Friday, 21 June 2013

Short And Sweet (1) - Pirates


Pumpernickel Thunderburst was the meanest of pirates or, at least, he liked to think so.
“No one is meaner or tougher than me in the whole of the northern seas.”

Blueberry Slidehammer would have possibly disagreed with him as he too, thought of himself as the meanest of all pirates in the northern seas.
Despite their disagreement they were the best of friends.

One morning, in late spring, the pirates had a ‘bring-your-child-to-work’ day. All fifty of the meanest pirates and their children were there.Although Pumpernickel and Blueberry were buddies, their children had never actually met. Pumpernickel introduced his ten year old daughter, Zoe and Blueberry proudly presented his son, Caleb. He was also ten years old.
“Why don’t you kids have some soda while we make plans to steal some gold” said Blueberry. Zoe and Caleb were given pirate chairs to sit on. Both were rather shy and didn’t want to speak at first.

Zoe got bored and spoke.

“My dad’s name isn’t really Pumpernickel, it’s Jim. He just thought that Jim didn’t sound mean enough for a pirate.” “Same here” said Caleb, “my Dad’s name is Davy not Blueberry. I think his pirate name is a bit stupid to be honest.” So Caleb and Zoe started to talk about how they thought being a pirate was not what either of them wanted to do when they got older.
“I think I want to be a teacher” said Zoe, “what about you?”
Caleb told Zoe that he had set his heart on being a famous movie star, mainly fighting aliens.

So while Pumpernickel and Blueberry were fighting it out to see who the meanest pirate on the high seas in order to decide who would lead the crew on a gold stealing adventure; Zoe and Caleb sat drinking soda and discussing things like the weather and how you don’t see so many butterflies anymore.

When it came to the vote, Pumpernickel Thunderburst did really well getting 12 votes from the Eastern pirates (who all voted for each other). Pumpernickel Thunderburst also got 12 votes but from the Western pirates (who also all voted for each other) and so a tie was declared. The deciding vote was cast by the grumpiest of all pirates “Captain Simon from the Land known as Cowell” who said that if it were up to him, neither of them would be going through to the next stage but Pumpernickel had shown some entertainment value with his juggling and that he should be declared the winner.

The bus ride home was just the usual affair with Pumpernickel Thunderburst and Blueberry Slidehammer being told by the bus driver that pirates couldn’t travel for free no matter how mean they were.

Zoe and Caleb were just glad that ‘bring-your-child-to-work’ day was over for another year.




bobby stevenson 2013

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