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A/N: Ninth chapter of my story! I never thought I’d get this far. This is odd. I hope I can finish this soon before I lose interest! Anyways, reviews are always appreciated. I’ll stop talking now.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Pirates of the Caribbean or the giant Pysanka in Vegreville. The snippets of songs used throughout the chapter are from these songs, in order: A Little Less Conversation by Elvis Presley, It’s Not the Fall That Hurts by The Caesars, Boom Boom Goes the Day by Sean Hayes, and Dead Meat by Sean Lennon. Don’t try to read anything into it…I just thought that would be the kind of music I’d listen to if I was on a road trip.
Thrilling, I know. Don’t all rush to go visit Alberta now, folks.
There was, of course, no way the girls were going to ignore such an obvious sign (“but really,” Marcella protested, “usually there are riddles and puzzles about what to do next in these types of situations. Not just…you know…'Go to Vegreville'. That’s a little obvious, don’t you think?”)
Brianne had managed to borrow the family van, which seated seven people – Brianne, Celeste (who had called shotgun), Barbossa and Tia Dalma behind them, and Pintel, Marcella, and Ragetti squished into the back seat. Rhiannon had her mum’s car – Rhiannon drove, Nicole beside her. Norrington, Will, and Jack were piled into the small backseat, with Elizabeth perched on Will’s lap.
Since Brianne was the one with the map (that Celeste had opened and had now spread haphazardly all over her side of the van), Rhiannon followed Brianne’s van. Once they reached the outskirts of the city, Marcella clambered towards the front of the van and attached her iPod to the car’s sound system. “I made a traveling playlist!” she said proudly, and went on to explain just how important it was to have good traveling music when on a roadtrip (even if Vegreville WAS only fifty minutes away, give or take). Barbossa, who Marcella was sitting on to reach into the front, insisted that he didn’t want any traveling music, but she ignored him and pressed play.
A little less conversation, a little more action please
All this aggravation ain't satisfactioning me
A little more bite and a little less bark
A little less fight and a little more spark
Close your mouth and open up your heart and baby satisfy me.
“Would you get off me?” Norrington asked irritably. The full weight of both Will and Elizabeth had the former Commodore squashed against the back window. Elizabeth, apologizing and trying to move around in a decent manner while on Will’s lap, lost her balance entirely.
“Gerrof!” Jack squawked as her back pressed him against his window. Elizabeth started moving from side to side, earning loud complaints from either Jack or Norrington. Will sat silently throughout all of it, his face bright red.
“D’you want some gum?” Nicole asked Rhiannon, completely ignoring the commotion in the backseat. Rhiannon took the offered peace and glanced in the rearview mirror. “Elizabeth,” she said finally. “Keep your back straight – Norrington, stop complaining and scootch over. Jack, you’re taking up too much of Will’s seat, and for goodness sake let the poor man breathe!”
All complied, though there were sour stares exchanged all around. Nicole settled back in her seat and switched on the radio.
All my life I've been fall-fall-falling apart,
Been tumbling down quick first right from the start,
I never learned just get up and go on
Until I'm just knocked right off of my feet
But it's not the fall that hurts
It's when you hit the ground
'Cause it's not the fall that hurts
It's when you hit the ground.
“Okay,” Celeste said, eagerly scanning the highway. “I spy…with my little eye…something that is green!”
“The grass.” Barbossa guessed.
“That sign.” Brianne, who had been reading it anyways, suggested.
“Those letters on Ragetti’s shirt?” Marcella asked. Celeste grinned. “Bingo!”
“That’s not fair!” Brianne protested. “He has like, three green letters on his shirt! You have to pick something more obvious then that!”
“It was my turn, I can pick what I want!” Celeste retorted, sticking out her tongue.
“You shouldn’t even be playing this!” Marcella reprimanded Brianne. “Keep your eyes on the road!”
Tia Dalma had been quiet since they left Edmonton, so Celeste turned and asked her, “Do you think we’ll find anything in Vegreville?”
Tia Dalma lifted a shoulder. “We were sent here for a reason,” she said cryptically “Everyt’ing has a purpose.”
Barbossa, the confrontation in HMV fresh in his mind, shot a stare at Tia – she gave him a sickly sweet smile in return.
“Oi!” Pintel grabbed at Ragetti’s shirtsleeve as the taller man pulled back his arm, sniggering. “Give me apple back, ye twit!”
Marcella sipped a juice box and closed her eyes as the two attempted to wrestle each other over her head for an apple.
Days like today
You try and plan, but they go their own way
Boom boom goes the day
Hear the radio, TV, newspaper, skyscraper on the pavement
Hey, hey, hey, hey.
Everyone say just a little word wrong
Everyone say just a little word wrong
You're in Babylon.
“…I’m just sayin’, mate,” Jack was saying, spreading his hands in what he hoped was a peaceful gesture, “that maybe if YOU hadn’t sailed through that hurricane, maybe you wouldn’t’ve lost your job and you wouldn’t’ve been skulking through Tortuga, drunk off your high horse.”
