The Pirate Who's Back in Bunny Slippers

by Annabeth Bondor-Stone

  “I know that scream,” bellowed a gruff but friendly voice. “Shivers!” It was his dad, Bob, peering over the deck of his ship. In all the clam commotion, they hadn’t realized that they had drifted all the way to the Plunderer.

  “What a surprise!” Bob grinned through his bristly beard.

  Shivers’s mom, Tilda the Tormentor, was next to him. She was tall and strong, with wild, curly hair that always looked like it was trying to escape from the red bandanna wrapped around her head. “Tie up your . . . beach balls, and grab on to the anchor,” she called down to them. “We’ll pull you up!”

  Margo pulled the beach towels from her big green backpack and knotted them end-to-end so they made a sturdy rope to secure the raft. Then she and Shivers grabbed on to the anchor. As Bob and Tilda pulled them up, Shivers clutched the anchor chain for dear life. “This is why I always make my parents visit me.”

  Finally, they reached the main deck. With Albee’s bag in one hand, Margo hopped over the railing and onto the Plunderer. “Let’s go, Shivers!” she called. “We don’t have much time!” The sun hovered in the sky like a big, bright clock counting down the minutes until the mayor’s deadline.

  Shivers took a deep breath and grabbed on to the railing, then slowly rolled over until he plopped down onto the deck. It was not a pretty sight.

  Bob pulled Shivers to his feet. Tilda hugged him so hard she nearly squeezed the popcorn right out of him. “Come on, your brother and your uncle are in the galley!” she said.

  “Okay, but we can’t stay and chat. We need you to find the—”

  Bob swung open the door to the galley and a menacing cloud of black smoke billowed out.

  “—FIRE!!!” Shivers screamed.

  “You need me to find the fire?” Bob asked, confused.

  “No, look!” Shivers pointed behind him. “Fire on the deck!”

  There was a huge, blazing fire in the middle of the kitchen floor. Sitting beside it was Shivers’s brave brother, Brock. Brock was bigger than anyone else in his family. He towered over Shivers and had so many muscles he almost looked lumpy. Next to Brock was Great Uncle Marvin, the crankiest pirate in the Eastern Seas.

  “AGGHH!!” Shivers let out a scream that turned into a cough. “Brock, do something!!”

  “I am doing something. I’m making breakfast,” said Brock.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of a microwave?!” Shivers shrieked in sheer panic.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of a breakfast fire?” Brock countered.

  “NO!” Shivers dashed to the sink, filled a bucket with water, and threw it on the fire.

  Uncle Marvin scowled and shook some water off his sleeve. “Now I’ve got a soggy sausage!”

  Brock didn’t seem to mind, though. He took a bite and grinned. “Hey, not bad! It’s soggy but scrumptious!” He crammed the rest of it in his mouth. “And I can eat it so much faster now!” Without a second thought, he stole Uncle Marvin’s sausage off the stick and slurped it down.

  Uncle Marvin stood up in a huff. “Why did I even bother putting my teeth in today?” He angrily stormed out of the room.

  “Listen, everyone! There’s no time for breakfast now!” Shivers said, horrified that he would ever have to utter those words. “Mom, Dad, you have to find the Treasure Torch.”

  Bob wiggled a fishbone toothpick between his front teeth and sent a piece of old meat flying across the room. “Son, we’d love to find the most coveted treasure in all the Eastern Seas but it’s impossible!”

  “Besides, we’re already moving on to the next exciting treasure. The Long-Gone Jewels of Georgia!” said Tilda. Then she expertly hurled a dagger across the room toward a map on the wall. Shivers screamed as it whizzed past him and landed smack in the middle of the Georgia coast.

  “No!” Bob shouted, pounding his fist on the table. “I want to capture the Crystal Canary of Canada!” He flung his own dagger like a Frisbee and it landed on the map above Tilda’s. Shivers squealed and covered his face for protection.

  Brock stabbed his dagger—which was actually a butcher knife—through the middle of the map, splitting it in two. “What about the famed Golden Arches?!” he cried.

  “We keep telling you, we’re not going to McDonald’s!” Tilda sighed

  “Excuse me,” Shivers said, peeking out from behind his hands. “But I really need you to find the Treasure Torch for me.”

