Of Nappy-Poos, Lies, and an Earring

Sharkey Pegleg had to do the washing up after dinner, as the crew took it in turns (except the Captain, Geddy Thump Thump, and the Bo’sun).  Sharkey was a bear when he was on the scullery, and everyone ran out as soon as the meal was over, except kind Brunhilda, who offered to help him out. 

            “Get thee gone, beastie, or I’ll tickle yer innards with a harpoon!”  This was a relatively mild threat from Sharkey, sort of, relatively speaking, and if Brunhilda had been one of the other pirates, she would have realized from his muttery tone that he felt less grumpy because of her offer, and would have liked her to stay, but being as it was she took the threat to heart.  She bit her lower lip, and said, “Fine!” and huffed away with her feelings hurt.

Petunia followed Snarfetta as she snuck off to the cabin she and Brunhilda shared. Snarfetta was quite happy with the company of the parrot, and lifted her on her shoulder.  Petunia affectionately nipped at the tie of Snarfetta's bandanna.  Snarfetta was tired and fancied a nap.  She curled up to sleep and Petunia went poking through the shiny tangle of silks and wools and flaxes.  About two seconds later (it was really about half an hour) she woke with a start to a loud bang and a roar: Thump, Thump, Thump Thump.  The First.  Banging a stick on the floor on his way to drag the new deck hand out of bed, or rather nest.

            Snarfetta sat up, terrified.  She trembled as the thumping grew nearer and nearer and she had horrible memories.  The door creaked when it opened.  She screamed bloody murder.  Petunia squawked just as loudly, and G-Thump put his fists in his ears.

            “Stop yer squallin!”  He cried.  The parrot half flew, half ran out the door.

            “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”  Snarfetta just kept on screaming.  Actually, it felt kind of good after all her nine years of putting up with things.

            Geddy Thump Thump tried uttering a string of curses and he threw a few threats in her direction, but she kept screaming.  And so it was that Captain Jack B. Black, followed by several crewmembers, arrived on the scene.

            “What in the name of the queen mother and her mother’s mother is the pandemonium?”

            Snarfetta stopped abruptly and put her hand over her mouth.  Geddy Thump Thump shook his fist at her and turned to the Captain.

            “Sir, Captain, Sir.  I…”

            “He refused to pierce my ear!” Snarfetta’s lie just rolled out there.

            “He… what?”  The Captain turned to Snarfetta.

            “Ar, Cap’n, the wench…”

            “Hush, Number One.  Dear young lady, ye cannot scream like that aboard ship, or one of us is like as not to throw ye to the sharks.  And, what, pray, do ye in yer cabin at this o’clock?”

            “I needed a bit of clean cloth for the piercing.”  Blank looks all round.  “You know, clean, as in, recently washed.”

            “But what needed ye the cloth fer?” Gnarly Muffins scratched his head. 

            “In case I bleed, of course!”

            The entire company (except Sharkey and the Captain) guffawed at that, and Snarfetta turned bright red. 

            Sharkey had not enjoyed being startled out of his wits, as running away was not one of his strong points.  “I’ll give ye cause to bleed, hell’s bells, ye pit viper of a female…”

            The Captain turned to Sharkey and told him to shut up, and also pulled the large gold hoop out of Sharkey’s ear and handed it to G-Thump.

            “Pierce the wench’s ear and have done with ye,” he barked, then he turned to Snarfetta, “Scream again and Sharkey ‘ere will make good his promise.”

            G-Thump turned to Snarfetta, looking wicked.  “Revenge!”

            This did not raise Snarfetta in the esteem of the crabby wooden-legged crewmember.  “You. Owe. Me. Earring.”  He sincerely hoped she’d scream when G-Thump drove the post into her ear.  She did not.

A Visit to the Captain's Cabin

Gnarly Muffins gave Brunhilda two small oranges and a few nuts before he booted her out of the galley.  She pocketed the booty and scurried forthwith; she was delighted to have food to share with her new friend.  Snarfetta was still polishing and the sun glinted off her hair peeking out from under the polka-dotted silk scarf, but the girl looked like a flower that needed water.  Brunhilda was a little older than Snarfetta (they were eleven and nine, respectively) and bristled protectively at the sight of her exhausted posture.  She ran up to her and put her arms around her. 

