Aunt Effie and the Island That Sank

by Jack Lasenby

  “Is this the Tasman Sea still?” asked Lizzie.

  “Sort of,” said Aunt Effie. “Only it’s got another name because it’s at right angles to the Tasman.”

  “What’s its name?”

  “The Taswoman Sea,” said Aunt Effie, and she blushed. “It was named by the Association of Whingeing Feminists in the 1860s.”

  As she spoke there was a whoosh, and a schooner-rigged scow with red sails fell past the tops of our masts. Weed grew on her bottom where a strip of copper sheathing was missing. A couple of old cannonball holes had been blocked up with round wooden plugs, and her three centre-boards dripped water. The crew shrieked, hung on tight, and their eyes rolled till the whites shone.

  Across the stern in gold letters her name was painted: Lady Euphemia, and we heard the captain cry as he held the wheel in one hand and waved his plumed hat in the other: “Remember I loved you, Euphem–” as they disappeared into space – schooner, crew, and captain. The only thing left of their passing was a few drops of water on our deck, then that was gone, too, dried up.

  “I hoped that would happen,” said Aunt Effie. “They were sailing too fast, trying to catch us, and instead of sailing over the edge of the world, they fell over it.”

  “Where will they land?”

  “With any luck they’ll keep falling through space until gravity drags them into the sun and they frizzle up!” Aunt Effie smacked her lips. “But, knowing that Rangi, he’ll get out of trouble somehow. If he has enough sense to drop his topsails, reef his main, and back his heads’ls, he could splash down somewhere this side of Tasmania.”

  We all looked at each other and felt uncomfortable. “Could that happen to us?”

  “Not if we’re careful,” Aunt Effie told Lizzie. “Now, we’ll just come about and sail back over the edge of the world, back into the Hauraki Gulf, and it’ll be time for smoke-oh.” We backed the staysail, Caligula brought the Margery Daw up into the wind again, and we slipped sideways back over the edge from the Taswoman to the Tasman Sea.

  “There’s the Little Barrier!” said Peter. “And Moehau.”

  “We’re back in the Gulf!” the little ones yelled.

  “I feel like a brew after that,” said Aunt Effie. “Who’s going to boil the billy? And it might be an idea to rattle up a batch of date scones while you’re about it.”

  “Is the world really square?” asked Jessie as we tipped thick black tea into Aunt Effie’s mug and stirred in a big spoonful of condensed milk the way she liked it, and Jazz buttered the date scones he’d rattled up.

  “We just sailed from one side to the other, didn’t we?” Jazz told her.

  “I suppose so,” said Jessie. “Where are we sailing to, Aunt Effie?”

  “I told you. We’re after treasure!”

  “True?” we shrieked and pressed around. “We thought you were fooling. Is that why Chief Rangi and the Reverend Samuel, and Captain Flash wanted your map?”

  Aunt Effie nodded. “I left one map on the seat of the Rotorua Express. I dropped a second map on the floor of the Auckland Railway Station, and a third on the floor at Greasy Mick’s. I showed a fourth to the wharfinger at the Powder Wharf. And there’s more hidden in my umbrella – one of them’s different to all the others. Nobody’s seen it yet.”

  “Is that the real treasure map?”

  “Look at the sun going down. It’s time the little ones were in their hammocks.”

  “We always have to go to bed first,” said the little ones. “It’s not fair.”

  “Who said life is fair?” asked Aunt Effie.

  “It’s supposed to be.”

  “I never said so. Get into your pyjamas and jump into your hammocks at once!” Aunt Effie glared at the little ones, and tried the sharp points of her teeth with her fingers.

  “You’re not allowed to look at us like that,” said Lizzie.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you love us.”

  “Do I?” Aunt Effie felt her teeth again.

  “Of course you do,” Jessie told her. “You have to!”

  Aunt Effie looked at her powerful hands, at Jessie, and back at her hands again. “Who says?” she asked.

  “We says!” said the four little ones together. They climbed on to Aunt Effie’s lap while we made her another cup of strong tea with lashings of condensed milk.

  “If we go to bed without a fight, will you tell us a story?” asked Lizzie who was good at bargaining.

  Aunt Effie nodded.

  “A treasure story? With lots of blood and gore?”

