The baby-faced blond giant wandered past them with a barrel.
“Cooper here makes our barrels. He was an apprentice before Peter nabbed him.” Tam’s lips formed a straight line for a moment. “A little slow, but a hard worker. Cap’n says Peter got tired of slow devotion, so he tried for a fast boost.” He shook his head sadly.
“Surely your captain didn’t save everybody from Peter.”
“ ’Course not,” Tam scoffed. “Smee is waaaaay too old for that.” His eyes rounded as he shared the next tidbit with ghoulish glee. “Peter made him cut out his owntongue.”
“Ugh.”
“Mmhmm,” he agreed. “Mücahit—he’s our bosun–—has ahugescar on his neck because Peter tried to get him to slash his own throat and he almost did it!”
“Good thing he didn’t succeed.”
“He has araspy voice now.” Tam demonstrated said raspiness.
That must have been one of the men Wendy overhead when she first snuck aboard theJolly Roger. She didn’t know what the bosun did and couldn’t recall which of the men had a neck scar, but she hadn’t been paying close attention to everyone. Actually, apart from the young ones and Hook, she’d be hard-pressed to pick them out of a crowd if they ever left the ship. That thought flickered across her face as a grimace, but her new gossip buddy didn’t notice.
He pointed to the helmsman who shared Davi’s Desjunonian coloring but had a rounder face. A distinguished helping ofsilver hair graced his temples. “Kalaakaar is basically an artist, so Peter made him burn all his drawings.”
“That’s terrible!”
“He’s the navigatorandhe draws all our maps now,” Tam assured her.
Wendy wondered if he was responsible for the maps in Hook’s quarters. Her brief glance had noticed crisp lines and colors.
“That’s not as bad as what Peter did to Gharza.” Tam leaned forward and half-whispered the next part. “He made him burn off his hair.” When Wendy made an appropriately appalled expression, he sat back and nodded. “Gharza said he used to have the most beautiful curls. He didn’t ever cut them because his mother loved them.”
“Eghh.” Wendy’s disregard for Peter’s character plunged deeper and deeper into the ocean of her disgust. “Wait, is he the cook?” Having finally eaten in the galley, she thought she remembered the cook being bald though only a few years older than her.
“Yep.” Tam began swinging his feet to thump his heels on the crate. “Raghu got a hook to the gut,” he said almost offhand.
“Which one is Raghu?”
“The carpenter.”
That meant nothing to her. “Was everybody a Lost Boy once?”
“Nah.” Tam hopped down and brushed off his worn trousers. “Maaka joined a few years ago. Gharza says he used to be one of our trading partners before that.”
Maaka was the one that had been teaching Davi how to mend sails.
Before Wendy could say any more, Tam gave her a quick wave. “I’ll see ya at dinner.”
A thousand thoughts raced through her mind. At length, Disa’s persistent tugging on her ear dragged her back to the present.
“What, Di—Disa! Where is Leq?” Wendy all but demanded.
Disa’s human form became visible by her shoulder. She turned to see his little face scrunch with concentration.
After a moment, he opened his eyes and said, “Ocean.”
“Inthe ocean?”
“Nah, zippin’!”
“Well, that’s a relief, anyway,” Wendy mumbled to herself.
Disa hovered in front of her face. He placed his hands on his hips and leaned forward. “Story?”
