“What should I get you for your birthday?” Margo asked.
“You don’t have to get me anything. Your presence is my present.” Shivers gasped. “Hey, I bet that’s the first time anyone has ever said that! I should add it to my notebook of original quotations. Which reminds me, can you get me a notebook for my birthday? And a pencil? But not the sharp kind. I want a big, dull pencil!”
They reached the top of the Hill of Heads and Shivers smiled. “This place is actually pretty great now that I know all these heads are really balloons. It’s like a party up here!” He started poking the balloons, sending them higher up into the air. “Wow, Cutie Pie did a great job on this one!” he said, stopping in front of one of the balloons. “It looks so lifelike! It even has a whole body attached! But I wonder why he decided to make it so ugly. . . .” He jabbed at it with his finger.
“OW!”
“AAAAGH!” Shivers screamed.
Margo pointed the flashlight at the balloon, which wasn’t a balloon at all, but a hideous head. “FOOTSOME!” she shouted.
“And did anyone notice this extremely handsome balloon?” said Handsome Ransom, stepping into the light and smiling a dazzling smile.
Shivers, Margo, and Albee all took a step back.
“The parrots came to us with a new message from Quincy Thomas. . . .” Footsome sneered.
Then he put his fingers up to his pale, cracked lips and let out a shrill whistle. With that, a stampede of pirates crested the Hill of Heads, snarling and scowling.
Shivers and Margo looked at each other nervously out of the corners of their eyes.
“What was the message?” Shivers squeaked.
Footsome grinned and pointed right at him. “‘Bring me the head of Shivers the Pirate!’”
All at once, there was a loud SHINK! as the pirates drew their swords and moved in closer.
As the light cast over their ferocious, grizzled faces, Shivers could see the desperation in their eyes. He tried to say something, but his speech turned into a stutter, which sputtered into a mutter, and the words were just too afraid to come out.
Margo stepped forward. “You don’t have to do this! Ghosts aren’t real!”
“Of course ghosts are real!” said a pudgy pirate with a mud-caked face. “What else could be haunting me from beyond the grave? I smell terrible!”
A pirate with a rusty hook for a hand stepped forward. “And I’m mercilessly violent! It’s definitely because of a ghost! Now come here so I can cut off your head!”
Shivers shrieked as he and Margo took another step back.
“You’re certain that ghosts are real?” Margo said.
“Yes!” said the entire group all at once.
“And they’re terrifying!” said a voice from the back.
“Well, then, you must be right,” she said, putting her hand on her hip. “Ghosts are real.” She flicked off the flashlight, plunging the Hill of Heads into total terrifying darkness. Then she shouted at the top of her lungs, “BOO!”
For the first time in his life, Shivers was the only pirate who didn’t scream.
“AAAAGH!” the pirates shrieked at the night sky. They scattered in different directions, crashing into one another. The sounds of swords clanging with belt buckles and bootstraps tangling up in pirate hats rang into the night as Margo grabbed Shivers’s sleeve and made a run for it.
“Are we going back to the Groundhog?” Shivers wheezed as he struggled to keep up.
Margo shook her head. “No. They’ll be waiting for us there. We’re going to find Cutie Pie and show everybody what a big phony he is. It’s the only way to stop that mob and keep your head exactly where it belongs.”
“On a pillow?”
“On your shoulders,” Margo said, leading Shivers into the grove of pine trees where Cutie Pie had fled.
As they made their way through the forest, the sounds of pirate bellows and popping balloons grew fainter, but the tree branches grew thicker, tickling their shoulders and casting eerie shadows in the milky moonlight.
“Could you please turn the flashlight back on?” Shivers asked.
“It’s too dangerous. I don’t want them to find us,” Margo explained.
Luckily for Shivers, a flicker of light appeared just a little way ahead. They took a few steps forward and saw that the soft glow was coming from the windows of a big stone cottage that sat in a clearing just beyond the trees. A plume of smoke puffed up out of a chimney on the roof. Chubby lawn gnomes made of stone sat next to the front step with friendly smiles on their faces. The entire cottage looked welcoming and inviting, but the front yard was covered in signs that said YOU’RE NOT WELCOME and NO ONE INVITED YOU!