  Aunt Effie nodded again. “And it’s got to have pirates, and people having their arms and legs cut off, and a crocodile and a shark who eat people,” said Lizzie. “And lots of blood!”

  Aunt Effie nodded again.

  “What’s the story called?” asked Jessie.

  Aunt Effie swallowed the last of her tea. “Wicked Nancy and the Pirates!”

  “Hooray!” The little ones leapt off her lap, got into their pyjamas, and jumped into their hammocks.

  “Can we listen, too?” the rest of us asked.

  “If you want to.”

  “What about us?” asked Caligula, Nero, and Brutus who were steering the Margery Daw.

  “And us?” called down Kaiser, Genghis, and Boris. They were up in the crow’s-nest, keeping a lookout.

  “I’ll open the skylights and raise my voice.” We sat around the little ones’ hammocks and gave each other elbow jolts as Aunt Effie got herself comfortable.

  “Once upon a time …” she began, and we all shivered and wriggled and leaned against each other. We loved Aunt Effie’s stories, even if we did wake screaming with nightmares afterwards.

  Chapter Five

  Aunt Effie Tells a Highly Unsuitable Story Just Before the Little Ones Go to Bed: “Wicked Nancy and the Island that Sank, Part One”.

  “Once upon a time in the old land of Waharoa,” said Aunt Effie, “there was a girl called Nancy who tied up her mother…”

  “What appalling behaviour!” Daisy sniffed loudly. “I’m sure I wouldn’t tie up my mother – if I had one.”

  “What’s a mother?” asked the little ones.

  “Listen and you’ll find out,” said Aunt Effie. “Once upon a time in the old land of Waharoa there was a girl called Nancy who tied up her mother, ran away to sea, and got a job as a pirate with Captain Cruel!” Aunt Effie narrowed her eyes, her lips went thin, and she looked mean. The little ones scrambled out of their hammocks, ran, and sat in the middle of the rest of us.

  Aunt Effie grinned and went on. “‘Be bloodthirsty,’ said Captain Cruel, ‘or I’ll fire you out of a cannon!’ And she took out her false teeth and held them in her bloodstained hands while she laughed.”

  “Why did Captain Cruel take out her false teeth and hold them in her bloodstained hands?” asked Jessie.

  “Because Captain Cruel took the false teeth off one of her prisoners before she made him walk the plank, and they didn’t fit her properly,” said Aunt Effie. “They used to jump out of her mouth when she laughed. So she took them out and held them in her bloodstained hands first.”

  “I see!” said Jessie, and we all nodded.

  Aunt Effie whipped out her own false teeth and held them in her hands which suddenly looked bloodstained. Her face went all mean and nasty again. “Heh! Heh! Heh!” she laughed in a cruel voice.

  We huddled together. The little ones cried and peeped under our arms like chickens sticking their heads out from under the mother chook’s feathers. As Aunt Effie popped the false teeth back into her mouth, we all sighed.

  “Captain Cruel and Nancy rowed out to the pirate schooner which was called the Evil Fancy.” Aunt Effie stared at the little ones. “When the crew saw Nancy, they spat tobacco juice till the sea turned yellow.

  “‘How can a kid be a pirate?’ they asked Captain Cruel. ‘She’s too young to be bloodthirsty.’

  “Those pirates thought they were tough. They hadn’t brushed their teeth
for twenty years, so green fur had grown thick upon them and it shone in the dark. At night they just had to open their mouths, and the captain could see where they were by the green glow. Their breath stank something terrible!”

  The little ones felt their own teeth, huffed on each other, and held their noses.

  “Don’t think for a moment you’re going to stop brushing your teeth!” Daisy told them.

  “Stow your gab!” Aunt Effie said.

  “‘You can do our dirty dishes and clean out our filthy cabins,’ the grown-up pirates told Nancy. ‘They haven’t been washed and swept for thirty years.’ They sniggered at each other and thought they’d scared Nancy.

  “But when they had tea,” said Aunt Effie, “Nancy stuck her meat into her mouth on the tip of her cutlass and gulped it down without chewing. And, when she’d finished, she wiped her mouth and blew her nose on a corner of the tablecloth, and she spat under the table – on the pirates’ bare feet.”

  “Ooh, yuk!” we all said.

  Aunt Effie nodded. “Those grown-up pirates didn’t say anything more about Nancy cleaning out their filthy cabins.

