Beauty Queens

Beauty Queens Page 85

“There’s something I think I should tell you right up front… .”

Loud shouts reverberated in the cabin. George ran down the hall. He looked terrified.

“Cap’n! Cap’n!” he said, out of breath. “It’s Charlie.”

“What’s happened?” Sinjin said, all business.

“We were out in the waves, looking for fish, and he got stung. Jellyfish.”

Down the beach, Charlie lay sprawled in the pulsing tide, holding on to his right leg. His calf had begun to swell. “Jellyfish,” he said through chattering teeth. “Feels like my leg is on fire.”

Nicole pushed her way to his side. “It’s okay. I’m a doctor,” she said, peeling his fingers away to have a look. “We have to stop the poisons from getting into the bloodstream.”

“Hold on, Charlie. I’ll wash it off.” George cupped his hands under the tide.

“No!” Nicole shouted. “I read this in one of my auntie’s journals. You can actually activate the poisons that way.”

“I saw something like this on Predators of the Deep Week,” Chu said. “Bloke got stung by a jellyfish and his whole leg swelled up like a dirigible. They had to cut his leg clean off to save him.”

Charlie moaned in pain.

“Not helpful,” Nicole said.

“Please,” Charlie said, teeth still chattering. “Please help me.”

“What can we do? We have to do something!” Miss Ohio said.

“There is one thing that works,” Nicole said.

“What’s that?” Ahmed asked.

“Urine.”

“Gross,” Miss Ohio said.

George shook his head. “I’m not peeing on Charlie.”

An argument broke out about who would be willing to step forward and do the deed.

“M’ bleedin’ leg’s on fire! I don’t care what you do — just do it!” Charlie screamed, but it was as if everyone had been paralyzed.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Petra groused, marching forward. Quickly, she lifted her skirt, dropped her undies, and peed on Charlie’s leg.

“Thank you,” Charlie whispered.

“You’re welcome,” Petra said.

The pirates stood dumbfounded as Petra collected herself and smoothed her skirt back into place. “Take a picture. It’ll last longer,” she said as she walked away.

Captain Sinjin watched her go, openmouthed. Finally, he broke into a huge, face-breaking grin.

“Bodacious!” he said.

CLASSIFIED

ISLAND

20:15 HOURS

Agent Jones dipped the darts in the liquid Mind’s Flower. Since the unfortunate incident with Miss Texas he’d had to replace his stock. It made him feel safe to have them. And considering how screw-the-pooch things were going on the island, he needed something to make him feel safe.

Harris breezed past in a Knicks jersey, a ridiculous sweatband across his head. “Looking a little rough today, Jonesy,” Harris said.

Agent Jones did not look up. “Did you fix the manual override system?”

Harris put up his hands in a back-off gesture. “Going to. Got a pickup game with some of the black shirts in a few.” Harris faked a jump shot. “Nothing but net.”

“Don’t do that, Harris. It’s cliché.”

“What crawled up your ass today?”

“Pirates,” Agent Jones answered.

Harris nodded. “Whatever floats your boat. Ha! I made a pun. Get it? Boat? Pirates?”

Agent Jones closed his eyes for a second and tried to cast his mind back to a more pleasant time, when he had helped stage a brutal coup in a small South American republic. Bullets flying. Grenades exploding. Pandemonium and blood and screaming in the streets. And no Harris.

“Don’t you have something to do?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I might. You don’t think I can handle this, do you?”

Agent Jones did not answer.

“Well, you are going to be surprised. I can handle myself just fine. I already did handle myself. Wait, that came out wrong.”

Agent Jones packed away the fourth dart. One more to go.

“Don’t you want to know what I did?”

“No.”

“Just a little.”

“No.”

“I’ll bet you can’t guess —”

“No.”

Harris was quiet for a full fifteen seconds.

“Fine, I’ll tell you. Remember Benny from product development? The one who came up with our Lady ’Stache Off bomb? I killed him.”