by Kara LaReau
“But—but they just got here,” said Fatima.
“Don’t worry,” Lefty said. “They’ll be back in time to help ye make dinner.”
As the Bland Sisters were led away, they made sure to wave to Fatima, as she was looking rather bereft. Kale, having felt the same way a mere few hours before, could fully empathize.
“Nice work,” Jaundice whispered to her sister on the way out. “Now we have two jobs.”
“But aren’t two jobs better than one?” Kale asked.
“It would be, if we were getting paid,” Jaundice said.
“Oh,” said Kale. “True.”
serendipity |'serən'dipitē| noun
a chance occurrence or development of events, leading to something delightful or valuable
Chapter Seventeen
And so, the Bland Sisters performed another several hours of hard scrubbing. The sun was so hot that Jaundice was almost tempted to remove her socks—almost. She wiped the sweat from her brow and sighed.
“This is harder than milking a cow,” she said. “And that’s saying a lot.”
“I’m not even enjoying myself, and I love cleaning,” said Kale.
“Here,” whispered Peg, passing them a jug.
“What is it?” asked Kale.
“It’s ale,” said Peg. “It’ll quench yer thirst.”
“We don’t drink alcohol,” noted Jaundice.
Kale nodded in agreement. “Right,” she said. “Alcohol is for adults, and pirates.”
“It’s not that kind of ale,” Peg explained. “It’s ginger ale, me own special brew. Quenches yer thirst, and cures seasickness. The ginger settles the stomach.”
“I’ll give it a try, then,” said Kale, whose stomach was still feeling unsettled from last night’s stew. She took the jug from Peg, uncorked it, and gave it a sniff. She had never smelled ginger before, but found it not at all unpleasant. She looked at Jaundice, who shrugged. Kale took a sip.
“Mmm. Tastes like our soda at home,” she said, burping softly. “Only not quite as flat.”
Jaundice took a sip, too. “You’re right. It does,” she noted.
By this point in the afternoon, Deadeye Delilah had joined the rest of the crew on deck. She looked a bit worse for wear, most likely from consuming too much rum the evening before. She reclined in a chair with her scarf tied low over her eye and eye patch, flipping a shiny gold doubloon between her fingers, while Lefty steered the ship and watched over the crew. Scurvy seemed a bit more fully recuperated, and was scurrying around the deck, biting everyone’s ankles and chattering. Peg gave him a good swat on the nose when he tried to approach her.
“I’ve a mind to toss that varmint overboard,” she muttered.
“So,” said Jaundice, “how long have you been a pirate?”
“Ohhh, close to five years now,” said Peg. “It’s a bit different from the library, I can tell ye. Much more water and much fewer books, that’s fer sure.”
“You were a librarian?” asked Kale.
“You don’t look like a librarian,” Jaundice noted. Of course, the only librarian the Bland Sisters had ever encountered was Dr. Snoote’s illustration next to his definition of the term. It was a drawing of a serious-looking woman in a high-necked blouse with her hair in a bun. She carried an armful of books, and her index finger was raised to her lips, as if to say, “Shh!”
“I presided over the main branch in Port Innastorm,” Peg explained, dipping her scrub brush into the grungy pail of seawater. She had no trouble scrubbing as she talked.
“Aren’t libraries a bit of a waste?” asked Kale. “I mean, why do you need so many books when you can just have a dictionary? Dr. Snoote tells us everything about everything.”
“Dictionaries are just words and meanings. Dry as sand,” Peg answered. “Books are filled with adventures and emotions and ideas!”
Kale blinked. She and Jaundice had been living without those things for as long as she could remember. And they were perfectly fine. Weren’t they?
“For years, I did it all: shelved the books, kept track of the returns, helped the patrons find what they needed,” Peg continued. “But ye know what?”
“What?” said Kale. She rested her head on her hands. She was getting a Feeling. A someone’s-about-to-tell-a-story Feeling.
“After bein’ around all them books about foreign places and people and things, I wanted to see ’em for meself. I wanted to discover the stories behind the stories. Know what I mean?”
The Bland Sisters nodded, though they had no idea what Peg meant. Kale held her dictionary to her chest. She couldn’t imagine a life without Dr. Snoote.