Norrington had, by this time, turned an ugly shade of red. “I don’t need a life lesson from the likes of you,” he hissed “I had been promoted, I had a fiancée...my life was perfect before I got mixed up with your lot.” He looked pointedly at Will, and Elizabeth jumped in to defend him.
“James!” she said firmly. “Will was doing what he believed was right at the time. We’re sorry that you took the fall for letting Jack escape, and you know not a day goes by where I don’t feel awful about lying and accepting your proposal, but you made choices too James, and for God’s sake, you’re going to have to accept that what happened to you was partly your fault as well!”
After Elizabeth’s outburst, the car became awkwardly silent. Rhiannon tapped out a rhythm on the steering wheel with her fingernails. Nicole looked out the window to look at road signs, but ended up yelling, “STOP THE CAR!” at the top of her lungs. Rhiannon stepped on the brakes and the car swerved, screeching, to a halt. Nicole peered out her window. There were waves of heat rolling off the highway that made the object sitting in the middle of the wheat field beside them shimmer, but there was no doubt that it was not a hallucination. Rhiannon followed Nicole’s gaze, and her jaw dropped. “Is that – ”
Behind them, Rhiannon’s car came to a screeching halt. Brianne drove up on the side of the road and they piled out of the van.
“It is a ship!” Marcella exclaimed, placing both hands on one of the posts of the barbed wire fence that surrounded the property.
“I guess it was a good thing we went to Vegreville.” Celeste mused. Jack had already hopped the fence, and everybody else soon followed (Brianne tore her hand open on a particularly nasty barb and had to hop around behind the van for a bit, cursing).
The ship was at the end of the field, and Jack was leading the pack, as excited as he had been to sight the sails in West Edmonton Mall. Marcella kept pace with Brianne as they went marching through the tall wheat. “D’you think this is it, then?” she asked. “Maybe this is what gets them back home?”
Brianne looked thoughtful. “Maybe. It’s just – it can't be this easy, can it? We just get a fortune from a cheap machine telling us to go to Vegreville and half-way there we find a ship in the middle of some farmer’s field? Like you said…it’s never that obvious.”
“So…you think it’s a trap? By whom?" Marcella risked a glance behind her, where Tia Dalma was gliding through the field, looking unruffled. "Tia Dalma was the one that made that fortune come out…do you think she’s lying?” Marcella was goose-stepping now; squashing wheat stalks under her sneakers. She made flat ovals behind her in the field, and long-legged Ragetti shortened his stride to place his feet in them.
“I don’t know what I think.” Brianne said. “We’ll know when we get to that ship, I guess.”
Soon they were close enough to make out more of its features. It had fluttery green sails that looked ragged as seaweed. Its hull was bumpy and ill cared for, covered all over in what looked like barnacles. Though she was a good few metres away, Marcella stopped suddenly, nervous. Nicole halted as well, squinting at the ship as if in vague recognition. Marcella felt something crawl up her spine, and she called, “Guys, maybe we should go back…”
Jack turned, puzzled. “Why? We came all this way here t’find a sign and now you wanna just leave it?”
“I have a bad feeling about this. Me and Brianne were thinking, what if – ”
“Jack Sparrow.” There was a figure standing high up on the deck of the ship, looking down, his face a dark shadow, but his words could be heard as if he was standing right next to the group. “You have a debt to pay-ah.”
The girls screamed in unison, turned, and fled back towards the cars, immediately recognizing both the ship and its captain. Jack was right behind them, legs pumping. Marcella dove into the backseat and waited for Brianne, who was tearing towards the fence, digging her keys out of her pocket. “C’mon Brianne!” Marcella whined out the window. “I’m coming!” Brianne called, swore as she stumbled, and clambered over the fence. Nicole leapt the wire easily and started Rhiannon’s car as Jack took a flying leap into the open passenger door. Davy Jones had not made any attempt to pursue them, and the ship was still there at the end of the field, shimmering in the heat. Brianne put the van into gear and almost drove away until she remembered Pintel, who came panting up to the fence, climbed clumsily over it (shredding his pants in the process) and grabbed onto the van door as Brianne urged someone to open it. “Ye wench!” he wheezed as Ragetti pulled him into the back of the van. “Ye almost left me with the bloody Flying Dutchman!”
“I didn’t mean to!” Brianne snapped at him as she peeled away from the side of the road, Rhiannon right behind her. Marcella’s iPod was playing again, but no one was listening – Celeste and Marcella watched the Dutchman from out the windows. It wasn’t moving, its sails still in the windless air, but it was keeping pace with the speeding van easily, moving from one plot of land to the other like it was being pulled across the horizon on wheels. Tia Dalma leaned her head against the window, touching the locket that hung around her neck tenderly.
Dead meat
Don't you know you're dead meat?
You just messed with the wrong team
Better not try and fall asleep now
You're gonna get what you deserve
Gonna get what you deserve
In the end you're gonna learn
Oh, you'll get what you deserve.
A/N: Well, that was odd - what was the point of going to Vegreville? Jesus, who's writing this?!