitterbeard’s treasure. There’s a shipwreck on the other side of this island. We have to walk through a rain forest to get there. And when we get there, I’ll give you all the first line of directions to find the treasure. Can the rest of you remember the lines you’ve memorized?”

  “Yes,” chanted the Crims.

  Imogen was relieved. If Captain Glitterbeard’s treasure didn’t exist, Big Nana wouldn’t be so keen on finding it. And she’d be a lot more concerned about getting off the island. And would she really have gone to all the effort of pulling the Crims aside, one by one, and making them remember a line of directions to treasure that didn’t even exist? She grinned at Ava as they started to push aside the undergrowth and pick their way through the rain forest. Ava grinned back. See? thought Imogen. Ava’s not a psychopath, really.

  The island was bigger than it looked, and the rain forest was harder to walk through than Imogen had expected. She was wearing sandals and shorts, so her legs kept getting scratched by twigs and bitten by mosquitos.

  “I’m tired,” moaned Henry.

  “I’m tired of you,” said Big Nana. “So be quiet, or I’ll feed you to that puma.”

  The Crims all jumped, very quietly, so as not to attract the puma’s attention.

  “This better be worth it,” said Delia, treading on Imogen’s toe. Probably on purpose.

  The rain forest was as beautiful as it was deadly. Imogen looked up at the clear blue sky through the canopy of trees. Huge butterflies were flitting across the sky, and there was an unusual-looking tropical bird sitting in the palm tree just above her head.

  “Duck,” whispered Ava.

  “I think it’s an ibis, actually,” said Imogen, standing on tiptoe to get a closer look.

  “No, loser,” hissed Ava. “Duck!” She grabbed Imogen by the arm and pulled her down into the undergrowth—and seconds later, a machine gun appeared from between the leaves of a nearby palm tree and sent a volley of bullets toward them across the rain forest.

  “Ah yes,” said Big Nana as the Crims all dropped to the floor. “I forgot to mention—there’s quite a lot of security on this island. No one knows who owns it, but he’s revoltingly rich and extremely paranoid and very deadly.”

  “Nuts!” said Uncle Clyde.

  “Well, quite, my little flame-retardant sponge cake,” said Big Nana, poking her head above the undergrowth to see whether the coast was clear.

  “No!” said Uncle Clyde, pointing to the coconuts that were tumbling out of the sky toward them. “Nuts!” They were the shiniest coconuts Imogen had ever seen. And as they got closer, she realized why: They were embedded with silver razor blades.

  “You didn’t think you ought to mention the crazy paranoid billionaire before you took us to the island?” said Ava as the Crims ran for safety.

  “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” said Big Nana, panting. “Almost as dangerous as a little robotic monkey, armed with a grenade . . .”

  Imogen froze. Because there was a little robotic monkey, armed with a grenade, right in front of her, and it was raising its arm to throw it in her direction—but before it could, Isabella leaped up and wrestled the monkey to the ground. She snatched the grenade from its fingers and swallowed it whole. Which sounds like a terrible idea, but wasn’t, because she suffered from a gunpowder deficiency.

  “Like I said,” said Ava, giving Isabella a little high five, “you could have warned us.”

  “But we’re all supervillains here, aren’t we?” said Big Nana, stepping over a land mine and carrying on through the rain forest. “We love a bit of danger, don’t we?”

  Ava snorted. At the idea of the Crims being supervillains, Imogen guessed, and not at the bit about loving danger.

  “We’ll just have to be on high alert,” continued Big Nana, using her pirate sword to swipe the vegetation out of her way. “And if we get captured by security, we’ll just tell them that Sam is a cabaret singer who has come to the island to perform a gig, and we’re all his entourage.”

  Sam nodded sadly. He still missed his fans.

  “Anyway,” said Big Nana, “I really need a wee. And like I always say, ‘You should never wee in the middle of a rain forest unless you’re an iguana or an elderly explorer with bladder problems.’ I’ll meet you at the shipwreck.”

  Imogen opened her mouth to argue, but Big Nana had already disappeared into the undergrowth like a large red-haired badger. Why did her grandmother always abandon them at times of crisis?

  Imogen, Ava, and the rest of the Crims carried on through the rain forest, edging their way past killer sloths and mutant crocodiles and babbling brooks made of hydrochloric acid. At last, the trees cleared, and they saw the skeletal remains of the shipwreck silhouetted against the sky on the beach in front of them.

