Goth Girl and the Pirate Queen

by Chris Riddell

  This book has been specially written and published for World Book Day 2015. For further information, visit www.worldbookday.com World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is made possible by generous sponsorship from National Book Tokens, participating publishers, authors, illustrators and booksellers. Booksellers who accept the £1* World Book Day Book Token bear the full cost of redeeming it. World Book Day, World Book Night and Quick Reads are annual initiatives designed to encourage everyone in the UK and Ireland – whatever your age – to read more and discover the joy of books and reading for pleasure. World Book Night is a celebration of books and reading for adults and teens on 23 April, which sees book gifting and celebrations in thousands of communities around the country: www.worldbooknight.org Quick Reads provides brilliant short new books by bestselling authors to engage adults in reading: www.quickreads.org.uk *€1.50 in Ireland

  Books by Chris Riddell Ottoline and the Yellow Cat Ottoline Goes to School Ottoline at Sea Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse Goth Girl and the Fete Worse Than Death And coming soon! Goth Girl and the Wuthering Fright www.chrisriddell.co.uk

  For Rosie

  First published 2015 by Macmillan Children’s Books an imprint of Pan Macmillan a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Associated companies throughout the world www.panmacmillan.com ISBN 978-1-4472-8248-8 Copyright © Chris Riddell 2015 The right of Chris Riddell to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  and the Pirate Queen

  CHRIS RIDDELL

  MACMILLAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  THIS BOOK CONTAINS FOOTNOTES WRITTEN BY A LAMB CALLED CHARLES, WHO LOVES THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE

  Chapter One da Goth stared at the three extremely plump Dalmatian dogs opposite her. They were sitting in a row, their pink tongues lolling out of their mouths and their fat tails drumming on the carriage seat as they wagged. A terrible smell wafted through the air and Ada wasn’t sure which of the Duchess of Devon’s Dalmatians was responsible – Lottie, Dottie or Spottie. Perhaps it was all three of them. Beside Ada, Lady George* snored loudly, her grey powdered wig askew. One of her moleskin eyebrows had come unglued and had slithered down her pink powdered cheek like an escaping caterpillar. Ada opened the carriage window and took in a lungful of air. They had reached the top of a hill and in the distance Ada

  * Lady George is a close friend of Ada’s father, Lord Goth, and often takes part in his annual metaphorical bicycle race. You can read all about it in Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse. There’s a ghost in Shakespeare’s Hamlet too.

  saw the sea for the very first time. It was broad and blue with white waves flecking its surface like breadcrumbs on a tablecloth and when Ada breathed in she could taste the salt in the air. ‘Are we there yet?’ asked Lady George, picking up the eyebrow that had landed in her lap and pressing it back into place on her forehead. ‘Almost,’ said Ada. ‘This is so exciting!’ Ada was the only daughter of Lord Goth of Ghastly-Gorm Hall, a huge house in the country, and this was her first trip to the seaside. Lady George had received an invitation from the Prince Regent himself to attend the World Frock Day Ball at his new palace in the fashionable seaside resort of Brighton.

  ‘You must let me take little Ada with me, Goth,’ Lady George had told Ada’s father. ‘The salty seawater will do her good. I’ll see to it that she drinks two cups a day!’ Ada wasn’t too sure about the cups of salty seawater, but she liked the sound of the World Frock Day Ball. ‘Are the Prince Regent’s trousers really as big as they say they are?’ Ada had asked. ‘You can see for yourself,’ Lord Goth had said with a smile. Reaching into his velvet

  waistcoat, her father had taken out a neatly folded twenty-guinea banknote and handed it to Ada. ‘Use this to have a fashionable frock made for yourself,’ he’d said. ‘Spend it wisely!’ ‘Ada had thanked her father and given him a great big hug. As a general rule Lord Goth wasn’t the sort to give hugs, great big or otherwise. A slight nod of the head or a stiff bow was more his style and, on extremely rare occasions, a firm handshake. But when it came to his only daughter, Lord Goth didn’t mind one bit. He hugged Ada back. ‘You’re growing up so fast,’ he had whispered. ‘Your mother would have been so very proud.’ Now, after two days of rattling over bumpy highways and even bumpier byways in Lady George’s Dartmoor landau, they were almost there.

