Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber (Bloody Jack Adventure Series #3)

Under the Jolly Roger\ Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber \ \ By L. A. Meyer \ Harcourt Children's Books\ Copyright © 2005 L. A. Meyer\ All right reserved. \ ISBN: 015205345X \ \ \ Ishmael!" I call out as I skip down the gangplank of the Pequod, my seabag on my shoulder. "Good sailing to you!" \ "And to thee, Jacky," he says. The boy stands by the rail watching me leave the whaler for good and ever. "Thee are sure thee will not marry me?"\ I swear, these Quaker lads are so cute with their thees and thys.\ "Go find yourself a nice girl, Ishmael," I say by way of answer to his proposal. "Not one that stinks of whale oil!"\ "I thinks thee smells just fine, Jacky Faber." I know he is genuinely sad to see me go, just as I am sad to see the last of him. I blow him a kiss and give him a final wave and go down the gangplank and step onto the wharf and hence onto the land that is England.\ I was brought on board the whaler three months ago after I had run away from the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls in Boston, which is where my mates on HMS Dolphin had dumped me after finding out that I was a girl, which was against the rules. Their rules, not mine.\ Aye, they put me off the Dolphin even though I was a perfectly good sailor and was just made Midshipman, even. Before I was found out, the only person aboard the warship who knew that I was a girl was my own dear Jaimy, to whose home I am now going to travel to find out what's up with him. I ain't heard anything from him since he left on the Dolphin, leaving me behind, alone and friendless, and in a strange land.\ Things didn't go at all smooth for me at the Lawson Peabody School, where they tried to make a lady out of me and I gotta say they didn't have much luck in the attempt. In fact, there wasn't that much left of the Lawson Peabody, itself, after I got done and lit out, the school being up in flames behind me, with a good bit of Boston burning merrily as well. And it wasn't all my fault, either, no matter what anyone tells you.\ After I got clear out of the city, I had run on down to New Bedford, a port well to the south of Boston, and 'twas there I found a whaling ship, the Pequod, lying alongside a busy wharf. Bold as brass, I walked up to the table on the pier where they was signing up sailors for the voyage and applied for a berth, presenting myself as a seasoned sailor, which I was. This got a good, hearty rouse of laughter from all assembled, but against all odds, I was signed on as companion to the Captain's wife, who was great with child, and as teacher for her little boy, as well as being cook's helper. The Captain was taking his family along, which whalers often do, until such time as his wife had her baby, and then wife and children would be debarked in England to stay with relatives for a time. So, not only would I get passage back to London and maybe to Jaimy, but I would also get a quarter of a share of the ship's profits as pay. And, I would surely pick up more knowledge of seamanship, which I know will come in handy someday. Although I've had my ups and downs, I've always been pretty lucky, by and large.\ After provisioning and signing up the rest of the crew, we finally set sail and left the land behind us. I soon found that bein' on a whaler wasn't like bein' on a Royal Navy Ship, no, not at all. The Captain is still the Lord and Master of everything and everybody, but the day-to-day hard discipline and rigid regulations just ain't there. Everyone is bent toward the Almighty Profit and anyone who can add to that profit is held in high esteem, and anyone who slacks off ain't treated all that kindly. So, when they found that I could steer a course, trim a sail, and stand a watch, I was added to the watch list. Daytime watches only, for a while, and then, after they knew they could trust me, nighttimes, too.\ The crew was a rough bunch, of course, but I was used to that, and I quickly made friends with them all- especially with Ishmael, and, of course, with Patience, she bein' the Captain's wife and a perfect joy. Heavy with child though she was, she was always jolly and brave right up to and through the birth of her fine, fat daughter. In addition to my other duties, it was understood that I was brought on board to help Patience during the birthing, but when her time did come in the middle of the night in the midst of a living gale, I was no help at all. She had to comfort me when it was all going on, which was probably not what the Captain had in mind when he signed me on board. But I did hold her hand, and when the baby finally slid out all slippery and bloody, I picked it up by its feet as I was told and I saw that it was a girl. I slapped her tiny bum and she coughed and started wailing, and I laid her down and cut and tied the cord as I was told, and then I cleaned up mother and child as best I could in the tiny cabin that was pitchin' up and down and back and forth with the wind howlin' like a demented banshee outside. I got a clean cloth wrapped around the baby and put her on Patience's breast and kept sayin' I'm sorry, I'm sorry over and over, but Patience said I did just fine and she wanted no other midwife in attendance for future babies, none other than Jacky Faber. As for Jacky Faber, her own self, she's more than a bit glad that her own adventures in birthin' babies are at least a few years off in the future.\ So I'm bouncing merrily on down the pier, gratefully suckin' in the air of my own country once again, and there I see the Captain and Patience, who's got our lovely little Prudence cradled in her arm and my star pupil, Increase, by her side. I embrace Patience in farewell and we babble our good-byes and I give Increase a kiss, him being the son of the Captain and his missus. Part of my job was teachin' him his numbers and letters, and though he was a willing and bright student, he really wanted to be out and off in the riggin' and I could hardly blame him, bein' of a like mind myself. I give him the farewell kiss and he says, "Yuck," and rubs the kiss from his cheek, but I don't hold it against him, and just ruffle his curly head fondly. He is a good boy.