  Shivers told them about what had happened that morning. Or, at least, he tried to. But he got so caught up in how terrifying the whole thing was that he didn’t even make it past the popping popcorn. Margo stepped in and explained that if they didn’t find the Treasure Torch by sundown, Shivers would lose his ship forever.

  Bob and Tilda looked at each other and smiled. “Shivers, you don’t need your Land Lady,” said Tilda.

  “What?” Shivers balked.

  “It’s high time for you to hit the high seas,” said Bob. “The Land Lady was great for a while, but we miss you on our adventures. Come live with us, and we’ll sail the Seven Seas together—like a family should.”

  “Yeah, brother!” said Brock. “Even I’m living on board until dad finishes building my new ship!”

  Brock’s old ship, the Brock ’n’ Roll, had been missing for days and by now he figured it had been eaten by a giant squid.

  Shivers protested, “I can’t live with you guys! Everything about your ship is terrifying!”

  “What are you talking about?” Tilda asked.

  “You almost burned the place down with a breakfast fire! I nearly lost a nose to your willy-nilly knife throwing! And you don’t even have a microwave!”

  “That’s right! We have huge waves!” Bob said proudly.

  Margo looked through the porthole. “And here comes one now!”

  As a mighty wave rocked the ship, Bob, Brock, and Tilda all put their hands in the air like they were on a roller coaster. “WHEEEEEE!” they shouted.

  “AAAAAGH!” screamed Shivers. He ran out of the room and Margo followed.

  Just as he was slamming the door, Tilda called out, “Welcome to your new home!”

  Shivers and Margo stumbled across the deck and grabbed the railing of the ship for balance. Shivers stared back at the shore, longing for the home he was sure to lose.

  He whimpered, “I miss my Land Lady.” It was something no one had ever said before. “There’s no way I can live here. It’s chaos! That beach is where I belong. And”—his mind starting spinning like a squirrel on a Tilt-A-Whirl—“AGGGGHH!”

  “What?!” Margo asked. “Do you see another clam?!”

  “I just realized the most terrifying thing of all about losing my home.”

  “No more daisies? No more pillow forts? No more popcorn?” Margo guessed.

  Shivers shook his head. “No more you.”

  Margo’s face crumpled like a newspaper no one wanted to read anymore. Shivers was right—if he was off sailing the Seven Seas with his parents, they wouldn’t be able to go on adventures together. As much as she wished she was a real pirate, she was just a normal fifth grader. And for some reason her teacher, Mrs. Beezle, did not allow absences for adventures.

  “I can’t lose you, Margo,” said Shivers. “You’re my best friend.”

  Albee gasped.

  “. . . Who isn’t a fish.”

  Margo took off her sad face and put on her game face. She gripped the straps of her green backpack and said, “We’ll just have to find the Treasure Torch and return it ourselves, then.”

  “But how?! Even my parents said it was impossible.”

  “Who cares what they said?” Margo said. “Bravery comes from within.”

  Shivers paused to think about that. “It does?”

  “Yes,” said Margo. “I read that in a fortune cookie once. Those things taste a lot like cardboard, but boy, do they give good advice.”

  Shivers took a deep breath, trying to muster all the bravery he could. There wasn’t much there, but it was enough to make him say, “Let�
��s go get it.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Margo said. “Now, we just have to figure out where to start.”

  “I’ll tell you where!” croaked Uncle Marvin. He was standing on the deck holding a jar labeled MARVIN’S LUNCH.

  “AAAGH!” Shivers screamed. “How long have you been behind us?”

  “The whole time! Where else am I supposed to pickle the raisins for my midday mush meal?” He started rifling through the pockets of his tattered coat. “AHA!” he cried, pulling a crumpled piece of paper out of his front pocket. He shoved it into Shivers’s hands.

  “Uncle Marvin, I don’t want your old gum wrapper,” Shivers grumbled.

  “It’s not a gum wrapper, you fuzz-brain!” Marvin spat. “It’s instructions for how to find that Treasure Torch.”

  Margo, Shivers, and Albee were blown away. And it wasn’t even that windy out!

  “How did you get this?” Margo said in awe.

  “I stole it from Mustardio’s office!”