  “When night came, they sailed out to sea. Captain Cruel made Nancy steer the Evil Fancy, while she and the crew drank rum, danced a hornpipe, and fell asleep drunk on the deck.”

  “Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!” Daisy disapproved of strong drink.

  “Nancy rolled Captain Cruel and the crew into the scuppers where they snored swinishly in each other’s ears all night. Next morning they woke with sore heads and hangovers to find Nancy had captured a treasure ship all by herself! She was prodding her prisoners with her cutlass and making them walk the plank. They fell screaming towards the jaws of a crocodile and a shark that always followed the Evil Fancy. The crocodile opened his long jaws, and he winked one eye, and his teeth went Tick! Tick! Tick!”

  Aunt Effie opened her arms like a crocodile’s jaws, she winked one eye, her teeth went Tick! Tick! Tick! and she clapped her hands together, fingers interlocking like crocodile teeth, and shouted, “SNAP!” We all shrieked, and the little ones cried.

  “The crocodile ate up the prisoners, buttons and all,” said Aunt Effie, “but the shark had no teeth, so it opened wide its gummy mouth and swam around drinking the blood.”

  The little ones snapped their hands together and swam around with their mouths open, drinking the blood.

  Aunt Effie smiled and went on. “Captain Cruel woke up, heard the prisoners’ screams, took out her second-hand false teeth, held them in her bloodstained hands, and laughed and laughed. She loved seeing people hurt.

  “‘She’s too good a pirate to fire out of a cannon,’ said Captain Cruel. ‘She’s so bloodthirsty, we’ll call her Wicked Nancy!’”

  “Wicked Nancy!” said Jared, Jessie, Lizzie, and Casey together.

  “Of course, the other pirates were jealous. They said Wicked Nancy was Captain Cruel’s pet. ‘We’ll show her,’ they said.

  “One day, a nasty old pirate pretended to be cleaning her pistol, pulling her hanky through the barrel, but she was actually loading it. She pretended to look down the barrel to see if it was clean, but aimed and fired it at Wicked Nancy. Bang! The pistol ball knocked out her left eyeball.” Aunt Effie clapped her right hand over her left eye.

  “Oooh!” The little ones all shrieked, and looked at Aunt Effie, and clapped their left hands over their right eyes.

  Aunt Effie nodded. “Wicked Nancy didn’t know who had shot her, but her eyeball rolled across the deck and looked up at the nasty old pirate. Wicked Nancy grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and drop-kicked her over the bulwarks. The nasty old pirate fell screaming towards the water, and the crocodile opened his long jaws, and he winked one eye, and his teeth went Tick! Tick! Tick! and …”

  “SNAP!” the little ones all shouted. They clapped their hands together, fingers interlocking like crocodile teeth.

  “The crocodile ate up the pirate, buttons and all,” said Aunt Effie. “And the toothless shark opened wide its gummy mouth and swam around drinking the blood.

  “All the other pirates were terrified, but Captain Cruel took out her second-hand false teeth and held them in her bloodstained hands and laughed and laughed.”

  “I want to be the gummy-mouth shark!” said Lizzie. “Drinking the blood!”

  “I want to be the crocodile,” said Jessie.

  “I want to be Wicked Nancy!” said Jared.

  Aunt Effie nodded. “Wicked Nancy took the dead pirate’s Bible, and cut a black circle of cardboard off the cover. She sewed on a piece of elastic and put it over her head. She looked in her stolen mirror at her black eye-patch and said, ‘Ah!’”

  “Ah!” said Casey.

  “Next day,” Aunt Effie continued, “a horrible pirate was sharpening his cutlass on the grindstone, but he pretended to slip and throw the cutlass away so he wouldn’t fall on it. It spun through the air – Whick! Whick! Whick! – and cut off Wicked Nancy’s right hand.

  “‘Oops!’ the horrible pirate sniggered. ‘Sorry!’

  “Wicked Nancy stared at her right hand lying on the deck. Its forefinger curled up and pointed at the horrible pirate.”

  “Oooh!” the little ones all shrieked.

  “With her good hand, Wicked Nancy grabbed the horrible pirate by the scruff of his neck and drop-kicked him over the bulwarks. He fell screaming towards the water…”

  “And the crocodile opened his long jaws, and he winked one eye, and his teeth went Tick! Tick! Tick! and – SNAP!” The little ones clapped their hands together, fingers interlocking like crocodile teeth. “He ate up the horrible pirate, buttons and all. And the toothless shark opened wide its gummy mouth and swam around drinking the blood!” chanted Lizzie and Jessie and Jared and Casey.