\ The family is leaving this morning to stay with relatives in Maidstone until this voyage of the Pequod is over, and so my time on the ship is also over- no good reason to have a lone female on board, so off I am booted.\ As the Captain handed his family up into the coach, he turned to me and said, "Farewell, Faber, and Godspeed. Know thee that I hate to lose a good sailor," which for him was a long speech. 'Cept when he was goin' on about that whale. Then he never seemed to stop. I nodded and thanked him for taking me on board and hhe turned and left, his peg leg tappin' on the pier as he went 'round the coach to the other door to mount up. When he is in, the coachman gives a chuck to the horses and they are gone.\ On the wharf, too, is the First Mate, Mr. Starbuck. He is overseein' the off-loadin' of the barrels of the whale oil, it already being sold and paid for. My own quarter share is snug in my money belt, the gold coins being warmed by my belly, next to the coins I had earned playin' and dancin' in the Pig and Whistle in Boston and actin' in the theater with Mr. Fennel and Mr. Bean.\ We had excellent luck in baggin' the poor whales, which nobody can ever again tell me is just cold fishes- I learned that to be true the first time I jumped onto the back of a whale brought alongside and felt the heat of its dying body comin' up at me. The men were there with flensing tools, blades with long handles for strippin' off the blubber that would be passed up on hooks to the deck where the great cauldrons were fired up for boiling down the blubber into oil for the lamps of Britain and America. I had a different job and a disgustin' job it was: Along with the big barrels of oil there on the deck, there are smaller casks of spermaceti, an oily, waxy goo that's taken out of a pit in the sperm whale's head- and that was my job, to shovel out the stuff into a pail while the rest of the crew stripped the remainder of the creature of its parts. It is hard to believe that spermaceti is used for makin' ladies' perfume, as it sure didn't smell very perfumy to me, sittin' there on the whale's head, scoopin' out the stuff.\ I don't think I'll be signing on a whaler again, as it's a nasty business.\ Copyright 2005 by L. A. Meyer\ All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced\ or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,\ including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and\ retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.\ Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work\ should be mailed to the following address: Permissions Department,\ Harcourt, Inc., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.\

\ Publishers WeeklyMary "Jacky" Faber, who masqueraded as a ship's boy in Bloody Jack (PW's starred review said, "Meyer evokes life in the 18th-century Royal Navy with Dickensian flair") returns to the seas, her followers will be delighted to know, after a stint as a landlubber in Curse of the Blue Tattoo. It's 1804, and Jacky, now 15, takes charge of a British warship, rising to the rank of privateer in Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber by L.A. Meyer. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ School Library JournalGr 7 Up-Leaving Boston behind her, Jacky Faber, 15, is on the run again. In this third installment in the series, the orphan girl from the streets of London returns to her native land in search of her true love, James "Jaimy" Fletcher. But Jacky's free and easy spirit can never stay away from trouble, and she finds herself onboard a royal naval ship once again, but it is a ship that is filled with a mutinous crew and an incompetent captain. Jacky has to use her wits to keep out of the captain's lecherous hands, and in good standing with her mates. In a surprising turn of events, the resourceful teen finds herself in charge of the crew and is surprisingly good at it. But how long will it last? Meyer thrills readers once again with the protagonist's misadventures. Neither the series nor Jacky show any signs of slowing down as this exciting tale barrels along with more adventures, romance, piracy, and the return of some familiar faces. Jacky is a wonderful character, full of high spirits, brains, and heart. This novel and its two prequels are highly recommended for fans of historical fiction and pirates.-Anna M. Nelson, Collier County Public Library, Naples, FL Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsThe third installment-"and the Dear knows"-of Jacky Faber, now back in England and pressed into ship service despite being all girl and all of 15. But plucky, smart and like all real heroes, good at everything she puts her hand to, Jacky ends up with her own ship, out of the clutches of an evil captain, and with a crew as loyal as could be. In the early years of the 19th-century she makes a fine living as a privateer, founds an orphanage in tribute to her own roots and locates her maternal grandfather. The climactic battle of 1805 with Lord Nelson at Trafalgar is where Jacky escapes being tried as a pirate. All this is told in her own voice, in a perfect homage to Patrick O'Brian's wondrous nautical tales, ("Not a moment to lose!" is even quoted) carefully fitted for a spirited girl. There are kisses, lost love, lessons in sailing, decorum and leadership, even a Jeeves/Bunter/Killick figure, all recounted with panache in the most rousing and rollicking way. "With the blessing," the next Jacky adventure will come along soon. (Fiction. YA)\ \