From Pajamas to Pirate Battles

William Sawyer went to bed at the same time every night. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later. His evening routine matched his daytime routine, utterly predictable, painfully ordinary, and completely unremarkable. Nothing ever changed, same tie, same job, same old same old. Nothing ever surprised him. And to be honest, that was exactly how William liked it.

He had once been married, briefly. His wife left after only a few months, citing "a desperate need for anything resembling excitement." Rumour had it she ended up dating a funeral director just to feel something. William didn’t argue when she left; he simply folded the laundry, made a cup of Earl Grey tea, and went to bed at his usual time.

Each night, he fluffed his pillow in the same way, pulled the blanket up to his chin, turned onto his right side, and shut his eyes slowly. Within moments, he would drift off without a dream, just like always.

But tonight... tonight was not going to be like every other night.

William awoke with a jolt, thoroughly annoyed to find a large, cream-colored dog tugging the covers off his bed.

“Stop that,” he muttered, tugging the blanket back with sleepy stubbornness. “Where did you come from, you mutt?”

The dog dropped the blanket, tilted its head thoughtfully, then, quite unexpectedly, cleared its throat.

“Mutt?” it said, offended. “You call me a mutt?”

William blinked. “You, you talk?”

With a huff, the dog leapt onto the bed, tail wagging with indignation. William instinctively grabbed his pillow and held it in front of him like a shield.

“I’ll have you know,” the dog continued, sitting down with an air of dignity, “I’m a Doodle. A perfect blend of Standard Poodle, Golden Retriever, and Black Lab. We’re practically designer nobility. Two names we Doodles do not like are MUTT or FRANKENDOODLE.”

“Why are you here?” William asked from behind the pillow. “Are you… haunting me?”

“Haunting? Please.” The Doodle reached forward and yanked the pillow away. “Let’s dispense with the nonsense. This is a proper Doodle-to-Drippy-Human moment.”

“My name is William,” he grumbled.

“William, whatever,” the dog replied, dropping the pillow off the bed. “You’ve been chosen to receive a very special gift.”

“I don’t want a gift,” William snapped. “I want you gone.”

“Too late,” the Doodle declared with flair. “It has already begun.”

He spun around in three quick circles, then stopped. He was suddenly wearing a bright orange life jacket.

William stared. “Why are you wearing that?”

“Oh, didn’t I mention? We’re at sea.” The Doodle glanced at the floor. “Anyway, I really must go.”

“At sea?” William said, unimpressed. “You’re mad.”

“Says the man having a full conversation with a talking dog,” the Doodle replied with a grin. He bounded off the bed and vanished with a loud splash.

William leaned cautiously over the edge of his bed and stared in disbelief. Water. Endless, rippling water stretched out in all directions, shimmering faintly under a pale, dreamlike light. There was no floor, no room, no sensible curtains, just a vast, surreal sea where his bedroom once had been.

He blinked, then pulled himself slowly back to the center of the bed, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. With a deep sigh, he sat upright and muttered, “Nothing ever happens to me. I don't care for this. Not one bit. If the Counsel is involved in this, I will have a word with them.”

For the first time in his life, William had no idea what to do. At least he still had his sensible pyjamas on.

A moment passed. Then another. And then the bed began to shift beneath him gently at first, then with a more noticeable sway. It rocked side to side and bobbed up and down as if caught in the current. William clutched the corners of the blanket, his knuckles whitening, his knees knocking together. “What else could happen,’ he thought.

A distant voice rang out across the watery expanse: “Ahoy there! Heave to and prepare to be boarded!”

William blinked again. “Boarded?” he whispered. “By what, exactly?” He looked around nervously, as if half-expecting the Doodle to return wearing a pirate hat.

He could see it now as it loomed closer, the hulking wooden vessel, its blackened hull slicing through the water, bearing straight toward the bed. William’s mind scrambled, trying to recall the BBC1 special about buccaneers he’d once watched one Sunday evening with his usual fish and chips.

