The Pirate Who's Back in Bunny Slippers

by Annabeth Bondor-Stone

  Shivers looked at Albee with desperation in his eyes.

  “Don’t look at me, buddy,” Albee said.

  Margo urged, “Come on, Shivers. Aren’t you hungry?”

  Shivers was hungry. He had been hungry all day, and after the curly fry incident he’d lost his morning popcorn, his midnight salty snack, and last night’s pancake dinner. So now he was hungrier than ever. But the idea of speed-eating in front of a screaming crowd gave him the heebie-jeebies.

  Shivers turned back to Carlos and pleaded, “Isn’t there any other way to get into the Hall of Wieners?”

  “No! Wieners only. If you want to get in, you have to win.” Carlos sneered. “So, do you think you have what it takes?”

  Shivers didn’t know what “it” was, but he was pretty sure he didn’t. Before he could argue, Margo boldly said, “He’s Shivers. I know he has what it takes!”

  “Margo—”

  “You can do it. I believe in you. Plus, your mouth is all stretched out from your constant screaming.”

  Carlos grinned and grabbed Shivers by his elbow. He pulled him across the crowded restaurant and up onto a stage, plopping him down behind a long table next to two other contestants. They both glared at Shivers.

  Carlos picked up a microphone and his voice popped through the speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, hold on to your buns! It’s time for the Twenty-Five Franks Challenge!”

  Everyone in the restaurant jumped up and started cheering wildly. As Shivers looked out at the raucous mob, he suddenly lost his appetite. It was horrible timing, too, because just then, Carlos pounded his fist on the table and screamed,

  A BRIGADE OF WAITERS in bright yellow T-shirts and suspenders carried three gigantic buckets full of hot dogs up onto the stage. They plopped a bucket down in front of each contestant. By now, Shivers was really starting to panic. The lights were shining so brightly in his eyes that he could barely see. And the roar of the crowd was so loud that he could barely hear. He was hoping he could barely taste, too, because he was pretty sure he was going to be tired of hot dogs very soon.

  The only upside to the whole thing was that Shivers got to wear a red-and-white-checkered plastic bib, which he thought looked very cool.

  Carlos announced into the microphone, “As our returning guests already know, the rules are simple. Our contestants have two minutes—that’s right, two minutes—to eat twenty-five pigtastic doggies. And if they succeed, they win fame, glory, and the surprise grand prize!”

  Shivers gulped. He had heard about the prize, but no one had said anything about a surprise.

  Carlos continued, “Many have tried, few have won, and even fewer have made it through the night without ending up in the hospital. Let’s meet our contestants!”

  Carlos handed the microphone to the first contestant. He was a huge, muscular guy in a plaid shirt with the sleeves ripped off. He had a tattoo of a cheeseburger on his right arm. “I’m Jim,” he said in a gruff voice that sounded like his throat was coated in cactus needles. “I’m a professional bowler, and I’m here to roll my competition straight into the gutter!”

  The crowd went wild. A table full of Jim fans started hooting and hollering. One guy jumped onto his chair and crushed a root beer can on his forehead.

  Jim passed the microphone to the next contestant, a tiny woman wearing a bright yellow dress with flowers on it. She had long brown hair tied in a ponytail and big red reading glasses hanging on a chain around her neck. “I’m Jackie. I’m a kindergarten teacher,” she said in her softest inside voice. Then she cleared her throat and bellowed, “And I’m here to school everyone!!!”

  The noise from the crowd got even louder. A class of kindergartners at the foot of the stage was shrieking for their teacher. They were holding signs above their heads that said GO MISS JACKIE! and MISS JACKIE WILL CRUSH YOUR BONES! and LOOK HOW GOOD MY HANDWRITING IS!

  Jackie passed the microphone to Shivers. “I’m Shivers,” he said, his voice shaking. “I’m a pi—” He stopped himself, remembering that the last time he told a crowd he was a pirate, he got thrown off a boat.

  “Pie . . . man.” He stuttered. “And I’m here to . . . bake you into a pie.”

  The crowd suddenly went silent. A man in the back wearing a cowboy hat shook his head and said, “Not cool, man. Not cool.”

