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the x’s squiggled up and down and began to jig. What could it all mean?
    Scratcher’s snores ceased, and he moaned. He was waking up! My heart clip-clopped. I inched the chest shut, but still kept ahold of the vellum. Fence pinched the wick of his candle. After a sickening silence that seemed to last till doomsday, Scratcher’s breath caught and he began to snore again.
    â€œThis way,” I whispered. We crawled on hands and knees over bundles and boots, until we reached the ladder beneath the hatch. It was still slung open to draw in fresh salty air, such air, that is, as would consent to brave the fug and travel down to the colonists.
    My purpose was to climb up to the deck, sick though it would make me to see a seascape unanchored to land. I would be able to view the vellum more clearly up there. But before I shinned the ladder, a cloud above passed, and the man in the moon peered in upon us, making it light enough to see. I started to examine the x’s and y’s again, Fence getting in the way more often than not. For a small boy, he certainly had an incredibly big head, and he kept thrusting it in front of mine to get a better look at the sheet of dancing and mysterious letters.
    â€œMove your bonce,” I said, annoyed.
    Just then, fingers grasped my shoulder hard, nails digging into my skin like grappling hooks. “Get off,” I yelled.
    My cries disturbed the dreams of one or two travellers, whose pale faces stared at me for a moment, before their owners blinked and fell back to sleep.
    A growl. The sickening stench of farts and tomcats and sour wine, stronger than all the other stinks of the hold. As the nails dug even deeper into my shoulder, I imagined blood spurting from crescent-shaped wounds.
    â€œGive over. You’re killing me.”
    â€œShut yer yap, cockroach.”
    I turned, though I already knew who it was: Proule, that coffin-mouthed ruffian. My belly heaved.

C HAPTER 9

I T’S A C IPHER !
    At that moment the Valentine ’s prow churned out of the water, hurling me into him. He shoved me backwards, punched me, and before I could recover, tore the vellum from my hand. and before I could recover, tore the vellum from my hand.
    â€œWhat the ruddy hell is this?” He flapped the vellum. The moon shone in. His bald head reflected it.
    I could taste blood. My belly heaved again. What could it be that wouldn’t incriminate us? That wouldn’t send Proule howling to Scratcher? I couldn’t think of a damn thing.
    â€œI said, cockroach, what the hell is this?”
    Fence had slipped as the ship nosed out of the sea. He came crawling slowly on all fours, his head down.
    â€œPlease, Master Proule…”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt’s a list of my duties from the admiral, Sir George Winters, good Master Proule.” He began, baby-like, to suck the tip of his thumb.
    At this point I noticed Proule was holding the vellum upside down. Could he even read? I decided to chance it. Taking my cue from quick thinker Fence, I said, “All those things on the left, they’re the days of the week, enough for a month. Next to them are the duties. Sweep the deck; take Sir Thomas Boors his dinner; empty the piss pail and shit buckets overboard.” I had seen Fence perform such-like duties before.
    â€œWhy would the likes of yer be reading it in the middle of the ruddy night?”
    â€œHe forgot a duty, sir, yesterday, the dinner one, and got in trouble with Sir Thomas Boors.” I felt sure that if asked, Boors wouldn’t remember one way or the other. “We were figuring out where Fence went wrong — he’s not much of a reader, and I’m a worse one, sir, true it is. Why, some days I can barely read at all.”
    â€œAye, sir.” Fence’s head came up, and his thumb came out, his expression earnest. “We were figuring it out so I wouldn’t make the same mistake again and come in for a good