He had no sails, no rudder, no oars, nothing to steer his absurd craft. His bed, bobbing helplessly on the dark water, was nothing more than a ten-year-old mattress balanced on a bed frame held together with tape. A horrible thought shivered through him: What if they tried to keelhaul him—under his own bed? He did not even know where to get a similar bed.

The echoing BOOM shattered the silence. A cannon roared from the ship, and he ducked as the ball screamed overhead, vanishing into the water on the far side. The splash sent icy droplets across his blankets, soaking them, and he just had them washed a fortnight ago. Another blast followed it seemed closer this time. The cannonball plunged into the sea just short of his bed, spraying his face and hands with saltwater.

At that moment, he saw her, one of the most feared women of all time. The ship’s bow loomed above, and dangling from the rigging like some ghastly ornament was his third-grade teacher, Ms. Bellmawr. Her eyes gleamed with a strange light, and though she’d been ancient when she taught him, surely a hundred years old but she moved with unnatural agility.

Pointing a skeletal finger at him, she called out in a voice that carried across the waves:

“Willy! Still doing nothing with your life? Perhaps it’s time to walk the plank… or be fired from a cannon!”

The pirate ship creaked and groaned as it drew alongside his bed, its shadow looming over the double bed. The reek of tar, gunpowder, and brine filled his nose. William scrambled, his hands fumbling over the tangled damp sheets in search of… anything.

All he found were a few crackers and a number three pencil. William always had a number three pencil close by, because you never knew when you might need to take a note or write a number down. He rose to his knees, brandishing the pencil high as if it were the finest cutlass in all of England.

“This old battle axe will not take me without a fight!” he declared, his voice quivering but almost life-like. He cleared his throat but sounded more sheepish, “Miss Bellmawr… I will defend myself.”

From her perch in the rigging, her thin lips curled into something between a smile and a snarl. “Defend yourself? With the usual number three special,” she jeered, her voice cutting through the sea air like a whip.

The ship’s hull scraped against the invisible current that carried his bed, the sound like bones grinding together. Grappling lines flew from the deck of the pirate ship, but William, being on a bed, found nowhere to grip. Rope ladders dropped down, and shadowy figures from Williams’ past and present slowly began to descend. Teddy Gilbert, who was once almost a friend in grade four, and Martha Simpson, the teller at the diner. All were now pirates with hollow eyes and grins full of broken teeth. They reeked of the grave, and yet their boots thudded solidly on the mattress as if it were the deck of their ship

William gripped his pencil tighter. In his head, he remembered in fifth grade when he stood up against that awful bully Paul Clifford for nearly thirty seconds. He remembered waving his pencil at Paul; a moment later, his pencil was broken in three places, and he had a bloody nose.

At that very moment of all impossible moments, drifting past in a rowboat came that blasted Doodle Dog again, tail wagging, tongue lolling. The Doodle cupped its paws around its mouth, “Fifty-to-one odds William stabs someone with his number three pencil before he’s made to eat it! Any takers?”

William froze, his vision blurred. For the first time in his painfully beige life, his cheeks burned red. His mind, usually occupied with things like the price of cream at Tesco’s, was suddenly flooded with something far hotter: rage.

His little muscles clenched tight, like the elastic on his old boxer shorts during a Boxing Day clearance sale. With a guttural roar that would have startled even a mildly confident guinea pig, he stood tall on his mattress and bellowed, “Daddy… I will make you proud!”

He lunged forward like a Nerd at a Doc Who Festival, a full, proper-sized step, and rammed his shoulder into Barry Whistly, his old piano teacher, who had been creeping toward him with a grin like a cat about to steal sheet music. Barry yelped, flailed, and toppled backwards into the frothing sea. Something inside William snapped in the best way possible, if you like chaos. He became a whirlwind of gangly fury, shoving school bullies, stern headmasters, and vaguely familiar neighbours right off the edges of his bed. Splash after splash echoed into the night, the mattress swaying dangerously as more attackers scrambled to climb aboard.

William gripped Rupert the Bear Pillow in both hands, holding it aloft like Thor’s mighty hammer. With a wild swing, he sent a wave of bus drivers, nosy neighbours, and his big brother Stanley sailing backward into the chaotic sea. The Great Battle of the Bed had begun in earnest, blankets were whipping like sails, and springs groaning under the chaos. One old Pirate slipped on the edge of the bed rail and tumbled into the ocean.