  Margo looked around nervously. She knew if Shivers was going to win this, he would need the crowd on his side. She had to act fast. She jumped onstage and grabbed the microphone. “What he meant to say was, he’s the pie man, and he’s ready for a slice . . . of VICTORY!”

  The crowd went crazy again, shouting and stomping their feet.

  “Don’t worry, Shivers.” Margo patted him on the shoulder. “I’m going to be your coach. And Albee’s going to be your cheering section! Look, he’s saying ‘Woo!’”

  “It always looks like he’s saying ‘Woo!’” Shivers grumbled.

  “LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!” Carlos shouted into the microphone, which made Shivers think Carlos didn’t really understand why people use microphones. Then he held up a timer and announced, “Your two minutes starts . . . whoops! I hit the button on my stopwatch thirty seconds ago. You have ninety seconds. GO!”

  A bell rang. The contest had begun.

  As Jim and Jackie both dug in to the dogs, Shivers was so nervous he couldn’t even decide which one to eat first. When he finally picked up his first hot dog, it slipped right out of his sweaty hands and plopped onto the table.

  Meanwhile, Jim and Jackie finished their first dogs and a gigantic scoreboard lit up behind them with a loud DING!

  It was the exact same DING! as Shivers’s microwave back at home and it reminded him that if he couldn’t finish these franks, and fast, he would be stuck at sea sucking down sliced swordfish for the rest of his life. Worst of all, he wouldn’t even have Margo around to protect him if the swordfish sliced back.

  He looked down at his overheating hands. “Margo! My fingers are freaking out!”

  “Just hold on tighter! You’ve got to get these doggies down!”

  Shivers reached for another hot dog and gripped it as tightly as he could. Unfortunately, he gripped it so tightly that the hot dog became a shot dog and squeezed right out of the bun. The crowd gasped as they watched the weenie whirl through the air like it had sprouted wings. It landed right in the middle of someone’s water glass with a PLOINK!

  The bell struck again. “One minute left!” Carlos’s voice thundered through the room. Shivers’s score was still zero.

  Margo dashed down from the stage and grabbed Shivers’s soggy hot dog from the water glass. Then she ran back up and popped it in his mouth. He slurped it down in less than a second and then smiled, surprised. “Not bad!” he said. “It’s like a long piece of Jell-O! Or really big spaghetti!”

  “DING!” The scoreboard lit up behind Shivers and changed from zero to one. But Jim was on his seventh doggie and Jackie was already halfway through her tenth. They were like eating machines.

  Margo thought back to when Shivers had dumped water on Brock’s breakfast sausage and it had been much easier to scarf down. Her green eyes lit up like two traffic lights that said “GO!” She held up the hot dog bucket. “Follow me. It’s time to give these doggies a bath.”

  Margo ran back out into the crowd, gracefully tossing hot dogs from the bucket into any water glass she could see. She looked like the flower girl at the world’s most disgusting wedding. Shivers was right at her heels, giving the doggies a second to soak, then scooping them up and gulping them down. The scoreboard behind him shot up to 7.

  The crowd gasped. No one was expecting Shivers to catch up. But then they started shouting louder than ever.

  “Ready for more?!” Margo asked.

  “I sure am!” Shivers said as he drank a pitcherful of hot dogs in a single gulp. The scoreboard behind him now read 12, but Jim was at 17, and Jackie was already at 20.

  “Ten seconds left!” Carlos shouted.

  The cr
owd started counting down the final seconds.

  Margo looked around in a panic. There were no more water glasses. She glanced at the water in Albee’s bag.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said.

  Just then, she was hit with an idea. Actually, it wasn’t an idea. It was a splash from a fountain in the middle of the restaurant that was made of ketchup bottles squirting water in high arches. She spun around and held the bucket so the stream of water filled it up, drenching the dogs inside.

  “Shivers! Flying hot dogs!” she shouted, and flung the contents of the bucket across the room. Shivers screamed as the hot dogs careened toward him.

  He opened his mouth so wide that the hot dogs flew right in.

  The final buzzer sounded as Shivers swallowed. His final score shot up to 25.

