by Guy Bass
“Uh-oh,” began the Creature. “Why is the thingy GROWLING at me?”
“Creature! Look out!” yelled Stitch Head as the monkey-bat swooped. He landed on the Creature’s head and began biting and scratching with all his monstrous rage!
“AAHH! Get him OFF me! He’s eating my ears!” squealed the Creature.
Creature began to flail wildly as the monkey-bat ripped chunks of hair off its head with his teeth. “Why didn’t you WARN me he was so MONSTROUS?” Creature cried.
Stitch Head raced across the courtyard and climbed the Creature’s back until he reached its head. There, he came face to face with the monkey-bat.
“Uh . . . A fast ye . . .” Stitch Head said, nervously drawing his broken sword.
“Yabbit!” shrieked the monkey-bat, preparing to pounce. “GRRAAarrr . . . GRRAAHH!”
At that moment, Stitch Head quite clearly heard the CLUNK-A-KRUNK of a key turning in the Great Door.
It was opening! But how? No one could open it, except . . .
“Only me!” said a voice, as the Great Door creaked open. “Boy, this door’s heavier than my old grandma when I have to carry her to the bathroom . . .”
“Arabella! No!” cried Stitch Head, but the monkey-bat had already spotted his escape route. As Arabella emerged from behind the door, Stitch Head’s first creation took to the air, gliding straight toward her.
“Arabella, look OUT! He’s HUNGRY for HAIR!” screamed the Creature, as the monkey-bat crashed into Arabella, sending them both flying across the courtyard.
“Arabella! No! Go, Creature, go!” shouted Stitch Head, hanging onto what was left of the Creature’s hair.
The Creature lumbered toward them as Arabella and the monkey-bat rolled across the ground, kicking up clouds of dust. Arabella’s pained screams filled the air . . . or was it laughter?
“Hahaha! Finally, a mad thing that’s actually got some get-up-and-gouge!” Arabella said. She giggled, as the monkey-bat gnawed happily on her arm. “I was beginning to think there wasn’t nothing in this castle with even an ounce of backbone. He’s great!”
“He — he is?” asked Stitch Head.
“Sit, mad thing, sit!” Arabella ordered.
The monkey-bat immediately flew into the air and landed obediently on Arabella’s shoulder. It perched there like a parrot, except with more ear chewing.
“He’s a little too tame for my liking,” Arabella said, “but he’ll do. So can I keep him, Stitch Head?”
“Maybe your POTIONS have finally WORKED,” mused the Creature. “Maybe he’s CURED. . .”
“Maybe,” replied Stitch Head.
He leaped to the ground and tentatively held out a hand to the monkey-bat. The monkey-bat snarled — and immediately tried to bite off a finger. “Or maybe not,” said Stitch Head.
“I’ve never had a pet before — not since that dead rabbit I found a couple years ago,” said Arabella, stroking the monkey-bat behind his ears.
“I shall call him . . . Pox,” Arabella said. “After the town’s last plague, of course.”
“But . . .” began Stitch Head. Then he shrugged and smiled weakly. Arabella was clearly the only one who could tame the beast — perhaps he could live without a trusty companion.
Besides . . . Pox hadn’t exactly made him feel like a pirate, anyway. Would anything make him feel like a real pirate?
“By the way,” continued Arabella, “the mailman handed me a letter. He was too chicken to come up to the castle himself, that big baby.”
“A LETTER? Ooh, I LOVE getting letters!” bellowed the Creature. “At least, I would if I ever DID.”
“But we never get letters,” said Stitch Head suspiciously.
Arabella took the letter out of her dress pocket and handed it to Stitch Head. He stared at the envelope. It was creased and crumpled. Upon it was written:
“It’s for the professor,” said Stitch Head, a shiver running down his spine. Suddenly, thoughts of piracy on the high seas seemed very unimportant indeed. Stitch Head felt a strange sense of impending dread . . . as if the outside world was banging on the Great Door.
