by Will Mabbitt
Turn right at the mackerel steamers, then left past Dirty Simon’s Tattoo and Tanning Salon and you will see, directly in front of you, the studded oak door of the CADAVEROUS LOBSTER TAVERN.
Mabel brushed some snow from the guidebook she was reading. Sure enough, the CADAVEROUS LOBSTER TAVERN lay in her path. She didn’t know what ‘cadaverous’ meant, but, from the look of the lobster on the creaking sign, it wasn’t a compliment.
But wait!
What brings a young girl to a place such as this? Mabel Jones, though brave of heart, is hardly the sort you’d usually find in a pub. And this is not the sort of pub where children are greeted by a friendly face, a pint of rum, and an arm-wrestle. This is not the kind of pub where a rosy-nosed barmaid welcomes strangers with a kiss on the cheek and a whale-fat sandwich.
No, this pub is the haunt of the roughest of all seagoing folk. Where wild-eyed animals fight over the last scraps of stolen treasure; where knives are drawn over spilled drinks; where those who can’t pay their bills are held down and forcibly tattooed.
But young Mabel Jones is here on a mission. A mission to find the owner of the first name on the list and rob, pinch, or pilfer their piece of the shattered X.
Oh, it’s OK. Here come some others, tramping through the snow.
It appears she is in the responsible company of a couple of bloodthirsty pirates. The perfect partners for a nighttime stroll to the roughest pub in the toughest town in the northern hemisphere.
A meeting had been held on board the Feroshus Maggot and the three pirates chosen to steal the piece of X were Pelf, Mr. Clunes, and young Mabel Jones.
You might wonder if Mabel was an odd choice for the mission, considering she wasn’t really old enough to go into a pub late at night. And you’d be right to wonder. Something tells me the whispered, wicked voice of one Omynus Hussh must have been employed to drip poisoned words like runny honey into the captain’s ear.
“Mabel should go pinch it from hims too! Prove the snuglet is loyal to you, Captain. Prove she’s a pirate!”
And speaking of Omynus Hussh . . . who’s that lurking in the shadows, unseen by the official landing party?
One more pirate!
A pirate who snuck off after them, scuttling some yards behind. Always watching. Always in the shadows. Shrouded in a suspicious silence, his large, saucery eyes rimmed with angry tears.
He lifts a severed, air-dried hand from beneath his shirt and holds it against his cheek as though it were the softest of kittens.
“We’ll gets her good and proper this time. We’ll gets her good and proper . . .”
Maybe it would be best if we skipped the rest of this chapter. I wish I could tell you that it would all end happily, but the truth is things are about to get very unpleasant for poor Mabel Jones . . .
If you are still reading, then please permit me to ask a favor of you. Firstly, put one hand over your eyes so you can’t see at all. Now, open your fingers a fraction. Just so you can see a tiny bit.
That should help you a little.
Quick! Grab something lucky. Have you a holy relic handy? The finger bones of a long-dead saint perhaps?
No?
Then a lucky turtle’s foot?
No?
Then you should brace yourself. Can you see Mabel and her friends?
There they are: sitting at a rum-stained table at the back of the CADAVEROUS LOBSTER TAVERN.
The thick fog of pipe smoke and vulgar cursing hangs heavy in the air. An owl sits on an old barrel, tunelessly squeezing a leaky accordion and screeching a sordid sea shanty.
It’s been a while since I have visited this place (due to an unfortunate incident with an octopus beak and several members of the Alsatian Navy). It hasn’t changed much, though.
The floor is still covered in sawdust to soak up spilled drinks and spilled blood. The picture of the landlord’s late wife still hangs threateningly over the bar beneath a blunderbuss kept loaded for closing time. The tables are still pieced together from driftwood, and the old goat, Slops, is still asleep in the corner, racked by nightmares from his time at sea. His lips mouth the same words he uttered on that fateful voyage when he contracted the Tropical Bumrot that curses him still:
“It must’ve been something I ate . . .”
