And it was a night like no other I have lived through, louder and more vicious than the blimeyist Sou’wester. The small girl kept crying, and asking us for biscuits, and when we finally gave in and gave them to her, she started asking both of us for dolls. And I kept telling her, “Arr, we be pirates, we don’t be having dolls,” but she would just cry and scream and ask again for dolls. And so eventually, to shut her up, I gave her me peg leg and said, “here, this be a doll,” and that worked for a spell, but then she started crying again, and Rotten Pete went down, and when he came back up, he started building something out of canvas, and I asked him what he be doing, and he said, very quietly, “Arr, I be building a doll bed for her peg-leg doll, because it be needing a bed, like how she be having a bed. It be part of the game that she be playing with her doll. And also, just so you know, the name of her peg-leg doll be Peggy, so if she be asking for Peggy, that be what she means.” And by dawn, I had made up me mind that sharks or no sharks it was time for the girl to walk the plank.
So I waited until Rotten Pete was conked out and snoring-like and I climbed over him and down into the hold. And when the little girl saw me, she held up her hands and said, “Up?” And I gave her a crooked smile and said, real ominous-like, “Arr, I be lifting you up.” And she smiled, because she be too young for understanding subtext.
And I grabbed me peg leg from her and screwed it back on. And she laughed and said, “Peggy spin like ballerina,” and when I ignored her, she said it again, and again, and again, and again, until eventually I said, “Arr, yes, she be doing pirouettes,” because it just be easier to go along with it. And as she wrapped her little arms around me neck, I noticed that her hair had a smell like biscuits, and I wondered how much of that was the biscuits she be eating, and how much of it just be the way she be smelling natural-like, like how some kids just be smelling sweet, like cookies. And I realized that’s probably why some parents be calling their kids “cookie,” because they be small and sweet, just like a cookie. In any case, it was time to commit murder.
So I started walking aft, so I could toss her off the poop deck. And I was barrelling past the mainmast, when she pointed over me shoulder and said, “I see X!” And I stopped in me tracks and said, “Arr, what did you say?” And she pointed again and said, “X! I see X!” And I followed her chubby finger with me one eye and that’s when I saw that she be pointing at the treasure map.
And by this time, Rotten Pete had climbed onto the deck, and when he saw me with the girl, he squinted and said, “Arr, what are you doing?”
And I said, “Arr, just spending some quality time with me favorite little girl in the whole world!”
So it turned out that the girl knew letters, and not only that, she knew all the sounds that they be making, like for example, “P” be for “Princess” and “S” be for “Sparkles,” and “L” be for “Lollipop.” And using this inside information, we were able to sound out some words on the map, and start to make it tell its golden tales.
Sometimes it be slow going. The girl would tell a couple of letters—“this is ‘T,’ this is ‘R’ ”—but then a seagull would land on some rigging and she’d run off chasing it. And if there be a bunch of seagulls, then she’d be getting excited, and soon she’d be pretending like she be a seagull, saying “quack quack,” and flapping her arms like wings, and sometimes it be hard to redirect her.
But then I figured out the trick of bribing her with biscuits, and pretty soon, I had her doing letters all day long. And after a week or two, I figured out the first spot where I thought there be some treasure, a tiny island off the coast of Malta, or as she be calling it, “Mermaid, Apple, Lemonade, Tiara, Apple.”
So I set our course and had me men bear down, and before long the lookout was shouting, “Land ahoy!” So we dropped anchor and rowed our swift longboat ashore, and sure enough, the treasure was right where the map said, right under the “X” for “Xylophone.”
And so we dug up the shiny golden coins, and bit them with our teeth like we be doing, and made fast to port, where we traded them all for grog. And Rotten Pete said, “Arr, maybe we should be trading for some other stuff, too, while we’re here, like baby carrots and yogurts and things that are healthy-like for the small girl.” And I said, “Arr, she has biscuits,” and he said, “Arr, she can’t be only eating biscuits, she will be getting cavities and scurvy.” And I said, “she can eat whatever she wants, because she be a pirate.” And that is when I told him me big plan, which was that I was going to be raising the girl in a cool way, so that she ended up being cool. And instead of making her follow rules like a landlubber, I was going to teach her to reject conformity and rebel against society and also to listen to cool bands. And Rotten Pete said, “Arr, I think maybe this new philosophy of yours be something we should be discussing together in private.” And I said we could be doing that some other time, because right now it be time for a pirate feast. And he sighed, real dramatic-like, and walked back below deck. And I fed the girl biscuits and taught her some jigs and we stayed up all night, laughing and dancing with no cares or worries in the world.
And so we kept on sailing, from island to island, scooping up treasure and crossing all the “X”s off our list. And by the end of the month, we’d plundered so much loot that the hold almost busted from the weight of all the gold, and me carpenter had to go and patch the cracks with caulk. And meanwhile, the girl, she be becoming increasingly pirate-like. Like, for example, she started saying “arr” a lot, which, I’m not sure if you’re aware, is a word we pirates like often to be saying. And one sunny afternoon, in between treasure stops, I taught her how to whistle with two fingers, in the pirate way, and she got so good at it, I could hear her clean across the ship, and it got to be a kind of joke between us, like I would whistle, and then she would whistle, and we would whistle back and forth, and it became like an inside thing that we be doing. And I gave her some pirate things to wear, like a red scarf for her head that was actually only a napkin, and a cutlass for her waistband that was actually only a small dagger. And when Rotten Pete saw her with the dagger, he said, “Arr, she’ll put an eye out.” And I told him to relax, because that just be an expression, and he said, “Arr, it is not just an expression. We both have put eyes out. It be a very common accident and it has happened to both of us and fully changed our lives.” And the girl got scared-like, and started to hand Rotten Pete her dagger, but then I stuck two fingers in me mouth and whistled. And the girl whistled back and put the dagger back into her pocket.
