The Indoor Pirates On Treasure Island

by Jeremy Strong

  ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘We'd like that yellow boat and my friend out there in the big hat will pay for it.’ Blackpatch marched inside, cursing Lumpy.

  ‘Oh, well done,’ he hissed, and he handed over some money to the shop-keeper.

  ‘It's not my fault,’ whispered Lumpy. ‘You should have come in the first time.’

  The Captain was a bit confused when he was handed a small cardboard box by the shop-keeper.

  ‘What's this?’ he demanded suspiciously.

  ‘It's your dinghy,’ the shop-keeper replied.

  ‘No it isn't. Mine is much, much bigger than this.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but this one doesn't have any air in it yet. When you get it home you take it out of the box and pump it up.’

  Luckily, Ben had seen an inflatable dinghy before and managed to convince the Captain that the shop-keeper wasn't trying to trick him. ‘Not everyone cheats,’ said Bald Ben, rather self-righteously, as they left the shop.

  On the way back to the truck, the pirates bought some spades so that they could dig up the treasure. (Blackpatch was not going to risk another useless robbery.) They could almost feel the treasure jingling in their pockets, and their spirits rose.

  As soon as they got back to the campsite, the Indoor Pirates began to put their plan into action. Blackpatch set Molly and Polly blowing up the dinghy by mouth, which was very cunning of him because it meant they couldn't quarrel with each other. Lumpy Lawson lay in his hammock recovering from his dreadful ordeal in the toyshop, while Bald Ben hung about next door's tent with a silly grin on his face.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, when he caught sight of Jack and his mum.

  ‘Hello,’ said Jack's mum. ‘You look busy next door. What are you doing?’

  ‘Us? Oh, we're going trea… I mean, no we're not,’ he added hastily. ‘We're not at all.’

  ‘Not what?’ asked Jack's mum.

  ‘I bet you're going to that island to dig for treasure,’ said Jack, turning to his mum. ‘Can I go too?’

  ‘I don't think so, Jack,’ said his mum. ‘You shouldn't be playing with pirates. They're not nice.’

  Bald Ben was stung. He hated it when people didn't think he was nice. ‘I'm all right,’ he insisted. ‘Really. I kissed a baby once.’

  Jack's mum laughed quietly. ‘You're all right, Ben,’ she admitted. ‘It's that other one I don't like – Blackpatch.’ Ben shuffled his feet.

  ‘The Captain's not bad really. He likes to behave as if he's bad.’

  ‘I noticed,’ said Jack's mum coldly. A sudden thought occurred to Ben.

  ‘Don't go away,’ he cried and he raced back to the pirate-tent, grabbed the plastic mug with its little bunch of flowers and went panting back next door. He handed the mug to Jack's mum. ‘These are for you,’ he said.

  ‘Ben! Thank you – you are sweet!’ Jack's mum leaned forward on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. Ben grinned so hard his face almost split in half. Jack stared at them both, stuck two fingers in his mouth and said he was going to be sick.

  Blackpatch began yelling for everyone.The dinghy was all blown up and everything was ready.

  ‘Come on,’ he cried, and strode off towards the lake, leaving the others to carry the spades and the oars and the dinghy. It was only when they reached the shore of the lake that they realized the dinghy was too small to carry all of them. ‘Someone will have to stay behind,’ said the Captain.

  ‘I know,’ cried Molly, ‘we can do “eeny-meeny-miny-mo” and the last one out can't go and it will be Polly.’

  ‘No!’ Polly shouted. ‘We won't do “eeny-meeny”, we'll do “ip-dip-dip, my little ship”, and Molly gets left behind.’

  While the twins were busy shouting, the others loaded the spades into the dinghy and set off. They were already a little way from the shore when the sisters realized what had happened. ‘That's not fair!’ they both cried, and for once they were in agreement, but there was nothing they could do about it.

  ‘You two can't swim,’ Blackpatch pointed out, then suddenly turned green and put his head over the side. Bald Ben steadied the little boat.

  ‘Oh dear, maybe you can get lake-sick after all. Be careful, Captain, don't lean too far over. Your weight is pulling down the side of the dinghy and water's getting in.’

  The warning was too late. Water was already pouring into the dinghy, turning the bottom into a miniature paddling pool, and the more the pirates struggled, the more water came sloshing over the sides.