 The wind was up and the sea choppy.  The sun beat down on the crew.  It would be about another half hour before the midday meal was ready.  Fortunately, the Captain came out on the deck and motioned the children into his cabin.  They approached shyly.  Captain Black was an intimidating fellow with his wide shoulders and massive legs.  And the Cat sticking up out of the belt. 

             “Sit ye down,” he rumbled, glaring at Snarfetta, who was very pale.  “Ye look right fagged, wench.  Have some water.”  He poured them each a cup of clear water from a silver decanter.  They drank all of their water and he gave them more.

            “How’re me men treatin with ye, ladies?”

            “They’re beastly,” Snarfetta said.  “That one with the scar on his face tole me he was gonna skin me with his kitluss and beat me with a cat!”

            The Captain’s face twitched with trying not to laugh.  “He did, now, did ee?  Well, we’ll see about that.  Ee’s got more hot air than a witch fulla beans, har!”

            At that moment the fuzzy orange and white Boodlemeister (bigger and lazier than Butterchunk), curled in between Snarfetta’s legs and then rubbed his face against Brunhilda’s leg.  The girls both brightened.

            Snarfetta became completely absorbed in the cat, and forgot everything else for several moments, talking nonsense and rubbing his head.  She got him to chase a string and very soon she looked quite happy and lost the pallor.

            “I warn’t in faver a kidnappin ye lasses, but t’was done afore I could stamp me seal on’t.” 

            “Why don’t you take us home then?” Brunhilda missed her Mum; her home life was a good deal less uncomfortable than Snarfetta’s. 

            “Arrr, it’s like this: ye goes with us fer now, and we bring ye back to yer Mummy on the way back up the coast.”

            “What if we want to stay?”  Of course Snarfetta was weighing her options.  Brunhilda’s mouth fell open.

            The Captain raised his eyebrows.  “What, the seafarin’ life for ye?  With those scurvy dogs and old one eyed McGee and that hairy mother’s son of a First Mate wot bangs on things?”

            “Yeah, and that smelly Fizzy Bottle,” said Brunhilda, aghast at the suggestion of actually remaining on the ship by choice.

            “Sure,” said Snarfetta. “All’s I need is an earring.”

            Fortunately for the poor Captain, who knew better to laugh at children – most adults don’t know better – the dinner bell rang and he ushered the children out of the cabin before he burst. 

            And, fortunately for the children, the dinner was plentiful and varied, and the pirates were too busy eating to bother haranguing them, though the parrot, Petunia, took a preference to the girls and scrambled over to them, first pecking at Brunhilda and then at Snarfetta.

            Captain Jack B. Black ate alone with Boodlemeister and Butterchunk in his quarters.  Boodlemeister purred and J.B. Black handed him scraps; Butterchunk gnawed the bones (and other such dainties) closeby, growling occasionally. 

Work Work Work and More Work

The wee wenches collapsed in a soggy heap at the aft, ready to weep from fatigue.  The large scruffy cat, Butterchunk, ran by, close on the tail of a rat.
              "A kitty!" Snarfetta forgot her fatigue, and started to go after the cat, when the Bo'sun grabbed her by the back of her sweaty green and purple striped shirt and asked her where in the name of hell she bethought herself of running after, when there was still work to be done?
              "Work?!!  we already DID work!"
That, as you can imagine, charmed the Bo'sun not at all, and he gave her a rag and some grease and set her to polishing the wood.  He gave her a push and muttered oaths, “…salty wench, blast ye barnacles fer the love of the mother, tattoo ye with a cat o’ nine tails” and so on, and he threatened to peel her with his cutlass.  Not very friendly by my book.  The poor girl, who by this point needed food again, snatched the rag and began polishing.  She liked polishing, found it satisfying to see wood gleaming when she was done, but she was ticked off about the mention of the cat o’ nine tails, not to mention the grim allusion to flaying.  She began to plot ways to get back at the Bo’sun.  And G-Thump the First Mate, and Scurv and the rest of the dogs. Such as, "I'll get them, just won't THEY see," and so on. "When I'm a Queen, and I rule all Snarfoofia, I'll show those labbernecks and lunkheads."

