In the eighteenth century sixteen-year-old John Spencer sails from England in his schooner, the Dragon, to the Caribbean, where he and the crew encounter pirates, fierce storms, fever, and a strange man who some fear may be cursed.

In the spring of 1943, sixteen-year-old Kak, desperate to escape his abusive parents, lies about his age to enlist in the Canadian Air Force and soon finds himself based in England as part of a crew flying bombing raids over Germany.

"12-year-old Igor and his family have been on the run from the sinister figure he calls The Lizard Man for as long as he can remember and he wishes that they could just live a normal life"-- Twelve-year-old Igor yearns for a normal life, but since he was five and his father witnessed a crime,his family has been on the run from the sinister figure he calls The Lizard Man.

In eighteenth-century England, after his father buys a schooner called the Dragon, sixteen-year-old John sets out to sail it from Kent to London and becomes involved in a dangerous smuggling scheme. "'Steer clear of that ship,' warns the mysterious gentleman who shares a coach with John and his father. 'Death she'll bring you,' says the man. 'It's the way of a ship that was christened with blood.' This is an ominous introduction to the schooner...

Tom Tin and his friend Midgely--with assorted juvenile criminals--escape the ship taking them to serve their terms in Australia and head for a Pacific island, forgetting Tom's father's warnings about headhunters and cannibals.