  They went down the hill on a chalky road, passed two windmills and arrived at a white gate. An old man in a battered straw top hat was leaning against it. ‘Brighton or Hove?’ he said as the carriage drew to a halt. ‘Brighton,’ said Button the footman. ‘Just as well,’ said the gatekeeper, opening the white gate to let them through. ‘Hove hasn’t been built yet. That’ll be thrupence.’ ‘Hurry up and pay the man,’ said Lady George from inside the carriage. ‘Tristram will be expecting us for tea. Lots of cake for my lovely girls!’ The sound of fat tails thumping on upholstered carriage seats grew louder as the Dartmoor landau set off once more. ‘Oh, and, Hamilton,’ Lady George called to the second footman. ‘Perhaps we can have the hood down for the rest of the way, there seems to be a rather unfortunate smell in here . . .’

  10

  The road became wider and, with the hood of the carriage down, Ada could see far more clearly. In the distance was a strange-looking building. It reminded her of one of Mrs Beat’em’s cakes.

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  The building particularly looked like Mrs Beat’em’s Turkish Sultan cake, with tall thin towers and onion dome roofs. It seemed to be unfinished, because Ada could see scaffolding against its walls and several large women in caps and overalls sitting on upturned wheelbarrows drinking tea.

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  ‘Cowgirl builders,’ said Lady George as the carriage swept past them. ‘Fine workmanship but notoriously slow. Number thirty-two Grand Parade, Button!’ They turned left and drove along a cobbled road, and the carriage came to a halt outside a shiny, newly painted door. As they got out of the carriage, it opened and Tristram Shandygentleman, the most fashionable man in England, stepped out. ‘Lady George! Ada!’ he exclaimed, his shirt cuffs flapping with excitement. ‘Welcome to my humble abode.’

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  Chapter Two ristram Shandygentleman waved his teacup in the air, knocking a couple of glass fishing weights off the mantelpiece. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, ladies,’ he said. ‘This is the most fashionable address in town . . .’ His voice trailed away as the weights bounced across the floor, hit the wall and rolled back again. ‘There really isn’t room to swing a –’ he glanced at Lottie, Dottie and Spottie, who were being fed chocolate eclairs by Lady George – ‘C. A. T.’ He spelled out the word. Ada could see what he meant. Despite its impressive appearance, the door of number thirty-two Grand Parade, like all the others in the row, opened into a fisherman’s cottage, and a small one at that. ‘I would get the builders in to make some alterations,’ Tristram continue
d, narrowly

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  avoiding a stuffed halibut hanging from the ceiling, ‘but they’re busy finishing the Prince Regent’s pavilion. We locals call it ‘the palace on the pebbles’. ‘It looks just like a big cake,’ laughed Ada as she put down her teacup on the extremely small table at which they were sitting. ‘Don’t let the prince hear you say that!’ exclaimed Tristram. ‘He’s got absolutely no sense of humour, you know. He overheard one remark I made about the size of his trousers and struck me off the guest list.’ Tristram smoothed down his immaculate shirt cuffs sadly. ‘He’s awfully proud of that palace of his,’ he continued. ‘It’s based on the stately pleasure-dome of Kubla Khan’t – you know, the Chinese emperor who couldn’t say

  16

  no. Now, do tell me, Lady George, what are you wearing for the World Frock Day Ball?’ ‘A black-and-white-spotted frock that I had made for me by Fabercrombie and Itch, the intellectual west London weavers,’ said Lady George, throwing the last eclair to Spottie. ‘To match my girls. The skirt has been designed so that I can sneak them into the party along with me! She smiled delightedly. ‘Now, Ada here has twenty guineas to spend on a frock—’ ‘Say no more,’ interrupted Tristram. ‘I know just who you should see, Miss Goth. They’re two of the most fashionable dressmakers in town: Lady Vivienne Dashwood and her deadly rival, Jean-Paul Goatee. They have shops on the Not-Quite-a-Palace pier.’

