Puppy Pirates #7 Read online

  #1 Stowaway!

  #2 X Marks the Spot

  #3 Catnapped!

  #4 Sea Sick

  Super Special #1 Ghost Ship

  #5 Search for the Sea Monster

  Super Special #2 Best in Class

  #6 Pug vs. Pug

  Super Special #3 Race to the North Pole

  #7 Lost at Sea

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Erin Soderberg Downing and Robin Wasserman

  Cover art copyright © 2019 by Luz Tapia

  Interior illustrations copyright © 2019 by Russ Cox

  Excerpt from Puppy Pirates #3: Catnapped! copyright © 2016 by Erin Soderberg Downing and Robin Wasserman

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  Trade Paperback ISBN 9780525579236 — Ebook ISBN 9780525579250

  This book has been officially leveled by using the F&P Text Level Gradient™ Leveling System.

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  For Russ Cox, whose kindness, generosity, and talent make him a true inspiration. I’m so lucky to work with you.

  —E.S.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Titles

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: The Legend of the Grrr-muda Triangle

  Chapter 2: Crazy Compass

  Chapter 3: Save Our Ship!

  Chapter 4: Fog Monster

  Chapter 5: Pause for Claws

  Chapter 6: Stranger Things

  Chapter 7: The Tail End of Old Salt’s Tale

  Chapter 8: Create a Compass

  Chapter 9: A Colorful Goodbye

  Chapter 10: The Code of the Sea

  Excerpt from Puppy Pirates #3: Catnapped!

  About the Author

  “Gather round, pups, for I have a tale to tell.” Old Salt rapped his peg leg on the wooden deck of the Salty Bone.

  A group of puppy pirates trotted over. The Bernese mountain dog was the oldest member of the puppy pirate crew, and he didn’t speak often. When he did, everyone listened.

  Old Salt cleared his throat. A whoosh of sea air ruffled his fur. “Long, long ago in a not-so-distant sea, there was a ship filled with sailors much like you and me.”

  “Is this a poem?” whined Captain Red Beard. “I don’t like poems.”

  “It’s not a poem,” Old Salt said. “It’s not even a made-up tale. The story I’m about to tell is true.”

  “Get on with it, then,” grumbled Red Beard. The wiry terrier captain was not very patient. He didn’t like to wait for much of anything.

  “As I was saying—” Old Salt stopped to cough. He coughed and coughed, his whole body shaking. Finally, he opened his mouth wide and coughed out a soggy hair ball. He sighed happily, and then continued his tale. “Long, long ago there was a ship sailing through these very waters. It was a mighty ship, carrying strong, hardworking sailors. This ship was captained by a tough old bulldog, Dread Pirate Wrinkles.”

  “Is this a story about when you were a pup?” asked Wally, a fluffy golden retriever pup. All the puppies on board the Salty Bone longed to know more about Old Salt’s past.

  Old Salt almost never answered this kind of question. He didn’t this time, either. “Dread Pirate Wrinkles’s ship carried these sailors through strange, strange waters,” he told them. “Into the Grrr-muda Triangle. Some call it the Bermuda Triangle. Some call it the Triangle, for short. You young pups ever heard of that?”

  Wally shook his head. Many of his mates shook their heads, too. Recess the Labrador retriever, Frosty the husky, the pug twins, and the human boy Henry (Wally’s best mate) all looked blankly at Old Salt. Only Millie and Stink, who had spent years living on an old ghost ship, howled “Yes!”

  “The Triangle? That’s easy!” barked Red Beard. “A triangle is a thing with four sides…like a map!”

  Wally knew a triangle had three sides—and most of their maps were shaped like a rectangle. But he didn’t want to correct their captain. No one did. Red Beard didn’t like to hear when he was wrong.

  “Sir,” said Curly, the fluffy white mini poodle who served as Red Beard’s first mate, “I think Old Salt is talking about the other kind of triangle. The mysterious part of the sea where strange things happen. But those are just old legends.”

  “Are they?” asked Old Salt, a far-off look on his face. “Well, Dread Pirate Wrinkles steered that ship into the Triangle…and disappeared. The sails were full. The sea was calm. Everything was going well—until a deep fog blew in from out of nowhere. And—poof! Just like that, the ship was gone.”

  “This Triangle,” said Spike, a nervous bulldog. “Is it…near here?”

  “Aye,” woofed Old Salt. “We are sailing toward that part of the sea now.”

  “What else happens in the Grrr-muda Triangle?” asked Wally.

  Millie woofed, “Pups tell tales of a spooky fog, ripped sails, broken compasses—”

  “Weird weather, disappearing supplies…that kind of thing,” Stink added.

  “Don’t worry, pups,” Curly told the crew. “We are sailing around the famous Triangle—not through it. That’s the captain’s idea.” She sniffed. “If you ask me, all these silly stories are nonsense.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Old Salt said gruffly.

  “Nonsense,” Curly said again.