But enough description of this foul house for the toughest and roughest of the sea. Let us quickly peek over Mabel’s shoulder to remind ourselves of the first name on the list. The owner of the name sits just there, at that table by the bar. The wild and wicked and willfully evil
BARTOK THE BRUTE, THE BEAST OF THE BALTIC!
And what a beast!
Bartok the Brute is a bear.
A bear covered from head to paw in wiry black hair that conceals tattoos so rude they’d make a dock worker blush. He has shoulders so wide he has to edge sideways through doors, and claws as white as the cow bones he cracks open with his very, very large teeth. It is rumored he once suffered a direct hit to the head from a cannonball. The only damage: a bloodied snout. Somewhere—set deep into his face—are tiny, tiny eyes like burned currants on an overcooked cake. And around his neck hangs a dull metal shard: one piece of an ancient letter X.
Mabel looked across at the crowd of pirates gathered around Bartok’s table as they let out a rowdy cheer.
“What are they doing?” she asked.
Pelf looked disapprovingly at the pirates.
“It’s a drinking competition. This tavern is famous for its home-brewed Wasp Rot. They each drink a shot in turn and the first pirate to fall down loses.”
“Wasp Rot? What’s Wasp Rot?” asked Mabel.
Pelf screwed his face up.
“A foul liquid brewed from the pee of a thousand stray cats and laced with crushed wasp. Only those with innards like the bowels of hell can drink it in any amount! A little bit will knock you senseless. A little more will dissolve you from the inside out. A smooth-faced young snuglet like you? It would kill you dead—but not before you got the brain rot and your eyes fell backward into the empty space left behind.”
Mabel winced. “You don’t drink it, do you?”
Pelf took a big suck of his foul-smelling pipe and coughed out a toxic cloud of gray-green smoke. He cleared his throat and spat the contents onto the sawdusty floor.
“Not me. That poison will kill you. My body’s a temple!”
He nodded his head toward the table, where a gray-whiskered hound was being carried away, unconscious. Another victory for Bartok the Brute!
A large paw banged on the table, and Bartok’s voice boomed out:
“BARTOK PLAY AGAIN!”
The owl stopped squeezing the accordion. The crowd fell silent. Everyone looked at each other shiftily. It was clear that this was one game it was more fun to watch than to play.
“BARTOK IS WAITING!”
Would no one dare challenge the Beast?
“BARTOK IS ANGRY!”
Suddenly the silence was broken—by a familiar voice from an unseen mouth. Words spoken through treacherous loris lips:
“I thinks the thieving snuglet-in-the-corner should play.”
The crowd parted from Bartok’s table. All eyes, noses, beaks, and muzzles turned to Mabel Jones and her friends.
“BARTOK DRINK WITH SCRAWNY ONE!”
Mabel looked around innocently.
“Who? Me?”
The crowd broke into cheering. A challenger had been found! The owl restarted his shanty and Mabel was carried, protesting, to the table.
“BARTOK WANT BET!”
Pelf tapped his pipe against a hoof thoughtfully.
“I bet you the piece of X hanging from your neck that Mabel will win!”
Mabel looked at Pelf in horror.
Pelf winked back at her. “Worth a shot, matey, as you’ve volunteered
anyway.”
Once more the crowd fell into silence as Bartok considered the bet.
“WHAT DOES BARTOK WIN?”
The whispery voice spoke again from the shadows with treacherous, betraying words:
“If you wins, you can keep the whole child!”
Mabel gasped. It was all happening so quickly! Just as she was about to protest one decision, another much worse one was being made.
Bartok looked at her closely.
“BARTOK ACCEPT.
BARTOK HUNGRY!”
The Beast lifted a giant paw toward the bottle of Wasp Rot on the table, but, before he could pour, a bar stoat leaned forward.
“The challenger chooses the drink, remember?”
He jumped back into the crowd as the Beast glared at him.
