LITMIR.BIZ

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she reflected, people were known to make mistakes based on appearances. She knew the story of how her mother’s father, Old Captain Bright, once returned to port after a shipwreck so violent it tore half the clothes from his body, making his own best mate confuse him for a beggar.

      Ah, but Old Captain Bright really was a pirate captain, countered her brain, with three ships’ of ruthless buccaneers at his command. You say you’re a pirate, but what do you actually do aboard the Pieces of Eight?

      I help Ishiro peel potatoes sometimes, she thought meekly.

      Ooooh, impressive, responded her traitorous mind.

      I also help Rufus, the cabin boy, swab the deck, feed the ship’s chickens, stack cannonballs, and—

      So what? scoffed her cynical psyche. Do you go out on the boarding parties? Trim the sails? Or just sit and watch everyone else do it?

      And then, the most horrific thought of all struck her square in the face like a sailboat’s boom — I’m not a pirate at all! I’m … I’m … a passenger!

      No wonder the man at the market didn’t respect her. No wonder, if she never did anything of any real use whatsoever around the ship! But that will not stand, she resolved. Was she not Jane Irene Amelia Silver, the daughter of Bonnie Mary Bright and Long John Silver?

      From this day forward I will show that dog of a fabric seller! Soon the name of Little Jane Silver — No, Jane Silver — will command respect from every corner of the globe!

      Aye, she would be feared! Feared, known and honoured above every other infamous rogue who styled himself a pirate-sailor! Oh, and how they would all tremble and quake in their boots and hold their tongues, lest they speak saucily and she chop them off! Let them dare call her Little Jane then!

      So, having at last resolved to bend all efforts to the extension of her impending infamy, Little Jane began her villainous career by eating an over-ripe tangerine from Jonesy’s pile and promptly fell asleep.

      Chapter 3

      Dinner Conversation

      “This year,” announced Little Jane to her parents, whilst they tucked into their customary Tuesday night dinner of hog’s face and green lichen, “this year I want to go on a boarding party.”

      Bonnie Mary Bright and Long John Silver looked up at their daughter as if she had just informed them she wanted to be emperor of China.

      “You must be joking,” said her father.

      “Too dangerous,” proclaimed her mother conclusively. “Absolutely too dangerous. Do you know what happens to sailors who try to board ships without the proper preparation?”

      Little Jane did not know or really care, but she had the feeling she was going to find out anyway.

      “Well? Do you?”

      “They turn into pumpkins?”

      “Don’t be saucy now, young lady!”

      “This ain’t a game, love,” warned Bonnie Mary. “I’ve seen many an experienced man struck down boarding a ship.”

      “That’s right,” interjected Long John. “Why, when I were a young lad, I disobeyed a direct order not to participate in the raiding of a French frigate. Little then did I know the captain kept a pet Australian alligator onboard—”

      “Jim,” warned Bonnie Mary, who could always tell when her husband was about to go off topic. But Long John continued, quickly warming to the tale.

      “I had but set me leg over the rail when ... SNAP! Gone was me new boot, and foot with it! Worse still, the gator what took ’em followed me around for months after, still lookin’ for another taste! Eventually, I had to—”

      “Hogwash,” snorted Little Jane. “Ain’t none of that true.”

      “What?” exclaimed Long John, truly stunned. Little Jane had never questioned the veracity of any tale of his before, no matter how outlandish. Perhaps he was losing his touch.

      “You heard me. Not true!”

      “Are you calling your father a liar at his own supper table, Little Jane?” (Unlike most parents who might thoughtlessly utter such a statement, Long John really was within his rights to call it his supper table, as he’d carved the table himself and was really quite proud of his workmanship).

      “She do have a point, Jim,” mused Bonnie Mary.

      “When I were your age I would’ve never dared call me father a liar!” snapped Long John.

      “It ain’t true,” Little Jane repeated, “’cause Changez said you said your foot was took off by King George III when his sword slipped while knighting you for saving his life. And I know there’s no such thing as Australian alligators anyways, ’cause they only have crocodiles in Australia, and it even says so on page fifty-seven of the animal book you bought me in Boston!”

      “Point taken,” said Long John with a weary smile and a twinkle in his eye. “But where does it say a man can’t improve a little on history?”

      Little Jane gritted her teeth in frustration.

      “Come now, you mustn’t take it so seriously,” said Bonnie Mary gently. “You’ll get your chance to be on a boarding party one day — just not yet, love.”

      This settled the affair, according to Little Jane’s parents, and they moved on to talk of other things.

      “Did Jonesy tell you?” Long John asked.

      “Tell me what?” asked Bonnie Mary.

      “That new magistrate, Villienne, paid a visit to the Spyglass today.”

      “I thought we’d have got him packed off by now,” muttered Bonnie Mary in consternation. “We’re slipping, Jim. He still trying to collect those blasted taxes? How go the plans for running him off?”

      “Not good, I’m afraid,” said Long John, not sounding too sorrowful about it. “But you know, I think we may be goin’ about this the wrong way, Mary.”

      “And how’s that?”

      “Weeeell,” began Long John, “Villienne ain’t such a bad fellow. A bit of a nutter, perhaps, but ain’t no harm in him. I come to thinking, Mary, maybe we should stop trying to drive him off. I talk to him right, he might come around to working with us, ’stead of against.”

      “Don’t be naive, Jim. He’s an Englishman. Remember, I lived with them and I’m telling you, an Englishman ain’t happy till he’s got everyone else under his thumb.”

      “Now, that ain’t fair,” began Long John judiciously. “Me father were an Englishman. And yer mother, too.”

      “Well, even if she were, she weren’t his sort.” Bonnie Mary frowned. “All them magistrates is the same — they just hang about where they ain’t wanted, sticking their noses in our business, tellin’ us ‘savages’ what we ought to do, and taking our hard-earned gold without a thing back in return. What were he up to today, may I ask?”

      “Didn’t rightly explain himself,” admitted Long John, “but he was carryin’ a mighty big bag of lichen.”

      “Now, y’see! That’s just plain off, ” said Bonnie Mary with a frown. “It is! What does a toff like that want with a bunch of plants, I’d like to know.”

      Little Jane wondered the same thing as she pushed her own lump of salted green lichen around on her plate. Why would anyone in their right mind purposely seek out the most unappetizing foodstuff on the island, instead of sensibly fleeing the noxious green lichen in terror and disgust? But then, she thought, as the salty green substance made its way down her gullet, perhaps Villienne really was as strange as everyone in Smuggler’s Bay said he was.

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