  “We’ve made it!” said Uncle Clyde, breaking into a run.

  But they hadn’t made it.

  Because that’s when a group of guards, dressed in camouflage and carrying very nasty-looking guns, appeared from out of the forest and surrounded them.

  “What are you doing here?” said the biggest and scariest guard, pointing his gun at Imogen.

  Think, Imogen told herself. But she couldn’t think. She was too busy sweating and being terrified.

  The less scary guards raised their guns too.

  Guns. That’s it! thought Imogen. Ava has about thirty of those things in her surprisingly spacious pockets!

  She shot Ava a look, as if to say “What happened to your portable cannon?”

  And Ava shot one back, as if to say “I must have left it behind on the cruise ship.”

  But just then, Big Nana popped up from the undergrowth and said, “Ooh! Great! An armed escort!”

  The guards turned their guns on Big Nana.

  “What did the muddy old woman say?” said the biggest, scariest guard to the smallest, least scary guard. Because Big Nana was, for some reason, covered in mud.

  Big Nana pointed at Sam. “Aren’t you here to escort the Magnificent Sam to the owner of this island? He’s due to perform his legendary Wicked medley in half an hour’s time!”

  The guards looked at one another. “He didn’t mention anyone coming to perform,” said the biggest, scariest guard.

  “But he didn’t mention anyone not coming to perform,” said the smallest, least scary guard.

  “And he really does love amateur musicians singing Broadway medleys, for some reason,” said an average-sized, mildly assertive guard.

  The biggest, scariest guard shrugged. “All right, then,” he said. “I suppose you’d better come with us. . . .”

  Imogen felt sick. She really didn’t want to know who “he” was. But she was about to find out.

  The guards marched them past the shipwreck and along the beach to another patch of rain forest. They stopped in front of some thick, twisting vines. Imogen was confused— Was this mysterious man hiding out back on the other side of the rain forest? Were they going to have to deal with that monkey again? But then she saw it: a huge set of iron gates, hidden behind vines. Whoever it was lived right here.

  To get into the compound, the Crims had to pass through fingerprint security, retinal scanners, and an army assault course. Then they walked across a beautifully manicured lawn until they reached a huge, imposing mansion, painted a revolting shade of pink, with fake columns and fake chimneys and roof tiles made of fake money. At least, Imogen assumed it was fake money. . . .

  “Whoever lives here is obviously really powerful,” w
hispered Josephine, reapplying her lipstick as the guards led them up the stone steps into the mansion itself.

  “And he obviously has terrible taste in architecture,” muttered Imogen as they walked through the marble hallways, which were lined, for some reason, with action film posters.

  “Whoever he is, he’s right there,” whispered Ava as the guards led them into a large, velvet-padded room dominated by a huge, throne-like chair.

  And then the Crims stopped speaking, and stood, huddled together in silence.

  Because slowly, the chair had started to swivel round. . . .

  11

  THE CHAIR SPUN around . . . and sitting in it was a square-jawed, graying man with a very familiar-looking dent in his chin.

  “Hey, guys,” he said. His eyes narrowed when he smiled.

  Imogen knew that smile. . . .

  “It’s Don Vadrolga!”

  The Crims were all very excited. Don Vadrolga was the star of many of their favorite movies, including Barry, a horror film about a psychic girl with a boy’s name, and Sunday Morning Temperature, a cult hit from the 1970s. Don was famous for being cool, for being an amazing dancer, and for having a slightly revolting ponytail. But the ponytail was gone. Imogen thought he looked pretty good, for an extremely famous person who has, until quite recently, been held hostage by an extremely famous crime family for an extremely long time.

  “I know you danced with a princess once,” said Josephine, rubbing his arm. “I wonder— Would you maybe dance with me later? Some say she and I have lots in common. Our clothes, mostly, because I stole all my formal gowns from her wardrobe.”

  “I THOUGHT YOU WERE WONDERFUL IN THAT FILM WHERE YOU’RE A SPY AND YOU HAVE TO BE LOWERED FROM THE CEILING SO THAT THE SENSORS ON THE FLOOR DON’T SPOT YOU,” said Uncle Knuckles.