“NO MATTER. BARTOK DRINK ANYTHING.”
He glared at Mabel.
“CHOOSE!”
“Can I see a drinks menu?”
The stoat scratched his stomach.
“We have Wasp Rot and Diet Wasp Rot.”
“Do they both have cat pee in them?”
The stoat nodded.
“And you haven’t got anything else?” Mabel asked.
The stoat shook his head.
“Haven’t you even got any water?”
The pirates laughed. “The only thing water is good for is carrying a ship full of Wasp Rot!”
“Lemonade?”
The pirates guffawed wildly. The very thought: pirates drinking lemonade?
“Orange squash!?”
More laughter. They hadn’t even heard of orange squash. It just sounded funny!
“Milk?”
The bar fell into a horrified silence.
Milk?!
MILK?!?
MILK?!?!
The pirates cowered from the table.
Pelf pushed through the crowd and grabbed Mabel by the collar of her pajamas.
“Are ye mad? Are ye insane? It’ll rot your teeth straight from your gums and make your bones crumble like a ship’s biscuit. Many a fine pirate has got the screaming fever just by sniffing that filthy stuff. You can’t drink milk! It just ain’t right.It’s . . . it’s . . .
“DISGUSTING!”
I’m afraid we must pause the story for an important health and safety announcement. I am not sure where a creature like you comes from, or indeed if you have even heard of this “milk,” so let me explain. This vile, white filth that squirts from the teat of a cow is avoided by all but the maddest of pirate folk. It tastes all . . . all . . . clean . . . and creamy . . . and cold. With milk, there is no acrid aftertaste, no burned flavor, no throat burning. It is best avoided. And if anyone should offer it to you, then you should throw it back in their face on account of them being a dirty, rotten poisoner. I urge you NEVER, NEVER, EVER choose the Devil’s Drink, also known as milk. And this was the drink that Mabel chose!
Poor young Mabel Jones. She couldn’t possibly have known. (I told you this chapter would be too much for you!)
The bar stoat gingerly placed two glasses of milk on the table, then retreated to a safe distance.
“DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!” chanted the pirates from their respective hiding-places.
Bartok raised the drink to his lips.
Mabel did the same.
“DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!”
Their gazes locked together.
“DRINK!
DRINK!
DRINK!”
Mabel gulped her milk down in one go and . . .
. . . and . . .
. . . and smiled!
SHE SMILED!
A triumphant, milky mustache on her top lip.
In Bartok’s tiny burned-currant eyes, Mabel saw a flash of fear—just for a second—and then they were blazing with an angry fire once again. Bartok began to drink, but with the first swallow there came a muted belch from somewhere deep inside his hairy body. Mabel winced as milk started to spray from his nostrils.
Bartok grabbed the table for support, but it was no good. The vile liquid was taking hold of his body, its goodness suffocating his essential pirate organs. Gargling in pain, he collapsed to the floor.
“BARTOK FEEL POORLY.”
His eyes flickered closed and then, a second later, he let out a loud snore.
THE BEAST
WAS DEFEATED!
The pirate crowd cheered as Pelf leaned down and removed the piece of X from around Bartok’s neck. Ducking through the excited crowd, the landing party from the Feroshus Maggot excused themselves and were heading for the door when . . .
A hand grabbed Mabel by the pajamas.
A small, soft hand, very much like her own, belonging to a very tall, very thin hooded figure, very much unlike her.
Mabel looked up and, for a split second, the clouds cleared, and the moonlight shone through the grubby windows of the tavern, revealing the face of the mysterious figure.
IT WAS A SKULL!
A skull! All white bone and hollow, dead holes where eyes should be.
Mabel stared at the bone face, wanting to turn away from its no-eyed glare. But realizing that would be rude, and might even hurt the creature’s feelings, she forced herself to look it straight in the eye holes.
A soft voice spoke from deep within the creature’s chest, its jawbone moving up and down, weirdly out of time with the words:
“What are you doing with that piece of X?”