  Great Uncle Marvin had been trapped in Mustardio’s hot dog factory for years. Usually, he was a regular at the onion-peeling station, but every once in a while Mustardio would make him clean his office floor with an old toothbrush—or, as Mustardio called it, a mini-mop.

  “I was looking for some trash to spit my old gum into, and I found this. I thought it might be useful. Go on, open it.”

  Shivers uncrumpled the paper. Scribbled in black ink was the strangest letter he had ever seen.

  Shivers scratched his head. “How is this a clue? I don’t even have a clue what he’s talking about!”

  “Who’s this Francois guy anyway?” Margo asked, reading over Shivers’s shoulder.

  Marvin shrugged. “Some guy who almost got gum on his letter, that’s who!”

  Margo puzzled over the first line. “‘Chase your franks into the place where wieners pass the test’ . . . He must mean Mustardio’s hot dogs.”

  “How are we supposed to chase hot dogs?” Shivers shuddered, imagining mutant hot dogs with tiny little legs running around.

  Margo explained, “After Mustardio made the hot dogs in his factory, he must have sent them out to be sold. But where?”

  Great Uncle Marvin piped up. “I’ll tell you where! When Mustardio made me clean the packaging room, I looked at the labels on every box of franks. All of them were being shipped to a place called the Pig-Out Palace on Twenty-Fifth Street in New York City. I’ll bet my unbraided back hair that’s exactly where you should go.”

  Margo and Shivers were pretty grossed out, but they were also very grateful.

  Marvin hoisted himself up. “Now, leave me alone. I’m going to go sit in my bean bag.”

  “You have a beanbag chair?” Shivers asked.

  “No, it’s just a bag of beans I keep by my bed. The bean juice is good for my flaky skin,” Marvin said.

  “Ew . . .” said Shivers.

  I wonder if that works, Albee thought, looking at his scales.

  “Enough with the bean blabbing, we’ve got to get to the Pig-Out Palace!” cried Margo.

  Shivers, Margo, and Albee got back on the anchor. As Marvin lowered them down to their raft, Shivers started to have second thoughts. “Are you sure there isn’t any other way to save my home?” He put his head in his hands. This was bad.

  “Come on, Shivers, it won’t be that scary!” Margo said. “Maybe a few fistfights—”

  “AGGGH!” screamed Shivers.

  “A shipwreck or two—” she added.

  “AGGGH!”

  “And a few close brushes with death,” said Albee, but luckily Shivers didn’t hear him.

  When they reached the water, they climbed onto the raft. Margo untied the towel rope and pointed the beach umbrella so they were on course for New York City. Shivers just stared up at the sky. It was high noon now and the sun didn’t have anywhere to go but down.

  BY THE TIME THE raft reached New York, Margo was exhausted. Every time Shivers got a little bit wet, she had to convince him that it was just salt water and not clam spit. Still, when they got to the shores of Manhattan she was thrilled. She couldn’t wait to see what they would find at the Pig-Out Palace. “Let the adventure begin!” she cried.

  “Aw, I was hoping we were already at the end,” Shivers whined.

  They ran past huge skyscrapers and honking taxis until they rounded a corner and saw a green sign telling them they had reached Twenty-Fifth Street. The block was packed with more people than Shivers had ever seen. Funny-looking people, serious-looking people, and people who looked like they wanted to be serious, but were too funny-looking. There were people from all walks of life, all runs of life, and even one girl who seemed to be skipping through life.

  “There it is!” Margo pointed to a flickering neon sign that said PIG-OUT PALACE in loopy writing beneath an enormous picture of a pig in a chef’s apron. “We have to go in there and find ‘the place where wieners pass the test,’” she said, holding up the crumpled clue.

  “What does that mean?” Shivers asked.

  “Maybe the hot dogs have to pass a food inspection so the restaurant knows they’re safe to eat.”

  Shivers gasped. “Or maybe Mustardio made a bunch of super-smart hot dogs and they all have to take a math test! And whichever one passes doesn’t have to get eaten!”

  Margo and Albee stared at him in wide-eyed silence.

  “Or . . . the thing you said,” Shivers said sheepishly.

  Margo held up Albee’s bag. “Albee, you supervise.”

  She opened the doors of the Pig-Out Palace, which were shaped like two giant hot dog buns. The doorknobs looked like two enormous dollops of ketchup. Shivers said nervously, “I hope this isn’t the actual size of the food!”