  “We have a wiener!” Carlos announced into the microphone. There was a loud BOOM! and a glitter cannon shot sparkling confetti all over the restaurant. Everyone cheered, but the loudest cheer of all came from Margo. She was shouting and jumping up and down, which was not much fun for Albee.

  Carlos put his hand on Shivers’s shoulder. “Congratulations. I guess you do have what it takes. That enormous mouth of yours is a perfect doggie door!” He whisked Shivers through the cheering crowd with Margo following close behind. Shivers had never seen so many outstretched arms waiting to shake his hand. It was like being a rock star, or meeting a giant centipede.

  Carlos marched them to the double doors that held their destiny. “Welcome to the Hall of Wieners,” he said. He pushed open the doors, revealing a long corridor. The walls were lined with pictures in glimmering golden frames and a red carpet stretched all along the floor.

  As Carlos walked them down the hallway, Margo whispered to Shivers, “We did it! We made it to the place where wieners pass the test.” She pulled out the clue and examined it. “Now we have to ‘look behind ourselves to find the next step of our quest,’ whatever that means.”

  “Look behind myself . . . AAAGH!” he spun around. “Who’s behind me? Is someone following me?!”

  “No one is following you,” Margo assured him. “Just stay sharp, okay?”

  “That sounds awfully dangerous, but I’ll try.”

  Shivers examined the pictures on the wall as Carlos continued the tour. There were dozens and dozens of them. “How come each winner is holding a different prize?” Shivers asked.

  “Each contest has a grand prize that is donated by a different company,” Carlos explained. He pointed to a picture of himself giving a snorkeling mask to a gangly girl in a polka-dotted dress.

  “This contest was sponsored by Rose’s Nose Hoses. It’s a scuba shop down by the sea.”

  Carlos moved on to the next picture, in which he was handing a folding chair to a pimply guy in overalls. “This one was sponsored by Patty O’Furniture’s Patio Furniture.”

  Then he gestured to the next picture. In this one, he was handing a big empty bag to a gruff guy in a leather jacket. “This one was sponsored by Matt’s Rat Sacks.”

  “Yuck,” Shivers recoiled. “What is that?”

  Carlos chuckled and patted Shivers on the head. “Friend, if you live in New York City, you need to have a sack for your rats.” He pulled Shivers over to a big, puffy armchair and sat him down.

  Shivers sank into his throne and gazed at the crowd gathered at the entrance to the hall, cheering and snapping his picture. I guess this is the life of a wiener, he thought.

  “Now bring out the grand prize!” Carlos shouted.

  A waiter rushed in carrying what looked like a golden cake box.

  Carlos announced, “Our prize today was generously donated to us by local bakery Early to Bread, Early to Rise.” He handed Shivers the box. “It’s a fabulous pair of bunny slippers!”

  Shivers looked down at the bunny slippers on his feet. “But I already have a pair!” he said, disappointed.

  “Not bunny slippers. BUNny slippers! Fresh baked!” replied Carlos.

  Shivers opened the box and saw that the slippers were made from two fluffy hot dog buns. “Thanks,” he said through a grimace. “I’ll keep them . . . forever.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Carlos warned. “Now, it’s time for our picture!” He pulled a camera from his back pocket and handed it to Margo.

  “Wait!” Shivers shouted. “This picture is going to be on the wall for the rest of time! And I’m still covered in hot dog water!”

  “I think you look great,” said Carlos. “But I also think yellow T-shirts and suspenders look great, so maybe I don’t know what looking great looks like. Anyway, if you want to fix your hair there’s a mirror over there.”

  Shivers went over to the mirror. It was in a gold frame engraved with the words “I’m a wiener, too!” Shivers liked that idea and thought if he ever got his Land Lady back, he would have to get a mirror just like it.

  He started fixing his hair, adjusting his hat, and rebillowing his pantaloons. Margo walked up behind him and gasped when she saw his reflection. “Shivers!” she pointed at the mirror. “That’s it! Look behind yourself!”

  SHIVERS STARED IN AN open-mouthed stupor, wondering if the next step of their journey could be behind his reflection in the mirror. It looked like he was doing an impression of Albee.

  Margo couldn’t wait any longer to find out. She grabbed the mirror frame and was about to push it aside when Carlos interrupted.