Brunhilda was sent below decks to the galley, where the cook, Gnarly Muffins, needed help peeling taters, and chopping things, and doing all the work he was too lazy to do himself, which was pretty much all of it.  Gnarly Muffins sat with his stockinged feet (needless to say his socks were full of holes and gray and not because that was their original color either) up on the table where piles of onions lay in close proximity.  Brunhilda wrinkled her nose at the stench and her fourteen freckles went all scrunched, and she coughed.  Fizzy Bottle, whose presence was redolent of heaped-up wet rags piled in a dark corner for six days, and then peed on, smiled greasily. 

            “Whatever ails ye, lass?”

            “It’s called a bath.” She loaded her little voice with contempt.

            Both pirates then broke out into raucous laughter, “Har har, har!”

            Again, Brunhilda wrinkled her nose in distaste.  

            A shout came from above: the First Mate: "Fizzy Bottle, thou scupperlout, where ye be?  Th' Cat's a wearyin of idleness!"

            Picking what was left of his teeth with his knife, Fizzy slinked away.

            "If that ain't the laziest scoundrel ever to walk the decks of a fine ship such as this..." Gnarly Muffins said.  Then he opened his large mouth in a yawn, and peered at the small girl standing there in her piratey garb.  "Look ye ter be a pirate yerself, lassie.  Two more days o' life on the ship, and ye'll be shapin up reg'lar."  By which he meant that Brunhilda would soon be as dirty as the rest of them.

            He set her to chopping and grating whilst he napped.  Eventually, though, roused by some internal sense of timing he moved with a snort, then woke, and started the fires.  The galley was tiny, and the smelly cook kept squishing Brunhilda in order to get round her.  It didn't help that he was so fat.  Finally, he ordered her out of the kitchen, giving her a pinch on her thigh as she departed.  

           "Just you wait till I'm High Priestess," she gave him a withering look.  

           "High Priestess?  That would be priestess of what?" Gnarly Muffins was puzzled.

           "Everything high up, of course!"  And she stalked away, muttering, "Ignoramus!  Barnacled son of a sea hag!"

           As you can judge from the ladies' language, their transformation into she-pirates had already begun.  And it was only their first day.

Cast of Characters

Personally I am not crazy about having the cast of characters at the beginning of a story because I'd rather dive right in.  In fact it's probably even worse to put a cast of characters three or four chapters in!  But there are a lot of characters in this story so I had better do at least a partial list:

Snarfetta: little girl
Brunhilda: little girl
Pirates (please automatically include "very dirty" in all descriptions so I don't have to keep writing it.  Thank you.):
Captain Jack B. Black: Captain of the Whiskey Witch.  Secretly a nice guy, always overcompensating for it with acts of brutality, such as beating his underlings regularly with a cat-o-nine-tails. Only clean pirate on board.
Bo'sun: the boatswain of the Whiskey Witch.  Smells armpitty and always wears stripes.  Has a scar on his left cheek a wench gave him.  Can't imagine why.
G ThumpityThump (G-Thump): First Mate.  Mean, with lots of hair.  Likes to bang things.  Frustrated drummer. Was not properly encouraged in his musical career as a child and now has a crappy attitude.
Fizzy Bottle: Skinny, very stupid, with fizzy hair that sticks up.  Picks his teeth with his dirty knife a lot.  Likes to trip people and then play innocent. Mends sails and shoots cannons when asked to.
Sharky Pegleg: Even meaner than G-Thump, too quiet, with sly looks and a crooked nose.  White even teeth and huge arms. Wooden leg, needless to say.  Navigator.
Petunia:  Parrot belonging to Sharky Pegleg.  Too loud, obnoxious, very beautiful, green and red.  Swears like a sailor.
Woodeye McGee: Several rude habits, above and beyond what is usual for pirates: spits on the foredeck, right in front of everyone's feet as they pass - except the Captain, the First, and Sharky.  In spite of his wooden eye, however, he is an excellent helmsman.
Scurv: Dunked Brunhilda in the water at the beginning. Even dumber than Fizzy Bottle and has fewer teeth.
Gnarly Muffins: The cook. Fat. Sleeps between meals.  Nicer to the children than the rest of the crew, but likes to pinch.
Boodlemeister and Butterchunk:  The two large and ferocious kitties (brothers) that the crew keeps on board to demolish the rats.  Quickly befriended by Snarfetta and Brunhilda.  As we shall soon see.
Various other and sundry sailors and pirates.  Aaarrrrr.