  Spike shivered. He squeezed in between Henry and Wally. “Best not to risk it,” he said quietly.

  “But how does a ship know if it’s in or out of the Triangle? There is no land anywhere near here to use as map points,” Frosty said. Frosty was new to the Salty Bone crew. He grew up at the North Pole, where there were always plenty of snow-covered mountains and rivers to use as guides. “So isn’t it just a guess?”

  “There is a bit of guesswork, yes,” answered Curly. “But we have good maps. And, of course, we use nautical map navigation to chart our course.”

  “Not a who-sical navigation?” Captain Red Beard barked. “What kind of hoodly-toodly nonsense are you talking about?”

  “I am talking about how we use a compass and maps to figure out our ship’s position in the sea,” Curly said.

  “As I’m sure you already know, Captain,” said Einstein, “nautical is a fancy word for ‘the sea.’ ”

  “Frosty, we use maps, compasses, and islands we have sailed past to track our position from the steering cabin,” Curly explained patiently. “We also use the location of the stars at night. All of those tools help us figure out where we are in relation to the Triangle.”

  “Aye,” Old Salt said, tapping his peg leg on the deck. “But compasses don’t always work. They are known to go wonky in the Triangle. And
as I always say: if you can’t figure out which direction you are pointed in, you can’t figure out how to get to where you need to be.”

  Old Salt was usually the one who calmed all the other pups down. But today there was a look on Old Salt’s face that Wally had never seen before. It was a little bit sad, a little bit worried, and maybe even a little bit…scared?

  No, Wally thought quickly. That couldn’t be right. Nothing scared Old Salt. Nothing.

  Curly barked sharply. “Speaking of where you need to be…”

  Wally knew what that meant. Their story break was over. It was time for afternoon chores! The crew scattered. Steak-Eye made his way down to the kitchen to prepare his famous stew. Henry began to scrub the decks. Wally had finished his chores that morning. And he wanted to know more about the Triangle! He could tell some of the other pups felt the same way.

  “What happened to Dread Pirate Wrinkles’s ship?” Wally asked. “Did anyone ever find it?”

  Old Salt stared out over the deck rail and said softly, “Maybe it’s still in the Triangle to this day. Lost. Sailing around in circles…”

  “You don’t really think that’s true, do you?” Recess asked nervously.

  “Have you ever been inside the Triangle, Old Salt?” asked Wally.

  “Did you see the ship disappear?” Frosty wondered.

  Old Salt turned and looked at each of the young pups in turn. “All I will say is this—” But before he could finish his thought, the ship lurched. The boat tilted to one side. The sails tipped down toward the waves. The crew skidded across the deck, yapping and howling.

  “It’s the Sea Slug!” wailed Spike. “We’re all doomed!”

  The Salty Bone settled quickly, gently rocking in the calm sea. The sails filled with warm wind and billowed in the sunny sky.

  But as soon as the pups got their footing, the ship lurched again! The whole crew was flung to the other side of the deck.

  Then a bell rang. DONG! DONG! DONG!

  All the puppy pirates went silent. Because everyone knew that signal: it meant there was trouble!

  Slowly and carefully, Old Salt, Wally, and the rest of the pups made their way toward the steering cabin to find out what was the matter.

  Captain Red Beard was fighting with the ship’s huge wheel. “Blimey!” he shouted, pushing it to port. Then “Arrrrf!” He swung the wheel to starboard, and the ship lurched with him.

  “What’s happening, Captain?” asked Henry in alarm. The boy peered out to sea. “Are we under attack?”

  “Me compass!” Red Beard howled. “It’s goin’ crazy!”

  Wally climbed into the steering cabin. He studied the huge compass their captain used to navigate. Usually, the compass needle pointed due north at all times.

  But at that moment, the needle was wiggling and wobbling all around the face of the compass. One second it was pointing north, then it swished to point east, then it spun around to point west. To avoid the Triangle, they had to sail north. So every time the needle moved, the captain spun the steering wheel to follow it. All that crazy steering was making the boat zigzag through the water.

  “In case you were wondering? This isn’t good,” Henry said, studying the compass. “It seems to be broken.”

  “What happened?” Curly asked. She hopped up onto a stool and studied the tool. “The compass needle is always supposed to point north. It shouldn’t be moving around like that.”

  Spike wailed. “Nooooooo!”

  “What’s wrong, Spike?” Wally asked.

  “Old Salt’s story must be true. I bet we sailed into the Triangle!” Spike whined. “Our compass is broken. We are going to be lost at sea forever. We be dooooomed!”

  The rest of the crew began yapping and barking nervously. Old Salt stood quietly, gazing out to sea. Wally thought the strong, old pup looked a little worried, but that couldn’t be right. He was the calmest, surest pup Wally had ever met.

  “We didn’t sail into the Triangle,” Curly promised. She turned to the rest of the crew and said loudly, “We won’t be lost at sea forever. Even if we had sailed into the Triangle, there’s no truth to all those silly stories. There’s just something funny going on with our compass.”

