Because every little girl has got to write at least one boys' adventure story

[goldvermilion87]

I didn't get into romantic (as in boy meets girl.  I never have gotten into Romantic as in Wordsworth and co.) literature until...dunno...probably some time in middle school.  I guess I still prefer friendship stories to romances as a general rule, but I have moved beyond the late nineteenth/early twentieth century boys' adventure novel stage.  When I was in seventh grade it was still going strong.  I read Stevenson, and Kipling, and Henty, and Alger, and all those guys voraciously.  And it really showed in my first attempt at fiction. Many of the other girls I knew told harrowing tales in which poor girls were abducted and made into slaves, etc.  I would not stoop to even writing about girls.  Hmph.

My family is very good friends--we may as well be relatives--with a family a few states away, and we often go to visit them in the summer.  There are three girls in that family and two (including myself) in mine.  As you can imagine, five girls do not get much sleep at night if they are together.  I am the eldest of this little company, so our week-long pajama party entertainment was often up to me.  The summer before seventh grade (so, when I was eleven) I told this harrowing tale over several nights, to such great acclaim that I went on to write it out in its current form:  (It's good to be the oldest!  Age has always been associated with wisdom, and to the 13 and under crowd, a year counts for an awful lot.)
 

 

 

Tommy Holmes, Cabin Boy

CHAPTER #1

We were sitting on the deck of a ship, Old Sailor Amos and I. The ship was the Queen Victoria, [editor's note--this was before the days of computers...well, at least for me...so I couldn't just look up more plausible ship names online.]  a merchant ship on her homeward trip to England from the West Indies. Her hold was laden with gold. “Why’d you become a sailor, Tommy?” asked the old sailor.

“`Cause my parents thought that I wouldn’t have the patience or skill to do anything else,” I answered. “Anyway, I like being a sailor. It feels so adventurous!"

"Yes, it's great to be..."

“Ship Aho-oy” came a shout from the crows nest.

The captain rushed up on deck. “Get me my spyglass, Tommy!” and I rushed to get it. “She's flying the colors of England,” Cap’n Trelawney said. Then he shouted up to the crows nest, “Hail that ship so I can speak to the captain.”  [Are you wondering about the Cap'n thing?  So am I...maybe this is supposed to be in dialect?]

The captain of the other vessel, Cap’n Forsythe, was a tall suntanned man of about 40.

“It is great good fortune that we should meet on this trip. We can stay together and then we will be stronger if we have any trouble from–” he paused and looked around fearfully. “From P-P-P-Pirate P-Pegleg,” he ended in a whisper. [I am picturing a "tall suntanned man" with an Arthur Fiedler voice.  :-P]

At this every sailor within hearing trembled with fright. Everyone who had anything to do with the sea recognized that name. Pirate Pegleg, Terror of the Seas. He was often known to murder whole crews, steal everything worth anything aboard, and then, destroy the ship. And these sailors had even more reason for fear because they were sailing in his waters, with more gold than you could ever imagine.

“I’ll take you up on that, Forsythe,” the captain said. “It will definitely be better if we stay together.” And with that the two captains started discussing guns, men, and all that sort of thing. For the next few days everyone aboard ship was restless and uneasy.

On the ship I had many jobs. They could be uninteresting at times but they were never really bad. There was, however one exception. That was the job as rat-catcher. The cat died during a storm. Got washed overboard. The task of catching rats naturally fell on me. If I heard a rat then I had to get up no matter what. Well, the third night I heard a rat. It must have been one in the morning. I convinced myself that it was nothing. But it came again. “Oh, rats!” I said.  [Remember the day when you would have considered that to be extremely witty?]

I got out of bed, grumbling to myself all the while, opened the door and saw something in the darkness. It was a man. The first mate from the other ship. There was a knife in his hand! I was about to yell when a hand clapped over my mouth. “Make one sound and you’re through, sonny-boy,” someone hissed, and I felt something cold and hard against the back of my neck.

Then, all of a sudden, I felt a great pain in my head and all went black.

 

CHAPTER #2

I woke up in a dark chilly room. The place was horrible, yet the wall shone with a luminous yellow color and the bed I was lying on, though uncomfortable, was worth millions of pounds. It was a mound of jewelry, trinkets, and precious gems. It rivaled the splendor of Queen Victoria herself. Yet, I knew the truth. I was sitting in a dragon’s lair. I was lying on the life work of a fiend. That fiend was Pirate Pegleg! [dun Dun DUUUUUUUN!!!!!!]

The thought was frustrating, terrifying! I was helpless in the grasp of that murderous villain and I did not know what was in store for me. Thirty minutes, which seemed like years passed. The door opened and in walked Captain Forsythe! I was thrilled! That is, for about one second. For when I saw the look on his face I realized the trick.

“The captain wishes to see you,” he mocked. “Your friends have all been – well – dealt with, if you know what I mean,” he said maliciously. “And if you aren’t careful, you may receive the same medicine.”

“I don’t wish to see the captain,” I fumed. But it was useless. All that the Firstmate Forsythe did, (for Cap’n Forsythe was first mate) was to call down two strong pirates. I was pinioned and then dragged before the arch-villain, Pegleg.

Pirate Pegleg was disgusting. His wooden stump was rotten. He had scurvy; his hair was matted. “I am so glad to see you,” he croaked, an evil glint in his eye. “Our cabin boy has died in a most unfortunate accident.” Here he laughed, as if he found something extremely funny. I was horrified with this beast!  [That sentence is weirding me out...]

