by Brian James
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright Page
Chapter 1 - Gruesome Grub!
Chapter 2 - All Hands on Deck
Chapter 3 - Knot So Much Fun!
Chapter 4 - Tangled Up Forever!
Chapter 5 - Ships Ahoy!
Chapter 6 - Attack!
Chapter 7 - Sneaky Sea Dogs
Chapter 8 - Rotten Luck!
Chapter 9 - Pirate Overboard!
Chapter 10 - Pirates at Last
For my brother Aaron.—B J
For my husband, Rome, my shipmate
through all of life’s tangles and knots.—JZ
GROSSET & DUNLAP
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Text copyright © 2007 by Brian James. Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Jennifer Zivoin. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2007007359
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Chapter 1
Gruesome Grub!
“Shiver me timbers! What’s that smell?” I asked Gary as we walked into the mess hall. I pinched my nose as tight as I could.
I’ve lived on pirate ships like the Sea Rat my whole life, so I’m used to stinky smells. But the stink that I smelled coming from the kitchen was worse than any other.
Gary wiped the sniffles from his nose and took a big sniff.
Then he sneezed!
Gary was my best bunkmate at Pirate School. He had come to the Sea Rat from another ship to learn how to be a pirate, just like me and the rest of our friends.
“I can’t smell anything,” Gary said. He was still stuffed up from a cold he caught in the last storm. We were the ship’s lookouts, and we got soaked. Then Gary got sickish.
“Then ye be the luckiest matey aboard,” I told him.
I looked around the mess hall. The place was filled with some of the rowdiest pirates the seas had ever known. Some had big scars across their faces and others wore eye patches to make them look scary. But they didn’t scare Gary or me. That’s because those pirates were our shipmates. And shipmates aren’t allowed to scare other shipmates—that’s a pirate rule.
I saw Inna right away. She was easy to spot. That’s because Inna was the only pirate wearing a pretty dress. She’s also the only pirate I know who brushes her hair. But instead of wearing her bandana around her head, Inna had it tied around her mouth and nose. I guess she was trying to block the smell, too.
“Ahoy!” I said. Then I asked her what stunk so bad.
Inna lifted the corner of her bandana and stuck out her tongue. “Breakfast!” she said, and pointed toward the kitchen.
I saw our friends Aaron and Vicky standing at the stove. They were both wearing matching aprons. They’re twins, so they always wear matching things. And they look alike, too. They have the same dark eyes and same black hair. Only Vicky has long hair and Aaron has short hair.
“Ahoy, Pete!” Vicky said when she saw me.
“Ahoy right back,” I said.
Aaron was tossing something slimy into a giant pot while Vicky stirred. Neither of them seemed to mind the terrible smell.
“Arrr! What in the name of the seven seas are you guys doing?” I asked.
“Cooking!” Vicky said with a smile.
“Aye? Are you sure you’re doing it right?” I asked.
“Aye!” Aaron answered. “It’s an old family recipe—sea slug cereal. It’s our favorite food. Captain Stinky Beard said we could make it because we saved the ship in the storm.”
I looked around and saw the other pirates eating bread and jam. I loved bread and jam! “Arrr, but what about them?” I asked.
Vicky said it was a special treat just for us pirate kids. Then she dipped the spoon into the pot and took it out. I saw a slug on the spoon and felt a little greenish.
Vicky took a little taste and rubbed her tummy. “Mmm-mmm! It’s ready! You’re just in time.”
“I am?” I asked, wrinkling up my nose. I was beginning to wish I’d been late.
“Aye! Grab a bowl and get some grub,” Vicky said.
I took a bowl and brought it over. Vicky scooped out some cereal and plopped it in. I did my best not to show that I was grossed out.
“Say when,” Vicky said.
“When!” I said right away.
“Avast! That’s all?” Aaron said when he saw how little I’d taken. “I’m going to gobble up five times that much!”
“Don’t be such a greedy guts!” Vicky shouted at him.
“Arrr. That’s okay,” I said. “Ye cooked it, you should take as much as you want.”
“Aye, it’s only fair!” Inna said, holding her hand over her bowl after Vicky put the tiniest of tiny scoops in it. Then Vicky asked her why she was wearing her bandana like a scarf.
“Um . . . germs,” Inna said, pointing at Gary’s sniffling nose. Inna was always the best at thinking up ways to get out of trouble.
Gary was next. He took a peek at the sea slugs and gulped. Even if he couldn’t smell it, he could see that it looked yucky. “Aye, no more for me!” he said. “I’d probably just spill it on the way to the table,” he added to be nice. And it worked, too, because Gary is the clumsiest pirate kid any of us have ever met. So Aaron and Vicky had no reason to think he was fibbing.
We all sat at the table. All the other pirates took one whiff and moved a little bit away. Then they started to leave one by one until we were the only ones left in the mess hall.
