As the ship sailed over the waters, the waves crashed against the sides in a rhythmic motion. Fast asleep, I breathed into the blanket while Mikayla snored like a dinosaur searching for food. That’s what woke me up, a chainsaw right by my head like she hadn’t slept in days.

Teye Ba looked over at me when he saw me stir. He wasn’t much for small talk. The nod from his head would do. As I stretched, a huge full-body yawn came over me, and I couldn’t believe that the little munchkin was still snoring like a raptor. How could such a small body make that much noise?

As my eyes were just starting to open and sleep was fading from them, Bruce slammed into my vision, “Would you like some pirate stew, fresh from the ocean?”

“You got that out of the river,” I said before I had a chance to think.

“Well, yeah, close enough,” he said.

“It’s not even…” I said as I smelled the stew and looked at him with one eye, the sun shining brightly on my face. “What’s in it?”

“Aye, you don’t want to be learning about that,” Johnson said as he came into my view with a hardy laugh. “Some things are better left unknown.”

“You’re in a different world, matey,” Bruce said as he placed the bowl down beside me and walked over to the companionway. “You make do with what you got.”

“Oh, yes,” I quickly replied. “I appreciate the…” I said before I looked down at it, and my stomach immediately protested. “Are you sure I don’t want to know?”

Have you ever looked at a bowl of soup and you couldn’t figure out what anything was? It looked like vegetables and some kind of meat. Then, there were other things floating around in there.

“We call it salmagundi,” Teye Ba announced as he walked toward me. “It has a little bit of everything.”

“It’s good for you,” Bruce announced. “It will stick to your ribs.”

I didn’t really know what was funny when they all started laughing at Bruce’s joke. I was too busy staring at the bowl with concern. I poked at it and stirred it a bit. Then, I lifted a taste to my mouth. That’s when my mind changed. Bruce must have been a master chef because it was good.

Bruce laughed as he watched me enjoy the stew, “It’s not half bad, is it?”

“No,” I answered. “It’s really good.”

“The myths of the pirates go back ages,” Johnson started. “But the truth is that we don’t have too much to eat out there on the ocean. We have to make do with what we have.”

“You have fish all around you,” I said.

They burst out laughing again until Teye Ba quieted the noise, “We don’t have time to fish. Fishing takes too much time to get a small bite on the line.”

“What is all the fuss about?” Mikayla asked as she rubbed her eyes.

“Ah, there’s my young river sprout,” Bruce said.

When she looked up, a smile came across her face, “Do you have any pirate stew waiting for me?”

“That I do,” he said as he headed down below and came right back with a bowl.

She looked at the blanket that covered us both, “How did this get here?”

That’s when I noticed it. Pieces stitched together like it was a blanket made of five different blankets. What made it so special?

Mikayla looked over at me, “This is the one Maggie made when you were sick. It gave her something to do while she was waiting on you.”

I looked at the blanket harder. That memory wasn’t coming back to me. Then, as if there was a flash before my eyes, I saw the blanket in the back of my mind. I couldn’t remember much about it, but suddenly, it belonged.

“And KeeKee,” Mikayla cried out. “My mini me. You thought of everything.”

Johnson grabbed a doll out of the small chair from across the deck and brought it to her, “That we did.”

She hugged it like she hadn’t seen it in years. Then, she looked at me. I could see in her eyes that there was an ounce of pity, “You don’t remember KeeKee, either?”

I looked at KeeKee for a moment. To be honest, this was all starting to get frustrating. The pirates said I knew them. The blanket was supposed to be mine. Then, there was a doll named KeeKee who didn’t look recognizable to me at all. When was any of this going to start making sense?

“You took her everywhere,” Mikayla started to explain. “From the moment Maggie bought her at the yard sale, she was your best friend. You even wrote a poem about her.”

“I wrote a poem?” I had to ask.

“Aye, that you did,” Mikayla said as if she had joined the pirate crew.

She handed KeeKee to me as if for us to get acquainted, and then she stood up to walk to the side. Then, she pointed to dry land and ordered, “Right there. That’s where we need to be.”

“Got it,” Johnson saluted.

“We’ll get you there,” Teye Ba said as he walked to the wheel.

And with that, it wasn’t long until Mikayla and I were walking down the ramp with a blanket and a doll. Why we needed these things didn’t make any sense to me. What good were they going to do? They were just dead weight to me because I thought we had more important things on our minds, like finding a hidden treasure.

Mikayla suddenly turned and looked at me with piercing eyes, searching mine, “You didn’t bring them, Kissy. They brought you here.”

Once again, I was dumbfounded. She caught me by surprise. What did she know about me? And what did I know about a stitched-together blanket and a doll, a little doll I wouldn’t have played with for years.

I didn’t have much time to think about that because Mikayla didn’t take long to say goodbye to the new friends we had just left before she was darting off down a path through the trees. I had a few seconds to turn back and wave before I lost her.

“Better get along,” Teye Ba urged.

“We’ll be seeing you,” Johnson said with a salute.

With that, I turned and ran after my little companion like I was chasing a rabbit through the woods. She was hard to follow, but her blue dress helped me keep an eye on her so I could keep up. When we came out in the clearing of the trees, my heart leaped out of my chest.

There in front of me was that band of knights we had bumped into before. Was this the same field? Had we circled around and found ourselves back in the same spot?

I didn’t have an answer to either of those questions when that knight approached me again, “Didn’t I tell you it was too dangerous around here for the both of you?”

“Who says?” Mikayla blurted back in full defiance.

He looked down at her with annoyance in his eyes, “It’s been declared by solemn decree, Hear ye, hear ye. By royal proclamation of King Bramblewick the Uncertain, we knights are the officially appointed Pursuers of the Legendary Treasure, rightful claimants to its glory, and steadfast preservers of our own confusion.”

I had to laugh. Mikayla looked at me with a serious look, as if what he had just said was some official thing. I had to remind myself, I didn’t really know this world yet. They had their own language and their own ways of doing things. My fault was not catching on quickly enough.

So, I thought I’d try, “The legendary treasure has yet to be found. By which, I declare belongs to no one. It is the rightful heir of anyone who finds it, and by that, I decree that we have every right to search for, and King Bumbleweed can suck lemons.”

Mikayla laughed. But the knight didn’t take it so funny. Even his horse threw a fit.

“How dare you mock King Bramblewick,” the knight declared before drawing his sword.

That’s when I realized that things had just gotten serious. I didn’t know this world could get that serious. As the other knights started toward us, we soon found company at our backs.

Captain Teye Ba, First Mate Johnson, and Bruce stood tall. I could see them out of the corner of my eye, and then I turned to fully look at them. They had swords!

My eyes grew wide as I looked at Mikayla and whispered, “They have swords?”

“Well, of course they do,” she joked. “You didn’t expect them to come empty-handed, did you?”

“Stand to the side,” Captain Teye Ba ordered, and I knew who he meant.

I was quick to step aside as the knights and the pirates started toward each other. There was grunting and groaning, murmuring and moaning. They each were progressing forward with no backdown in sight. Then, Mikayla grabbed my hand. When I looked down at her, I saw her eyes. That’s when I realized we were about to get company.

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