Perfumed Pirates of Perfidy Read online

  2.30 p.m. Wash up

  4.00 p.m. Repair sayels

  5.00 p.m. Cleen Bobo's cage

  5.30 p.m. Start gettin tee

  7.00 p.m. Serv tee

  8.00 p.m. Wash up

  9.00 p.m. Hav your dinna (water, bred and seegull spred only, on payn of deth)

  9.10 p.m. Lite oil lamps

  9.30 p.m. Cleen the bog

  10.00 p.m. Plump captins pillows

  10.30 p.m. Bring captins rum

  11.00 p.m. Read captins bedtime story

  11.30 p.m. Anythin els captin can fink of

  Midnite Lock up

  ‘That's impossible,’ I gasped. ‘There's no way I can do all that. I can't even keep my own bedroom tidy!’

  ‘You wanted to be cabin boy,’ said the captain.

  ‘Of course, if you can't do it, you can always go for a long walk on a very short plank … ‘

  ‘OK, where's the kitchen?’ I gulped.

  ‘That's more like it, boy And it's a galley, not a kitchen.’

  I've never cooked a thing at home, and since I've been on my adventures I've lived mostly off bananas and Paterchak's mints. I've got no idea about proper cooking and I've never heard of half the names on the jars that lined the shelves in the galley.

  When I saw the state of the sink, I groaned in horror. It was piled high with pots and pans, which had obviously not been washed for years. Dried food coated every one and furry patches of mould sprouted from the smelly, stagnant gunge that had set in the bottom of the pans and had me gasping for breath. It was disgusting. I looked around for the washing-up liquid.

  Of course, there wasn't any – only a filthy scrubbing brush that looked as if it had been used to wash coal. I gave a long groan. There was nothing for it but to roll up my sleeves and get started.

  I scrubbed, I hacked and I polished for hours, until my arms ached and my hands were as wrinkled as my gran's. Eventually I had the pans lined up in a row, gleaming like new. I felt quite pleased with myself and was wondering what I could possibly cook that anyone would want to eat when the captain marched in to see how I was doing.

  ‘Is dinner ready?’ she demanded, sniffing the air expectantly.

  ‘No, but I've finished washing the pots,’ I explained, waiting for a gasp of admiration as I pointed to the rows of sparkling saucepans.

  ‘What do you want to waste your time washing them for? We do all our cooking in that,’ barked the captain, pointing to a vast pot in the corner that was big enough to stew a hippo in. ‘Now get a move on, or I'll have a mutiny on my hands.’

  I peered into the bottom of the huge cauldron. Oh no! The insides were encrusted with dried-on food, so I got the scrubbing brush, a hammer and a chisel, climbed inside the pot and started to scrub all over again.

  It took about half an hour to shift the worst of the muck, and then I lit the fire and poured in a few buckets of water. Now what? I searched the shelves and found a recipe book called 100 Favourite Pirate Platters. That'll do, I thought.

  The book fell open at a page headed ‘Wriggling Stew’. Oh, yuck! The main ingredient was eels – lots of them – but it looked quite simple to make, so I searched the galley and when I lifted the lid of a barrel, I got the fright of my life. It was alive with fat, slippery, writhing eels. I needed fifty of them, but when I tried to pick one up, it shot straight out of my hands, plopped onto the floor and wriggled out of the door, across the deck and into the sea. This was going to be harder than I thought!

  I tried again with the same result. I needed some help, so I popped my head out of the door just as a huge, grizzled pirate walked by.

  ‘Excuse me, but I can't get the eels out of the barrel.’

  The pirate stopped and stared at me as if I was a rat's tail she had discovered in her soup. ‘So?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, I'm making Wriggling Stew and it won't be very tasty without any eels, will it?’ I was pretty sure it wouldn't be very tasty with eels, but I didn't say so.

  ‘Wriggling Stew? That's my favourite,’ the pirate beamed and pushed past me into the galley. She reached into the barrel, grabbed an eel with an iron grip, plopped it onto the table, whipped out a vicious-looking machete from her belt and … Clump! Forty-nine other eels followed it into the pot. Satisfied, the pirate wiped her hands on her trousers and left me to finish the meal.

