Pirates Tom and Jack: The Lost Island – Part 2 of 3

655 words / 4 min.

The morning after their encounter with the ghost ship, Jack took the brass disc from his pocket. Its three engraved stars glittered in the early light. Tom noticed a tiny notch shaped like an arrow along the rim.

“Perhaps it’s a compass,” he suggested. Captain Henry Storm set the disc on his chart and turned it toward the rising sun. The arrow pointed to a blank space on the map where no island had been drawn. “Morven didn’t give us an answer,” the captain said. “He gave us our first question.”

The Heroic Breeze sailed east. After two days at sea, a strip of green appeared on the horizon. The island looked beautiful, but strange stone buildings rose from its centre, and unfamiliar cries echoed among the trees.

The captain chose a small landing party: himself, First Mate Miro, and the two brothers. The rest of the crew stayed aboard. “No one wanders off alone,” he warned. Tom promised to be careful, although he was already examining footprints in the sand. Each print was wider than both his feet put together.

The path led through ferns as tall as grown sailors. Branches cracked somewhere beyond the trees. Then a giant reptile stepped into a clearing, with powerful legs and teeth like sharp stones. Tom held his breath. “A Tyrannosaurus,” Miro whispered.

“Run!” Tom was about to shout, but Jack noticed something beside the roots of a fallen tree: a small spotted youngster trapped beneath broken branches. The great creature was not watching the people as prey. It was trying to reach its young.

The captain raised his hand. “Back away slowly. No shouting.” The party retreated behind a rocky outcrop. The little dinosaur cried weakly, and its mother hurried across the clearing in distress. Dry branches snapped under her feet.

“If the little one stays trapped, she won’t leave,” Jack said. Miro took out a long rope and carefully looped it around the fallen branch. From behind the rock, he and the captain pulled. The branch rose only a little, but it was enough. The youngster wriggled free and ran to its mother.

The enormous dinosaur lowered her head to her little one. Then the two disappeared into the forest. At last Tom breathed out. “I never imagined we’d escape a dinosaur by helping it.” “More precisely,” Jack said, “we helped her little one. And gave them space.”

Beyond the clearing, they found the ruins of a small stone tower. Three stars were carved above the doorway, exactly like the ones on Morven’s disc. Inside lay a stone slab with a circular hollow. Jack placed the brass disc into it. It fit as though it had been waiting there for years.

Tom turned the disc toward a shaft of sunlight falling through a window. Fine lines appeared in the stone. They were not random scratches but a chart of the sea, showing three black rocks and a small wreck between them. Beneath the drawing were the words: “When the sea withdraws, the way is revealed. Do not cross the coral line.”

Miro copied the chart carefully. Jack lifted the brass disc out of the hollow and put it safely back in his pocket. “I know those rocks. They stand beside a shoal beyond the island. The water is treacherous there, even on a calm day.” The captain nodded. “We won’t sail in blindly. We’ll wait for the right tide and prepare our boats and ropes.”

On the way back, Tom glanced toward the clearing once more. Far away, he spotted the mother dinosaur beside her young. He did not need to approach them to know they were safe.

That evening, as the Heroic Breeze raised anchor, Jack set the copied chart beside the logbook. “Now we know where the Sea Crown lies,” he said. Captain Storm looked out over the darkening water. “Now we must find out whether we can bring her cargo home safely.”