Pirate Academy: Missing at Sea

Pirate Academy: Missing at Sea

From Justin Somper, award-winning author of the Vampirates series, comes the second book in this new swashbuckling fantasy adventure series. At the elite Pirate Academy, it's only been a few weeks since the Barracuda class's run-in with the dangerous League of True Pirates. But now they have more pressing matters at hand, like the upcoming Oceans Bound weekend! It's the first time the class will be given the chance to man their own crews and sail the seas without their teachers, and no one's more excited than Jacoby, Jasmine, and Neo. As the Barracudas set sail and begin navigating the complex trail of tasks left for them by their Pirate Academy captains, the obstacles quickly become more and more treacherous. Soon it's clear: someone else has taken control of Oceans Bound. It's going to take everything they've got for the plucky young pirates to complete the course and triumph against their fiendish enemy. Praise for Missing At Sea : "The Barracudas admirably model lessons in friendship and self-reflection… Lively hijinks with brave pirates-in-training."— Kirkus Praise for the Pirate Academy Series: "A gloriously action-packed adventure, full of characters you really care about." —Cressida Cowell "All the rip-roaring adventure you would expect from a Justin Somper book. Pirates done right! I love this world." —Eoin Colfer "A storming success! Justin is at the top of his game with this funny, thrilling and full-on high-seas adventure." —Chris Bradford "Set in a brilliant nautical world full of danger and daring, Pirate Academy: New Kid on Deck had me racing through the pages to find out what would happen next!" —Jennnifer Bell "A swashbuckling pirate school adventure with loyalty and friendship at its core." —Janine Beacham "It's another gem—carefully crafted, compelling characters and all sorts of intrigue. The Academy already has enough to recommend it, filled as it is with swashbuckling legends and satisfying turns and tussles along the way. But the tale of friendship and family ties it all together in a nifty nautical knot." —Guy Bass Justin Somper is the award-winning author of ten books for middle-grade and teen readers, including the Vampirates series, which has been published in thirty-five countries and twenty-five languages, as well as Allies & Assassins and its sequel, A Conspiracy of Princes. A Brit by birth, Justin relocated to Perth, Western Australia, with his Aussie husband, PJ, in 2022. Here, Justin has been writing the Pirate Academy adventures—in between refreshing dips in the Indian Ocean, inspiring visits to lighthouses, and long-overdue sailing lessons. Learn more at https://www.vampirates.co.uk/. Teo Skaffa has lived in many places but currently lives in an abandoned school building in the outskirts of the city of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. Besides making art, he likes the color pink, synthesizers, and making music with outdated technology under the name A GHOST IN THE WOODS. He does NOT like room-temperature watermelon. He likes drawing creepy-cute atmospheric scenes and characters, and is grateful that he’s able to make a living by drawing, especially since he’s not particularly good at anything else. The boy was making himself as small as possible. This wasn’t easy, given how tall he had grown recently and how cramped the space was that he was hiding in. And he was making himself as quiet as a mouse—­in fact quieter , he realized as he watched a small furry creature emerge from the gloom and scurry excitedly toward his face. Silently, the boy drew his finger to his lips to tell the mouse to shush. But, while his sign might be recognized all over the world by humans, he wasn’t sure if it would be understood by a rodent. The boy was still reeling from the sight of his mother, sprawled on the bed in her cabin. This cabin. She lay only a few feet from him. Utterly still. Her skin had been as cold as winter water to his touch. There was so much blood on the bedclothes, pooling out from where her heart still lay, though it was no longer beating. His own heart raced wildly. He could feel it and he could hear it, thumping heavily against his rib cage. In the confined space, the noise seemed louder, echoing around him. He was sure it was going to give away his hiding place, reveal his presence to the intruders—­the evil people who had arrived in the night, boarded this ship, and, with icy efficiency, killed his mother. Dead . Murdered . The words were so strange in his head. He knew their meaning, of course, but it felt impossible to apply them to his own mother. The woman who had raised him these eleven years alone—­who had taught him how to sail ships and navigate by starlight, to wield swords and crossbows almost as masterfully as she could. His mother, who had schooled him in how to grade diamonds and gold and how to quickly spot a real da Vinci from a fake. His mother, with whom he had eaten supper just a few hours earlier, out o