  I added all the other ingredients – onions and peppers, strange spices and herbs – and stirred and stirred while the eels’ slime thickened the liquid into a stodgy stew. It actually smelled quite nice, and I was starving hungry, so I found a ladle and was just about to have a taste when there was a screech from the window. It was Bobo. She had been keeping an eye on me the whole time, and now I remembered what the captain had said. I was on prisoner rations of water and bread with seagull spread. I couldn't imagine what might happen if I was caught stealing the pirates’ food … But I was about to find out!

  The captain marched into the galley.

  ‘So, thought you'd help yourself, did you?’ she growled.

  ‘Sorry, I forgot,’ I said.

  ‘Well, just to make sure you don't forget again, let me show you something,’ she said, and I followed her out onto the deck. ‘See that old cage?’ she asked, pointing up into the rigging at a small, rusty pen. One day our last cook decided to help herself to a nice leg of pork. A whole leg, mind. But good old Bobo saw her and reported it to me. Now, the cook was quite plump and it was the devil of a job to get her into that cage. But we managed it in the end and lowered her over the side. These waters are swarming with a voracious little fish called the flesh-eating anchovy. She was only in the water two minutes, but when we hauled the cage out, it was empty, save for one bone and a slimy piece of gizzard. Do you understand, Charlie?’

  I understood. I wouldn't steal the pirates’ food again. Or if I did, I'd make darn sure I wasn't caught!

  Many days have passed, days of scrubbing and cleaning and cooking. I never get close to finishing the huge list of chores because the captain is always adding new and horrible tasks to it. And Bobo doesn't make things any easier. She does all she can to make my life unpleasant, swinging silently down from the rigging to slap me or grab my hair as she swoops past. She upsets my pail of water when I'm swabbing the decks and snitches to the captain if I miss a spot when cleaning the galley. She's just a vicious bully.

  While I'm working, I try to think of ways to steal back my phone and escape, for every day brings the threat of death at the hands of these perfidious pirates. I can't trust a single one and have to be always on my guard. But even if I can get off the ship, I'll still have to find dry land, and who knows how many miles away that might be? I can only hazard a guess as to where we are on the map I've hidden at the bottom of my rucksack. So, for the time being, it looks like I'm stuck on board this dilapidated barge of bad-tempered bandits. And today I learned quite a lot about them.

  I was busy scrubbing the deck when I became aware that I was being watched. I looked up to find Lizzie, a large, grubby tattooed lady, leaning back against a pile of barrels with a mug of rum in one hand and a sneer on her face.

  ‘Oh dear, you really haven't got a clue about cleaning, have you?’ She smirked. ‘A typical man, lazy and smelly. You're as useless as the rest of them!’

  Smelly? Me? How did she have the nerve to call anyone smelly, when her pong could make a flower wilt at fifty paces? ‘Oh, you'd know all about cleaning, wouldn't you,’ I said sarcastically. ‘I can tell by your spotless ship. I've seen cleaner dustbins!’

  ‘We know how to scrub and clean, don't you worry,’ snapped Lizzie. ‘Why do you think we became pirates in the first place?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  Lizzie poured another mug of rum, took a long glug and stared off at the horizon. ‘Oh, we were all good little housewives once,’ she said, ‘keeping house for our wonderful pirate husbands while they went off for months at a time, having adventures and stealing bucketloads of dosh!’

  �
��Your husbands are pirates?’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes – best male pirates on the Pangaean Ocean. They stole oodles of treasure. Trouble is, by the time they got home they'd spent it all. And then they had the nerve to complain if their dinners weren't waiting on the table for them when they got in. Went bonkers, they did!’

  ‘Really?’ I said, putting down my scrubbing brush and sitting back on my haunches. ‘What did they do?’

  ‘Ranted and raved and stomped and cussed. They were all the same, our husbands. They'd fly into a rage, draw their swords and storm around the house, chopping and hacking at the furniture till there was nothing left but sawdust. Then they'd all meet down the tavern, spend the last of their money and head back to their ship for more adventures on the high seas. We got fed up with it, I can tell you. We'd had enough of cleaning and cooking while the men went off and had all the fun. So Ivy called a meeting of all the pirate wives, and we decided to become pirates ourselves. The first all-lady pirate crew in the world. And we've not done any cleaning since!’

