The Pirates! in an Adventure with the Romantics (13 page)

3) Another good trick is to give every single chapter a surprise twist ending. So, maybe for the end of chapter one you could reveal that your heroine, Phoebe, is actually called Eve, and that your hero, Mr Henderson, is called Adam, and that this is all taking place thousands of years ago on a planet called . . . Earth! Other good twists to consider: one where the ‘monster’ turns out to be beautiful by our standards, it’s everybody else who is hideous, except then it turns out no! actually everyone was just
wearing masks
, so it is the right way around after all. Or one where dinosaurs never existed and that’s important somehow.

4) Your paper smells nice, by the way.

5) I have taken the liberty of drawing you a cover illustration. When you eventually send this off to publishers you’ll need to have drawn a cover illustration if you want to look like a serious writer. I realise your story doesn’t involve a bear but I’m pretty good at bears, so I put one in anyway.

Note found nailed to Byron’s cabin door, pirate boat:

Selfish monster,

Despite my mathematical abilities, I am unable to make the logical connection between my polite messages and the abusive missive found attached to my pillow this morning.

I can accept the comparison to nocturnal animals. They are merely insults. I can bear mockery regarding my prowess at physical sports. I have never seen the purpose of competitive games. But I
cannot condone
the use of an apostrophe in the word ‘turnips’. Are you suggesting that the turnip possesses something? Apparently not – the sentence ends on that very word. Does your Romantic rejection of convention even abhor honest grammar? You claim that words are your craft, but this suggests otherwise. Worse, I strongly suspect you did it deliberately, knowing how such things provoke me.

I cannot share a boat with such grammatical abominations for another day. Thank goodness then that we are taking stage coaches for the remainder of the journey to Ruthven Pass. Any vomiting I do will be caused by my travel sickness rather than poor punctuation.

I should also like to inform you that no part of my anatomy has been ‘transformed into turnips’ due to neglect. That would be fanciful even by your ludicrous standards.

Charles Babbage

Editorial from
Y
oung, Brooding & Doomed
,

Volume 2, Issue 18, 1816

Ahoy, Byromaniacs!

How is life in the WORLD OF TOMORROW? Is a TIN BUTLER serving you TEA on the MOON?

‘Oh my giddy aunt,’ you’re thinking, ‘Bad Bouncing Byron has finally lost his mind, probably from all the syphilis.’ But wait! I can explain. You see, because of the vagaries of the publishing business, I’m writing this
several weeks
before the issue of
Young, Brooding & Doomed
that you hold in your excitable hands even hits the magazine stands. And, not only that – there’s a good chance your pal is writing to you from BEYOND THE GRAVE! Like a skeleton with a ghostly pencil! I hope I haven’t chilled your spines too much with that awful image. Whilst you huddle under a blanket – no doubt reading this in secret, by candlelight, because your mother doesn’t approve of my rakish influence on your developing mind, failing as she does to realise that you’re a woman now, with a woman’s needs – let me explain what causes me to suggest such a ghoulish possibility . . .

As you’ll know from my last column, Pulse Pounding Percy Shelley, Marvellous Mary Godwin, and yours truly have recently embarked upon an adventure with the inimitable Pirate Captain and his Terrifying Troop of Capricious Cut-throats. There have been feasts, coffee, poems, tattoos, trips to the library, cryptic warnings and all sorts of astonishing goings-on. But now we embark upon the most dangerous part of our quest – as we journey to Castle Ruthven, deep in the Carpathian Mountains! What terrible truths might we uncover there? Who – or what – can have been responsible for the attempt on the Captain and young Mary’s lives? I have no idea at all. But in the meantime enjoy this SPOOKY WORDSEARCH. It is designed to help build up atmosphere.

Excelsior!

Lord Byron

Twelve

Dial ‘S’ for Skeletons

‘Is he asleep?’ asked Mary.

The Pirate Captain leaned over and poked Babbage. Then he flicked his ear. Then he tugged one of his bushy sideburns. The mathematician let out a little snore.

‘Thank Neptune,’ said the Captain. ‘He wasn’t joking when he said he gets travel sick, was he? Doesn’t look big enough to hold that much stuff inside him.’
²⁵

Mary gave Jennifer a gentle nudge. She seemed to be asleep as well. The coach bumped over some rocks, but neither of them stirred. ‘I’m glad they’ve nodded off, Pirate Captain,’ said Mary. ‘Because I’ve been looking for a chance to talk to you about my novel. The fact is, I’ve run into a few . . . difficulties.’

