Torn-missing 4 by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page A

that that would really help, but …
    Jonah realized Katherine wasn’t grimacing in pain. She was glaring at Prickett. And then—in a quick flash—she stuck her tongue out at him.
    Prickett went back to climbing, out of Katherine’s way. Katherine put her feet back on the ropes and waited for him to go on.
    They still hadn’t heard from JB, they still hadn’t seen any tracers, and the “passage” they had seen seemed like even more proof that time was messed up beyond repair. Compared with all of that, it was no big deal that they’dmanaged to survive their encounter with Prickett.
    Still, Jonah felt like cheering.
    Prickett reached the deck. He strolled over to confer with Henry Hudson. And then Hudson leaned his head back and screamed up toward the crow’s nest:
    “John Hudson! Report to the deck! Immediately!”
    Jonah lost the urge to cheer.

Jonah’s legs almost buckled under him when he landed on the deck. It was partly exhaustion—climbing down the rigging hurt. But exhaustion alone didn’t account for the way every muscle in his body threatened to give way.
    Didn’t ships’ captains used to beat people with whips?
he wondered, his knees trembling.
Beat them until they were almost dead, over nothing?
    Or was that just
pirate
captains?
    He hoped it was just pirates.
    Henry Hudson was glaring down at Jonah with his eyes narrowed, his mouth set into a thin, disapproving line.
    He certainly looked like he wanted to beat someone.
    “I can explain,” Jonah said, which usually worked with his own parents back home.
    At least it worked if Jonah didn’t accidentally say something that got him into worse trouble.
    Henry Hudson’s eyes only grew angrier; his mouth flattened completely.
    “Speak not,” he said in a cold, hard voice. “I have heard all I wish.”
    He turned slightly toward Prickett, who was standing right beside him. Prickett gave a curt nod.
    That’s not fair!
Jonah wanted to protest.
Whatever happened to accused criminals having the right to tell their side? Having the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty?
    Jonah realized nothing had happened to those rights. They just didn’t exist yet in 1611.
    It’s not like I’m an accused criminal, anyhow,
Jonah thought.
    Hudson’s glare made him feel like one.
    Jonah tried to look at him adoringly, like a loving son. There was a trick to this, which Jonah sometimes used with his own parents. You blinked once or twice with a vacant, slightly goofy look on your face, and your parents forgot about whatever stupid thing you’d just done and started thinking instead about how cute you’d looked as a toddler, about how much they were going to miss you when you went off to college.
    Evidently this trick didn’t work with the John Hudson mask.
    Or maybe Henry Hudson had never liked his son, not even when he was a cute little toddler. Maybe Henry Hudson wouldn’t miss his son when he went off to … well, wherever you went after growing up as a ship’s boy.
    “I—,” Jonah began.
    Behind Hudson and Prickett, Jonah caught a glimpse of movement: It was Katherine, frantically shaking her head no.
    Even Jonah could figure out what she meant:
Stop talking. Now. Or else.
    Hudson slapped his hand against the mast.
    “I said, speak not!” he roared. “You have just earned yourself the harshest of punishments!”
    He is going to beat me,
Jonah thought, swaying slightly.
    “When the others receive their noontime rations,” Hudson said, pronouncing the judgment in a voice colder than the wind, “you shall receive nothing.”
    Huh? Jonah thought, trying to make sense of “noontime rations.”
So that’s … no food? I don’t have to pretend to eat green, rotty meat? All right! Sounds like a reward, not a punishment! I’ll just have Katherine sneak something better to me later….
    He remembered that he needed to look like this punishment devastated him.
    “I’m sorry!” he cried. “Please—”
    Hudson struck him across the