I watched the sea slugs squirming around on my spoon. I had to close my eyes before taking a bite. I was surprised to find out it didn’t taste as bad as it smelled. Believe it or not, it tasted a hundred million times WORSE!
“Yum,” I said, trying not to gag.
Inna brought her spoon up and lifted her scarf. She made a face like she was taking medicine, and then she took a bite. Her eyes opened so wide as she swallowed that I thought they were going to pop right out of her head.
“Mmm,” she squeaked.
“Aye? You like it?” Vicky asked.
I nodded.
When I looked over at Gary, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
He’d already finished everything in his bowl.
Then I looked at the floor by his chair and saw a puddle of sea slug cereal. Gary glanced over at me and gave me the shhhhh! sign.
“Yo ho ho! This sure is some good slop,” Aaron said, shoveling his mouth full of the gruesome grub.
“Aye!” Vicky said, slurping up another spoonful. Most of the time, Vicky and Aaron argued about everything. But they agreed when it came to their family recipe.
Just then, Rotten Tooth stormed into the mess hall. Rotten Tooth was not only the ugliest pirate on the Sea Rat, he was also the meanest. He had green hair and green teeth and mostly yelled a lot. Plus he was our teacher, and he didn’t like us one bit. But I’d never been happier to see him!
“Arrr! What are ye lazy sprogs doing in here?” he growled. “Ye be late for Pirate School!”
“Avast, we were just finishing,” I said.
“Ye better be! Any pirate not on deck in the shake of a whale’s tail will be on kitchen duty,” Rotten Tooth warned. He looked around and saw the slop spilled all over the place. Then he sniffed and made a face like we do when we smell his breath. “Arrr! And by the stink of it, kitchen duty is about the worst place on the ship today.”
I sprang up from my seat and tossed my bowl onto the pile of other dirty dishes. I wasn’t going to miss my only chance to get out of eating the rest of my breakfast.
Chapter 2
All Hands on Deck
“Arrr! I wonder what Rotten Tooth is going to make us do today?” I whispered to Inna and Gary. I had to whisper it real quiet, too, because Rotten Tooth could hear everything!
“Arrr! I hope it won’t be anything soggy!” Gary said.
Then he sniffed, sniffed, and sneezed again. He sneezed so hard, he blew his glasses right off his nose.
“I don’t care what it is as long as it’s real pirate stuff,” I said. I want to be the captain of my own ship when I grow up, so I need to know everything about pirating. But most of the time Rotten Tooth didn’t teach us any real pirate things. He thought we should all be deckhands. Lucky for us, he wasn’t the boss of the ship. Captain Stinky Beard was, and he thought we were shipshape pirate kids.
“ARRR! Fall in, ye scurvy pups!” Rotten Tooth said with a snarl.
Inna, Gary, and I rushed over and stood in a straight line. Then we gave Rotten Tooth a salute. Even if he was as rotten as his name, he was still our teacher and the ship’s first mate, so we had to give him a salute. That’s part of the pirate code.
Rotten Tooth paced in front of us. The Sea Rat shook as he stomped his boots. “Where be those other two pollywogs?” he asked.
I shook my head.
Inna shrugged her shoulders.
And Gary sneezed.
I thought for sure Aaron and Vicky were going to get stuck with kitchen duty. But just then we heard footsteps. Aaron and Vicky burst through the door and ran over to us, their mouths still full with one last bite of sea slug cereal.
“Arrr! Ye sea dogs made it just in time,” Rotten Tooth said. “Ye be lucky I’m a nice pirate.”
“Aye, nice and stinky,” Vicky whispered to me.
I had to cover my mouth to hold in my giggle.
“Arrr! I don’t have time for ye mangy litter today,” Rotten Tooth mumbled. “The Sea Rat is being chased by another ship. A rival pirate ship named the Filthy Sails.”
We all gulped!
The Filthy Sails was the most dreaded pirate ship there was. Grown-up pirates were always telling scary stories about the ship to us pirate kids. They said it sank every ship it attacked and made the crew walk the plank. Even the kids! And its captain, Captain Fish Face, was even meaner than Rotten Tooth. And uglier, too! He had whiskers like a catfish, and his face was all squished up like a fish.
“Are they going to attack?” Inna asked.
I could tell she was a little scared because her hand was shaking. But I wasn’t scared. Captain Stinky Beard could outsmart that fish-faced captain.
“Can we help fight them off?” I asked.
“AYE! We’ll sink their ship lickitysplit!” Aaron shouted.
Rotten Tooth waved his arms in the air. “Quiet,” he growled. “The only thing ye will be doing is keeping out of the way!”
We all moaned and groaned. It sounded like Rotten Tooth was going to make us do chores, like swabbing the deck or emptying the fish-gut tank. It wasn’t fair. We were part of the crew, too.
I stepped forward and raised my hand. “But Captain Stinky Beard said you had to teach us more pirate stuff.”