  “The other pirates were terrified,” said Aunt Effie, “but Captain Cruel took out her second-hand false teeth and held them in her bloodstained hands and laughed and laughed.

  “Wicked Nancy took the horrible pirate’s cutlass, stuck it into the deck, bent it over, and broke off the blade. She held the tip between her teeth and twisted it into a steel hook. She lashed the steel hook on to her wrist, where her hand had been. She looked in her stolen mirror at her black eye-patch and her steel hook and said, ‘Ah!’”

  “Ah!” said Casey.

  Aunt Effie nodded at her. “Next day,” she said, “Captain Cruel told Wicked Nancy to put new ropes on the plank. She stood on the far end and bounced up and down as if it were a diving board. An evil pirate ran past and jumped on the other end so Wicked Nancy flew in the air and fell into the sea.

  “She swam and climbed up the ship’s side, but one leg was still dangling in the water when the crocodile opened its long jaws…” Aunt Effie paused.

  “And he winked one eye, and his teeth went Tick! Tick! Tick! and – SNAP!” We clapped our hands together, fingers interlocking like crocodile teeth. “He bit off her leg, buttons and all. And the toothless shark opened wide its gummy mouth and swam around drinking the blood,” we all chanted with the little ones.

  Aunt Effie nodded. “The evil pirate who’d bounced Wicked Nancy off the plank saw her climbing up the side with her stump spouting blood. He ran up the rigging and stood shrieking on tiptoe on the very tip of the royal topgallant mast. And Wicked Nancy hopped and pulled herself up the rigging and up the mast, and she swung her arm back and hooked the pirate off so he fell screeeeeeeeeeaming…”

  “And the crocodile opened his long jaws, and he winked one eye, and his teeth went Tick! Tick! Tick! and – SNAP!” We clapped our hands together, fingers interlocking like crocodile teeth. “He ate up the evil pirate, buttons and all. And the toothless shark opened wide its gummy mouth and swam around drinking the blood!” we chanted together.

  “All the other pirates were terrified,” said Aunt Effie.

  “But Captain Cruel took out her second-hand false teeth and held them in her bloodstained hands and laughed and laughed,” we chorused.

  Aunt Effie stared at us. “Wi
cked Nancy pulled out her cutlass, whacked off the top of the mast, slid down a backstay to the deck, and whittled a peg-leg out of the tip of the royal topgallant mast. She lashed it on to the stump where the crocodile had bitten off her own leg.

  “She stumped down to her cabin and looked in her stolen mirror at her black eye-patch, at her hook, and at her peg-leg, and she said to herself, ‘If only my old mother could see me, back home in Waharoa, she’d know I was a real pirate!’”

  “A real pirate!” said Casey.

  “At breakfast, Wicked Nancy used to wait till the grown-up pirates had buttered their toast, and she’d steal it with one lunge of her hook. She stamped on their bare toes with her peg-leg. If they said anything, she lifted her black eye-patch and stared till they had to look the other way.

  “They tried complaining to Captain Cruel. ‘It’s not fair,’ they whispered so Wicked Nancy wouldn’t hear.

  “‘I’ll fire her out of a cannon!’ Captain Cruel whispered back. She was getting scared of Wicked Nancy herself.”

  Daisy interrupted in her most disapproving voice. “I think this is hardly a suitable story for small children at bedtime.”

  “Don’t stop!” said the little ones.

  “Is there some more blood?” asked Jared.

  “When does the treasure bit come?” asked Casey.

  “I want to hear some more about the crocodile,” said Lizzie

  “And the gummy-mouthed shark!” said Jessie. “I want some more about the gummy-mouthed shark.”

  “If there’s nightmares tonight,” said Daisy, “we’ll all know why.…”

  “Go on, Aunt Effie! What happened?” we all asked together.

  “My throat’s dry!” Aunt Effie took a swig of Old Puckeroo and belched. “Swelp me!” she said. “That’s a lot better.”

  “Perhaps we’d better hear the other half of the story tomorrow night,” said Daisy.

  “I’ll have nightmares and wake up screaming …” said Casey.