by Daren King
9
The Ghost Ship
‘We’re sorry to trouble you,’ Charlie said as the phantom pirates closed in, ‘but would you mind taking us prisoner?’
‘We’ve decided to give ourselves up,’ Wither said. He blew his nose and waved the white hanky above his head.
‘No need to make us float the plank,’ I said.
‘The plank?’ the Captain said, ruffling his beard. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
Tooth Rot pointed his cutlass at Wither and steered the blubbing poet towards the plank. ‘Not quite what I had in mind when I packed my trunks,’ Wither said.
‘You next,’ the Captain boomed, and he wagged a finger at Charlie Vapour.
‘Um, ladies first,’ Charlie said, being both polite and mean at the same time.
‘Float, the lot of you!’ the Captain yelled.
The stormy ocean terrified us, but we were afraid of the pirates too, so we all floated to the far end of the plank, Wither reciting a farewell poem, Eleanor taking notes for her novel.
The odd thing was, when we ran out of plank, nothing happened.
‘Curious,’ Wither said, and he scratched his forehead with a barnacle thumb.
‘Thank heavens!’ Agatha said. ‘Had we been still alive, we’d be dead.’
‘Well?’ the Captain yelled. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘You’re meant to plunge into the murky depths,’ Tooth Rot said.
‘I don’t think we could if we tried,’ Eleanor said.
Captain Mean-Beard frowned. ‘You might as well float back then. There’s a mist descending, and I don’t want you to catch cold.’
As we flitted back along the plank, the phantom pirates again drew their cutlasses and bared their mean-spirited teeth.
‘They can’t jab us,’ Humphrey said as the mist swirled around his belly. ‘The phantom cutlasses will pass right through.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ Wither blubbed.
‘Tooth Rot,’ the Captain boomed, ‘tie’em up and lock ’em in the hold.’
‘That doesn’t sound so bad,’ Agatha said. ‘At least we get to stay indoors till we reach dry land.’
‘I thought we were leaving them on a desert island,’ Tooth Rot said. ‘A small one, with one palm tree and an angry baboon.’
The Captain laughed heartily and slapped his leather-clad thigh. ‘I’d forgotten about that.’
We were about to beg for mercy when the mist cleared, and something far more chilling floated into view.
The phantom pirates dropped their cutlasses and turned a ghostly white.
A ghost ship!
And I don’t mean a ship haunted by ghosties, like the Raggy Dolly. No, this was a ship so old that it existed only as white wispy cloud.
‘Ooh-arr!’ the Captain cried, raising his telescope to his left eyepatch. ‘What in heaven’s name is that?’
‘Saved!’ Tabitha cried. ‘We can float aboard the ghost ship and hitch a ride home.’
‘That would be lovely,’ I said. ‘Only the ghost ship is flying a transparent skull and crossbones.’
10
Boom!
The ghost ship sailed so close, I feared for a moment it would pass right through the Raggy Dolly and out the other side.
Its crew were more faded and wispy than the pirates who sailed the Raggy Dolly, but no less horrifying. They were dressed in elaborate Elizabethan costume, like our phantom friend Headless Leslie. Yet, while Leslie had a cheerful face and a neatly trimmed beard, these Elizabethans looked as though they had spent several years lost at sea.
‘Ooh-arr!’ the Elizabethan pirates cried, drawing their cutlasses.
‘Ooh-aarrr!’ yelled the crew of the Raggy Dolly.
For several minutes, the two bands of merry pirates did nothing but stare across the short stretch of water, the waves crashing below.
‘Captain, I think we’d better attack,’ Tooth Rot said, ‘or we’ll be here all day.’
‘Peg Leg,’ Captain Mean-Beard said, ‘fire the cannon.’
‘How mean,’ Wither cooed, and we all stuck our fingers in our ears.
Peg Leg struck a match on his wooden leg and lit the fuse, and the cannonball shot out of the cannon with a terrifying BOOM!
The cannonball passed through the ghost ship and splashed into the sea.
‘That old Elizabethan pirate ship is too faded to be damaged by cannon fire,’ Charlie whispered, and he adjusted his trilby.
‘That’ll teach ’em,’ the Captain chuckled.
