Tropes:
- 13 Is Unlucky: When three of the sixteen people aboard the Bloody Hand are washed overboard in a storm, everyone except Oliver and Second Mate Jack o' Lantern is so alarmed at the prospect of sailing on a ship with thirteen men that they agree to maroon one of their number. They draw doubloons (one of which is marked with an x) to determine who will be marooned, while making sure to keep seven doubloons in one bag and six in the other so they don't have thirteen coins together. Captain Scratch cheats by palming his coin before the drawing starts. Jack draws the unlucky doubloon, but bribes the men assigned to maroon him to sneak him back onboard.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Captain Scratch is a murderous Jerkass who Would Hurt a Child, but Oliver feels a bit of pity for him after the crew tricks Scratch into thinking that he's been killed and come back as a ghost who's been Barred from the Afterlife, and then leaves him marooned.Captain Scratch grew smaller and smaller. Even though no one had shed a tear for him he gave us a last forlorn wave of his hand. Despite myself, I waved back.
- Contrived Coincidence: Billy Bombay, another pirate who was also born at the stroke of midnight and can supposedly see ghosts, buried his treasure on the same island where Gentleman Jack's treasure is buried. He comes looking for it at the exact same time Scratch and his crew are trying to find Jack's treasure while using Oliver as a supposed ghost-finder.
- Death by Materialism: When the pirate ship sinks, most of the sailors pile all of the treasure into a lifeboat. The lifeboat capsizes from the weight, and only one of its passengers stays afloat long enough to be picked up by the three characters who chose to load their lifeboat with food instead of treasure.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: The pirate crew includes a Fiji islander and a Muslim man (although both are portrayed rather stereotypically).
- Guile Hero: Jack o' Lantern, the Token Good Teammate of the pirates, is pretty clever and sneaky. When Scratch has him marooned, he bribes three other pirates into marooning a scarecrow in his place and hiding him aboard the ship. He uses various methods of trickery to fake ghost sightings, and he tricks Scratch into thinking that he's died and turned into a ghost.
- Jaw Drop: After Oliver tells First Mate Ringrose that he marked the spot where he thinks the treasure is buried by leaving his jackknife pointed in that direction, Ringrose's jaw drops "like a trapdoor." He then reveals that he saw the jackknife lying there, thought Oliver had lost it, and picked it up to return to him later.
- Miles Gloriosus: Captain Scratch is prone to boasting about his skills as a pirate and sailor, but is pretty cowardly and incompetent and freaks out when he mistakes some intruders for ghosts out to take him to Hell.
- Names to Run Away From: One of the pirates, a Fiji islander, is called Cannibal and is said to be a Scarily Competent Tracker who can trail someone by the smell of meat.
- Nephewism: At the beginning of the book, Oliver is being raised by his aunt while his uncle is away on a three-year whaling trip.
- Non-Protagonist Resolver: Oliver is the narrator, but Jack o' Lantern is the one who figures out a way to trick Captain Scratch into thinking he's died and turned into a ghost so he won't resist being marooned. He also saves Oliver's life when the pirate ship sinks soon afterward.
- Pirate Booty: Both Captain Scratch's former boss and Billy Bombay have treasure buried on the island and the pirates want to dig it up.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: The pirates kidnap Oliver because they superstitiously believe he can see ghosts. However, the only ghost sightings in the book turn out to be faked by the ship's mates, John Ringrose and Jack o' Lantern, as part of their efforts to depose Captain Scratch and keep Oliver safe.
- The Starscream: First Mate Ringrose feels emboldened once Captain Scratch suggests he might make a good captain if Scratch is the unlucky man while they're Drawing Straws to determine who will be marooned. He tries to depose Scratch in a mutiny and later plots with Jack o' Lantern to undermine him during the treasure hunt. Since Scratch is a Pointy-Haired Boss and a multiple-murderer and Ringnose is more of a Punch-Clock Villain, Ringrose is a rare sympathetic Starscream.
- Torture Technician: When the pirates think Oliver is withholding information from them, they hang him upside from a vine and have Haji (who seems to be an experienced interrogator) beat his bare feet with a stick until "I thought one more lam of the stick would shatter my feet like glass."
- Treasure Map: The pirate who buried the treasure did make a map, but it mysteriously disappeared after the ambitious Scratch killed him for it. The map is never found, but the protagonist does figure out what happened to it and where the treasure is.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: The pirates seeking Captain Scratch's three chests of buried gold uncover a chest filled with cannonballs, which they dump into the ocean out of frustration. When rival pirate Billy Bombay arrives on the island and learns about this, he furiously reveals that the cannonballs were really melted down silver, painted black to fool thieves.