  ‘Bumblepoo!’ yelled Lumpy Lawson. ‘I've got a soggy botty!’

  Captain Blackpatch tried to stand. He waved frantically back at Molly and Polly. ‘Save us!’ he shouted. ‘We're drowning!’ The twins stared at each other. Emergency! But where was the nearest help?

  ‘You go that way,’ cried Polly. ‘I'll go this way.’

  ‘No! You go this way and I'll go that way!’

  They set off, turned about, crashed into each other, set off again, turned round, crashed for a second time, got up, hit each other, crashed down, stood up, turned round, had another crash and ended up sprawling in the sand and trying to sit on each other's head.

  Meanwhile, Blackpatch had fallen out of the dinghy with a loud SPLOSH! and found that the lake only came up to his knees. ‘I'm not drowning!’ he panicked, before realizing it was quite all right if he wasn't. He struggled to his feet. ‘Hey, lads! It's all right – we're safe. We can paddle back to shore. Come on.’

  Bald Ben and Lumpy struggled out of the dinghy, which now had a puncture and no longer looked like a boat at all, but more like a large and useless popped balloon. Ben tucked the spades under his arm and they waded back to the shore.

  ‘Thank you for rescuing us,’ Blackpatch told the twins icily, and he squelched up the beach and back to the tent. He went inside, did up the zip, changed his clothes and went to bed, while Ben and Lumpy stood outside shivering, without even a towel between them.

  ‘Can we come in?’ asked Ben.

  ‘No. I'm ill. Go away,’ snarled the Captain.

  Jack appeared next to Ben and he tugged at the pirate's wet trousers. ‘Mum says you can change in her tent and dry off and she promises she won't look.’ So Ben and Lumpy went next door to change. Jack's mum only had some towels and frilly blouses for them to wear, but she did make them a nice cup of tea. She gave Jack and the twins a glass of cola each and she even made sure that the glasses were all exactly the same size.

  ‘This is wonderful,’ sighed Ben, giving Jack's mum a big smile. She winked at him and he almost fell off his camping chair.

  ‘You've gone very red, Ben,’ Lumpy said.

  ‘Sunburn,’ muttered Ben, and hid his face behind his mug of tea.

  5 Blackpatch Has a Plan

  ‘That dinghy was a fat lot of use,’ grumbled Captain Blackpatch the next day.

  ‘It was OK until you leaned over the side,’ said Lumpy.

  ‘Do you know what would have happened if I hadn't? I would have –’

  ‘Maybe we can find another boat,’ Bald Ben quickly suggested, and the Captain agreed.

  ‘It's the only way we shall be able to get to that treasure. There must be a boat somewhere because I saw people on that island, and the only way they could have got there was if they had a boat.’

  ‘They might have flown,’ said Molly.

  ‘Or floated down on a parachute,’ said Polly.

  ‘Or jumped,’ Molly put in. Polly wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Jumped? Don't be stupid. Nobody could jump that far.’

  ‘Well then,’ Molly sneered, ‘if Nobody can jump that far perhaps it was Nobody who was on the island.’

  ‘I'VE GOT AN IDEA!’ roared Blackpatch, with his face fixed in his fiercest frown ever. ‘Why don't we tie the twins up and leave them here while we go boat hunting in peace?’

  ‘That's a good idea,’ said Ben.

  ‘That is a good idea!’ agreed Lumpy, and they grabbed the girls, tied them back to back, and left them sitting by the tent looking thunder
ous from head to toe. Blackpatch gave them a parting smile.

  ‘You see what can be done when people agree with each other instead of quarrelling! See you later, twins.’

  The Indoor Pirates wandered down to the lake and once again found themselves staring wistfully across to the little island. The wood on the hill looked dark and green and secretive.

  ‘I bet there's heaps of treasure buried over there,’ Blackpatch said dreamily.

  ‘Heaps…’ murmured Lumpy, who was almost in a trance.

  Bald Ben tugged at the Captain's sleeve. ‘What's that thing on the water over there?’ He pointed just round the corner of the lake near the campsite. ‘It's not a swan, is it?’

  ‘No, it isn't,’ agreed the Captain, ‘unless it's a swan with two heads. I think we had better investigate. Keep quiet, and crouch down in case someone sees.’

  The three pirates crept round the edge of

  the lake. The closer they got to the strange thing the more astonished they became. A peculiar noise drifted across the water… schukka-schikka-squeak-schikka, schukka-schikka-squeak-schikka.