Mabel blinked. “I’m collecting the pieces for Captain Idryss Ebenezer Split. If I help him find them all, he can use them to send me home.”
She tried to pull away, but the creature held her firmly by the sleeve.
“You mustn’t help Split,” it hissed urgently. “If he gets hold of all five pieces, he—”
“Mabel?”
It was Pelf speaking, coming back to see why she hadn’t followed the others out.
The tall creature took one look at the goat, then pressed a card into Mabel Jones’s hand and disappeared into the crowded pub.
Mabel looked at the card.
And with that last, most mysterious encounter, and the second piece of the X safely in hand, the pirates left the CADAVEROUS LOBSTER TAVERN.
All but one, that is: a saucer-eyed silent loris, consoling himself in the corner. He kissed his severed hand tenderly.
“It gots lucky this time. But next time we’ll get the thieving snuglet good and nasty!”
Giggling nervously, Omynus Hussh disappeared into the night. The only clue to his ever having been there at all?
A suspicious silence.
CHAPTER 6
A Storm and Some Filthsome Treachery
Ah, what a life it is to be a pirate! It’s a tough one, surely. Creatures like Mabel Jones are not used to the harsh ways of the sea, being more at ease safely snuggled in their feathery beds. And it is also true that her puny arms could not heave an anchor or even lift a cannonball, but still she applied herself to her new life with a vigor that surprised the pirate crew.
Mabel now knew the only way of returning home was to help the pirates complete their mission.
But the Psychopomp’s words bounced and buzzed about her brain like a gang of drunken mosquitoes looking for a fight.
“You
mustn’t
help
Split.”
Without knowing why she mustn’t, Mabel could only focus on what she did know—she needed that X. And another part of the X was now their target. The part belonging to the captain of a whaling vessel. His name: Ishmael H. Toucan.
Sad words indeed! And a coincidence too, for at the very moment Captain Ishmael H. Toucan was scribbling his signature, his name was being read out from a list of particular interest to another captain, one Idryss Ebenezer Split.
Enraged by the very name, Split hurled his half-empty tankard at Milton, the pig, and struck him full in the snout.
“Ishmael the whaler!” he growled. “I know that sell-out well! Turned his back on piracy for a lucrative career in whaling!”
He stabbed a rusty dagger into a map spread across his cabin table. “Set sail for the Cold Gray Sea!”
If the crew had thought that recovering the first piece of the X from Bartok the Brute would put the captain in a kinder mood, they were very much mistaken.
In fact, the only thing that matched the captain’s rage was the sea. As the days passed, the captain grew angrier and angrier and, with each cruel punishment handed out to his unfortunate crew, the waves grew ever higher.
The freezing north winds LASHED the pirates as they went about their business. Milton had lent Mabel an oilskin that she buttoned up right to her nose. Two sealskin boots and some mittens completed her outfit, but it was still cold enough to freeze the snot that dripped from her runny nose.
At night the crew huddled together below, the long arms of Mr. Clunes circling the shivering group. Only Split stayed on deck, constantly surveying the horizon through his telescope, watching as the comet slowly crossed the starry sky.
One morning, Mabel rose early. Captain Split had finally retired to his cabin, and Pelf was standing at the helm, looking out to sea with a worried frown. He extinguished his pipe and tucked it safely into his grubby fleece.
“ALL HANDS
ON DECK!”
Pelf stamped a hoof to wake those that slept below. “There be an evil storm brewing.”
Mabel followed his concerned gaze. Sure enough, terrible black clouds were gathering on the horizon.
Pelf pulled his beard thoughtfully. “Drop anchor, Mr. Clunes. We’ll stay here until the storm has passed us by.”
Clunes, the silent orangutan, began to lower the anchor. He was the only one on board strong enough to lift it, but Clunes’s face showed no sign of strain as he raised the giant weight. His expression stayed the same as it always was: sad.