Suddenly, like an avenging angel, Penelope swung off a rope onto the bed. This would-be girlfriend, who was left with the bill for Toad in the Hole, had returned. Her eyes blazing, hair whipping in the salt wind and a tongue like a two-edged sword. She leapt toward him, curling iron in hand, a weapon that hissed ominously as it caught the spray. But Rupert struck first. The pillow connected with a satisfying whump, sending her tumbling into Mrs. Beth Basket, the surly waitress who had burnt his scones more times than he could count.

The two women spun together in a tangled blur, shrieking, before crashing over the front of the bed, missing the Doodle Dog’s rowboat by inches and sending it bobbing violently.

The Doodle, barely steadying himself, shouted, “Odds are even now! Who’s backing the pillow? Come on, Lads, no takers?”

And then… silence fell.

From the pirate ship’s deck, a shadow descended. Rope creaked. The air seemed colder. Miss Bellmawr landed on the mattress with a thud that made the entire bed dip dangerously toward the sea. She stood taller than he remembered, her eyes twin storm clouds, her bony hand curling into a claw. A Sword in her left hand and a yardstick in the other.

“Willy,” she hissed, each syllable dripping like venom, “you’ve had this coming since Year Three.”

William raised Rupert high in one hand and the sharpened number three pencil in the other. Bed springs wailed beneath them as they circled, the mattress swaying like a tiny raft in a hurricane.

Bellmawr lunged first, swinging a yardstick that seemed to stretch impossibly long in the moonlight. William ducked, countering with a sharp jab of the pencil, grazing her sleeve. She snarled. The battle roared into a flurry of blows, pillow strikes, yardstick swings, and wild tumbles across sheets now slick with seawater.

At last, William saw his chance. With a cry that tore from somewhere deep in his small but determined chest, he brought Rupert down with a mighty swing. The impact sent Miss Bellmawr staggering backwards almost off the bed.

The bed rocked violently, then steadied. William stood panting, pencil at the ready, as the Doodle Dog’s rowboat drifted past again.

“Never thought I’d see the day,” the dog said with a slow, respectful nod. “Willy, you might have a chance, you Geek!”

Miss Bellmawr had not gone quietly. She clung to the sodden edge of the mattress, gasping, with three of her fiercest cronies clambering up beside her, faces twisted seeking revenge, as their weapons raised. The bed sagged under their combined weight, waves slapping against the sheets.

Then William saw it half-buried in the tangled bedding of his battered journal. Without thinking, he snatched it up. As the pirates advanced, he dropped the number three pencil to a blank page and, with shaking hands, scrawled two deliberate words.

Miss Bellmawr froze mid-step. Her mouth opened as if to curse him, but no sound came. Slowly, impossibly, her form began to dissolve, first her yardstick then her dress, then the bony hand that had pointed at him so many times in class. The three pirates melted into mist beside her, vanishing into the salt wind.

The ship itself let out a groan like an old man giving up on a long walk, then shimmered and disappeared, leaving only the endless water.

The Doodle Dog stood tall in his rowboat, tail low, giving William a slow, solemn nod. Then he, too, began to fade away, until there was nothing but ripples where the boat had been.

Suddenly, an eerie silence fell.

William looked down at his journal. The two words glared up at him in his own messy handwriting:

The End.

The ocean evaporated in an instant, and his bed was once again still beneath him, planted squarely in the middle of his small, cluttered bedroom. He closed the notebook with a soft thunk.

From that day forward, William’s life changed—not suddenly, but steadily, like the tide. He wrote story after story: grand adventures about fearless dogs at sea, flamboyant pirates with terrible table manners, and curling irons possessed by pure evil.

And every so often, when the night was very still, he could swear he heard the distant creak of rigging… and the faint, cheeky bark of a Doodle.

Author Notes

Thank you for reading my tale of the Night.

Please feel free to comment, follow or leave a tip.

Bruce Curle 2025