v'# UW» Rob Kidd — - To gef ike wKole siory, maie, you'll need fo read em all. Savvy? . . . Vol. 1: The Coming Storm Vol. 2: The Siren Song Vol. 3: The Pirate Chase Vol. 4: The Sword of Cortes Vol. 5: The Age of Bronze Vol. 6: Silver Vol. 7: City of Gold Vol. 8: The Timekeeper Vol. 9: Dance ofthe Hours / Vol. 1 0: Sins ofthe Father -Nl—HBB^^^M — 00 CO 00 _*^™ rP^>-j=——-— WMM^MM O OJ — — ^ -M i^™--— r\j oo HHB U*MHHHH O ai^^^^^_ > ~ M^H^^^^_^^_ * |^>EAN fk ALLENCOUNTYPUBLICLIBRARY 3 18330541 42MMM IL Sins of the Father byRobKidd Illustrated by Jean-Paul Orpinas Based on the earlier life of the character, Jack Sparrow, created For the theatrical motion picture, "Pirates of the Caribbean:The Curse of the Black Pearl" Screen Story by Ted Elliott &Terry Rossio and Stuart Beattie and Jay Wolpert, Screenplay by Ted Elliott &Terry Rossio, and characters created for the theatrical motion pictures "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" written by Ted Elliott &Terry Rossio ^>1W^ PRESS New York Special ihanks to Rich Thomas and Ken Becker Copyright ©2007 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved. Published byDisneyPress, an imprintofDisney BookGroup. No part of this bookmaybereproduced ortransmitted in any form orbyanymeans, electronic or mechanical, includingphotocopying, recording, orbyanyinformation storageand retrieval system, withoutwritten permission from thepublisher. Forinformation address DisneyPress, 114 FifthAvenue, NewYork, NewYork 10011-5690. Printed in theUnited States ofAmerica First Edition 1 3579 10 8642 LibraryofCongress CatalogCard Number: 2007904363 ISBN-13: 978-1-4231-0455-1 ISBN-10: 1-4231-0455-2 M T}lSNEypIRffTES.G> Ifyou purchased this bookwithouta cover,you should beawarethat thisbook isstolen property. Itwas reported as "unsold and destroyed"to the publisher, and neithertheauthor northe publisherhas received anypayment forthis "stripped"book. B£m ^^ ^pIRffTES^ ^^. Ci? 1 Sins of the Father CHAPTER ONE imagine for a moment that you are a runaway, fleeing from a way of life you are not sure you want, but fear you might be destined for. Your household is full of pirates who terrorize the Seven Seas and each . . . other. Family reunions, holiday celebrations, and strolls in the park inevitably crumble into massive brawls where the kids are suddenly beating up their uncle, Captain "Ace" Brannigan. Then, second-auntie "Quick Draw" McFleming tosses yet another tankard JACK SPARROW at poor old Grandmama (who even at eighty-two is not so defenseless, what with the half-dozen daggers she keeps tucked away in her girdle). While all this is going — on, the man who's been raising you who — may or may not be your father is plotting some way to overthrow the current patriarch and secure the family inheritance of plun- dered treasure for himself. You might, in circumstances like these, decide that you need some time away ... to leave the madness behind for a while and set aside a few days, or weeks, or perhaps even years, to think things through. So, to get things started, one night, after the family's had a particularly rough day and everyone is knocked out (either from exhaustion or from having been throttled over the head with a blunt object), you strike a match and sneak by candlelight into the SINS OFTHE FATHER study. It's a room housing a three-legged chair, a handful of dusty old books with some pages missing, and dozens upon dozens of half-empty rum bottles. Apart from the thick cover of cobwebs and an occasional tarantula, the only other item in the room is a huge leather-bound book, the size of a tombstone, marked PIRATA CODEX. You know that this book is important to your family and, in fact, to all pirates. It is the law that they live by, and you are going to use it to your advantage. You turn to a section that is all about freedom and the need for a pirate to make decisions for himself. You decide that this clearly gives you justification to leave this maddening household with these intolerable people you call your family. With a wry smile, you close the heavy cover. Then you make your way over to the far end of the JACK SPARROW room, pry the nails out ofthe window, which, like the others in the house, has been boarded up for as long as you have lived there. And suddenly, you are free. It's as easy as that. Or is it? For the young man called Jack Sparrow, nothing about this scenario is hypothetical. As unbelievable as it might be, this is his life story, or at least part of it. Shortly after Jack snuck away, he realized that his new- found freedom had come at a heavy price. Maybe The-Man-Who-Might-Be-Dad hadn't always supported him in his hobbies (he'd had, for example, a particularly difficult time understanding Jack's interest in cosmetics), but he had been there to knock Rusty Knickers over the head just before the pirate nearly severed Jack's hand with his crusty old sword when Jack was six. And when Captain Lucille Graven attempted to sell