  ‘Who's Ivy?’ I asked.

  ‘That's the captain,’ said Lizzie. ‘But you mustn't ever call her that, or she'll have your guts for garters. She didn't think Ivy sounded scary enough, so she changed her name to Captain Cut-throat, and it suits her well. She's the boldest, bloodthirstiest pirate afloat, and we've become the scourge of the ocean.’

  ‘Do your husbands know you've become pirates?’

  ‘Oh, they know all right,’ chuckled Lizzie. ‘One day we attacked a big four-master. For hour after hour our cannons roared, but when the smoke finally cleared, we realized that the sailors clinging to the wreckage were our husbands. Oh, how we laughed, and oh, how they screamed: “Traitors! Go back home and get our dinners!” Fat chance of that! Instead we took their treasure hoard, sailed to a port and shopped till we dropped. Oh, we've had some fine times,’ she said dreamily.

  Then Lizzie seemed to come to her senses. ‘What are you sitting around for, doing nothing?’ she shouted. ‘That's just typical of a bone-idle man.’ And with that she drained her mug of rum and stomped off across the deck.

  So that's why they hate doing housework so much, and why I have to work my fingers to the bone, scrubbing and polishing and tidying up their mess. I really must get off this floating prison … soon!

  When I first started out on my adventures, I decided to record any unusual or exotic species I might discover, and there aren't many things more unusual than this boatload of female felons. So here are a few sketches of some of my lovely shipmates:

  Captain Cut-throat

  She paces the deck, shouting orders and swishing her cutlass, while Bobo follows at her heels like a large dog, sneering and screaming.

  Rawcliffe Annie Rawcliffe Annie's skin is the colour of boiled ham. She has a nose like a hatchet, which she uses to crack coconuts.

  Lizzie Hall

  Lizzie is the pirates’ champion rower. Her arms are thick with rippling muscles and she is covered with tattoos of galleons and wild animals.

  Mop-head Kate

  Kate is the youngest of the pirates, not much older than I was when I started out on my adventures. She was kidnapped during a midnight raid on a fishing village: the pirates needed a skivvy. She isn't treated much better than I am, but doesn't seem to be any friendlier than the rest of the crew.

  We've been at sea for a month and the Betty Mae has made her first attack!

  I was busy preparing a breakfast of toasted sea-sponge with a weird kind of jam called mermalaid when a cry floated down from the crow's-nest.

  ‘Ship ahoy, and it's a fat one!’

  Immediately Captain Cut-throat swung the ship about, and we raced after a large merchant vessel. By the time they realized they were being hunted, it was all too late.

  The Betty Mae might be old, but she is very fast, and as Cut-throat raised the Jolly Roger, we were already alongside our prey. A cannon exploded: the Betty Mae was firing a warning shot across the merchantman's bows. When she heaved to, Cut-throat's crew swarmed aboard, swords at the ready and daggers clamped between their teeth.

  Hiding in the shadow of our poop deck, I watched in amazement as the pirates lined up the passengers and stripped them of their jewellery, purses and long silk handkerchiefs.

  My heart thumped against my chest like a piston engine, but I couldn't make out whether I was scared or excited.

  Some of the pirates clattered down the steps into the hold, returning with crates and boxes bulging with gold, which they brought aboard the Betty Mae. It was all over in a matter of minutes. No one had been hurt and I thought that maybe my pirate captors weren't so bad after all. But then I learned just how ruthless they could be.

  One of the passengers on board the merchant ship refused to empty his pockets.

  ‘Clear off, you vagabonds!’ he cried. ‘You're not having any of my money.’

  ‘Oh, is that so?’ Captain Cut-throat smiled. ‘Well, perhaps you would like some of mine … ‘

  ‘I – I don't know what you mean,’ stammered the man.

  ‘Here, take these,’ said Cut-throat, handing him two heavy bags full of gold. ‘There you go.

  Now put them in your pockets. Go on. They're yours!’

  Confused, the man put them into the deep pockets of his many-buttoned coat. His knees buckled slightly under the weight.