  But it was. There were no small portions at the Pig-Out Palace. The restaurant was packed with people carrying gigantic trays of food and each dish had an epic name that suggested maybe more than one person should be eating it. A man in a Hawaiian shirt was loosening his belt after finishing the Rib Rack Stack. A woman in stretchy pants and sports sandals was carrying a plate called the Insane Doggie Train, which was five hot dogs lined up end to end in one long hot dog bun. A little girl ordered a Milk Quake, which was a milk shake the size of a trash can. The man behind the counter made it for her by plopping a whole container of ice cream into a carton of milk and shaking it like a lunatic.

  Shivers’s mouth was watering but there was no time to eat. They scanned the dining room, but they didn’t see anyone testing any hot dogs. So they began to snoop around the rest of the ’rant. They checked out the coat check but all they found was a bunch of pocket lint and an old pack of gum. They snuck into the kitchen but only saw mixes and sauces and stews. By now, Shivers’s stomach was growling so loudly, it sounded like he had eaten an Angry Bear—which was actually a dish on the menu here. If he didn’t eat something soon, he was worried he wouldn’t survive until snack time.

  “Order up! One Meat Fleet!” said the cook, slapping down a tray with six huge slabs of meat on a bed of french fries.

  “No one will miss one of these little guys,” Shivers said. He handed Albee to Margo, hoisted himself up to the counter and snatched one of the fries. He popped it into his mouth and smiled, satisfied. But soon, the smile wrinkled into a queasy grimace. His face turned green like wilted lettuce. His stomach did somersaults, which really upset him since he had never taught his stomach gymnastics. He doubled over, moaning, then stumbled through the kitchen doors and into the dining room.

  “What happened?” Margo wondered. “Uh-oh,” she said, picking up one of the fries. “This isn’t just a french fry. It’s a curly fry! Shivers must be getting C-sick!”

  Albee sighed. “Classic Shivers.”

  And with that, they heard a SPLAT! and then a collective “Ewwwwwww!” from the dining room.

  “Let’s hope that was just a Milk Quake spilling,” said Margo.

  Albee shook his head. It sounded like a Shivers Quake to him.

  The
y ran into the dining room and found Shivers leaning over the salad bar, looking a lot emptier than he had before. Luckily, no one at the Pig-Out Palace ever ordered salad, so no one seemed to mind that Shivers had added a little more green to the mix.

  “I guess I should have noticed that fry was curly,” Shivers said, wincing. Still a little queasy, he stumbled around and put his hand up to regain his balance. But what he thought was the wall was really a pair of double doors! When he leaned against them, they swung open and he toppled over onto the floor.

  “Get away from there!” barked a man wearing a bright yellow T-shirt and a name tag that said, HELLO, MY NAME IS CARLOS, WELCOME TO THE PIG-OUT PALACE, HOME OF THE 25 FRANKS CHALLENGE. It was a lot to fit on one name tag.

  Carlos yanked Shivers to his feet and pushed him aside. “You can’t go into the Hall of Wieners!”

  “The what?” Shivers asked.

  Carlos snorted. “The Hall of Wieners! It’s the place where we honor all the winners of the Twenty-Five Franks Challenge.”

  “The what what?”

  “It’s the most exciting competition you’ve ever seen in your life!” Carlos cried.

  Shivers looked skeptical. “Clearly, you’ve never been to the oven-cleaning competition at the New Jersey Mall. That thing really heats up.”

  “Okay”—Carlos rolled his eyes—“it’s the second most exciting competition you’ve ever seen in your life. The contestants have to eat twenty-five hot dogs in two minutes. Whoever completes the challenge gets to enter the Hall of Wieners to receive a glorious prize!”

  Margo gasped and pulled Shivers aside. “Do you know what this means?!” she said.

  “Well, when someone says a prize is ‘glorious,’ it means that it’s even better than fantastic—”

  “No! Shivers, this is the place where wieners pass the test! And now we have to get inside. You have to win the Twenty-Five Franks Challenge.”

  “Me?! Win the challenge?” Shivers balked. “Why can’t you do it?”

  “I stayed up all night eating fortune cookies! No one ever told me that too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing! Well, that first cookie did, but I didn’t listen.”