  ‘Shivering shrimps! It's a… boaty-thingy-whatsit!’ cried Blackpatch, and it was too. On board the boaty-thingy-whatsit were Jack and his mum. They were sitting down and pedalling hard. What a strange machine!

  Jack's mum saw the pirates crouching by

  the shore and called out to them from the pedalo she was riding. ‘Hello, Ben!’

  Ben was about to wave back cheerfully when Blackpatch seized him by the shoulder and pulled him down into the long grass. ‘Get down!’ he hissed. ‘Before she spots you.’

  ‘She already has spotted me. She only said “hello”, and I was only going to say “hello” back.’

  ‘Don't be stupid. She could be spying on us.’

  Jack stood on his seat. ‘Why are you all hiding in the grass?’ he asked. ‘Have you got a secret or something?’ This was too much for Blackpatch, and he leaped up.

  ‘We're not hiding,’ he declared.

  ‘You were,’ said Jack. ‘You were crouching in the grass.’

  ‘No we weren't,’ shouted Blackpatch. ‘We fell over, that's what.’ Jack's mum laughed.

  ‘All of you – at the same time?’

  ‘They didn't fall, Mum,’ Jack insisted. ‘They were hiding.’

  ‘Why is that child so clever?’ Blackpatch hissed under his breath. ‘Nobody should be as clever as that. It's not natural.’ He called out to the pair and asked them what their boaty-thing was.

  ‘It's a pedalo,’ said Jack, and he explained how it worked.

  Blackpatch studied the small craft carefully. It was rather small and wobbly and it looked as if you could fall out all too easily. The Captain's stomach went queasy at the thought of taking to the water again so soon after his last little escapade. However, there didn't seem to be any other choice, and gradually a cunning smile slid across beneath his pointy nose.

  Blackpatch pulled the other two further along the beach until they could see the tiny pedalo harbour. There they counted ten pedalos altogether. Some were out on the lake and others were roped to a little jetty. Two men were standing on the jetty, taking people's money and showing them to their pedalos.

  Captain Blackpatch's eyes narrowed to sneaky slits. ‘We are going to be rich, lads,’ he whispered. ‘We are going to be very rich and it is all going to happen tonight.’

  ‘Tonight?’ repeated Lumpy. ‘Have you got a plan, Captain?’ Blackpatch nodded.

  ‘We come down here tonight, on tiptoe, very, very quietly, when everyone is asleep…’

  ‘Will we be asleep?’ asked Ben, who liked a good night's snooze.

  ‘Of course not! We shall be out here, doing a bit of skulduggery.’

  ‘What's skulduggery?’ Ben asked, hoping that it didn't mean having to be nasty to anyone.

  ‘Skulduggery is what pirates do at night,’ explained Blackpatch. ‘Stop asking awkward questions. Listen, we come down here tonight and we steal some pedalos. Then we nip across to the island and dig up the treasure and come back here and…’ Blackpatch broke off and beamed knowingly at the others.

  ‘Go to sleep?’ Ben finished hopefully.

  ‘No! We'll have the treasure, won't we? We shall be rich! We run away with the treasure and live happily ever after.’

  ‘And then we go to sleep,’ Ben added with a smile.

  ‘Yes, Ben, after that you can sleep for a thousand years if you want, in a bed as big as a bandstand and as soft as duck-down.’

  ‘Wow!’ breathed Ben rapturously.

  ‘Come on,’ urged the Captain. ‘We must get back to the twins and tell them what the plan is.’

  Back on the campsite, there was a bit of a commotion going on. Jack and his mum had finished their pedalo ride and gone back to their tent, only to discover that Polly and Molly were rolling about tied back to back. They were covered in dirt and grass and furiously kicking their legs in the air.

  ‘Those poor pirate children,’ said Jack's mum. ‘How on earth did they get in that state?’

  ‘The Captain tied us up!’ cried Polly.

  ‘Yeah, an' Lumpy and Ben!’ shouted Molly.

  ‘That's dreadful,’ said Jack's mum, hastily untying them. ‘You poor things. Jack, get Molly and Polly a drink. Those pirates aren't fit to look after themselves, let alone two children.’