“Arrr! I’ll be teaching ye all right,” he barked. “But the cap’n never said what I had to teach you. Ye little shipmates think pirating is all swashbuckling and treasure?”
“Aye! And good grub, too!” Aaron said.
“Aye! And pretty jewelry!” Inna said, and proudly showed us her shiny necklace.
Rotten Tooth let out a fearsome laugh. He laughed so loud, I saw the sails puff up! “Captain Stinky Beard was right about one thing, ye really do have a lot to learn!”
I was confused. “Blimey! Isn’t that the point of Pirate School?” I asked.
“AYE!” Rotten Tooth roared. “And I’m the teacher, so that means I decide what ye learn and when. And I’ll be making sure ye learn all the boring stuff first. And I’ll also be sure to give ye so much homework that I won’t have to hear a peep out of any of you!”
Boring stuff? Homework? Pirate School wasn’t sounding like so much fun anymore.
Chapter 3
Knot So Much Fun!
Inna stretched out her arms. Then she picked up the rope with only the tips of her fingers. “Eww! This rope is all slippery and slimy,” she said.
“Aye, and it looks like a snake, too!” Gary said.
“YUCK!” Inna screamed and dropped the rope back on the deck. Then she gave Gary a mean look. “Why did you have to bring up snakes? I hate snakes!”
Gary covered his mouth with both hands. “Sorry.”
“Arrr! Don’t be such a scallywag! It’s just a silly rope,” Aaron said. “And the sooner we learn how to tie all those knots, the sooner we’ll be able to join in the battle.” Then he picked up the rope with both hands. He started swinging it around, pretending to fight off the crew of the Filthy Sails.
“Scallywag yourself!” Inna shouted. “Besides, there might not even be a battle. And even if there is, we just have to feed them your sea slug cereal and they’ll run off on their own.”
Vicky spun around. She folded her arms and lifted her chin high in the air. “Arrr! What’s wrong with our sea slug cereal?” she asked.
“Everything’s wrong with it!” Inna yelled. “It tastes like someone already ate it once, and it smells that way, too!”
Vicky put her hands on her hips and huffed. “Aye? Well it’s better than those fish eggs you made us eat that one time!”
“Those fish eggs are called caviar,” Inna hollered.
“Well I call them icky sticky, so there!” Vicky hollered right back.
I didn’t like all my best mates being so grumpy. I took off my pirate hat and waved it around to get their attention. “Blimey! What’s ruffled your sails?” I asked.
They all stopped to look at me.
“KNOTS!” they yelled, except Gary, who sneezed instead.
After Rotten Tooth had shown us how to tie a few knots, he had left. He had told us we had to practice knot tying for the whole entire day. Plus he had said we wouldn’t learn anything else until we mastered all three knots he’d taught us. He’d shown us how to tie a Fisherman’s Bend knot, a Bowline knot, and even a Sheepshank Man-o’-War knot. And that’s the hardest knot there is!
“What’s wrong with tying knots?” I asked.
“I
t’s boring!” Vicky shouted.
“And slimy!” Inna added.
“And it’s not swashbuckling,” Aaron yelled.
“Aye! And it makes my feet all tied up,” Gary mumbled, looking down at where his feet were tangled in the rope.
“But tying knots is an important part of sailing,” I said. “And everyone knows pirates are the best sailors on the sea. If we’re going to be the best pirates, we need to learn all of these knots.”
Inna put her finger up to her mouth. Gary scratched his head. Aaron and Vicky squinted their eyes. I knew what those looks meant. It meant they were all thinking very hard.
“Pete might be right,” Vicky finally said. “Knots hold sails to the mast and keep ships from floating away from the dock.”
“Oh, barnacles!” Aaron moaned. “Any knot can do that. Why do we have learn so many different kinds?”
“Not any knot,” Vicky argued. “Remember on our last ship when you made a bunny-ears knot to tie our dinghy to the pier?”
Aaron’s cheeks turned red. He had a guilty look on his face. “Um . . . maybe,” he said.
“Arrr! I remember! Our boat floated away, and we had to swim after it!” Vicky shouted.
Aaron put his head down. “Oh yeah, I remember.”
“I know!” I said excitedly. I had a plan. “We’ll do such a good job doing this that Rotten Face will have no choice but to let us help defend the ship!”
My friends thought some more.
“Aye aye!” Vicky, Gary, and Aaron agreed.
Inna wasn’t so sure. The rope still looked like a soggy snake.
“I’ve got an idea!” I said. “You can practice your knots with the ribbon from your dress.”
Inna smiled. “Aye! I can. And my ribbon’s not even gross because it’s the prettiest one I have.”
“That’s the spirit, matey!” I said.
Then we all formed a circle. We put our hands in the center and gave our pirate cheer. “SWASHBUCKLING, SAILING, FINDING TREASURE, TOO. BECOMING PIRATES IS WHAT WE WANT TO DO!”