Margo ignored the signs and tiptoed up to the side of the house.
“Margo, wait! The sign says no one invited us!”
“No one ever invites us, Shivers. Now, come on!”
Shivers squirmed his way up next to her and they peered through a window into the cottage.
The first thing they saw inside was a packed treasure chest as big as a bathtub. There was so much gold spilling out, it looked like an overstuffed grilled cheese sandwich.
“I think we’re in the right place,” Margo whispered.
As they looked more closely around the cottage, they began to notice that it looked like a baby’s nursery. The room was painted bright blue, unicorn posters covered the walls, and there was a giant crib in the corner. Then they heard a creaking noise coming from the other side of the room. They smushed their faces up to the window and gasped. There was Cutie Pie, wearing footie pajamas, holding a sippy cup, and riding furiously on a rocking horse. It was truly one of the most adorable things either of them had ever seen. Shivers tried to contain himself, but emotions spilled out of him like a rushing river bursting through a beaver dam. He couldn’t help but let out a spectacular “AAAAWWW!”
Before Margo could quiet Shivers down, a pair of pirates seized them, turning Shivers’s happy “AAAWWW” into an ear-piercing
AS THE PIRATES DRAGGED Shivers, Margo, and Albee away from the window, Shivers pleaded, “AAAGH! Please don’t chop off my head! I need it! For screaming! AAAAAGHH!”
One of the pirates wore a pointy hat with an arrow sticking out of the top. He had crossed eyes and a flat nose that looked like it had been squished into his face. The other wore thick rubber gloves and steel-toed boots that clanked when he walked. The cross-eyed pirate reached out his hand. Shivers was sure he was about to pop off his noggin but instead, he opened the door to the cottage. The pirates hauled Shivers and Margo inside and tossed them into the giant crib. Then they swung a set of wooden bars over the top. The cross-eyed pirate secured the bars with a huge metal lock and put the key in his pocket.
Albee shook his head, Margo shook the bars of the crib, and Shivers just shook all over. They were trapped.
Cutie Pie climbed down from his rocking horse and took a long, slow drink from his sippy cup. Then he threw the cup to the ground, where it made no mess at all.
“Well, well, well,” he said, pitter-pattering over in his soft pajama footies. “If it isn’t Mr. Clever and Miss Smarty-Pants and . . . a fish.”
“That’s Mr. Fish to you,” said Albee.
“I don’t know how you managed to escape the pirate mob, but it doesn’t matter now. My crew and I will take care of you ourselves and make sure that the world never hears another peep from Shivers the Pirate.”
Cutie Pie and his crew of two giggled menacingly.
Shivers turned to Margo and cried, “They’re going to chop off my head!” He looked around the crib. “What a waste. There are so many comfy pillows in here!”
“Chop off your head?” Cutie Pie made a face like he had just sucked on a lemon. “Ewie ewie ewie! That’s gross! I’m not going to chop off your head. Do you know how messy that would be? I’m going to keep you locked in here until you’re nothing but a rotting pile of bones.”
“You’re going to leave us in here to starve?” Margo
said, her ears turning red with rage.
“Precisely!” said Cutie Pie. He held out his hand and the cross-eyed pirate gave him the key to the padlock. Then, he marched over to a helium tank next to the crib. “This is where we make the ‘heads’ for our Hill of Heads.” He chuckled. He blew up a big red balloon and knotted it around the key. “We won’t be needing this for a long, long time.” He let the balloon go and it floated up toward the high stone ceiling, taking the key with it.
Margo and Shivers noticed there were several household items attached to balloons on the ceiling.
“I keep lots of things I don’t use up there. It’s a great space saver!” Cutie Pie said as the key came to a stop right next to a pair of running shoes and a pack of floss. “By the time that key comes down, you’ll be the stars of the newest attraction on my haunted cape . . . The Cage of Rib Cages!”
Shivers screamed and tried to hide under the crib covers.
“Ah, the sound of screams is like music to my ears.” Cutie Pie picked up a pie that was cooling on the windowsill, then plunged his plump little fingers into it, scooping out a slice and shoveling it into his mouth. “And I’ll make many more pirates scream for years to come with the help of your rattling bones, Shivers the Pirate!”