“So one mornin’, I locked up the library,” Peg continued, “and I walked down to the dock and volunteered for the first ship I saw. Which just happened to be this one. I got lucky, I did.”
“But if you didn’t become a pirate on The Jolly Regina, you wouldn’t have lost your leg,” Kale reminded her.
“I also wouldn’t have met Fatima,” Peg replied. “I lost me leg and found a best friend, all at once. That was serendipity, that was. And ye never turn down a moment of serendipity. Eventually, no matter how bad things are, it all leads to somethin’—or someone—worth all the trouble.”
The Bland Sisters pondered this theory with more than a little suspicion. It didn’t seem possible that everything bad eventually leads to something good. Perhaps, Jaundice and Kale decided, Peg suffered a blow to the head as well as the leg when Fatima fell on her.
“Did you see our parents when they were here on the ship?” Jaundice asked, hoping to change the subject.
Peg was about to respond when Delilah’s voice bellowed from her hammock.
“Whoever’s talkin’, SHUT YER TRAPS!” she groaned. “I’ve got a HEED-ache!”
Lefty glared in the direction of Peg and the Bland Sisters. She took out her cat-o’-nine-tails and slapped it against the palm of her hand a few times. Then she went back to looking at her maps.
“I seen yer ma an’ pop,” Peg whispered. “They was on board the Regina fer three days, though Delilah had ’em locked in the brig the whole time, cuz they wouldn’t tell her where Captain Ann’s treasure was hidden. Not at first, anyway.”
“Our parents were prisoners?” Kale said.
“So what were they like?” Jaundice asked.
“Quite a pair, those two,” Peg said. “Yer ma taught me to play three new tunes on the hornpipe, and within three days, she could imitate just about everyone in the crew. And yer pop could tell the same joke in seven different languages, all of ’em just as funny. A breath of fresh air, they were. Too bad they were marooned—we was all sorry to see ’em go.”
With that, Peg went along scrubbing. The Bland Sisters followed suit, working side by side.
“I wish I remembered our parents,” Jaundice whispered to her sister.
“The more I try, the more I think I might miss them,” admitted Kale.
For the remainder of the afternoon, the Bland Sisters continued their labor. The scrubbing didn’t seem quite as difficult now, as they both daydreamed about their mother’s musicality and imitations and their father’s proficiency with languages and joke telling. Already, they sounded like fascinating people. More fascinating than Jaundice or Kale, anyway.
Of course, as you’ve learned by now, that’s not saying much.
vicious circle |'vɪʃəs 'sərkəl| noun
a repeating and worsening situation
Chapter Eighteen
As Lefty promised, the Bland Sisters were returned to Fatima in time to prepare the evening meal. Thankfully, the meal was leftover stew from the night before, which involved very little preparation (or cow milking). Kale was grateful to Jaundice for volunteering to prepare and serve the stew, while Kale was left to dispense the far-less-nauseating hardtack.
“We’ll just add a little water to the pot, to loosen things up a bit,” Fatima said. “Stew tends to get a bit pasty by day two.”
The Bland Si
sters wrinkled their noses. By the look and smell of it, Fatima had confused pasty with rancid.
“So where’s the hardtack?” Kale asked, looking around the table. “There was a whole bushel of biscuits here this morning.”
“Oh, I polished them off hours ago,” Fatima said, looking a bit sheepish.
“All of them?” Kale said. She held up the bushel, and turned it over. Not even a crumb remained. “But there were dozens in here. You mean to say you ate them all?”
“So what if I did?” Fatima snapped. “I was anxious. When I’m anxious, me gullet gets gnashy.”
The Bland Sisters realized that Fatima was caught in a bit of a vicious circle: The more she ate, the more the other pirates made fun of her. And the more the other pirates made fun of her, the more she ate.
“Maybe you need to find something else to do when you feel anxious,” Kale said. “Otherwise, you’re going to give yourself a stomachache.”
“And we’re going to run out of hardtack altogether,” Jaundice added.
“Like what?” Fatima asked. “What else could I do, other than stuff me face?”
