A Child Pirate's Swindle

“What do you think it is?” Frankie looked at the others whose faces showed similar degrees of disgust.

Tommy, the eldest of the child pirates, shoved Frankie toward it. “Why don’t you find out for us?” Frankie fell and his knee’s impact to the ground reopened his fresh scab. He wiped the blood with his thumb then stuck it in his mouth.

The kids had the day off of the ship to wander and explore while the adults ransacked a few bars for booze and lassies. They usually left Tommy in charge. He would lead the gang around the small towns, looking for other children to shake a few coins from, and then into homes that were either completely abandoned or nearly vacant. He liked to throw rocks through the windows and pry up floorboards, sometimes bashing another one of the kids across the back with the splintering wood.

“Aw, cut it out Tommy. Nobody needs to touch that. It looks like shit.” Henry gave Tommy a measured look. He may have been the oldest, but Henry was the toughest. Legend had it that he knocked out all of Tommy’s baby teeth at the same time, sending the tooth fairy into a terrible debt to the pirates of The Molted Eel. Of course, none of the other kids were around then, but those were the tales as they were told.

The kids knew someone was in debt to their ship, that’s who they searched for at all the ports and in all the decrepit towns. Even Tommy agreed they were looking for someone’s great loot, so he often lead his own little crew through the woods when they docked, slashing his way through vines and spider webs, sure they’d find the culprit deep in some cave, and then he’d become the ship’s hero.

Today, Tommy had wrapped his fist with fabric from the bottom of his shirt and punched through the window into a still occupied home. Whoever it belonged to was out for the day, perhaps being sliced and diced by one of their fathers. In any case, the ash in the fire place was still hot. Henry had been bent down, fist covered in soot, to let the crew know that it meant someone was there recently.

“It really does look like poop,” Mack, the youngest, reached out a finger and touched it. He stuck his index finger through the side and watched as it was sucked easily into the dark, moist, surface.

“Look, the kid is less lily-livered than you, Frankie!” Tommy snickered. “What’s it feel like, Mack?”

Mack looked thoughtful for a moment, finger still stuffed into the side of the unknown object. He even began to wiggle it around a bit, as if that would help his recall. “It’s like…hmmm… remember that time we did find a body? And Captain Pat had the crew pull it up. Remember it was all bullfroggy but he had that big slice out of the side of his stomach. And remember I stuck my hand in there? It feels like that.”

“Oh, I remember that bit of fish food,” Henry nodded. “Well, what are you waiting for, get your hand out of there!” He looked at the youngest and thought not for the first time what a loon he would turn out to be.

“I wouldn’t touch that for a bounty on the head of a queen!” Frankie said.

“Oh, you’re not gonna touch it.” A sinister sneer spread across Tommy’s dirty face. “You are going to eat it.” He smiled his crooked-toothed smile, bits of fish from the morning’s breakfast still lodged between his teeth.

“No! No, I won’t do it.”

“Knock it off Tommy,” Henry warned.

“Oh, not for free. If he does it, I’ll give him my old man’s cutlass. I’ve seen you eyeing it, Franks. It’s yours. All you have to do is take one bite.”

Images of that curved blade danced through Frankie’s mind. He’d put some bad things in his mouth before, how much worse could this be? “You swear?” He met Tommy’s eyes.

“Aye. Go on then.”

Mack removed his finger from the brown bulk and took a step back. Frankie stepped forward and grabbed half a fistful from the thing. It broke away easily and fell in crumbs around his feet. “In your mouth,” Tommy nodded, and his smile grew wider.

Frankie stuffed it into his mouth. His eyes popped open with delight, but he quickly contorted his face into one of revolt. “Ugh! I’ll need a swig of grog to get that taste out of my mouth.” He swallowed some but made sure to spit bits out.

Tommy chuckled, “We’ll get you some back on the ship. I’m bored. Let’s move on.”

And the show was over. Frankie waited until the boys all filed out of the house, acting as if his stomach was in a rumble and that he would catch up with them. Once the coast was clear, Frankie finished off his first ever slice of chocolate cake.