“Bring me the head of Shivers the Pirate!” squawked a white parrot. There was a whole pack of them sitting in a cage near the fireplace.
Cutie Pie glanced at the parrots and smirked. “They’re so well trained. They’ll say anything I want if I repeat it enough. Then all I have to do is cover them in parrot-safe white paint and every stupid pirate thinks they’re ghost parrots from the grave of Quincy Thomas! Hee-hee!” He laughed an adorably evil laugh.
“But why?” Shivers asked. “Why did you create this terrible, terrifying trick? What did pirates ever do to you?”
“They laughed at me! They laughed at all of us!” Cutie Pie shouted. He put the pie down on a table, then pointed at the cross-eyed pirate. “They laughed at Captain Whichway here because he has no sense of direction. Watch this. Whichway, which way is West?”
Whichway pointed East.
“Which way is North?”
Whichway pointed up.
“See?” Cutie Pie said. Then he pointed at the pirate wearing rubber gloves. “And this walking disaster is Butterfingers. Everyone laughed at him because he’s the clumsiest pirate to ever crash into the sea. He’s dropped so many swords, he has to wear steel-toed boots to keep from slicing his feet off.”
At that moment, there was a loud CRASH! behind them. Butterfingers had tried to get a piece of pie but he ended up dropping the whole thing on the floor. He looked up bashfully.
“Look at the mess you’ve made, Butterfingers!” Cutie Pie scolded. “Whichway, get the broom from the closet and clean this up.”
“You’ve got it, boss!” said Whichway, then he walked out the front door.
“WAAH!” Cutie Pie cried, balling up his fists and stomping his little footies on the ground. “Butterfingers, go find him!”
“Yes, sir!” Butterfingers fumbled his way out the door.
Shivers was beginning to understand. “And they must have laughed at you because you’re so cute.”
Cutie Pie whirled around with daggers in his eyes. They were cute daggers—really more like toothpicks. “I’m not cute! I scare pirates! I steal all their treasure! And I live in a terrifying fortress!”
Margo was more confused than a T-shirt in a tuxedo shop. “Terrifying fortress? You have unicorn posters all over your walls!”
“That’s right! What’s more terrifying than horses with spears coming out of their heads?!”
“He has a point,” muttered Shivers.
“But you sleep in a giant crib!” Margo said, rattling the bars in front of her.
“It’s not a crib!” Cutie Pie insisted, sticking his tongue out at her. “It’s a high-security bed.”
“But why do you have bars on the top?” Margo asked.
“To prevent aerial attacks!” Cutie Pie said, angrily twisting the tiny blond curls on top of his head.
Margo looked Cutie Pie in his cutie eye. “If you don’t want people to say you’re cute, maybe you shouldn’t wear footie pajamas and drink from a sippy cup.”
“MY FEET GET COLD AND I’M ALWAYS ON THE GO!” Cutie Pie shouted at the top of his tiny lungs.
Shivers could see what was about to happen but he couldn’t stop it. Margo’s forehead crinkled and her eyes grew wide and she busted out into laughter so loud she almost cracked in half.
“Stop it! Stop making that horrible noise!” He walked right up to the crib so that his little button nose pushed in between the bars. “I hate laughter! My whole life, pirates have laughed at me. So I made up a little ghost story to scare the pantaloons off of them. And they all fell for it! Now I’ve got more treasure than any pirate in the Seven Seas!”
He grabbed two handfuls of gold coins from his overflowing treasure chest and tossed them in the air. They clattered to the floor, rolling in all different directions. Some even got stuck in the sticky pie mush.
Shivers had to admit that Cutie Pie had come up with quite a master plan. But there were still some things he couldn’t figure out. “How did you know a drop of water would hit the deck of my new ship?”
“Pirate ships are in the middle of the ocean! Of course they’re going to get wet!” Cutie Pie giggled.
“But what about the curse signs? How did you know that a foul odor would follow me?” Shivers asked.
“A foul odor follows every pirate! We all stink like fish!” said Cutie Pie.
Albee was outraged.
