Read Online Pirate Talk or Mermalade by Terese Svoboda - Free Book Online
Authors: Terese Svoboda
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hanged.
Which of the clothes to put on top for me?
Plaid, it’s plaid, a bold plaid it is. There may be some who fled Scotland.
I shall go all enraged—I was all set to land at a new port for the time-pieces when the pirates o’erpowered my ship. But I need a paper that says you took me. I don’t want to complicate the road we are set on by not having the right history.
But it would declare me a pirate!
Yes, well, maybe we would surprise them better as two warring sides.
Better we double our forces and turn on them just as they turn the key in your lock.
You were fighting athwart the boat in defense of me.
Hanged.
Get the bird off my shoulder.
I’ll stuff it inside your shirt for a heaving bosom.
Ah, yes, that could fool them.
And hide my cutlass under your petticoats on a belt around your leg. They won’t think of you with such a weapon. Or should I be carving the wood with it: “The Fine Maiden Hurries to the Dock for Communication from Her Lover?”
No, I will act as a kind of closet for the cutlass. Then after all the introductions, I will fall in a faint in the excitement so you can cover my face and carry me on board with all those weak lady excuses they make. Then we’ll poke them.
I’m bound into being a pirate.
It is our best chance. Over here! Over here! We’ve been besieged by cannibals daily.
Don’t say that—they won’t land.
They all like to say they’ve killed the cannibals in defense of the ladies. Hope they don’t confuse us with them though. But cannibals have far more teeth than we show. Please—mind the rocks. The rocks are what caught us—the great boat the Maryflower —
The Mayflower —
The Mayflower, god rest our ship and all the souls upon it, it was cast onto the rocks and there met its fiery end. Here! Over here!
The rocks caught us but they’ve spread for you due to
the flag you’re flying. Delighted to have you come ashore.
Hanged.
Miss Hanged, if you please.
19
You are no monk.
Zee cut of zee monk’s jib iss zo cool for zee nethers. But you—you are no uzual caztaway!
My sister, Monsieur.
Miss Hanged, if you please. Daughter of the First Magistrate of Barbados.
A lovely ranzom for zee daughter of Julian Julien, zee castrated cur of the Carribbean.
I was got out before he was maimed.
Aye, well, I don’t doubt that he had zome meanz about him. Give Miz Hanged and her bird the, the how-do-you-say? cloizter where she might go pale in the arm and the faze so as to fetch a better huzband in zee first zlave market we come to, or persuade Julian Julien zhe is worth a virgin’z ranzom. White as zee znow you will be by zen, and a big enough purze for uz, like az not. And find her a fine comb of fizhbone got from her father, the fine caztrated Julian. Adieu, mon cheri, I will veezit you zoon, zo zoon. Az for her having a brother—Julian Julien muzt have led a buzy youth.
Hanged.
I am a watchmaker of some repute. M’lady knows—
Zilence. Do not zpeak of Miz Hanged. We are not
talking about zee father of zuch a woman. Perhapz we should be talking of parrotz.
I am not even English, I am from Salem, from another father.
Comme si comme ca, zneaking puppy of the colonies. Back to your ztationz, the rest of you. I don’t want to zee the lay of the land, I want to zee zeez one’s zkin.
I swear to you!
Sacre bleu! Zuch a young one. Zo fine a zkin for zuch a pirate’z back. You will learn the wayz of the flesh—mine.
Five lashes only! I cannot take more than five.
The lash lovez you. The lash lovez and lovez the onelegged—
Only ten!
Yez, yez, yez. Oh, yez. We will zee how many.
No more!
Hanged.
Only after a pirate haz zeen the lash can he be trusted. Bligh, take heem below—and have the leg looked after by zee carpenter, zome paint applied. When zee lucky zailor recoverz from hiz lashes, he can inflame me with a leg as zhapely as hees zeester’z. And ztow the unbozomed bird in my quarterz.
20
A Week Later
I try to throw up my
Which of the clothes to put on top for me?
Plaid, it’s plaid, a bold plaid it is. There may be some who fled Scotland.
I shall go all enraged—I was all set to land at a new port for the time-pieces when the pirates o’erpowered my ship. But I need a paper that says you took me. I don’t want to complicate the road we are set on by not having the right history.
But it would declare me a pirate!
Yes, well, maybe we would surprise them better as two warring sides.
Better we double our forces and turn on them just as they turn the key in your lock.
You were fighting athwart the boat in defense of me.
Hanged.
Get the bird off my shoulder.
I’ll stuff it inside your shirt for a heaving bosom.
Ah, yes, that could fool them.
And hide my cutlass under your petticoats on a belt around your leg. They won’t think of you with such a weapon. Or should I be carving the wood with it: “The Fine Maiden Hurries to the Dock for Communication from Her Lover?”
No, I will act as a kind of closet for the cutlass. Then after all the introductions, I will fall in a faint in the excitement so you can cover my face and carry me on board with all those weak lady excuses they make. Then we’ll poke them.
I’m bound into being a pirate.
It is our best chance. Over here! Over here! We’ve been besieged by cannibals daily.
Don’t say that—they won’t land.
They all like to say they’ve killed the cannibals in defense of the ladies. Hope they don’t confuse us with them though. But cannibals have far more teeth than we show. Please—mind the rocks. The rocks are what caught us—the great boat the Maryflower —
The Mayflower —
The Mayflower, god rest our ship and all the souls upon it, it was cast onto the rocks and there met its fiery end. Here! Over here!
The rocks caught us but they’ve spread for you due to
the flag you’re flying. Delighted to have you come ashore.
Hanged.
Miss Hanged, if you please.
19
You are no monk.
Zee cut of zee monk’s jib iss zo cool for zee nethers. But you—you are no uzual caztaway!
My sister, Monsieur.
Miss Hanged, if you please. Daughter of the First Magistrate of Barbados.
A lovely ranzom for zee daughter of Julian Julien, zee castrated cur of the Carribbean.
I was got out before he was maimed.
Aye, well, I don’t doubt that he had zome meanz about him. Give Miz Hanged and her bird the, the how-do-you-say? cloizter where she might go pale in the arm and the faze so as to fetch a better huzband in zee first zlave market we come to, or persuade Julian Julien zhe is worth a virgin’z ranzom. White as zee znow you will be by zen, and a big enough purze for uz, like az not. And find her a fine comb of fizhbone got from her father, the fine caztrated Julian. Adieu, mon cheri, I will veezit you zoon, zo zoon. Az for her having a brother—Julian Julien muzt have led a buzy youth.
Hanged.
I am a watchmaker of some repute. M’lady knows—
Zilence. Do not zpeak of Miz Hanged. We are not
talking about zee father of zuch a woman. Perhapz we should be talking of parrotz.
I am not even English, I am from Salem, from another father.
Comme si comme ca, zneaking puppy of the colonies. Back to your ztationz, the rest of you. I don’t want to zee the lay of the land, I want to zee zeez one’s zkin.
I swear to you!
Sacre bleu! Zuch a young one. Zo fine a zkin for zuch a pirate’z back. You will learn the wayz of the flesh—mine.
Five lashes only! I cannot take more than five.
The lash lovez you. The lash lovez and lovez the onelegged—
Only ten!
Yez, yez, yez. Oh, yez. We will zee how many.
No more!
Hanged.
Only after a pirate haz zeen the lash can he be trusted. Bligh, take heem below—and have the leg looked after by zee carpenter, zome paint applied. When zee lucky zailor recoverz from hiz lashes, he can inflame me with a leg as zhapely as hees zeester’z. And ztow the unbozomed bird in my quarterz.
20
A Week Later
I try to throw up my
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