Hamish X and the Cheese Pirates

by Sean Cullen

  “What do you think they are?” Hamish X asked.

  “Beats me,” Mimi said.

  Parveen removed his glasses and polished them with a square of cloth from his pocket. He replaced them and squinted. “It appears to be a natural formation caused by volcanic activity. We can’t be far from the top of the volcanic cone that makes up the island.” His nose wrinkled. “That smell … Ammonia. And something else. I am reminded of a trip to the jungle with my parents when I was a little boy … Yes. It’s monkey.”

  There is a saying in Ecuador: Speak of the monkey and he’s sure to appear. In the dark recesses of the holes, a chittering, rustling sound began to swell. Seconds later, the caves were filled with small, malevolent faces that seemed almost human but with leathery red skin and prominent fangs. As the children watched, the creatures shuffled out into the light. They had dirty white fur all over their bodies except for their faces and hands. The chittering swelled into a chorus of shrieks as the creatures began to prance from foot to foot, waving their arms in the air.

  “Monkeys!” Mimi said in disbelief.

  “Snow monkeys,” Parveen corrected her.

  “So that’s why they call it Snow Monkey Island,” she said.

  “Undoubtedly,” Parveen nodded.

  “Uh-oh!” Hamish X added.

  The monkeys had retreated into their caves and come out again carrying armloads of dark-coloured pellets about the size of golf balls.

  “What are they doing?” Hamish X asked. A second later he got his answer when the monkeys began lobbing the pellets at them.

  Wherever the balls struck exposed skin the pain was intense, producing a red welt almost instantly. Amid the onslaught Parveen managed to pick up one of the pellets and bring it up to his nose.

  “Just as I thought,” he said. “Frozen dung!”

  “They’re throwin’ their poo at us!” Mimi shouted, trying to shield her face with her hands.61

  The three children hunkered down under the rain of dung pellets. The little frozen balls began to pile up around them. The snow monkeys pressed forward, shortening the distance and improving their accuracy.

  “We can’t stay here!” Hamish X shouted.

  “What do you suggest?” Parveen said.

  “We’ve gotta make a break for the summit. There’s a rough path to the left up through the caves. See it?”

  Mimi lowered her arm and squinted. She had time to see a rough path exactly where Hamish X told her to look. Then a piece of dung rapped off her forehead.

  “Ow! That tears it! It’s time to kick some monkey butt!”

  She reached into her backpack, rummaged around, and came up with a lump of leather: her father’s baseball glove! She stuffed her left hand into it then grabbed a handful of pellets and jumped to her feet. “How ’bout a little Texas fastball, you dang ugly monkeys!”

  Mimi wound up and drilled a fastball right off the skull of a monkey seven metres away. She began matching the monkeys throw for throw, advancing towards the path step by step. Hamish X and Parveen followed her example, and together they pushed the monkeys back. What the trio lacked in numbers they made up for in accuracy. Mimi’s glove flashed like lightning as she caught as many of the monkeys’ throws as she could. Soon they’d managed to push their way past the main group of monkeys and were climbing the slope, fighting a rearguard action. Throwing downhill was much easier.

  “I think we’re gonna make it,” Mimi crowed happily.

  They were almost at the top of the ridge. A few more steps would put them out of range. Suddenly, all the monkeys stopped throwing. They slapped the rock with the flats of their pink hands, making a sound almost like a drum roll. They looked past the three children and up the slope. A low, rumbling growl rolled down from above.

  Hamish X, Mimi, and Parveen turned slowly and looked up at a huge snow monkey. He stood as tall as Hamish X but was far more powerfully muscled. His fur was filthy and matted. Tufts of missing fur highlighted the scars crisscrossing his flesh from old battles. One of his eyes was gone, the socket a mass of puckered scar tissue. He hunched down, glaring at them with his one hateful eye.

  “I’m going to try and draw him off,” Hamish X whispered. “You and Parveen run for it as soon as the way is clear.”

  “We ain’t leavin’ you,” Mimi hissed.

  “I’ll be fine, but you have to take the chance when it comes,” Hamish X insisted. He reached over and squeezed Mimi’s hand. “Trust me, Mimi.” She shook her head but said nothing.

  Hamish X stepped forward. The monkey went completely still. The boy pounded a fist into his chest, his golden eyes flashing. “I am Hamish X! Do you hear me, you big stupid monkey?” he shouted. The monkey snarled and bared its teeth. “Get out of the way and let us pass!” Hamish took another step forward. All the smaller monkeys began to hoot derisively. The big one-eyed monkey flexed its huge, gnarled hands.

