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.