The Indoor Pirates On Treasure Island

by Jeremy Strong

  ‘Nobody,’ hissed Blackpatch. ‘Go back to sleep or I'll chop your ears off.’ This met with silence so the pirates set off for the lake. On the way there they had a stroke of luck because Bald Ben spotted an inflatable duck outside another tent.

  ‘That will do me nicely,’ he told the others. ‘I don't like crocodiles – too many teeth.’

  Back at the campsite, Jack lay in his bed dreamily thinking to himself. There must have been somebody outside because they had spoken to him. He sat up with a jerk. He had just remembered what they'd said. They'd threatened to chop his ears off. That wasn't very nice! Jack leaned out of bed and shook his mother.

  ‘Mum? Mum? Someone is outside and they said that if I didn't go to sleep they'd cut off my ears.’

  This was quite enough to put Jack's mum on red-alert and she rose from her bed like an Amazon warrior and threw herself outside with an angry yell. ‘Who wants to chop off my son's ears?’ she demanded, and was surprised to find nobody there.

  This changed quickly, because the occupants of all the tents near by were roused by her shout and campers came crawling out in their pyjamas and nightgowns demanding to know what was going on, and waving torches in all directions.

  ‘Somebody has been prowling around,’ said Jack's mum accusingly. Jack came outside, took one look and burst into tears.

  ‘My crocodile's been stolen!’ he wailed.

  Jack's mum strode across to the pirates' tent and poked her head inside. ‘Just as I thought. There's nobody here. The pirates must have stolen Jack's crocodile.’

  ‘My spotty duck's gone too,’ cried an elderly lady. ‘Come on, they must have taken them to the lake. Let's get after them!’ With a cry of ‘Get the pesky pirates!’ the campers hurried off to the lake.

  The Indoor Pirates were doing quite well. Blackpatch, Lumpy and Polly were sitting on the giant crocodile, merrily paddling away. The Captain was so excited at the thought of all the treasure that he quite

  forgot to worry about being seasick, or lake-sick, or any kind of sick. Molly and Ben were on the duck, and they all found that the spades made excellent paddles. It did not take them long to reach the island. The pirates leaped ashore and scrambled up the beach.

  ‘Treasure Island!’ cried Blackpatch. ‘At last!’

  ‘Treasure Island!’ echoed the others. ‘Where do we dig, Cap'n?’

  Captain Blackpatch studied the beach carefully. ‘I reckon it must have been about here.’ He prodded the sand with his spade. ‘Get digging!’

  The pirates set to with gusto, each digging in a different place. Sand was flying in every direction and soon Molly and Polly were back to their usual antics. ‘Every time you take sand out of your hole you throw it into mine,’ Polly complained.

  ‘I'm only giving you your sand back,’ said Molly, ‘because you took it from your hole and put it in mine first of all.’

  Just dig,’ bellowed Blackpatch. ‘We're here to find treasure, not to argue.’

  The pirates dug and dug. They dug here and they dug there, without finding so much as a pebble. They were almost ready to give up when Lumpy's spade struck something hard. ‘I've found it, Captain!’ he cried. ‘There's a lump down here!’

  The Indoor Pirates gathered round Lumpy's pit and watched with round eyes as he pushed his spade deep into the sand and began to lever out something large. The sand heaved and broke and trickled off the spade leaving the treasure in full view of everyone.

  ‘It's…’ began Blackpatch. ‘It's…’ He couldn't believe his eyes.

  ‘It's rubbish,’ muttered Bald Ben. ‘Someone has been here and they've had a barbecue and a picnic and they've buried all their rubbish.’

  The five pirates stared into the hole at their broken dreams. At the bottom of the pit lay a pile of burnt charcoal, several scraggy meat bones, some very sandy sandwiches (half-eaten) and some rotting bits of tomato and lettuce.

  ‘I thought you said they'd buried treasure,’ Lumpy accused the Captain.

  ‘How was I to know they were burying rubbish?’ cried Blackpatch angrily. ‘I mean, what a stupid, stupid, STUPID thing to bury! Why would anyone bury rubbish?!’

  ‘So it doesn't make a mess, of course,’ Bald Ben said.

  A shout drifted across the water from the distant shore. ‘There they are, on the island! After them!’ The campers poured on to the jetty. Someone produced a key and the pedalos were unchained. Brandishing their torches like clubs, the campers began pedalling across the lake at full speed, with Jack and his mum in the lead and foam spurting from the churning paddles.