  “Get ready,” Hamish X whispered out of the corner of his mouth. He reached down and picked up a ball of dung. Without any warning his arm lashed out, launching the ball through the air to bounce off the forehead of the hulking primate.

  The creature bellowed with rage and sprang across the intervening distance, tackling Hamish X before he could make a move. They rolled down the slope, clawing and punching at each other, finally coming to a halt at the very tip of the ledge. The monkey ended up on top of Hamish X, sitting on the boy’s chest.

  Mimi started down the slope to help her friend, but Hamish X shouted, “Go! RUN!”

  Parveen grabbed hold of her arm and tugged her in the opposite direction.

  The monkey slammed his fists down, but Hamish X rolled out from under the beast, getting easily to his feet.

  “GO!” he shouted again, and launched a kick with his right boot at the belly of the monkey. As Mimi and Parveen watched in horror, the monkey grabbed Hamish X’s boot and the momentum of the kick sent both of them tumbling out into space. In an instant, they were gone.

  Mimi stood frozen in shock, staring at the place where Hamish X had disappeared.

  “NOOO!” Parveen shouted. He tried to head back down the slope, but it was Mimi’s turn to grab his arm. “We’ve got to go,” she said.

  “But Hamish X is …”

  “He’s gone. He gave us a chance! We’ve got to go!”

  The monkeys began to keen, a high-pitched wail. They leapt to the edge and looked over. Then they turned to see the two children high up the slope.

  “We gotta go now! Do like he told us. It’s up to us now.” Mimi pushed Parveen ahead of her up the slope. She stared at the ledge a moment more then turned, tears in her eyes, to scramble up the slope with Parveen. “I’ll be brave, Hamish X. I promise.”

  Chapter 25

  Viggo wasn’t happy.

  He sat on the steps in front of the massive recliner that served as Cheesebeard’s throne. His clothes were tattered and filthy, his hair was a greasy mess (nothing unusual), and to compound his misery, Cheesebeard had insisted that Viggo wear a silly orange hat made of thick felt that came to a droopy point. Whenever he moved, it flopped limply from side to side.

  “I don’t deserve this,” Viggo mumbled.

  “What’s that?” boomed Cheesebeard, who was lounging in his recliner, nibbling on a cheese plate. The Captain’s recliner rested on a stone platform opposite the doors to the hall. From his exalted position, he gazed down on his crew. The recliner was of the variety one might see in any middle-class home, only it was covered with cheese and wine stains. It had knobs on the side that controlled its many convenient functions: vibrating, heating, elevating, and reclining. It could even comb his hair, but the Captain rarely used that function. Captain Cheesebeard was currently enjoying the lower-back massage. In his hand was a bottle of very fine wine, which he swigged from time to time, drooling red fluid down his cheese-encrusted beard.62

  “Nothing, sir,” Viggo cringed. A metal collar attached to a length of chain kept him from crawling out of range of Cheesebeard’
s backhanded swipes. He had learned not to make Cheesebeard angry.

  Ever since the pirates overran the factory and stole all his beautiful cheese, he had been in a foul mood. What made matters worse was that Cheesebeard enjoyed making Viggo miserable. In fact, the more miserable Viggo was, the more it tickled Captain Cheesebeard.

  “Bloody right, it’s nothing.” The Captain leaned in, blasting Viggo with his foul, cheesy breath. Viggo gagged. (A diet made up almost exclusively of dairy products tended to produce profound halitosis.)63 “How do you like your new hat, Viggo?”

  “It’s fine, sir,” Viggo said, plastering a grin on his face. The pirates lounging around the hall roared with laughter at that.

  The main hall was the size of a small church. The walls were constructed of irregular chunks of volcanic rock fitted together in a very haphazard fashion. Pirates have little patience for bricklaying. The ceiling was made of rough planks laid over one another to keep off the worse of the rain and snow. Electric lights mounted in brackets on the walls provided illumination for the piratical debauch. The pirates were seated on soiled old rugs and cushions stolen long ago in some raid or other. On large slabs of wood, a variety of cheeses waited for grubby hands to lift them into rancid mouths. The pirates took every opportunity to make fun of Viggo.