‘I don’t think it will,’ said the pirate with the hook hand. ‘They’re lighting their own cannon. We’ll be sunk!’
‘Here we go again,’ Humphrey said, and we blocked our ears and bowed our heads.
I expected the whole ship to shake and sink to the bottom of the sea, taking seven frightfully friendly ghosties with it.
But the cannonball passed right through.
‘Their wispy cannonballs are too faded to sink the Raggy Dolly,’ Charlie said, and he straightened his tie.
‘They can’t touch us!’ the Captain roared.
‘Yes,’ Tooth Rot said as gulls wheeled overhead. ‘And we can’t touch them.’
Captain Mean-Beard ruffled his mean beard. ‘Safe to sail another day.’
‘Unless they decide to invade,’ Tooth Rot said.
At that moment, several dozen Elizabethan pirates flitted out from the ghost ship and wafted across the water.
The air filled with the clashing of cutlasses and cries of ‘Shiver me timbers!’
‘We’d better hide,’ Tabitha said, her voice shaking. ‘But where?’
‘Let’s ask the expert,’ Charlie said, adjusting his cufflinks. ‘Pamela?’
‘In here,’ I said, and we all wisped into a wooden barrel.
11
Fish Fingers
‘Is that everyone?’ Wither said. ‘It’s too dark in here to tell.’
‘There should be seven pairs of eyes,’ Agatha said. ‘No one blink, and we’ll have a count-up. Wither?’
‘One, two, three,’ Wither counted, ‘four, five, six. And that large pair of eyes makes seven.’
For a moment we listened nervously to the commotion outside, then Tabitha said, ‘Wither, did you say you counted seven pairs of eyes?’
‘Fourteen eyeballs precisely,’ Wither said.
‘If you counted seven pairs of eyes,’ Tabitha said, ‘unless you can see your reflection in a mirror, there must be eight of us.’
I heard a scraping sound as Wither scratched his head with a thoughtful fingernail. ‘Hmm.’
‘Tabitha has a point,’ I said. ‘After all, you can see with your eyes, but you can’t see your eyes, if you catch my drift.’
‘That being the case,’ Eleanor said, ‘us frightfully friendly ghosties are not alone.’
‘I’ll light a match,’ Charlie said, and he did.
As the flickering orange light filled the barrel, we were greeted by the face of a young still-alive boy.
‘Good afternoon,’ Charlie said, doffing his hat politely, but the boy said nothing.
‘The poor chap looks frightened,’ Wither said.
‘Don’t be scared of us,’ I said. ‘We may be ghosties, but we’re frightfully friendly.’
‘Allow us to introduce ourselves,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m Charlie Vapour, and this is Pamela, Tabitha, Agatha, Eleanor, Humphrey and Wither.’
‘Hello,’ the still-alive boy said quietly, and he smiled.
‘How long have you been here?’ Tabitha asked him.
‘Since yesterday,’ the boy said.
‘Ouch!’ Charlie said, and he shook the match until it went out.
‘You must be starved,’ Humphrey said in the dark.
‘Not in the least,’ the boy said. ‘I had my packed lunch with me. Two ham rolls, a bar of chocolate, an apple, and a bag of cheese-and-onion crisps.’
‘How did you find yourself curled up in a barrel on the deck of a pirate ship?’ Agatha
said as Charlie struck another match.
‘My parents were taking me on a summer cruise,’ the boy said. ‘We’d just boarded the ocean liner when I saw this creaky old ship. I wanted to explore, so I ran back down the gangplank and hopped aboard.’
‘Your mum and dad will be worried sick,’ Wither cooed.
‘They won’t miss me,’ the boy said. ‘My mum thinks I’m with my dad, and my dad thinks I’m with my mum. They don’t talk to each other, you see.’
‘We’ll get you back to that ocean liner,’ I said, ‘safe and sound.’
‘Not yet though,’ Tabitha said. ‘We’re in a spot of trouble ourselves.’
‘The ship is under attack from another band of pirates,’ Wither told the boy.
‘And these chaps are even meaner than the crew of the Raggy Dolly,’ Charlie added.
‘I wondered what all the noise was,’ the boy said, and he frowned.
The second match went out. Charlie struck a third.