“We would like you to sign as the new cabin boy. It would be to your benefit.”

“Really,” I shouted. “You are too kind! Why in the world would I want to sign onto your crew! You’ve murdered my friends. I won’t work for you even if it costs me my life!”

“Exactly, my young spirited friend. We will attempt to remove some of that fire burning in you! You shan’t have a crumb to eat or a drop to drink until you agree to work for us.” Turning to the first mate, “Take him away,” he ordered.

Starvation! I cowered from such a death. So slow, so menacing! I didn’t know what to do.

Finally, I gave in. Pegleg knew how to make people submit to his will.  I did not want to word for him, but how could I, a growing boy, stand such a thing as that. On the third day, when Forsythe came in, I almost whispered, “I’ll do it,” Inwardly I was cringing, but there was nothing left to do.  [I may not be a boy, but my two closest cousins were boys, and I KNOW that this situation is realistic.]

I slaved for Cap’n Pegleg day in and day out. Everything seemed the same; I lost track of time, for all time was the same for me. Little food, little sleep, hard work.

 

CHAPTER #3

One day there was a strange change. I couldn’t understand it. I was fed well, and I was left in the hold to sleep as long as I desired, In fact, I might have been drugged with sleeping pills. But I never thought about why this was happening. I just took this good fortune while I could.

When I woke up the next morning after a refreshing sleep, I found I was not alone! I sat bolt upright. “Who are you?” I exclaimed in surprise as I noticed a young man of about twenty lying on the ground.

“Jonathan, Jonathan Campbell.” The young man answered. “Who are you?”

“Tommy Holmes, how’d you get here?” 

“I don’t know, but my head hurts.”

“Mine did too, when I got here.”

“Well, while we’re here, we might as well do what we’ve probably been wanting to do ever since we were children.”

“What’s that?”

“We’ll play knights and kings and dragons.”

I laughed. I hadn’t done that for the longest time. I knew I was gong to like Jonathan. [I think that even at the time I found this mind bogglingly ridiculous scenario to be mind bogglingly ridiculous, but I can't really remember...]

We were called, so we climbed up – I to do my usual chores, and Jonathan to learn his.

That night, as we crawled exhausted into the hold, I asked Jonathan about himself.

“I was the navigator an our ship. I went to college at Cambridge. I have to get away from here soon, for I plan to get married when I get home.”

Jonathan and I decided to put our heads together to find a solution to get out. We were both tired out. We were tired physically and we were tired of Pirate Pegleg.

Finally, we thought up a plan. On Christmas, the pirates all had a great festival. They ate and drank until they were sick. None of them had enough sense to even realize that we had found a hatchet and carried it to the hold. They didn’t even realize what we were doing when we filled a dory with food.

That night the pirates staggered dopily into their beds. Forgetting even to lock Jonathan and me up!

We lay low until everyone was snoring. Above the noise, we realized that a tempest had started raging. It was really bad; Jonathan and I were terrified out of our wits. [My seventh grade teacher told us that semicolons were cool and earned us brownie points.  She must have said it early on, because I wrote this in September, and apparently I took the words to heart.]  Yet, the daring escape had to be attempted. Jonathan hacked a hole in the ship and water started filling the hold. I grabbed some extra supplies and started staggering up towards the dory. As I struggled up to the deck, there was Pirate Pegleg, holding on to the rigging for dear life. All of a sudden a great wave came and washed his wooden leg right off!

I shouted to Jonathan and he jumped into the dory. Just then another wave lifted our little dory off deck and carried Pegleg with it. That was the last time any living human being looked at him alive. After rowing out a little way we stopped a moment to watch the crows nest sink under the waves.  [My, but they were cold!  As future stories will prove, I was not a politically correct little girl.  So, I killed all bad guys.  To be fair, I'm not a politically correct big girl, either...]

 

Chapter #4

Jonathan rowed hard into the storm with all of his strength. Suddenly the dory sprang a leak! I bailed for all I was worth. We were just about to give up when Jonathan sighted a boat.

We yelled and signaled. It was to no avail. The ship sailed nearer and nearer. We had no control over the little boat. Suddenly there was a shock! Jonathan and I were thrown violently into the water.

“Help! Help!” we shouted. I thought I saw some movement on the water. Then my head went under, probably for the last time.

I suddenly felt as though I was on something soft. I was so comfortable that I went to sleep. A little while later I thought I heard someone talking.

“It’s been hard for him, poor thing,” someone muttered softly. “I think he got it worse than the older one.”

“Where am I?” I asked, as if in a trance.

“You’re on your way to England on the H.M.S. Britannia. I am the ship’s doctor. Your friend is up and about and doing fine. He told me the whole story, Tommy,” the doctor said kindly.

A few weeks later we got safely to shore. I was fully recovered and had a warm welcome from my family. Jonathan and I had become fast friends, and I was the best man at his very happy wedding.

 [Oh!  There was romance.  Yay!]

 The End

As my sister said when she reread it, it is sad that we can never recapture the joy of the actual telling.  But it's still a good memory, so I actually had a lot of fun rereading that story.  I don't think I've looked at it since eighth grade at the very latest!  I hope someone else gets a kick out of it as well.  :-)