1.4 Pirates (part five)
Fade from black. Exterior shot of a dingy bar — “Mord’s” — is replaced by Cassie inside the (mostly-empty) place, sitting on a stool near the wall. She’s pounding back Shirley Temples and feeling sorry for herself.
Chip enters. The bartender tells him to scram, no kids, but Cassie waves him over which apparently is good enough for the bartender. Chip says he’ll have what she’s having, and gets two Shirley Temples.
“Wow, Cassie, don’t go drowning your sorrows in maraschino.” Chip is all concerned. “Your mother said you were out walking. I’ve been looking all over for you…”
“Well, you found me.”
“So Andrew said…” Chip trails off, because it’s quite a bit to recap. He tries again. “Your father…”
“My father came back, and he’s a pirate. I’m descended from pirates.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Arrr,” Cassie says, half-heartedly.
Chip takes a sip from his drink. “That’s… wow, you know? That’s actually kind of awesome.”
“No! It’s not! It’s not!”
“Right! Sorry!” Chip raises his hands in surrender. “Bad instinct! Wrong thing to say! Sorry!”
Cassie isn’t entirely engaged in the conversation, so Chip tries to draw her out. “So, does your dad have an eyepatch?”
“No…”
“Does he have a pegleg? Or a hook?”
“Neither.”
“Does he have a parrot?”
“He doesn’t have a parrot or a monkey.”
“Does he have a ship?”
“I think he does.”
“Well, what kind of pirate doesn’t… wait, he has a ship?”
“It was implied.”
“So… are you going to go off with him, get on the ship? Go to…?”
“Thailand. I don’t know. Maybe? It’d be different from Muncie.”
“This is like, your dream, though. Your Dad comes back and takes you to exotic…” Chip trails off, again, when he realizes this isn’t helping.
“Yeah…” Cassie doesn’t make eye contact with Chip. “But I didn’t think it would actually, you know, like, happen.”
“I did,” Chip says.
Cassie glances over to him, surprised.
“I always knew you’d get out of Muncie. You’re too special for it. You should be in Thailand or Paris or Manhattan or Hong Kong, somewhere special. And someday you will be.”
Cassie is slightly flustered. “Thanks…” There’s a beat; they both sip their drinks. “Chip, what would you do if your dad was a pirate?”
“My dad is a notary public.”
“And Mom, Mom has always been all… and it turns out she’s just a hypocrite.” Cassie gestures vaguely. “She did all this crazy stuff and now…”
“Now she’s devoted to protecting you and Oliver,” Chip says.
CUT TO Andrew’s basement. Andrew and Oliver are poring over old Dungeon Majesty supplements, maps, magazines, et cetera. Andrew’s making a stack of something.
“Pretty weird about your Dad, huh?” Andrew says conversationally to Oliver.
“Uh-huh,” Oliver says noncommittally. He’s reading something. “Pretty weird.”
“But he brought back the last piece of the puzzle.”
Oliver looks up. “Huh?”
Andrew is going through the stack of supplements and articles he’s made: Blue Heron Castle, the Citadel of the Red Falcon, the Dungeon of the Fire Phoenix, Tomb of the Gull Riders, the Curse of the Jade Pelican… all written by Mary Lukas between 1971 and 1974. He shakes his head in wonder.
“Kestrel,” Andrew says to Oliver, enigmatically. He turns his computer on, which beeps and dings because Andrew built it from chips and he likes beeps and dings.
Andrew logs on to IRC and finds Kestrel in a channel.
KESTREL: what’s up, shadowfax??
Andrew smirks as he types.
SHADOWFAX: i know who you are
Then he turns the computer off again. Oliver, who’s been looking over his shoulder, tugs his sleeve. “Andrew, who’s Kestrel?”
“I never knew until today,” Andrew says.
CUT back to Mord’s. Jack comes into the bar, and puts a sad song on the jukebox. He gives Chip a glance, and Chip scrams.
Jack sits on Chip’s stool and orders two of what she’s having, which makes a total of like eight Shirley Temples between the three of them. “…Come here often?” he asks Cassie.
“Lately,” Cassie says diffidently. She stirs her swizzle stick. “So have you ever seen a mermaid?”
Jack leans back and thinks. “I’ve seen a lot of amazing things… there’s a coral island in the South Pacific, a bay, where the water’s so clear and the sun’s so bright you can see a hundred feet down, to the reef and all the anemones and…” He takes a sip. “In Micronesia there’s a beach of volcanic sand, black sand, and it gets so hot you have to wear shoes on it, right kind of shoes that don’t melt, but when you walk on it the sand squeaks under you, and it sounds like someone playing an oboe… And…
“I’ve seen birds that are colors I didn’t think existed in nature… But… no, I’ve never seen a mermaid.”
Cassie nods.
“Have you thought about, you know, coming with me, and seeing the world? I mean, it’s…”
“I kind of do want to,” Cassie says thoughtfully.
Jack is slightly taken aback, perhaps because he doesn’t hear the but in her voice. “Well, okay! We, we can do this! I mean, it’s not forever, you can…”
“I don’t think I can, though.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Your mother says you’ll be going to college in the fall.”
“Yeah. Maybe you could send me postcards.”
“I know you’ll do well,” Jack says, and sips his Shirley Temple. “I don’t really have any words of wisdom for you. Listen to Virginia. Look after Ollie.”
“Oh! You should talk to Enzo.”
“Enzo? Enzo’s in town?”
“He’s been looking out for Oliver and me,” Cassie tells him. “Like, because of a promise he made to you? If anything happens to me look out for my kids, something like that?”
Jack frowns, then remembers. “Oh, yeah… that was a long time ago. I never thought he’d actually do it!”
“You should talk to him.”
“I’ll talk to him… It’s getting late. I’ll walk you home?”
CUT TO Jack and Cassie walking back to the Lauro house. Bittersweet music plays, as they chat (no audible dialogue) and then
Vroom!
Two black Excrucians roar around a corner and hidden spotlights are flipped on and there’s a dozen men and women in blue FBI windbreakers. Someone with a megaphone shouts “JOHN SILVER! YOU ARE UNDER ARREST!”
Jack looks stunned.
CLOSING CREDITS.
NEXT TIME on DUNGEON MAJESTY:
* A weirdly aggressive Ferdinand browbeats Mike into lending him his car!
* Alvin defames the Axis War Memorial!
* Cassie and Dale are on a date, but their date is rocked by explosions!
* A badly-well-dressed Andrew at a train station, holding flowers. “Angelina” approaches him from behind.