‘Is it description? I always find that tough.’ The Captain chewed his lip thoughtfully. ‘The trick is to use all the senses. So, let’s say your character was to look out the window of this coach. First off, he’d
see
miles and miles of gloomy forest, plenty of creeping mist, and an occasional glimpse of the moon. He’d
hear
the odd wolf howling and the sound of the other coaches rumbling along the unmade track. He’d
smell
the cedar top notes of his classy aftershave. He’d
feel
a bit uneasy because he’s more than a day’s travel from the sea and someone once told him that he gets all his powers from seawater. And what’s the other sense?’

‘Taste.’

‘He’d have great taste in clothes, decor and beard styling. Does that help?’

‘In a way,’ said Mary. ‘It’s more a problem with the direction that the book’s taking. Quite unexpected really. You remember the half-man, half-seaweed mutant? He was supposed to be really vile, cruel, vicious, murderous and so on. All the other characters feared and hated him in equal measure. Well . . .’

Mary gazed out of the window at miles and miles of gloomy forest.

‘Phoebe, the heroine, she’s started to see a different side to him. She’s developing feelings.’

Mary gave the Pirate Captain a look that he might have interpreted as significant if he hadn’t been admiring her delicate wrists and missed it altogether.

‘She’s not sure whether it’s anything serious. They have nothing in common! Phoebe’s a progressive woman toiling with the modern world and he . . . he sleeps in a rock pool and survives partly by photosynthesis. But there’s something about him. I don’t know! A quiet nobility almost. An attractive air of danger. He appears so effortless, whereas Sir Henderson . . .’

‘Her betrothed?’ said the Pirate Captain.

‘Yes. He . . . Well, he seems rather
pedestrian
in comparison. This wasn’t how I planned the book at all, Pirate Captain. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Have you tried having her swoon whenever anybody turns up? That way she doesn’t need to do much of anything. I’ll let you in on a secret – generally I avoid female characters in my novels because they do different things to men. You can’t make a female character set her jaw because the reader just wouldn’t believe it. But if I find I’ve made the mistake of writing a woman into the book, I make her swoon as soon and as often as possible.’

‘I don’t think you’re quite following me, Pirate Captain,’ said Mary, slowly, emphasising the words. ‘This is the key to her future happiness. Should she stick with Sir Henderson, who, though dependable, doesn’t share her interest in experimental vivisection at all, or should she defy society’s conventions and hit on the seaweed-man mutant?’

The Captain thought for a moment.

‘If she does that, she needs to look out for his beak.’

‘Your
beak
?’

‘Have you never met a half-man, half-seaweed? They generally have a beak next to their mouth. Could be a nasty surprise for this Phoebe if she’s trying to kiss him and there’s a little beak there crying out for fish in a weird raspy voice. “Fiiisshhh! Fiiissshhh!” it’ll go. “Giiivvveee meeee fiiiisshhh.” That’d put me off kissing for sure.’

‘You’ve lost me, Pirate Captain. Does this represent something profound or do you really have a beak?’

‘Me? Not that I know about. But
he
would, wouldn’t he? If you want this book to be realistic that is. “Fiiiisssshhh! Fiiiisshhhh!” ’

While the Pirate Captain continued to illustrate how the half-man, half-seaweed’s beak would talk, Mary sat back and rubbed her temples as if she were very tired. Then, steeling herself, she leaned toward the Pirate Captain once more.

‘Captain . . .’

‘Last stop!’ shouted the coach driver. ‘Everybody out!’

‘Cogs!’ said Babbage, sitting up with a start. ‘Oh. Are we here already?’

The pirates, the Romantics and Babbage hefted their luggage off the coaches.
²⁶
Not
for
the
first
time
the
pirate
with
a
scarf
wished
the
Pirate
Captain
was
better
at
travelling
light
.
He
had
once asked if maybe the Captain didn’t need to pack quite so many fancy hats whenever they were away from the boat for longer than an afternoon, but the Captain just responded with a vague excuse about how his physical baggage represented, in some hard to define sort of way, his
emotional baggage
, which was something he didn’t want to talk about, and which the pirate with a scarf should be ashamed to have brought up in the first place.