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The Pirate’s Parrot
Chapter One
“Shiver me timbers!” roared Captain Snatchit, swinging his cutlass around his
head.
“Shiver me timbers!” squawked Neptune from the Captain’s shoulder, ducking to
avoid the cutlass.
“There’s a ship on the horizon. Raise the anchor, you scabby guttersnipes!”
bellowed the Captain at his crew.
“Jump to it, shark-bait!” screeched Neptune.
Swearing and cursing, the pirate crew pulled up the anchor. Their boat, the
Seaslug, began to lurch through the waves.
Neptune flew to the top of the tallest mast to look for the other ship.
“It’s a big one!” he squawked down to Captain Snatchit. “It’s the biggest scabby
ship in the whole scabby sea!”
“Hoist the sails, you plug-ugly rabble!” yelled the Captain at his crew. “We’ll be
rich by tea-time!”
“Speed up, you lazy lobsters!” screamed Neptune.
The pirates began to hoist the sails. Neptune swayed on his high perch as the
Seaslug tossed and rolled.
Neptune had always been a pirate’s parrot. He’d sailed the high seas ever since he
was a chick.
Captain Snatchit gave him nothing to eat but maggoty ship’s biscuits; and taught
him no words except horrible threats and curses. It wasn’t much of a life for a parrot.
But it was the only life that Neptune had ever known.
Now he watched the distant ship draw nearer and nearer. It was the biggest ship
he’d ever seen.
“Stone the crows!” he squawked. “It’s a blinking, stinking monster!”
“Excellent,” growled Captain Snatchit. “All the more loot for us to snatch!”
“Stone the ravens,” gasped Neptune. “It’s got a thousand blinking, stinking
sailors!”
“Excellent,” roared Captain Snatchit. “All the more men for us to rob!”
Neptune stared at the ship. Beneath his feathers, he turned pale. “Stone the
albatross,” he screeched. “It’s got a hundred blinking, stinking cannons!”
“Shut up, you lily-livered bird-brain!” bellowed Captain Snatchit. “Men – get
ready to attack!”
The pirates grabbed their cutlasses and pistols. They waved them wildly, roaring
dreadful oaths.
“Wait!” screamed Neptune. “Stop! Turn round! It’s a scabby battleship!”
But nobody could hear Neptune.
All of a sudden, there was a BOOM! Cannon-fire roared out like thunder. Smoke
billowed from the cannons on the battleship.
CRUNCH! went the Seaslug. It had been hit by a hundred cannonballs.
BOOM! went the cannons a second time.
SPLOSH! went a dozen pirates into the sea.
“Man the scabby lifeboat!” shouted Captain Snatchit. “Jump to it, you gormless
guppies!”
The remaining pirates barged into each other as they scrambled to the lifeboat.
BOOM! went the cannons for a third time.
SNAP! went the tallest mast. Neptune was nearly thrown into the surging ocean.
The waves leapt up to grasp him. Just in time, he managed to flap upwards and away.
The cannons were still booming. The Seaslug was sinking fast. Captain Snatchit
and his pirates all squeezed into the lifeboat, cursing. They rowed away as swiftly as
they could.
“Wait for me!” screeched Neptune. But when he tried to land on the lifeboat,
Captain Snatchit whacked him with an oar.
“Get lost, you scabby stowaway!” he yelled. “There’s no room for you here.”
Hurt and bewildered, Neptune flapped away. He flew up, higher and higher, above
the noise and smoke, looking frantically for a place of safety.
All he could see for miles around was grey, cold, churning water. He was just
about to give up hope when, far away, he saw a small green island.
With weary wings, he set off towards it.
Chapter Two
Neptune was nearly exhausted by the time he reached the island. It took the last of
his strength to flutter over the beach and collapse onto the nearest tree.
After a while he recovered enough to look around.
The island was covered in tall, lush, dripping jungle. It rang with howls and
screeches.
The howls came from monkeys dangling and swinging in the trees. But the
screeches came from parrots – bright green, red and yellow. A flock of them flew past
Neptune.
“Who are you?” cried one.
“I’m Neptune. I’ve just landed.”
“Well, don’t hang about here!” the parrot said. “The figs are ripe!”
“Pieces of eight!” squawked Neptune.
“Pieces of what?”
“I mean, pieces of fig!” said Neptune quickly.
“Sure. Let’s get there before the monkeys do!”
Neptune joined the flock of parrots. Soon he was feasting on ripe figs. Not just
figs – there were mangoes, dates and pawpaw. He couldn’t believe his luck.
No more maggoty ship’s biscuits! He could eat his fill of ripe fruit.
No more dodging careless cutlasses! The monkeys were easy to dodge.
No more kicks and curses from Captain Snatchit!
For the other parrots were a friendly bunch and welcomed Neptune. This was a
parrots’ paradise!