The Girls Wake Up to a Pretty Bogus Voyage

The night passed.  Snarfetta and Brunhilda slept like a couple of rocks.  The Captain of the Whiskey Witch looked in upon them in the morning, and secretly thought them cute and charming in their scarves and sashes, sleeping loggily with arms over their heads.  Snarfetta was muttering, "Keep your grubby hands off my bun.  Yes, MY bun.  Mine..."

The Captain, whose name was Jack B. Black, sported a wooly head of black hair, messy, and dark skin, and gloomy eyebrows that made him look strict.  In fact when Snarfetta woke up and saw Cap'n J. B. Black standing there she was not predisposed to care if he was the Captain, and she was a little insulting.  I am sorry to say she went so far as to stick her tongue out at him, roll over, and cover her head.  So Cap'n Jack B. Black dragged her out of the cabin by her scruff, and Brunhilda followed warily, up to the deck.

Snarfetta was perhaps a bit stunned when she saw how far out they'd sailed.  She had grown up beside the sea but had never been much of a sailor.  She promptly barfed up the Green Beans from last night.  Right on the Captain's toes.  Serves him right, I say, but not the best political move at the moment, in front of all his men, who were suffocating trying not to laugh, and Captain J. Black knew it.  He scowled, and threw a rag at the smallest man on the deck (not counting the girls). "Clean that up double quick, Scurv."
         "If it ain't the wee wenches," said the First Mate, Geddy ThumpThump, after he recovered from trying so hard not to laugh he almost puked himself.  He was still mad about taking Snarfetta's wooden heel in the shin.  "Cap'n, they's lookin a little twiddly thumbed ter me."  By which he was insinuating that the ladies didn't have enough to do.
        "Right ye aaarre, Mate," the Bo'sun agreed.  No one knew the boatswain's name because Bo'sun is a perfectly good name and he didn't need any other. "What say we makeum swab the deck."
        The Captain surveyed the horizon and shrugged.  He pretended not to be interested.
        "Should we feedum first?"  This brilliant question was posed by a gentleman named Fizzy Bottle. 
        "What fer?" Geddy ThumpThump was against feeding the children.
        "We happen to be hungry," Snarfetta said.
        "Yeah, very very hungry!" Brunhilda said.
        "Blimey, they talks."  "Even more reason not to feedum."  "What if they faints?"  "What if, so what, right Cap'n?"  "Do little girls fart?"  "Maybe we should throw them overboard and fergit feedin' AND swabbin'."  "Aaaarrr, mayhap we should cookem in a stew, solve the hole parblem of feedin."  The cacophony of commentary from the pirates was deafening.  The girls, having to endure hearing their fate and farting talents discussed in this terrifying (and not very nice) way, both simultaneously had a Reaction.  Snarfetta fainted, and Brunhilda howled.  It had been a rough couple of days.

I'm going to admit something right now, something Captain Jack B. Black would not like me to admit on his behalf.  But I will take that chance.  Captain Jack B. Black liked children, even those who barf.  Sad, I know; very bad form for a pirate.  And, he could not stand to hear a child cry.  But rather than show this in front of the crew, he said coldly, "And how, my dears, aarre we gonna make um work if we don't give um vittles?  And let us have no talk of killin, they are not armed and...aaaarrrr, it would be unsporting.  Not much fun for us."

Thus it was decided that the children should be fed.  They were ushered into the galley where they were given plates heaped with piratey grub, not bad, and in any case the children were so hungry by this time there was no discussion of Sugar Buns and Green Beans.

Kidnapped by Pirates is Good for the Wardrobe

Snarfetta and Brunhilda were dismayed.  What a crappy ship.  The Whiskey Witch was the grittiest, the slimiest, the foulest place on the earth at that time, and two little girls stood on the deck shaking their heads - and one of them shook from head to toe also, as she was soaked.  They wondered just what on earth these dirty pirates were going to do with the likes of them.  They were both rather sensitive and at this point little Brunhilda began to cry but that did her no good, since Pirates are not impressed with crying, and think that it's fun to tip children who cry into the water a second time.

