The Jolly Regina

by Kara LaReau

  Captain Ann appeared in the doorway.

  “Knock-knock,” she said. “I don’t mean to rush you two, but we should probably be going in the next hour or so, if we want to make it before sunset.”

  “Captain Peg said we could take out books, if we like,” Jaundice said to her sister. “Why don’t we take Dr. Snoote? I know how you’ve missed him.”

  Kale looked at the old, familiar, musty dictionary. Then she looked at the shelves and shelves of books around her, which seemed to glitter, like the stars she and her sister saw from the deck of The Jolly Regina. She remembered Captain Peg’s words.

  Dictionaries are just words and meanings. Dry as sand. Books are filled with adventures and emotions and ideas!

  Slowly, Kale let go of Dr. Snoote and put him back on the shelf.

  “The fiction section is quite impressive,” she noted, turning to her sister. “Maybe we should try a story, for a change.”

  “I’d be up for an adventure,” suggested Jaundice.

  “Where to next?” asked First Mate Fatima, doing a little jig. “Somewhere exotic?”

  The Bland Sisters smiled at each other. They had the same, perfect destination in mind.

  incinerator |in'sinə'rātər| noun

  an apparatus for burning garbage or waste

  Epilogue

  “It’s nice to be home, isn’t it?” said Jaundice, darning another sock.

  “It is,” said Kale, between bites of cheese sandwich. “Terribly.”

  “I couldn’t think of another place I’d rather be,” said Jaundice.

  That’s exactly what the Bland Sisters told Captain Ann and Captain Peg and First Mate Fatima. Despite the exciting array of options laid before them, as well as their parents’ invitation to join them on their travels, Jaundice and Kale had decided that they belonged back in their little house on the road to Dullsville. In fact, they conveyed these very sentiments in a letter they left with their pirate friends, to be delivered to their parents at their earliest opportunity.

  After much discussion and revision, it ended up going like this:

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  Thanks very much for introducing us to the pirates. Though we faced peril on more than a few occasions (including a very painful near keelhauling); suffered food poisoning from a questionable stew; were forced into menial, deck-scrubbing labor; were threatened with a cat-o’-nine-tails; endured nasty burlap chafings; and lost our beloved friend and dictionary, Dr. Snoote, we know we would not have met First Mate Fatima or Captain Peg or Captain Ann were it not for this experience, and so, we are admittedly grateful. As Captain Peg might say, ye never turn down a moment of serendipity.

  Of course, we hope we are reunited soon. But to be honest, we’re really not interested in going on another adventure. We’re physically and mentally exhausted, and frankly, we’d rather stay home; it’s so much cozier here than any kind of adventure, with far less chance of messiness, injury, or death.

  When you decide to take a break from your travels, we hope you’ll join us. We can all spend some quality time together, eating cheese sandwiches and watching the grass grow . . . doesn’t that sound nice?

  Hope we’ll be seeing you soon, and that you’re well (and, more important, alive).

  Your daughters,

  Jaundice & Kale

  P.S. We had a little problem with checking the mail recently, but it’s all cleared up now.

  P.P.S. Captain Ann, Captain Peg, and First Mate Fatima said they’d keep in touch—we look forward to hearing more about their travels, and yours, as we won’t be doing any of our own any time soon.

  Unfortunately, the Bland Sisters did not have very good luck in retrieving the correspondence their parents had initially sent them. Over the years, Mr. Bartleby, their mail carrier, had noted the overflowing mailbox and had transferred all the unanswered correspondence to the DDLO (Dullsville Dead Letter Office), where it had eventually met with the incinerator. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Bartleby resigned, citing exhaustion and postal-traumatic stress.

  “It really is too bad, about that mail,” Jaundice said. “It would have been nice to learn more about our parents.”

  “And it would have been nice to read about their adventures,” said Kale. “Without having to actually participate in them.”

  “At least we’ve had a new book,” said Jaundice.

  “Yes,” said Kale. “That’s something.”

  The Bland Sisters had very much enjoyed the book they checked out from the Port Innastorm Library, per Captain Peg’s invitation. It was a story about two brothers called the Nubbins Twins who find themselves on a submarine 19,999 leagues under the sea. Kale found it brilliantly plotted, and Jaundice was struck by the ingenious illustrations.