When he met a beautiful female parrot called Liana, his happiness was complete.
He never mentioned his former pirate life to the other parrots. He stopped saying
“pieces of eight,” and “shiver me timbers” and talked proper parrot language instead.
Life was wonderful. He even began to think about setting up a nest.
Then, one day, a battered boat washed up on shore. Out jumped Captain Snatchit
and his men.
They’d spent three weeks rowing around in circles, living off ship’s biscuits and
raw fish. They were starving, smelly, and in a very bad mood.
“Come on, you scabby centipedes!” yelled Captain Snatchit at his crew. “I want a
cabin! I want a fire! And I want food! Hop to it!”
The pirates grabbed their cutlasses and stampeded into the jungle. They slashed
fruit off the trees, gobbled half of it up, and trampled the rest into the ground.
Then they fetched an axe and began to chop down trees to build cabins. They lit
fires and shot monkeys and roasted them for tea.
The parrots heard the commotion. They flew down to the shore to find out what
was going on.
Neptune perched in a tree and peered through the leaves. He was horrified when
he saw Captain Snatchit.
“Shiver me timbers! It’s scabby Snatchit!” he squawked.
All the other parrots turned and looked at him in surprise.
“What?” said Liana.
“Er - shiver me timbers. It’s pirate language.”
“You speak pirate language?” asked Liana in astonishment.
“It just slipped out. Sorry.” Neptune shuffled on his perch, feeling quite ashamed.
“You mean you used to live on a pirate ship?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Neptune.
“So what else can you say in pirate language?”
“Walk the plank, fish-food,” mumbled Neptune. “Hand over the loot or I’ll shave
your ear-lugs with a rusty razor. Lots of stuff like that.” He hid his head under his
wing with embarrassment.
Down below, they heard the Captain bellow:
“Those scabby trees are in our way! Chop them down, and throw them on the
flaming fire.”
“This is terrible!” cried the parrots. “These pirates are dreadful people. First they
killed those poor monkeys, and now they’re going to destroy the whole jungle!”
Neptune was overcome with shame to think he had been one of the ship’s crew.
The other parrots would all hate him now...
“We’ve got to get rid of them!” announced Liana.
“Agreed!” the parrots squawked.
“I suppose that means you’ll have to get rid of me as well,” said Neptune
miserably.
“Certainly not!” Liana said. “We need your help.”
“My help? What can I do? They’ve got cutlasses and pistols! You’ve no idea how
nasty they can be!” wailed Neptune.
“They’ve no idea how clever we can be,” said Liana calmly. “Everybody gather
round and listen. This is what we do…”
Chapter Three
An hour later, the parrots flew up from the trees. They formed a huge, bright
flock, with Neptune at its head.
On silent wings, without a single squawk, they glided downwards to the pirates’
camp. They settled in the trees on every side. The pirates were too busy chopping logs
and making fires to notice them.
Captain Snatchit didn’t see them either. He was busy tucking into roast monkey.
Neptune took a deep breath. Then he began to screech.
But this wasn’t an ordinary parrot’s screech. This was pirate language.
“Drop your scabby weapons, you yellow-bellied earwig-eating toads!” he
shrieked. “Or I’ll chop you into more slices than a cucumber!”
“Who’s that?” Captain Snatchit’s mouth fell open.
Then hundred of parrots joined in from all sides, screaming at the tops of their
voices.
“Scram, you horrible lot, or we’ll pickle your eyeballs and toast your toes for
breakfast!”
The pirates stared around wildly. They could hear hundreds of vicious pirate
voices all around– yet there was no-one to be seen!
“There’s no-one here, Cap’n!” they quavered, terrified.
“Walk the plank, fish-food!” screeched the parrots, hidden in the trees. “Go jump
in the scabby sea, you turnip-headed twits!”
“Who is it? Who’s there?” cried Captain Snatchit.
“We’re the ghosts of a hundred hideous heartless pirates, you knobbly-nosed
nincompoop!”
Captain Snatchit’s eyes bulged. “Ghosts? We’re on a haunted island! I’m off!”
And he sprinted to the lifeboat.
At once the other pirates all raced after him. They tumbled into the boat on top of
each other, swearing and cursing. No-one wanted to be left behind.
“Row, you jabbering jellyfish! Row!” yelled Captain Snatchit.
The boat pulled away from shore. The sound of the pirates’ curses slowly faded.
At last the lifeboat was a distant black smudge on the deep blue sea.
The island was peaceful once more. In fact, it was more peaceful than it had ever
been. All the parrots were so hoarse that they could barely squawk.
But they were delighted.
“They’ve gone!” croaked Neptune. “We did it!”
“We certainly did,” Liana wheezed. “Yo ho ho and shiver me timbers, matey!”
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