Despite the Creature’s insistence that he should “TEAR open!” the envelope, Stitch Head decided that his master should be the first to see whatever the letter inside contained.
So Stitch Head, the Creature and Arabella (accompanied by her new pet, Pox the monkey-bat) made their way to the rafters above the mad professor’s laboratory. It was Stitch Head’s favorite place in the entire castle.
As always, the professor was hard at work assembling an impressively mad creation. He’d laid out a bizarre assortment of components that he was ordering and reordering in a number of horrifying potential combinations.
“Ah-ha-ha! The knee bone connects to the . . . snake head!” cried the professor. “The elbow connects to the . . . bear paw! AHHHHAHAHA!”
“Are you SURE you don’t want a quick PEEK?” asked the Creature, as Stitch Head held the letter in his tiny hands. “What if it’s IMPORTANT?”
“I read all my grandma’s secret letters,” said Arabella. “Of course, my grandma can’t actually write, so they don’t make much sense . . .”
Stitch Head’s fingers hovered over the wax seal.
“I can’t,” he said finally. “It’s not for creation eyes. It’s for the professor’s eyes only.”
He held the letter out in front of him . . . and dropped it. It fluttered gently through the air and landed on the laboratory’s center table.
“The shin bone’s connected to the . . . antlers! The wrist bone’s connected to the . . . horse’s hoof? Ahahaha!” cackled the professor.
Then the professor spotted something. “The thigh bone’s connected to this . . . letter?”
“He’s FOUND it! GREAT! Oh, this is SO EXCITING!” boomed the Creature.
“Shhhh . . .” whispered Stitch Head.
He watched his master tear open the letter and read it as if it were taking up valuable creating time. Finally, he tossed the letter to the floor.
“WEIRD,” said the Creature.
“Maybe it wasn’t so important after all?” Arabella suggested.
“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!” screeched the professor. “Finally! After all these long, professoring years! I must pack!”
For the first time in his almost-life, Stitch Head watched the professor abandon his latest creation and leave the laboratory.
“What was that about?” asked Arabella. “He’s mad, that mad professor of yours.”
“Yabbit!” agreed Pox, spitting out a mouthful of Arabella’s hair.
“Forget what I said earlier,” said Stitch Head. “We have to read that letter.”
After ten minutes of clambering (the Creature suddenly decided it was scared of heights), Stitch Head and his companions made it to the laboratory floor. Stitch Head found the letter in a pile of skulls. He picked it up, took a deep breath, and read it, his heart skipping more beats than usual.
“SO, what does it SAY?” asked the Creature.
“He won,” muttered Stitch Head. “He won a mad professoring award. I didn’t even know there was a mad professoring award. But he won. He won!”
Stitch Head felt happier than he had in many years. His master’s work had finally been recognized! “I always knew — I mean, I always hoped that . . . no one can create like my master! He’s the best there is . . .”
“Yeah, it’s all very whoop-dee-doo and lah-dee-dah,” mocked Arabella, “but don’t it mean that the professor is going to —”
The castle shook with the sound of the Great Door slamming shut.
“He left . . .” whispered Stitch Head.
As it turned out, the professor hadn’t even bothered to pack — he’d just left. For the first time in Stitch Head’s almost-life, the castle was without its mad professor . . .
/> . . . And Stitch Head was without a master.
Stitch Head had never imagined that the professor would — ever could — leave Castle Grotteskew. He’d never even known him to look out the window. He was sure his master would return soon — nothing could keep him away from his work for very long.
But it left Stitch Head feeling strangely lost . . . how should he spend his days if not looking out for his master?
He was still staring at the letter as he and his friends wandered through the dark stone corridors of the castle.
“I know! Let’s pretend we’re MAD PROFESSORS!” boomed the Creature “We can take his PLACE while he’s AWAY from the castle!”
“Speaking of which,” began Arabella, pointing to Pox as he flew alongside her. “The Creature told me you are Pox’s maker. Since when did you start creating creations?”