“Give me a moment,” said Kale, closing her eyes. She had never felt anxious, so she never had to distract herself. Perhaps this was because she was always doing things she enjoyed: staring at wallpaper, watching grass grow, eating oatmeal or cheese sandwiches, reading the dictionary with Jaundice, etc., etc. If only Fatima had something she enjoyed as much as eating.
Ah, thought Kale, opening her eyes. That’s it.
“Do you still have that crumpled napkin in your smock pocket?” she asked Jaundice. “And that burned stick?”
Of course, Jaundice did. Kale spread the napkin on the table. She handed the stick to Fatima.
“Okay,” said Kale. “Jaundice is going to add water to the stew and cook up some more hardtack. And you and I are going to write a new chantey.”
“I am?” said Jaundice.
“We are?” said Fatima.
“From what I’ve heard, musicality runs in our family,” Kale assured the cook. Then she turned to her sister. “And you’re not the only one who gets to have a plan.”
As it was the first plan Kale ever devised, it wasn’t much, really: just something to write with and write on and a bit of determination. Though, sometimes, that’s more than enough.
scrimshaw |'skrim'shô| noun
a carved or engraved item, usually made from whalebone, ivory, or shell
Chapter Nineteen
“Food! Now! Food! Now! Food! Now!”
And so it went, with everyone in the crew chanting and pounding on the table. It really was quite rude. The Bland Sisters were glad they’d soon be leaving the ship and reunited with their parents, as they’d just about had their fill of this poor pirate etiquette.
Fatima was clearly anxious, as her foul temper had returned in full force.
“You!” she yelled at Jaundice. “Hand out them bowls!”
“You!” she yelled at Kale. “Hand out them spoons and tankards!”
“Easy, now. Remember our plan,” Kale whispered.
Fatima forced her mouth into a smile. She began walking between the tables, doling out the stew with a big iron ladle. Kale followed behind, giving each pirate one of Jaundice’s hardtack biscuits. Somehow, Jaundice found a way to make the hardtack taste stale from the moment it came off the hearth. Baking was not one of her special talents, though the crew of the Regina didn’t seem to mind, or even notice.
“Wide load, comin’ through!” Princess called as Fatima brushed past her. The rest of the crew erupted into laughter, except for Fatima, and the Bland Sisters, and Peg.
Smokey puffed on her pipe. “I haven’t seen a bum that big since we had that African elephant on board,” she said loudly, inciting further hysterics.
And so it went. Princess and Smokey continued their remarks all through dinner, as if they were performing a stand-up routine for the rest of the crew. Fatima sat at the other end of the table, looking down at her bowl. She didn’t take a single bite of stew.
“You’re not eating?” Jaundice said, attempting to chew a bite of hardtack.
“I think I lost me appetite,” Fatima whispered.
“You said ‘no one can say no to Fatima’s Finest,’” Kale said, patting the cook on the arm. “Besides, you have to keep your energy up for later.”
Fatima took a few tentative bites as Kale and Jaundice filled Peg in on the plan. Peg went down to the crew’s quarters after dinner to get her hornpipe. When she returned, she gave a nod to Jaundice, who gave Kale a nudge. Kale climbed up on a keg of ale and cleared her throat.
“Ahem,” she said. “Now that you’ve all enjoyed a bowl of Fatima’s Finest, it’s time you enjoyed an earful of song from the cook herself. Friends, sisters, and pirates, The Jolly Regina is proud to present the musical stylings of none other than . . . Fatima!”
Everyone in the crew began clapping. Lefty put her fingers in her mouth and let out a long whistle. Fatima rose, slowly, and stood next to Peg.
“Thar she blows!” Smokey shouted.
“Careful, Peg!” Princess added. “Ye don’t want to lose the other leg!”
Of course, everyone laughed at this. Peg gave her friend a pat on the shoulder, then blew a few opening notes on her hornpipe. Fatima looked out into the crowd, then back at the Bland Sisters and Peg.
“Here goes nothin’,” she muttered.
She took a deep breath. Then she opened her mouth and began singing.
Ohh ye calls me big ole Fatty
and ye makes fun of me girth;
I’ve endured more defamation
than anyone on earth.