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  ‘Which one should I go to?’ asked Ada. Her twenty-guinea note was folded up safely in the inside pocket of her black braided tunic. ‘Visit both of them,’ said Tristram, catching his reflection in a shell-encrusted mirror and adjusting his neckerchief, ‘then choose. You can’t go wrong, they’re both so fashionable!’ The next day Ada woke early. Tristram Shandygentleman’s spare bedroom was extremely small, with only room for a washstand, a hammock and a nautical lantern, which Ada hit her head on when she got up. Lady George was snoring in the main bedroom, which was only a little bigger than Ada’s, while Tristram Shandygentleman was fast asleep in a fold-out whaler’s cot in the very small drawing room downstairs. Ada got dressed and tiptoed down the stairs and out of the front door, making

  18

  sure to close it quietly behind her. ‘Good morning, young lady,’ said a voice and, looking round, Ada saw that an immaculately dressed gentleman in shades of dove grey had just stepped out of the house next door. ‘And what a beautiful morning it is!’ He took a pencil from behind his ear and jotted something down in a small black book.

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  ‘Baaa!’ said a small lamb standing next to him on the end of a dove-grey ribbon. ‘Beau Peeps, fashion diarist and gentleman shepherd.’ He introduced himself with a polite bow. ‘And this is my lamb, Charles.’ ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Ada. ‘My name’s Ada Goth of Ghastly-Gorm Hall. I’m afraid I don’t know Brighton very well. Could you tell me the way to the Not-Quite-a-Palace pier?’ ‘Certainly,’ said Beau Peeps. ‘Just turn left and walk along the pebble beach until you

  20

  come to something that looks like a palace but isn’t quite. You can’t miss it.’ With that, he gave another polite bow and hurried away towards the palace on the pebbles, his pet lamb gambolling beside him. Ada patted the pocket of her black braided tunic, turned left, and set off along the pebbly beach. Several fishermen in enormous knitted smocks and oilskin hats said, ‘Good morning, miss,’ as she passed, and one even offered her a tin cup of seawater. Ada said a polite ‘No thank you’. The sea shimmered in the morning light and little wavelets lapped at the shore, breaking over the pebbles with soft, swishy sighs. It was beautiful, and Ada couldn’t resist taking off her black slippers and stepping gingerly over the stones to paddle in the water.

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  The seawater was cold but the wavelets felt lovely breaking over Ada’s toes. She stood and breathed in the fresh sea air. ‘An early customer!’ said a high-pitched, whiny voice, and Ada felt two strong hands take a grip of her shoulders and pull her backwards. Before she could resist she found herself being marched up the steps of a little wooden hut on wheels and pushed inside by a red-cheeked woman with twinkling eyes. ‘I could tell by your paddling that you like the seawater but are just too timid to go in, my dear, which is why I’m here to help you!’ The woman unhooked a sack with arm and head holes from the wall of the hut and thrust it at Ada. ‘Here, put this sea smock on and leave your clothes on this shelf above the door – that’ll keep them nice and dry for you, dear,’ said the woman, folding her arms and giving Ada a steely look. ‘But—’ began Ada.

  22

  ‘No “but”s, dearie, Dowdy O’Dodds the Warrington Dipper doesn’t put up with any “but”s, “excuse me”s or “the water’s too cold”s, oh no! Once you’ve stepped inside my bathing machine you have to go in for a dip! After all, I’ve got my professional reputation to consider.’ With that, Dowdy O’Dodds turned on her heels and left the hut, bolting the door behind her. In the gloom, Ada heard her shout, ‘Giddy-up, Patrick!’ and the bathing machine lurched into motion. Reluctantly Ada took off her clothes and folded them neatly then slipped the sack over her head.