  “It’s fine!” they mocked him. “Oooh, it’s fiiiiine! Hee! Hee! Hee!” They slapped each other on the back and rolled around on the floor. Viggo hugged his knees and rocked back and forth in misery. To complete his humiliation, Pianoface and Tubaface had been taken on as pirates, too. They pointed and laughed with the rest.

  “Disloyal oafs,” Viggo muttered. “Oh, if I ever get out of here, you’ll wish you’d never been born!”

  No one paid him any attention. They went back to their merry-making, wolfing down stolen cheese and every so often leaning to one side to release clouds of pungent, cheesy gas from their unwashed bottoms. Viggo was barely able to breathe in the foul atmosphere.

  Mr. Kipling strode into the chamber, a clean hankie pressed delicately to his mouth and nose. He advanced to the bottom of the roughly circular platform where Captain Cheesebeard reclined in his recliner.

  “Captain,” he said, bowing, “I wish you’d look into some sort of ventilation system for the hideout. The buildup of gases is both unpleasant and dangerous.” Captain Cheesebeard’s response was to lift a buttock and compound the problem.64 The pirates hooted. Mr. Kipling smiled slightly. “Indeed,” he continued. “I have the prisoners assembled as you ordered, sir. Shall I bring them in?”

  Captain Cheesebeard wiped his mouth with his sleeve and sat up straighter in his chair, doing his best to strike a commanding pose. “Bring them in,” he commanded.

  Mr. Kipling bowed slightly and went out, returning in a moment leading a string of shuffling prisoners surrounded by guards. The prisoners included La Comptesse de Roquefort, Francesco de Maldario, Lord Cheddar, and other cheese masters kidnapped in raids all over the globe. Mr. Kipling had loosely bound Mrs. Francis’s hands and guided her in by the elbow. Mrs. Francis had received better treatment than the others, who trudged forward, hollow-eyed and sunken-cheeked, to stand before the bloodshot glare of the pirate Captain.

  “Welcome, esteemed cheese masters … and mistress.” He winked at La Comptesse, who scowled back. “Welcome to Snow Monkey Island. I’m sorry I haven’t welcomed you sooner, but I make it a point to be as rude as possible to everyone.” He got up and walked down the shallow steps to stand next to Viggo, who tried to lean out of slapping range. “I’m sure you’re all wondering what my plans for you are. I’ve stolen your cheeses! I’ve despoiled your factories! I’ve captured your persons and brought you to this remote and godforsaken place! To what end?

  “It is time for you to know your place in my grand scheme. You are at my mercy, so you’ll want to get on my good side … which is not this side …” He pointed to the left side of his face, which was heavily scarred. “No! You will want to stay to the right. My right and your left. Whatever! I will tell you how to accomplish the goal of staying alive and pleasing me. It’s simple, really: you will make cheese for me.” The pirates cheered thunderously and started chanting, “Make us cheese! Make us cheese! Make us cheese!” for a solid minute and a half until Cheesebeard raised his hands for silence. When he had it, he continued.

  “My brother Soybeard and I had a dream: one day we would control the flow of all cheese and tofu-based foods in the world. We divided the world in half. I would conquer the cheese-producing facilities of the western hemisphere and he, being lactose intolerant, would subjugate the eastern hemisphere’s bean curd factories. Then, together we would bring about a new world order! A glorious Golden Age! A Cheese Empire the likes of which the world has never known—and I would be its Julius Cheeser!!” The pirates clapped furiously at this very bad pun.

  The captives were horrified. “You’re mad!” exclaimed Maldario. Viggo merely listened in rapt silence.

  “Mad.” Cheesebeard smiled a vulpine smile. “A visionary is always thought mad until his vision becomes a reality. Sadly, my brother died before he could witness our triumph. Hamish X! Curse his name on all the seven seas and in the sixteen skies!” He shook his fists, his voice a crescendo of rage, his face purple with fury. With great effort he regained control. He smiled at the cringing cheese masters.

  “We have all the facilities here. You will be given tools. You will make cheese. But not just any cheese. You will make a cheese even more powerful than Viggo’s famed Caribou Blue.” Viggo leaned forward, his eyes alight. Just then, a pirate entered pushing a wheeled cart covered in a tattered cloth. Strange chittering sounds emanated from beneath the cloth and the entire cart shook as something thrashed within. Captain Cheesebeard walked proudly over and, with a flourish, whipped the cloth away.