  Captain Blackpatch turned white. ‘Don't let that horrible pokey woman anywhere near me!’ he cried, and he leaped on to Jack's crocodile. Lumpy and Polly joined him and they desperately tried to escape the fast-approaching armada of pedalos. Ben and Molly were close behind on their giant spotted duck, paddling furiously.

  ‘Faster, faster!’ cried Blackpatch, his spade flashing in the water, and he gripped the crocodile with his legs to stop himself slipping off.

  Unfortunately, he squeezed the inflatable toy so hard that the crocodile could no longer contain itself. The bung suddenly shot from its tail and a jet of air screeched out, sending the crocodile skimming across the water with the pirates hanging on for dear life. ‘Help!’ yelled Blackpatch, as the jet-propelled croc went whizzing backwards and forwards and round and round like a crazy balloon. Up and down it went, with the air rushing from its tail – SPLURRRRRRRRRR!!!

  At last it ran out of wind, went completely floppy and left the pirates floundering in the water. Blackpatch discovered that this time the lake didn't come up to his knees but well above his hat.

  ‘Help-plup-plip-plop!’ he gurgled.

  ‘I can't swim!’ squealed Polly, and she couldn't.

  ‘I'll save you!’ Molly shouted.

  ‘But you can't swim either!’ spluttered Polly, vanishing beneath the surface.

  ‘Yes I can!’ cried Molly and bravely dived in, sank and reappeared briefly. ‘No I can't!’ she agreed and sank again.

  There was a loud splash as Jack's mum threw herself from her pedalo and dived into the black water. A moment later she reappeared with both twins, who immediately spurted fountains of water from their mouths, along with one or two startled fish. As the pedalos reached the pirates, other hands grabbed Blackpatch and Lumpy and pulled them from the water. Bald Ben gave himself up and was towed back to the shore.

  Everyone was rather wet and cross. Jack's mum confronted a very bedraggled Captain Blackpatch. ‘You'd cut off my son's ears, would you?’ Poke! ‘We'll see about that!’ Poke! She reached up, grabbed the Captain's ears and gave them a good pull.

  ‘Yow!’ he cried.

  Jack smiled and looked up at the pirate chief. ‘You'd better blow my crocodile up again properly or my mum will pull your ears. I said the crocodile would get you, and it did.’

  ‘It's your mum that's the crocodile,’ hissed Blackpatch and everyone burst out laughing.

  The campers went back to bed, and so did the pirates, all except for Blackpatch. He was left on his own, huffing and puffing

  all night long. By the time morning came, the crocodile was fully inflated and Blackpatch was lying next to it, fully deflated and snoring his hat off.

  Bald Ben went to next door's tent. ‘I'm sorry about last night,’ he mumbled sheepishly, and he explained about the treasure hunt.

  ‘You are a big baby,’ said Jack's mum. ‘Fancy wanting to play with a plastic crocodile. However did you get to be a pirate?’

  ‘My mum was a pirate and my dad was a pirate. They taught me everything I know.’

  ‘It wasn't much, was it?’ laughed Jack's mum. Jack grabbed Ben by the hand.

  ‘When I grow up I'm going to be a pirate,’ he said, and his mother sighed.

  ‘See what you've started?’ But she gave Ben a bright smile and he came over all funny and turned red from head to toe. He went back to the pirate tent feeling a great deal happier.

  Captain Bl
ackpatch had woken up and was now slumped back against Jack's crocodile. ‘This holiday has been terrible,’ he complained. ‘There's been no treasure at all. Maybe it's time we went home.’ But the other pirates didn't feel like going home. They were just getting used to camping. Lumpy had even stopped dropping the sausages in the grass.

  ‘Can't we stay a bit longer?’ they pleaded. Blackpatch gazed moodily back at them.

  At that moment, Jack came across from his tent. He had his binoculars round his neck. He had a wooden sword stuck in his belt and a red spotted scarf tied on his head. ‘I'm a pirate,’ he declared, ‘and I'm going on a treasure hunt. Who's coming with me?’

  ‘Me!’ cried Lumpy and Ben and the twins, and they set off at once. Blackpatch watched them for a few seconds.

  ‘Wait for me!’ he yelled and hurried after them.