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  Just then the bathing machine came to a juddering halt. The bolt slipped back, the door opened and Dowdy O’Dodds reached in and grabbed Ada by the shoulders. ‘It’s all right!’ protested Ada. ‘I can go in by myself . . .’

  26

  ‘All part of the service, dearie,’ insisted Dowdy, spinning Ada round and throwing her through the door. Ada flew through the air into the bright sunlight.

  27

  The next moment she landed in the water with a great big splash and sank down into the sea-green depths. She kicked her legs and waved her arms and rose back up to the surface. The sea was cold, but Ada didn’t mind. It felt wonderful. All

  28

  around her the sea shimmered in the early morning light as Ada bobbed up and down in the gently undulating waves. At home in the grounds of Ghastly-Gorm Hall, Ada went swimming in the moonlight with her governess, Lucy

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  * Lucy Borgia is a three-hundred-year-old vampire who teaches Ada umbrella fencing, night swimming and poetry. She once met William Shakespeare on a midsummer night in Stratford-upon-Avon. You can read all about her in Goth Girl and the Fete Worse Than Death.

  Borgia*, in the lake of extremely coy carp. It was fun, but nothing like bathing in the sea, with the seagulls soaring overhead and the masts of sailing ships moving slowly across the far horizon. Ada swam for a little while, enjoying the taste of the salt

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  on her lips and the billowing clouds, white against the blue sky. She looked towards the shore and was surprised to see that the bathing machine was travelling back towards the pebbly beach, Patrick the donkey straining at the harness as Dowdy O’Dodds urged him on. ‘Sorry, dearie!’ she called back to Ada as she sped away in a shower of pebbles, ‘urgent business in Lytham St Annes. You can keep the swimming smock!’

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  Chapter Three da stood on the pebbly beach and looked down at the neatly folded bundle of clothes at her feet. Without the bathing machine there was nowhere for her to change, and she wondered what urgent business had caused Dowdy O’Dodds the Warrington Dipper to hurry away like that. She put on her black slippers, picked up her clothes and was about to walk back along the beach when a squawky voice said, ‘Bah humbugs! Half a pound of tuppenny bugs! Half a pound of treacle—’ ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Ada, turning round to see a tall lady standing looking out to sea. She wore a hat with a skull and crossed umbrellas on it, a white sailor’s jacket with black collar and cuffs, and carried an elegant a brass-handled sea trunk in one hand and a black parasol in the other. On

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  her shoulder was a blue parrot. ‘Oh, don’t mind Roald here,’ the tall lady said. She smiled, and Ada noticed that she had wooden teeth. ‘He’s a Norwegian blue. Used to belong to my ship’s cook, Willamina Wonkers. She taught Roald to recite recipes.’ ‘Pour in the sugaring pan! And pop in
the beetle!’ squawked the parrot. ‘Sounds delicious,’ said Ada uncertainly. She wanted to get out of the wet swimming smock, but this stranger with a recipe-reciting parrot seemed very interesting. ‘You have a ship?’ she asked. ‘Not any more,’ said the lady, looking wistfully out to sea. ‘I decided to retire after the unfortunate incident with George Washington’s false teeth. Perhaps you’ve read about it? The story was all over the papers . . .’ ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Ada. The lady smiled woodenly as she slipped her arm through Ada’s and began to stroll with her over the pebbles.

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  ‘Well, he’s not getting them back!’ she said firmly. ‘Not after he sank my ship. They call me the Pirate Queen, but now I’m retired I’m changing my name back to Tall Nell. It’s the name the mad scientist Victoria Frankenfurt gave me.’ They strolled past a fisherman brewing saltwater tea in a rusty kettle. ‘No, thank you,’ said Ada politely when he offered her a cup. She turned back to Tall Nell. ‘My name’s Ada Goth of Ghastly-Gorm Hall. Is Victoria Frankenfurt your mother?’ ‘In a way,’ said Tall Nell. ‘You see, she made me. Perhaps you’ve read about it? She is very talented