‘Let’s stay in here,’ Agatha said, ‘until the ship reaches dry land.’
‘We’ll be quite safe if we keep our heads down,’ Tabitha said.
‘Quite safe?’ I said with a gulp. ‘How safe precisely?’
Charlie peered out through a knot in the wood. ‘It’s safer to say we’re in quite a lot of trouble.’
Humphrey bumped him out of the way and put his eye to the hole. ‘The Elizabethan pirates have the Raggy Dolly crew surrounded.’
‘As long as they don’t have us surrounded,’ Wither said.
‘They haven’t,’ Humphrey said, peering over the rim of the barrel. ‘Look, that one’s eating fish fingers.’ He licked his lips and flitted out.
‘That boy will put us all in danger,’ Charlie said.
‘You’d better float out and fetch him,’ Tabitha said.
‘I’m not floating out there,’ Charlie said. ‘There are pirates out there, and—’
Charlie’s hat leapt from his head and floated onto the deck.
‘Tabitha, you did that with your powers, so I’d have to retrieve it,’ Charlie said, handing Tabitha the box of matches.
‘While you’re out there,’ Agatha said as Charlie floated through the wood, ‘fetch Humphrey Bump.’
A minute passed, and neither ghosty returned.
‘Flit out after them, Wither,’ Tabitha said, striking the last match.
‘I’d rather not, Tabitha. Two frightfully friendly ghosties can waft unnoticed, but three would stick out like a sore thumb.’
‘Get on with it,’ Eleanor said, and out Wither wisped.
A minute later, Agatha said, ‘I suppose we’d better rescue them.’
‘All girls together!’ Tabitha said. And she held hands with Agatha and Eleanor and led them out into the damp afternoon air.
That left me, Pamela Fraidy, alone in the barrel with the poor, frightened still-alive boy and an empty matchbox.
12
The Mermaid’s Tale
Something had to be done. I didn’t know what, but I knew I wouldn’t find the answer in a barrel.
‘We’ll be back, I promise,’ I told the boy, and I flitted out through a knot in the wood.
One look at those Elizabethan pirates, however, and I lost my nerve and wisped over the wooden rail and down into the ocean.
You must think I’m frightfully brave. The truth is, I didn’t feel brave at all.
I’d never been under the sea before. It was more green than blue, and wibbly and wafty, with hundreds of fish and plankton.
Bobbing floatily on the seabed, I felt oddly peaceful, and not afraid at all.
Then, I heard a voice.
‘You look lost,’ the voice sang, and I turned to see the smiling face of a pretty young woman.
‘Oh, I thought I was alone,’ I said. Then I noticed that the woman had a long, scaly tale. ‘Are you a mermaid?’
‘I am,’ she sang. ‘Are you a ghost?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and I blushed. ‘My name’s Pamela Fraidy. Not that I’m afraid or anything.’
I gazed up at the underside of the Raggy Dolly and explained how my friends and I were caught in a battle between two crews of phantom pirates.
‘I found myself in a tight spot myself once,’ the mermaid sang.
‘How frightful.’
‘There I was, swimming through the seaweed, when a treasure chest slammed shut and caught the tip of my tail.’
‘That must’ve hurt.’
‘Not in the least, but I couldn’t swim away.’
‘And you needed to swim to the surface for air?’
‘No,’ the mermaid sang. ‘I breathe through my gills. It’s just that I like to read magazines, and I wanted to buy the latest issue of Deep Sea Life’
‘What did you do?’
‘One thing I have learnt during my time as an enchanted creature,’ the mermaid sang, ‘is that there are times when the problem is the solution.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said, and I rolled my eyes.
The mermaid rolled her eyes. ‘Consider the object that trapped me.’
‘A treasure chest!’
‘I needed a passer-by to open the chest,’ the mermaid explained in song, ‘and if there is one thing a passer-by is sure to open, it is a chest laden with treasure.’
‘How true!’
‘The problem was, the treasure chest lay hidden among the seaweed.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I wafted the seaweed away with my arm, revealing the decorative chest. A moment later, a passing sea urchin opened the chest and nabbed the sparkly treasure.’
‘I don’t know what a sea urchin is,’ I said, ‘but I’m glad the sea urchin helped you.’