I likes to eat me hardtack,
I likes to drink me ale,
but that don’t mean I likes to be
com-pa-red to a whale.
At this point, the Bland Sisters chimed in with the chorus:
Yo-ho-ho! Fatty-o!
Yo-ho-ho! Fatty-go!
Yo-ho-ho! Fatty-o!
Yo-ho-ho! Fatty-go!
The crew pounded their tankards against the table to the beat. Peg was tapping her wooden leg, and the Bland Sisters were clapping. Feeling encouraged, Fatima seemed a bit bolder now.
“Are ye ready for the second verse?” she bellowed.
The crew whooped and hollered in affirmation.
“Well, all right then. Hold on to yer booty, cuz here we go,” Fatima said, squeezing in right behind Princess and Smokey as she started in again.
I’ll never be a pretty Princess
with skin covered with ink;
pity she don’t bathe more often—
she makes a royal stink!
I’ll never be like Smokey,
so quick to quip and snipe;
I’ll never tell her where to stick
her pretty ivory pipe!
Yo-ho-ho! Fatty-o!
Yo-ho-ho! Fatty-go!
Yo-ho-ho! Fatty-o!
Yo-ho-ho! Fatty-go!
“You tell ’em, Fatty!” Lefty shouted. Fatima curtsied in response.
Everyone in the crew joined the Bland Sisters in the chorus that time, except for Princess and Smokey, of course. They both looked as if they’d swallowed a tough bite of hardtack.
Fatima stood by the end of the table now, her foot up on the bench. The crew was in stitches.
“All right, all right,” Fatima called. “Time for the big finish, then. Ready?”
If ye thinks me song is hurtful,
if ye thinks ye’ve been maligned,
just remember how ye’ve treated me
and how ye’ve been unkind.
And remember—I can exercise,
I can change the shape I’m in,
but no matter what ye wenches do
ye’ll still be ugly as sin!
Yo-ho-ho! Fatty-o!
Yo-ho-ho! Fatty-go!
Yo-ho-ho! Fatty-o!
Yo-ho-ho!
Fatty!
GO!
At t
he last note, Fatima brought her foot down hard on the bench. It flipped up in the air, taking Princess and Smokey along with it. They slid into the ale keg and landed in a heap as the rest of the crew fell into near convulsions of laughter.
“Whoopsie,” Fatima said. “Guess I don’t know me own strength.”
“Look!” said Kale.
The ale keg had burst, drenching Princess and Smokey. Princess was covered in what looked like black smudges. Her tattoos had dissolved.
“Oh!” she cried, looking down at herself. “I thought I used waterproof ink!”
“It’s the ale, dummy,” Peg noted. “That stuff will cut through anythin’. That’s why I brew me own.”
It was true; the pirates used the ale not only for drinking, but also for cleaning the barnacles from the sides of the ship and removing particularly set-in stains.
“Fake teeth and fake tattoos? Is she even actually a princess?” Jaundice asked.
“Nah, she’s a barmaid from Port Innastorm. Her real name’s Doris,” Smokey grumbled, crawling around on her hands and knees. “Has anyone seen me mermaid pipe?”
“That was supposed to be a secret! You promised not to tell!” Doris said, covering her ink-smeared face with her hands and bursting into tears.
“Is this it?” Kale asked. She held up the black mouthpiece of the pipe. The mermaid had broken off, leaving a jagged bit of ivory at one end.
Smokey growled and advanced toward Kale, brandishing a rather sharp-looking switchblade. “That mermaid was a one-of-a-kind scrimshaw,” she said. “I should know—I killed the guy who made it. With this knife, in fact.”
“I didn’t break it,” Kale said meekly. “I just found it.”
“Ye did her a favor, anyways,” said Fatima. “Smokin’ is a filthy habit.”
But Smokey wasn’t in the mood to listen. “Gaaaah!” she shouted, lunging at Kale.
Fortunately, Peg held out her wooden leg at just the right moment. The knife plunged into it with a loud THONK.
“See?” Peg said, holding up her leg for all to see. “Serendipity. That’s what that is. If this was me real leg, we’d have a not-so-happy resolution, wouldn’t we?”