  “I don’t think it’s funny,” Captain Red Beard growled. He tugged the wheel left, and the ship lurched again. “Not funny at all.”

  That’s when Wally heard someone giggling on the main deck. Something funny, Wally thought. Suddenly, he had a hunch there was something funny going on. And it had nothing to do with the magic of the Triangle. He was pretty sure it was a pair of pugs playing a prank. Quietly, Wally jumped out of the steering cabin and poked his nose around a corner.

  “Piggly!” he barked, spotting one of the wrinkled pug pups hiding behind a wooden crate. “Puggly! Avast!”

  The pug twins snapped to attention. Each sister was holding a string in her mouth. They were both trying to hide giggles. But neither pug was having much luck. The two naughty pranksters liked making mischief almost as much as they liked snacks.

  “Did you break the captain’s compass?” Wally asked. Pranks were one thing, but breaking stuff was not okay.

  “Aw, we didn’t break anything, Wally. Just having some fun,” Piggly said, her gold tooth glinting. “After hearing Old Salt’s story about the Triangle, we thought it would be exciting to spook the crew a little bit.”

  “Check it out,” Puggly said, calling Wally over. “We tied a magnet to a couple of strings. Then we hid the magnet under the compass. Every time one of us tugs the string, the magnet wiggles, and the compass needle follows it.”

  “So the compass is not broken?” Wally asked. By now a few of the other pups had gathered around.

  “Nope, not broken,” Piggly said. “The magnet just messes with it. The compass thinks north is wherever the magnet is. No magnet, no problem. Pirate’s promise.”

  Word about the pugs’ prank spread quickly. The whole crew wanted the pugs to show them how the trick worked. Captain Red Beard laughed the whole thing off, pretending he hadn’t been fooled by the pugs’ silly tricks.

  Once he realized what was going on, Spike giggled, too. “I wasn’t really that nervous,” he lied. “The Triangle is just an old story. Nothing to really be scared of.” He glanced at Wally and whispered, “Right?”

  Wally laughed. “Right. There’s no such thing as disappearing ships.”

  The crew scattered while the captain and Curly got the Salty Bone back on course. Wally and Henry stood together, looking out to sea.

  “In case you were wondering,” Henry said quietly, “that’s the famous Triangle, right out there.” He gently patted the top of Wally’s head.

  “We are passing by the Triangle now?” Wally asked, feeling a tingle of nerves race through his legs. “I thought it would be dark and gloomy, or filled with fog or something….”

  “The Triangle is just a patch of plain old sea that looks exactly like the rest of the ocean,” Henry said. “It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? That sailors get so worried about a silly old legend.”

  Wally woofed his agreement. He blinked as a bright flash of sunlight hit him square in the face.

  “Did you see that?” Henry asked, shielding his eyes with one hand.

  Wally blinked again at another flash of light. Sometimes the sun hit the water just so, making it sparkle. Wally thought it looked like there were pieces of bright, shiny gold floating on the tips of the waves. A moment later, another bright flash.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Wally cocked his head. Three short flashes, three long flashes, then three short flashes again. These flashes didn’t look like sparkling sunlight on the sea. They almost seemed like some sort of signal.

  “Old Salt!” Wally cried. The old Bernese mountain dog hobbled over to stand at the rail beside him and Henry. “There’s somet
hing bright inside the Triangle. I don’t think it’s sunlight.” He squinted as the light flashed in his face again. “Is it some sort of signal?”

  Old Salt stared into the Triangle. The bright flashes came again—three short, three long, then three short. “Shiver me timbers, lad!” Old Salt barked in alarm. “There’s someone calling to us from inside the Triangle! That signal? It’s an SOS!”

  “An SOS!” Henry shouted to the crew. “Someone inside the Triangle needs our help!”

  All the puppy pirates raced over to the ship’s port-side rail, waiting for more flashes of light. For several long moments, nothing happened. Then the flashing lights started up again.

  Three short flashes.

  Three long.

  Three short.

  “There it is!” Henry shouted, pointing. “Three dots. Three dashes. Three dots. Which is Morse code for the SOS distress signal.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Recess.

  Old Salt rapped his peg leg on the deck to get the crew’s attention. “If someone is in distress, it means they’re in trouble.”

  “But how do you know?” Wally asked. “It’s just a bunch of flashing lights.”

  “Your human is right,” Old Salt said. “It’s Morse code. That’s a way to talk to ships that are very far away. It’s a language made out of dots and dashes. A short flash is a dot. A long flash is a dash.”

  “In case you were wondering, every letter and every number has its own Morse code pattern,” Henry said. “The letter S is three dots. The letter O is three dashes.”

  “So it’s a way to talk without talking?” asked Frosty.

  “You could say that,” Old Salt agreed. He heaved a sigh. “And right now it’s saying that somewhere inside the Triangle, someone is in trouble. That’s what SOS means. Help.”