Stitch Head lowered his head, suddenly embarrassed. “I wasn’t professoring,” he replied, folding the professor’s letter and tucking it into his sleeve. “I was . . . I was trying to make a trusty companion. I was trying to be like Captain Flashpowder.”
“I knew it! Is that what that old bit of wood is on your belt?” Arabella said with a laugh. “You’re trying to be a pirate!”
“I was just trying to imagine it,” mumbled Stitch Head, more ashamed than ever. “I made a list of piratey things. I just thought, because of the eye, maybe I could . . . I don’t know. It’s stupid.”
“What are you TALKING about? That’s a GREAT idea!” shrieked the Creature with glee. “We can finally pretend we’re PIRATES! No more tea parties for us!”
“Sounds good to me,” said Arabella. “I ain’t done no piracy since Traveling Aunt Olga took me on that cruise . . .”
“I don’t know . . . I’m not sure I’m cut out for it,” said Stitch Head. “No matter what I do I can’t imagine anything except these walls. I just can’t see myself as a pirate.”
“You just need to think BIGGER!” bellowed the Creature happily. “So, what ELSE is on that LIST of yours?”
Stitch Head didn’t get very far down his list. No sooner had he mentioned “a trusty ship” than the Creature squealed with excitement, and jumped up and down with such enthusiasm that the ground beneath their feet began to shake.
“A SHIP! That’s PERFECT! We’ll BUILD our own PIRATE SHIP! Nothing says ‘Look at how PIRATEY I am!’ like a nice, big SHIP.”
“But how?” asked Stitch Head. “We’d need materials — timber, iron, cloth for the sails . . .”
“You ain’t never going to discover your inner pirate if you don’t start thinking positive,” huffed Arabella. “That professor of yours is away for a day or two at least, so we’ve got the run of the place — an entire castle to plunder! He won’t notice that a few things have gone missing — he never goes nowhere except that lab of his, anyway.”
“I . . .” began Stitch Head. He didn’t like the idea of stealing from the castle, despite the fact he’d been stealing from the professor for years to make his cures.
Then again, building a ship would be a nice distraction while the professor was away . . . and Stitch Head really did want to discover his inner pirate. He took a deep breath.
“Let’s do it,” he said.
Arabella was quick to come up with a strategy for building Stitch Head’s pirate ship.
They would work in the courtyard so they would have plenty of space for all the masts, jibs, bowsprits, and topsails.
Stitch Head would design it, based on the drawings of the Gadabout in The Daring Diary of Captain Flashpowder.
The Creature would use its strength, ingenuity, and friends within the creation community to gather the materials they needed (the Creature ran both the Arts ’n’ Crafts Club and the Creative Creations Collective Class).
Then Arabella would direct the building process by shouting very loudly at everyone.
“Faster, you lax ’n’ lazy landlubbers! Pick up them feet or I’ll make you walk the plank! And I’ll make sure the waters are shark infested!” she screamed, holding Pox by the tail as he gnashed and growled.
“YES, sir! I mean, MA’AM! Err, I mean . . .” replied the Creature, stomping past with a handful of wooden doors it had borrowed from various rooms around the castle.
Arabella giggled. “This is fun!” she said.
A moment later, Stitch Head emerged with a large, carefully rolled-up piece of paper — his design for their ship.
“I finished!” Stitch Head said. “What do you —”
“Speak up, you butt-brain!” yelled Arabella, snatching the design. “I don’t want no mumbling unless I give you a direct mumbling order!” She unrolled the paper. “I should have you swab the deck with this — hey, this is really good!”
Arabella laid the design on the ground. It was a remarkably accurate copy of the Gadabout. In fact, Stitch Head had named his ship the Gadabout II. A dark, imposing sail hung from the ship’s mast. In its center was the pirates’ symbol, the skull and crossbones, but with one notable difference — the skull was outlined with stitches.
“This is going to be a fine ship, Stitch Head,” said Arabella with a smile. “I reckon you might have found your inner pirate after all!”