  “Come on, let’s take this picture! I’m on a tight schedule here. My life isn’t all fun and games . . . it’s mostly hot dog–eating contests!”

  Margo knew she had to find a way to distract Carlos, if even for a few seconds. Then she was hit with a flash of genius. She looked at the camera Carlos had handed her and turned on the flash. She shoved Shivers back into the poufy armchair. Carlos stood behind him.

  Margo held the camera up. “Say ‘Cheese up to your knees!’”

  “Hey, that’s our most popular menu item!” said Carlos.

  Margo pushed the camera in Carlos’s face and snapped the picture. The flash went off, momentarily blinding Carlos.

  “My eyes! My beautiful eyes!” Carlos wobbled around in a daze.

  The picture wouldn’t be great, but the result was exactly what Margo was hoping for. She sidestepped to the mirror and lifted it off the wall. Taped to the back was a faded, folded piece of paper. She peeled it off, stuck it in her backpack, and put the mirror back on the wall.

  “Got it,” Margo whispered to Shivers as Carlos finished blinking away the brightness.

  They sped back to the entrance of the Hall of Wieners. Then they walked through the doors into the throng of Shivers’s adoring fans. They twisted and turned, trying to make their way through the crowd and out of the restaurant. But at every twist and nearly every turn, there was someone trying to get Shivers’s attention—waiters who wanted high fives, kindergartners who made him autograph their arms in crayon. Even the burly guy who’d crushed the root beer can on his forehead stopped to talk to Shivers, but he just wanted to know where the nearest hospital was.

  They were finally about to reach the exit when the crowd started to shout, “Pie Man! Pie Man! Pie Man!” and they lifted Shivers up above their heads.

  “I have to admit, being the King of the Wieners is pretty great!” Shivers called down to Margo. “I hope this feeling lasts forever!”

  Just then Carlos’s voice came over the speakers, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the next Twenty-Five Franks Challenge!” Without hesitation, the crowd dropped Shivers on the ground and charged back to their seats to watch.

  Shivers brushed himself off. “Wow. That was exactly fifteen minutes of fame. Well, I guess now all that’s left for me to do is live a quiet life at home answering my fan mail.”

  “If we don’t hurry up, you’re not going to have a home to go back to,” Margo reminded him. “Let’s go!”

  Outside the restaurant, the sun was blazing its way toward afternoon. The day was half gone and they had ha
rdly cracked any of the clues. “At this rate,” Shivers said, “we’ll never find the Treasure Torch by sundown.”

  Margo and Shivers looked at the piece of paper that had been hidden behind the mirror. They realized the paper was a flier, and the cover showed a group of people holding hands in a circle. At the top of the page it said FRANK FEST in bright red letters.

  “Frank Fest?” Shivers asked.

  Margo shrugged and flipped through the brochure for more information. “It says here that it’s the largest gathering of Franks in the entire world.”

  Shivers was more confused than a bear in a bookstore. “You mean it’s a place where a bunch of people named Frank get together and hang out? That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Margo pulled their original clue out of her backpack. “Well, Francois says right here that the ‘festive stop where you must go will frankly seem quite strange.’”

  “Well, I guess we have no choice,” Shivers said with hot-dogged determination. “Let’s find some Franks.”

  Frank Fest was located near the water’s edge in the ballroom of the New York Hotel, which was famous for its fluffy feather beds, fabulous food, and gatherings of people with the same first name.

  They ran to the hotel, past blocks and blocks of fancy shops, pet shops, and even a place where fancy pets could shop. Margo read the rest of the Frank Fest brochure while expertly swerving around bikers and businessmen. It’s important to know that when she was in first grade, while all the other kids learned reading and writing, Margo taught herself reading and running.

  “Frank Fest is a welcoming environment where we can all get together and Just Be Franks. Come meet some Franks and make some friends. But what are we telling you for? You already know all of this! Because your name is Frank! . . . It is, right? Because if it isn’t, you really shouldn’t be reading this and we will NOT let you in.”

  Margo stopped reading. Which also meant she stopped running. “Hm,” she said. “We have a problem. The Frank Fest only lets in people who are named Frank.”