“How did you know I would become merciless and violent?” Shivers asked.
“All pirates are merciless and violent! It’s our thing!” Cutie Pie explained. “It was the perfect trick. I got my revenge. And it’s as sweet as this giant piece of bubble gum!” He unwrapped some pink bubble gum and popped it into his mouth. “Mmm . . . yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy!”
“Yummy yummy!” the parrots repeated.
The front door swung open and Butterfingers came stomping through, holding up Whichway’s pointy hat. “I found him!” he said triumphantly.
“That’s just his hat!” Cutie Pie screeched.
“Oh, I must have dropped the rest of him.” Butterfingers sighed.
At that moment, Whichway came crashing through the window face-first. “I’m back!” he announced. And at that moment, Shivers realized why Whichway had such a flat nose.
“You guys! You totally interrupted the end of my revenge speech!” Cutie Pie whined, stomping around in his footies like a baby elephant having a bad day.
“Sorry!” said Whichway. “Hey, since when does the door have so much glass in it?”
Cutie Pie smacked his forehead. Then he turned back to Shivers. “Well, you know what they say. You don’t pick your crew, your crew picks you. They said we were all pirate zeroes. But look at us now!”
“You think you’re pirate heroes?!” Margo said incredulously.
“We’re even better than that. We’re pirate FEAR-Os!” Cutie Pie tried to high-five his crew, but Butterfingers missed and fell into the floor pie, and Whichway ended up high-fiving the rocking horse.
Shivers decided it was time to take a stand. But when he tried, he hit his head on the crib bars. So he decided it was time to take a sit, while still saying something he believed in.
“Scaring people is wrong!” he shouted.
“It’s right!” Cutie Pie snarled.
“It’s left!” cried Whichway.
“You don’t understand!” Shivers continued. “Do you know how horrifying it is to be scared all the time?! Do you know how scarifying it is to be horrified all the time?! It’s terrifying! Life is frightening enough already without you making up ghost stories! I mean, have you ever really looked at a toaster? Have you ever studied a toenail? Have you ever closed your eyes and realized just how dark the world can be without a night-light? And it’s eve
n darker because of Big Baby Bullies like you!”
“Oh, I’m a Big Baby Bully?” Cutie Pie scoffed as he chewed away at his bubble gum. “Well, you, Shivers the Pirate, are the biggest zero there is. Soon there will be nothing left of either of you, and no one will ever know that Quincy Thomas the Pirate was just a big trick.” He looked Shivers straight in the eye and began to blow a bubble with his gum. The pink bubble grew and grew until it was the size of Cutie’s adorable baby head, and then it exploded with a POP!
And with that POP!, Shivers and Margo remembered the bubble gum bubble that Albee blew on the trash barge that afternoon. And they got an idea. Shivers looked down at Albee in his bottle. Margo looked up at the parrots in the cage. Then they looked at each other and nodded.
“Excuse me, Mr. Pie?” said Margo, plastering a confused look on her face. “I don’t understand. Quincy Thomas the Pirate isn’t real?”
“Weren’t you listening? Pirate ghosts aren’t real! It was all a big trick!” Cutie Pie said proudly.
“What did you say?” Margo asked, holding her hand up to her ear like she couldn’t hear.
“I said pirate ghosts aren’t real! It was all a big trick!” Cutie repeated, more loudly this time.
“I still can’t hear you! I must have seawater in my ear!” Margo said with an exaggerated shrug.
“PIRATE GHOSTS AREN’T REAL! PIRATE GHOSTS AREN’T REAL! PIRATE GHOSTS AREN’T REAL! IT WAS ALL A BIG TRICK!” Cutie Pie shouted over and over again, jumping up and down.
Then there was a soft squawking from the parrot cages. At first, it was just one bird saying, “Pirate ghosts aren’t real! It was all a big trick!”
Then one by one, the others joined in until the whole flock was screeching, “PIRATE GHOSTS AREN’T REAL! IT WAS ALL A BIG TRICK!”
Cutie Pie scowled at the birds. “Stop it! Stop saying that!”
But their squawks were so loud now that they couldn’t even hear him.
The Pirate Book You've Been Looking For Page 7