  Sitting in a cage was a scabby, forlorn little primate that you are familiar with from the last chapter but that was completely new to the prisoners.

  “What in heaven’s name is that?” Lord Cheddar gasped, covering his nose with his sleeve.

  “That, my dear Cheddar, is a snow monkey for which this island is named.” The monkey in question snarled and spat squarely into the face of Francesco de Maldario.

  “Filthy beast,” Maldario sputtered. “You can’t be serious!”

  “Oh, I am. All mammals give milk and so all mammals can provide cheese. I believe the cheese of the snow monkey will be the foulest and most pungent ever created. I must have it and you will make it. Take them away.”

  The pirate guards hustled the protesting prisoners from the room. Mrs. Francis pulled away from Mr. Kipling and stepped in front of Captain Cheesebeard.

  “What about the children?” she demanded.

  “The children will work for me the same as they did for Master Viggo here. You will feed and tend them.”

  “I demand to see them right now.”

  The pirates gasped. No one demanded anything of Cheesebeard. They waited for him to explode. But he didn’t. He looked Mrs. Francis up and down and smiled. “I like my women and my cheeses to have a little kick.” His smile disappeared. “But don’t push me. You’ll see them when I say you can see them. You’ll do whatever I tell you to do because if you don’t …” He stepped in close until his pockmarked nose was inches from Mrs. Francis’s face. “If you don’t, I will toss them off the cliff one by one until you learn to do as you’re told. Is that clear?” Tears filled Mrs. Francis’s eyes, some from frustration, most from the rank stench of Cheesebeard’s facial hair. She nodded, pulling her pink dressing gown close about her.

  “Excuse me, Captain …” Viggo’s plaintive voice cut through the silence. “A word?”

  Cheesebeard turned and glared at Viggo. “Do you want a slapping?”

  “NO! Although, a slapping at your hands is a privilege and an honour, sir,” Viggo simpered. “I would like to point out that I am ideally suited to the monkey cheese project, having dealt with exotic milk species in the past. I would consid
er it a tremendous boon to work under you in this grand undertaking.” Viggo smiled his most winning smile, displaying yellow, rotting teeth that would have made a baby cry had there been one on hand.

  “Boon?” The Captain frowned. “What’s a boon?”

  “A gift, sir,” Viggo explained. “An honour.”

  “Silly word,” Captain Cheesebeard muttered, but he was thinking. He stood completely still, picking absently at his crusty beard as he considered. Mrs. Francis shot such a glare at Viggo that he scuttled as far as his chain could take him away from her. If looks could kill, Viggo would have died right then and there.65

  “Interesting,” Cheesebeard said. “We’ll discuss it.” He cuffed Viggo brutally.

  “Ow! What was that for?”

  “Keep you on your toes,” Cheesebeard said, climbing the stairs and flopping back into his chair. He turned on the “magic fingers” function. The chair began to vibrate violently. “T-t-t-ake h-h-her a-a-away!”

  Mr. Kipling reached out to take Mrs. Francis’s arm, but she pulled away and walked out of the chamber alone to the laughter and catcalls of the pirates.

  “Monkey cheese?” Pianoface whispered to his friend Tubaface. “That sounds disgusting.”

  “Just keep laughing and don’t rock the boat,” Tubaface hissed back.

  As the pirates returned to their drunken debauchery, Viggo sat on the stone floor and allowed himself a little smile. “Things are looking up,” he muttered happily to himself.

  Chapter 26

  Parveen and Mimi huddled together behind some barrels and peered into the compound below. The wooden scaffold on which they perched served as a walkway around the natural bowl of the volcanic crater, which was roughly circular and about two hundred metres across.

  Parveen and Mimi had found the pirates’ stronghold at the very centre of Snow Monkey Island. And so they took stock of the situation.

  In the centre of the crater was a lake that bubbled and smoked, fed by a hot spring deep in the earth. Huts and rude shelters dotted the floor of the crater around the lake, but two large buildings dominated the scene. One was a rough, square structure built from mismatched slabs of aluminum siding and planks, making it look like a patchwork barn. It was a warehouse of some kind, guarded by two bored pirates squatting by a fire in front of its two mammoth swinging doors. Its peaked roof had a flat platform built onto the apex, evidently reached through a trap door. And hovering just above the warehouse was the pirate airship, attached to the ground by long mooring ropes threaded through blocks of stone. The massive vessel, shielded from the wind on all sides by the crater’s high walls, barely shifted.