  ‘Now,’ said Cut-throat, ‘let's go for a nice walk.’ And with her cutlass she prodded the hapless man towards the ship's rails. Rawcliffe Annie appeared with a long plank of wood, and she rushed over to a gate in the rails and hammered the plank firmly to the deck, so that it stuck out over the sea.

  ‘I, um, I've changed my mind,’ said the man when he saw the plank stretching out over the waves. ‘Here – have your money back. And mine – all of it. I've got loads.’

  ‘Leave it where it is,’ warned Cutthroat. ‘Now, turn round and get moving.’ And she jabbed the man with the point of

  her sword, sending him scurrying along the plank.

  ‘Thief-taker Craik will hear of this,’ the man warned.

  ‘That old fraud!’ laughed Cut-throat. ‘He's nothing but a windbag. And if anyone sees him, they can tell him I said so. Now move.’

  I was shocked. I couldn't believe it. Surely the captain wasn't being serious. But before I could cry out she gave a final jab with her cutlass and sent the poor man off the end of the plank. He dropped into the water and, with the weight of all the gold in his pockets, sank like a stone.

  The pirates roared with delight as the man disappeared below the waves. I stood rooted to the spot, horrified by what I had witnessed, but the pirates didn't seem bothered at all. Once the man had gone, they didn't give him a second thought.

  I scanned the sea for any sign of the victim. Nothing. I ran to the far side of the Betty Mae and looked there. Nothing. Then, all of a sudden, with a great gasp, the man bobbed to the surface. He had managed to unbutton and slip out of his coat. He was safe for the moment, but had nowhere to go.

  Quickly I looked around the deck. By the mainmast I spied a stack of empty rum casks. The pirates were all too busy aboard the captured vessel to notice me, so I rushed over and heaved one into the water below. The cask floated over to the man, who heaved himself aboard and, with a silent wave of thanks, drifted away.

  What a terrible bunch of blackhearts I have for shipmates, I thought. When will I be able to get away from these dangerous villains?

  Captain Cut-throat was in high spirits when I read her bedtime story that evening. She has a large stack of stolen books, but until I came along there was no one who knew how to read them well enough! Now she insists that I read her all the adventure tales of derring-do on the high seas.

  I usually look forward to the captain's story time: she's much less scary when she's roaring warnings to the hero and swinging her sword above her head. But now that I had seen what she was really like, I was in shock, and I sat beside her hammock, reading the story in a small, nervous whisper.

/>   ‘Come on, Charlie, give it some feeling,’ demanded Cut-throat. ‘What's wrong with you tonight? Liven it up or you'll follow that old fool off the end of the plank.’

  I gulped! I knew she meant it, so I swallowed hard, and launched into the story anew. I put everything into it, doing all the voices and acting out the action scenes, leaping from chair to table to chandelier in a desperate sword-fight with the invisible enemy

  Cut-throat loved it! She roared her approval and spun her sword in pleasure. ‘Well done, Charlie,’ she cheered at the end of the story. ‘That was the best tale yet and you deserve a reward for your telling of it. What would you like, eh?’

  I didn't need to think twice.

  ‘My phone,’ I said. ‘I would like my phone back.’

  ‘Oh, Charlie,’ she sighed, taking my phone and charger out from underneath her pillow and stroking the phone against the side of her face. ‘You know that's not going to happen. This is my most precious jewel. I'll have to think of another prize. Now, make this work!’ And she handed me the mobile.

  So I charged it up and went through all the ring-tones before Captain Cut-throat asked to hear the time. Then I rang the speaking clock and she held it up to her ear and grinned with delight as the recording told her it was 1.45 and 15 seconds on Sunday the 17 of April. I think that must have been the moment I was struck by lightning and my adventures began. It repeated this same information every time we phoned, but Captain Cut-throat didn't seem to mind: she sat up in bed with a look of awe on her face.

  ‘Now, we must think about your reward,’ she said, putting the phone and charger back under her pillow. ‘Let me think … Oh, I know, food! All boys like food. How about that, eh?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ I cried, imagining myself sitting with the crew, eating my fill of roasted albatross and seaweed sauce, or shark burgers and chips. ‘That would be great!’