  Molly and Polly slurped down their drinks in no time at all and then played with Jack. He proudly showed them his paddling toy. It was an enormous green inflatable crocodile, with handles down the back that

  you could hold on to while you sat on it and paddled. ‘My gran gave it to me,’ Jack said.

  ‘It's enormous,’ said Polly.

  ‘It's huge,’ said Molly.

  ‘That's just what I said,’ Polly pointed out.

  ‘No – you said “enormous” and I said “huge”.’

  ‘Yeah? They mean the same thing –’

  ‘No they don't. Huge is bigger than enormous.’

  ‘It is not! Enormous is much bigger than huge. Enormous is as big as, as big as… the whole universe!’ cried Polly. Molly folded her arms in triumph.

  ‘In that case, this crocodile can't be enormous, or it would be as big as the universe and it wouldn't even fit in this tent,’ she declared. ‘And that means it's huge – like I said.’

  ‘Girls!’ laughed Jack's mum. ‘It doesn't matter how big it is. If you ask Jack nicely I'm sure he'll let you have a go on it tomorrow.’ Her soft face suddenly became tense. ‘The other pirates are coming back. Good – I want a word with them.’

  What took place after that wasn't very nice – at least it certainly was not very nice for Ben and Lumpy and Blackpatch. Jack's mum was furious at the way they had left the twins all tied up, and she made it quite clear that she thought they were monsters. Blackpatch carefully stood behind Ben and Lumpy so that if this dreadful woman started poking with her finger again they would get the worst of it.

  But Bald Ben didn't care how much he got poked. He was overcome with despair when he discovered that the nice lady from next door was so cross with him. He gazed at her with huge puppy-dog eyes. He felt as if his whole world had collapsed and he didn't care how rich he was going to be.

  Molly and Polly came out of Jack's tent and sauntered cockily past the stunned pirates. ‘She told you!’ hissed Molly with immense satisfaction.

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Polly, and the two sisters turned to each other and slapped their hands together like a pair of jubilant footballers. The other pirates gawked at each other. Did they really see what they had just seen? Incredible!

  6 Treasure Island at Last

  In the dead of night, the Indoor Pirates crept out of their tent. ‘Are you ready?’ hissed Captain Blackpatch. ‘Are you all on tiptoe?’

  ‘Yes, Cap'n.’

  ‘Good – follow me.’ He turned to go and almost leaped out of his skin as he came face to face with a huge green monster.

  ‘Aaargh!’ Blackpatch was trembl
ing in his boots. He clung to Bald Ben like a scared monkey and pointed at the green beast with its snapping jaws and great white fangs.

  ‘It's only Jack's inflatable crocodile,’ said Lumpy. ‘He goes paddling on it.’

  Blackpatch glared at the toy perched against Jack's tent. ‘That child will be the death of me,’ he muttered, then set off once more, creeping past the other tents. This time they reached the lake without further incident and quietly crept on to the jetty. The pedalos were still and silent, floating on the dark waters of the lake. Blackpatch climbed on a pedalo, sat down and hunted for the rope that tied it to the jetty, only to discover to his horror that it wasn't tied with a rope any longer.

  A heavy chain fastened the pedalo to a stake, and the heavy chain had an even heavier padlock clamped through the links. ‘They're all locked up!’ he cried. ‘Stupid, stupid people! Why have they chained them up?’

  ‘I suppose they don't want anyone to steal them,’ said Bald Ben, who thought it was a very sensible thing to do. Blackpatch swiped his hat from his head and began battering Ben with it.

  ‘You cod-brained bladder-wrack! Of course they don't want anyone to steal them, but we've got to get to Treasure Island, and now we can't.’

  Polly and Molly had got an idea, and it was quite a good one. ‘Why don't we use Jack's crocodile?’ said Molly, and her sister nodded. ‘It's probably big enough for all of us, and we can use the spades as paddles.’

  Blackpatch allowed this neat idea to roll about his brain for a few moments. What a wonderful way to get even with that smart little clever-clogs from the tent next door – they could use his favourite toy to grab the treasure! ‘Right, lads – back to the campsite – everyone on tiptoe again.’

  Off they went, creeping back to Jack's tent where the green beast was still standing on its tail and looking menacing by moonlight. Lumpy took the front end of the crocodile and Blackpatch took the tail because, even though it was made of plastic, the Captain didn't like to get right next to those sharp teeth. A little voice came from the tent. ‘Who's that out there?’ Jack asked sleepily.