‘Like I told you,’ the mermaid sang, ‘there are times when the problem is the solution.’
The moment I heard these bubbly words, I knew how my friends and I would rescue the still-alive boy from the Raggy Dolly.
‘It’s been lovely talking to you,’ I said, and I waved goodbye to the mermaid and floated up through the wobbly water.
13
Pamela’s Plan
The problem was, when I floated up over the railings, my frightfully friendly friends were nowhere to be seen.
‘Oh dear,’ I said as one of the Elizabethan pirates tried to jab me.
Just then, Charlie wafted by. ‘This way,’ he said politely, taking me by the hand. ‘That is, if you don’t mind.’
‘Not in the least,’ I said. ‘I enjoy being rescued, particularly when in grave danger.’
Charlie led me over the heads and beneath the wafty legs of pirates locked in swashbuckling combat, to where Tabitha, Agatha, Eleanor, Humphrey and Wither cowered at the ship’s bow.
‘We have to get that still-alive boy out of that barrel,’ Tabitha said, ‘but where will we take him?’
‘I have an idea,’ I said. ‘Well, just a thought, really. Sometimes, um—’
‘Get on with it,’ Wither said.
‘I’ve forgotten what it was now.’
We heard a loud ‘Ooh-arrr!’ as Captain Mean-Beard wisped towards us from the ship’s portside.
‘It seems to me,’ I said, thinking back to the mermaid’s tale, ‘that sometimes the problem is the solution.’
Wither folded his mast-like arms. ‘I fail to see how pirates can solve the problem of pirates.’
‘That’s not what I meant. If the Elizabethan pirates have all boarded the Raggy Dolly, the ghost ship will be deserted. We can sail the wispy ghost ship all the way home!’
‘Pamela Fraidy,’ Charlie said, ‘that is the cleverest plan I have heard all day.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ Eleanor said. ‘That ship is so wispy, the still-alive boy will pass through the deck and fall into the sea.’
‘We’ll just have to carry him,’ Tabitha said.
‘Like I said,’ Charlie went on, ‘it’s a terrific plan. If it doesn’t work a treat, I’ll eat my trilby hat.’
‘Let’s get a move o
n,’ Humphrey said, ‘before the Captain jabs us with his cutlass.’
‘Still-alive boy?’ Wither said as we wisped into the barrel. ‘Are you still here?’
‘Yes,’ a voice said in the dark. ‘Are you going to rescue me?’
‘If you promise to trust us and hold on tight,’ Eleanor said, and we wisped the boy high into the air.
‘Oh!’ the boy cried. ‘How tiny the ship looks from up here.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ I said with my eyes closed.
‘It’s funny,’ the boy said, ‘but I don’t feel afraid at all. Though I’d like to know where you’re taking me.’
‘Sometimes,’ Agatha said, ‘the solution is the problem. Or is it the other way around?’
‘We’re going to board the Elizabethan pirate ship,’ Tabitha told the boy, ‘and sail it all the way home.’
‘Wait,’ the boy said. ‘There’s—’
‘We’re well aware that the ghost ship is wispy,’ Wither told him. ‘You’ll be fine if you hold on tight.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant.’
‘It’s not always true that ghosts pass through things, or that things always pass through ghosts,’ Tabitha said. ‘That’s just in storybooks and cartoons.’
‘The only ghosty who can always pass through,’ Agatha said, ‘day in, day out, rain or shine, is dear Charlie Vapour.’
Charlie doffed his hat, the polite thing to do, even when fleeing swashbuckling pirates.
It was Charlie who led the way. ‘Left a bit,’ he’d say, enjoying himself immensely. ‘Right a bit. Mind that seagull! That’s it, now wisp down.’
‘Stop!’ the still-alive boy said. ‘There’s something—’
‘Don’t you worry an ounce,’ Wither said as we floated towards the wispy deck. ‘Hold on tight, and all will be well.’
14
Lost and Found
The ghost ship was eerily silent. No creaking of wood, no rustling of sails, no cry of gulls. Even the crash of the waves below sounded muffled.
‘We’d better float into the cabin,’ Tabitha said, ‘or the pirates on the deck of the Raggy Dolly will see us.’