Like I said, they weren't very nice.  The guffawing Ruffians dunked Brunhilda, again, and she would have gone hysterical but it was rather a shock and more fun to watch Snarfetta get mad and start yelling bad words again.  It's never wise to irritate your captors, but at the same time there isn't much point in being nice to them either.  After Snarfetta had aimed quite a good kick at the First's shin, smacking him hard with her wooden heel (fortunately for her she was wearing her shoes that day), the Pirates grabbed them both and threw them in a little dark locked room at the stern.  The room smelled gross, but that was okay, since they found mounds of clothes, some of which were even reasonably clean (by the standards of Sorta Long Ago and Far Away).  Since the girls were cold, they layered up.  Brunhilda got rid of the rag she was wearing as a dress and was, in her new pirate clothes, much better off in the fashion department from that day forward.  She wrapped a green silk scarf with violet polka dots around her neck, and held up her brown trousers with a wide burgundy-colored sash.  Her curls she wrapped in a blue-and-red striped scarf, and her shirt was yellow.  Very spiffy she looked, and Snarfetta looked every bit as wonderful, with a different, just as varied, array of colors.  Where the Pirates got all the groovy togs the girls didn't like to think, since they were both nice girls who had been brought up to believe that it is not correct to nip things from other people's clotheslines, no matter how tempted you might be.

They were both very hungry.  But lo and behold, Brunhilda had a large handful of Green Beans in her purse.  In those days smart women wore their purses under their tunics, tied around their waists, and so the pirates were so far unaware that Brunhilda was in possession of Booty.  Mostly in the form of Green Beans, which after all are not ruined but rather somewhat improved by the taste of seawater. It so happened that Snarfetta, whose sugar bun was now a thing of the past (a puppy got it), was not particularly fond of Green Beans, but she accepted her share without a grumble, and somewhat enjoyed the crunch. 

Soon they fell asleep curled together like kittens on the carpet of stolen clothes.

PART 1: Kidnapped By Pirates is Good!

Once Upon a Time, there was a great and mighty Queen.  Her name was, unfortunately, Snarfetta.  No matter how hard she tried to shake that name, she still ended up with it.  It followed her everywhere.  Even if she met a whole new group of people in a whole new place and told them her name was "Sophie", somehow they always found out that her name was Snarfetta, and called her that instead.

And so it happened one day when she was still very young, in fact she did not know she was a Queen yet, that she was kidnapped by pirates.  Frankly, Snarfetta (so, alas, we shall have to call her) was a bit of a wanderer and didn't like being at home, where her father yelled and blustered far too much and she got tired of it and left.  So one day she was wandering in the town, down by the docks, and the Sun dipped low into a pool of red.  Snarfetta walked and walked, being particularly irritated with her father that day, and without knowing it strayed into an Undesirable Neighborhood, full of Hooligans and Creeps.  Being hungry, she stopped at a stall and bought something quite bad for her, a sugary bun sort of thing, but she was ten and her mother wasn't there to make her have broccoli instead.  The grubby little girl who sold her the bun looked at her with sad eyes, and in spite of her own troubles Snarfetta felt a little sorry for her.

Before she'd eaten two bites, however, someone grabbed her by the waist and ran off with her, holding her like a sack under his smelly arm, squished against his even smellier body.  Initially she was so surprised that she didn't cry out, and she dropped her bun!  When she finally realized that she was being Dragged Off Against Her Will, she started to kick and scream and holler words like she'd heard her father using under much less appropriate circumstances.  The only people around to hear her were the other pirates, who only laughed, and the little girl who had sold her the bun.  The little girl did not know what to do but followed, hiding behind a barrel while the pirates, laughing, tossed the now violently cursing Snarfetta back and forth a few times, and then on board their ship, the Whiskey Witch.  The other little girl, whose name was Brunhilda,  ran forward and protested.
        "You can't do that!"
        "Why if it ain't another wench for throwing in the holds!  Blimey Curley, we could use two, thar's a lot o'work that needs doing."
        "That one's near as dirty as the ship, mate."
        "How about we dip her into the water?"  This last brilliant suggestion was made by quite possibly the filthiest human either girl had ever seen. He had green teeth (the few he still possessed) and a tuft of hair that might have been light blonde under the grime.  This same being grabbed Brunhilda by the ankles and lowered her.  The poor girl was soon drenched in icy seawater from head to toe.  And her bloomers showed!  As you may be aware, saltwater can be very nice in its way, but at eight o'clock at night with guffawing pirates tipping you in head first, it can be a bit annoying.  It goes in your nose and you come up sputtering and half drowned.

As you can see for yourselves the Pirates were not very nice sorts, not the kind of people you'd want as your nanny.  However, they were all the girls had at the moment.