Crane (Page 45)

Slow down? Hok thought. How am I supposed to do that?

The pirate leader raised his qiang. “Slow your vessel down immediately.”

“I don’t know how!” Hok said.

“Do you expect me to fall for that?” the pirate leader said. “Slow down and turn to port.”

“I have no idea what ‘port’ is,” Hok shouted back. They were getting dangerously close to the pirate leader’s boat. “Help me!”

“Port is left!” the pirate said. “Turn to port now, young lady! Men, cut the lines and heave us to port, too! We’re in opposition. We’ll swing around each other.”

“Hang on, Seh!” Hok cried, and she shoved the rudder with all her might to the left. The skiff made a sharp turn—to the right. She had forgotten that the rudder steered the boat in the opposite direction. They were going to collide! Hok slammed her eyes shut.

THUMP!

“Arrgh!” the pirate leader shouted as his vessel rocked violently sideways. Hok opened her eyes and watched the bow of PawPaw’s skiff scrape along the side of the pirates’ boat. Hok avoided eye contact with the scrambling pirates, who were close enough to touch.

Hok felt PawPaw’s skiff begin to slip away from the pirates’ boat, and she straightened the rudder. The skiff began to nose its way downriver again with Seh at the bow, gripping the sides like his life depended on it.

“After them!” the pirate leader shouted. “Perimeter sailors, take aim! Vessel One, fire at will!”

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Four shots rang out. Hok heard two qiang balls slam into the bow of the skiff a hand’s-width from Seh.

“No!” Hok cried. She looked back at the pirate leader’s advancing boat. The three men with him were paddling frantically, trying to catch up with her and Seh. She heard the pirates shouting to one another in a different language.

“Vessel One, reload!” the pirate leader commanded.

“Stop it!” Hok shouted. “Please! I didn’t mean to ram into you! It was an accident!” The pirate leader’s boat was gaining on them. Hok looked at the pirate leader’s masked face, and they locked eyes. Hok nearly tumbled out of the boat. His eyes were round and blue as the sky, just like Charles’.

“Vessel Two, prepare to fire on my command!” the pirate leader roared.

“No!” Hok said. “Why are you doing this?” She heard more shouting in another language.

“On my mark!” the pirate leader shouted.

“NO!” Hok screamed. She had to think of something. She heard more foreign language shouting and saw several pirates point toward the sky. A shadow passed overhead and Hok looked up to see a large crane flying straight toward the pirates that were taking aim with their loaded qiangs. The bird appeared frightened, probably startled by the qiangs that had just been fired. A black-and-white sticky goo began to pour from beneath its tail feathers, and several pirates shouted angrily as their heads and shoulders were splattered with globs of the foul stuff. One of the men yelled a string of words that Hok didn’t understand, finishing with the word crane.

Hok could hardly believe her ears. She realized the pirate hadn’t said the word crane in Mandarin or even Cantonese. He had said it in Dutch.

Something clicked inside Hok’s head, and many of the words the men were shouting to one another began to make sense. The pirates spoke her father’s language!

“Take aim!” the pirate leader bellowed, raising one arm high.

“NEE!” Hok shouted at the top of her lungs. “NEE! NEE! NEE! NO! NO! NO!”

The pirate leader’s body went rigid, and pirate mouths across the river dropped. Hok stared at the pirate leader, desperation on her face.

The pirate leader lowered his arm and spoke to Hok in Chinese. “What did you just say?”

Hok answered in Dutch. “I said, no?”

The pirate leader’s eyes narrowed. “Pull alongside them, men!” he ordered, and the men in his boat eased their vessel alongside PawPaw’s skiff.

Hok watched Seh release his grip on the skiff and form snake-head fists with both hands. He sat perfectly still, his snake writhing beneath his sleeve.

The pirate leader stared hard at Hok, and he spoke in Dutch. “So, you understand me, girl?”

“Yes …,” Hok replied, struggling to remember words she hadn’t used in more than nine years. “I … understand some. Chinese is better for me, though, if you please.”

The pirate leader switched back to Chinese. “Why didn’t you say something when the men were shouting among themselves in Dutch?”

“I don’t know,” Hok replied. “It all happened so fast. I didn’t realize they were speaking Dutch until the crane flew overhead. I have not used the language in many years.”