  “We need to return it to the library soon,” Kale reminded her sister. “It’s almost overdue.”

  “What should we take out next?” asked Jaundice. “Another adventure? Or a mystery, perhaps? I might like a good mystery.”

  “I remember seeing an interesting dictionary there, in the reference section,” said Kale. “Ye Olde Pirate’s Dictionary, I think it was called.”

  “I thought we were through with dictionaries for now,” said Jaundice. “Not to mention pirates.”

  “We should be fully informed. They could stop by again,” Kale noted.

  “I doubt it,” said Jaundice. “It’s not like our parents are going to lure us out by sending another pirate here. Or anyone else, for that matter. We’ve made it clear we’re not interested in adventure. Not in real life, anyway.”

  Kale nodded. Jaundice was almost always right.

  Shortly after this exchange, Jaundice went into the kitchen to fix a cheese sandwich. The cheese had arrived in the sundries basket that very morning, and it was of the white variety, the Bland Sisters’ new favorite. Jaundice had taken to putting the cheese between two hardtack biscuits, which she’d made with her own extra-stale recipe.

  As her sister ate, Kale took another sock from the darning basket, and began humming a tune as she worked. The tune sounded not unlike a chantey.

  Post Script

  Just as the Bland Sisters settled back into their seemingly content and unassuming existence, the village of Dullsville went on per usual. In particular, the Dullsville Post Office engaged in its daily functioning, receiving and processing mail from hither and yon. The letters and packages were stamped and sorted by Miss Penny Post, Mr. Bartleby’s former assistant and new replacement. Miss Post placed the sorted mail in her satchel, mounted her bicycle, and went about her deliveries.

  Miss Post felt uneasy as she pedaled, and not just because her back bicycle wheel was in need of tightening. On this particular day, she had a letter in her satchel for none other than the Bland Sisters. It was in a stained envelope stamped with foreign postage, and it smelled faintly of spices. The handwriting on the envelope was all too familiar to Miss Post; she had seen it many times before, on a variety of other letters and packages, before the incinerator turned them all to ash. Mr. Bartleby had resigned soon after the incineration and left Dullsville; the last thing he said, when asked to provide a forwarding address, was “I prefer not to.”

  Miss Post reached the Bland Sisters’ mailbox, placed the letter inside, and lifted the red metal flag to show that a delivery had been made. Before she got back on her squeaky bicycle and continued with her daily deliveries, she said a little prayer that this mail might be opened.

  For, after all, a letter can change one’s life; it can deliver grand adventure, or grave misfortune, or a great discovery. Or, sometimes, even all three.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to my family, friends, and colleagues, particularly Barry Goldblatt, a cutthroat pirate/agent with a heart of gold; the swashbuckling crew at Abrams/ Amulet, including Tamar Brazis, editor and pirate queen; Jen Hill, a genuine treasure; Anika Denise, Jamie Michalak, and Kristen Tracy, the saucy beauties who keep my writing shipshape; Jenna LaReau, anything-but-bland sister; and Scott
and Camden Bowers, aka me hearties.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Kara LaReau was born and raised in Connecticut. She received her master’s in fine arts in writing, literature, and publishing from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, and later worked as an editor at Candlewick Press and at Scholastic Press. She is the author of Ugly Fish and Otto: The Boy Who Loved Cars, illustrated by Scott Magoon; No Slurping, No Burping!: A Tale of Table Manners, illustrated by Lorelay Bové; and The Infamous Ratsos, illustrated by Matt Myers. Kara lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with her husband and son.

  ABOUT THE ARTIST

  Jen Hill is the illustrator of Diana’s White House Garden by Elisa Carbone; Doing Her Bit: A Story About the Woman’s Land Army of America by Erin Hagar; Spring for Sophie by Yael Werber; and Be Kind by Pat Zietlow Miller. She is also the author and illustrator of Percy and TumTum: A Tale of Two Dogs. Jen is a graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she studied children’s book illustration with David Macaulay and Judy Sue Goodwin Sturges. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and her intern, Little Bee, who is very helpful for a cat.

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