Stitch Head, Arabella, and the Creature worked for a day and a night on the ship, stopping only for naps and food. The Creature was a particular fan of both, even though it didn’t need either.
Stitch Head, however, never stopped. He sawed, hammered, bolted, and sewed as if his almost-life depended on it, all the while hoping that it would trigger something in his imagination — that it would reveal his inner pirate.
By the morning of the second day, the Gadabout II was complete. It was fair to say it didn’t look exactly like Stitch Head’s design. In fact, it didn’t look anything like it at all.
But that fact didn’t seem to bother the Creature. “It’s GREAT! The BESTEST pirate ship EVER!” he hollered.
Stitch Head glanced at the ship. It was a lot smaller than he’d hoped — only slightly bigger than the Creature — and its hull was cobbled together with random pieces of wood that were clumsily nailed or tied together.
The sails were even more shabby — far from being vast, dark, and imposing, they were a messy patchwork of floral-patterned bedsheets.
“Nah, it’s a real mess!” chuckled Arabella. “But it’s a ship — your ship, Stitch Head. Why don’t you try it out?”
Stitch Head climbed aboard. The ship creaked and rattled as if it might fall to pieces at any moment. He cautiously inched toward the bow, drew his sword, and struck his most pirate-like pose. He tried to imagine the vast, blue oceans, the cool sea breeze, the distant islands . . .
“Onward . . . to adventure,” Stitch Head whispered, but to his disappointment, he didn’t feel any different. He still felt like a forgotten creation standing on a ramshackle boat.
Stitch Head sighed. Perhaps it was for the best — if he could never leave the castle, why bother trying to pretend he was anything other than a forgotten creation?
“SO? Have you found your INNER pirate?” asked the Creature, clapping two of its three hands together in excitement.
Stitch Head looked down at the expectant faces of his friends. He hated to lie, but they had worked so hard, he couldn’t bear to tell them the truth. Finally, he said, “I think I have. I feel like Captain Flashpowder. Thank you . . . for everything. I guess I am part pirate after all.”
“I KNEW it!” boomed the Creature.
“Sounds like a job well done!” said Arabella. “Well, I’d best be heading back to Grubbers Nubbin. I ain’t eaten nothing but sawdust and beetles all day — I’m starving.”
Arabella rubbed Pox on the belly and made him promise not to attack anyone until her next visit. He gave a reluctant “GRuKK!” and then bit her on the ankle.
“Next time I come over, we’re taking th
at thing down to Grubbers Harbor and setting sail,” said Arabella. She unlocked the Great Door, heaved it open, and made her way outside. “See you tomorrow. Hang on, what’s this?” She reappeared with something in her hand.
It was another letter.
Stitch Head jumped down from the Gadabout II and took the letter. His jaw dropped as he stared at the front of the envelope.
“For . . . me?” he whispered in horror. “But no one knows I even — I mean, no one knows I exist. Except . . .”
“OPEN IT!” screamed the Creature. “Is it a LOVE letter? A GOLDEN ticket to a land of CHOCOLATE? The SUSPENSE is KILLING me!”
Stitch Head tore open the letter.
Stitch Head stared at the words, unable to breathe.
“What does it SAY? Have you won a PRIZE?” boomed the Creature. “I LOVE winning prizes! I expect —”
“Stitch Head, what is it?” asked Arabella, her voice suddenly soft. “What does it say?”
“He’s gone,” replied Stitch Head. “My master’s not coming back.”
Stitch Head slumped to his knees. He tried to read the letter again, but tears welled up in his eyes and blurred his vision.
Under any other circumstances, Stitch Head would have been delighted that the professor had chosen to write to him, of all the creations in the castle. But to abandon the castle . . . to abandon his work . . . to abandon him . . . Stitch Head felt anger and sadness bubbling up inside him.
“I don’t UNDERSTAND,” said the Creature finally. “What does the OUTSIDE world have that the CASTLE doesn’t? Apart from FRESH AIR, proper PLUMBING, and actual HUMAN beings . . .”
