it’s all right. Here, take it,” he said, handing her the book. “I am thinking you may find this one interesting.”
“Thank you,” she said and bowed to him politely, as he had taught her one did in Korea.
The wind and rain rattling on the tin roof of the Spyglass hid the sound of her movements as she made her way back up to room she shared with her parents.
As she ascended the narrow stairwell, sketchbook in hand, she pondered what Ishiro had said.
Observation … that was the key. It was that simple.
Upstairs in the bedroom she cleared her parents’ desk of all the assorted maps, compasses, and star charts. This task accomplished, Little Jane rummaged through her own belongings until she unearthed a small volume with the title “Exercise Book” printed untidily on the cover. Inside were her spelling exercises and a few illegible sums written in smudged ink. One by one she tore all the marked up pages out. At last, with nothing left but unmarked pages, she sat down to write.
Pausing for a moment to collect her thoughts, she concocted a plan of action. She vowed to herself that when the sunny season came around again, she would scrutinize every action of her parents and the other crewmembers with the keenest observation ever attempted and thus decipher the secret of what it took to become a truly superior pirate. It was only a matter of time before the elusive secret of perfect piracy would be hers!
Feeling suitably impressed with herself, she dipped her pen into the inkwell and with a bold hand gave an inspiring title to her prospective endeavours: “How To Be a Good Pirate.”
Then she signed her name, Little Jane Silver, feeling most pleased with her penmanship. Only later did she realize she had left the “Little” in by force of habit.
Less than a week later, with this book firmly in hand, Little Jane went off to sea with her parents aboard the Pieces of Eight, secure in her confidence that she would soon be counted among the best of the crew.
Chapter 4
“How to Be
a Good Pirate”
Bonnie Mary sat in the captains’ cabin staring at the star chart on the table in frustration. She’d tried every subtle trick in the book to get rid of the new magistrate, short of actually chasing him off with a loaded musket, but with no success. Without her husband’s silver tongue on her side, it was hopeless. The problem as she saw it was that Villienne seemed genuinely oblivious to almost everything she did. Threats went unnoticed, no matter how thinly veiled, and hints of bribery fell on ears more preoccupied with listening to the whales mating in the bay than to the clink of gold coins.
Even her most recent scheme of posting handbills around the island luring all chemists in the area to gather in faraway Bermuda for a phony “International Conference on Sodium,” had failed. It was really quite exasperating. At long last they had been forced to sail, leaving the hapless magistrate still in possession of his position, much to her disappointment.
While Bonnie Mary surveyed the ship’s star charts at her desk, Little Jane worked on “How to Be a Good Pirate.” Though she had intended to use the time to write up more observations, all she could think about that day was Ned Ronk, the ship’s boatswain. Quite by accident, she had acquired her first real enemy and now he threatened to derail all her best-laid plans.
It was the boatswain’s job onboard to make sure the crew did what the captains asked of them. Thus positioned, Ned Ronk would have been the perfect person to teach Little Jane the elusive secret of superior piracy, but to her immense frustration, he would tell her nothing of the running of the ship, disregarding even her most basic inquiries. Then, when it became apparent that ignoring her would not stop her from asking him further questions, he barred her from the deck during all his shifts. Little Jane was furious.
Ned Ronk had been with the Pieces of Eight for about four years. Under his rule the crew worked together like a well-oiled machine. Though his style may have been rougher than that of the previous boatswain, it was unquestionable that Ned Ronk got results. Crew discipline was at an all-time high, targets were being met, and the captains couldn’t be more pleased with the crew’s performance.
For her part, however, Little Jane was not impressed. Even prior to her banishment from the deck, she had never liked the boatswain. The reasons for her contempt of him were difficult for her to articulate, but being small and unobtrusive, she saw things the captains did not. For instance, Ned Ronk would always smile and bow politely to the captains when they were present, but as soon as they were out of sight, he acted differently.
Though Ned didn’t rely too heavily on the whip, he had other means at his disposal, equally cruel and cutting, for controlling the men. He delighted in tormenting anyone he considered beneath him, picking up on and exaggerating for the benefit of other crewmembers any imagined defect he noticed among them, mocking and embarrassing them into submission.
Little Jane swore she couldn’t hear the lookout, Sharpova, cry “Land-ho” without hearing the echo of Ned mimicking the Russian’s accent, or watch Rufus, the cabin boy, swab the deck without recalling Ned laughing as he revealed to all how Rufus still slept with a photograph of his mother under his pillow.
It had got to the point where every man was afraid to call the least bit of attention to himself for fear of drawing Ned’s mirth and being made to look ridiculous before his shipmates. Only the rougher, more bullying men of the crew, like Lobster and Cabrillo, truly enjoyed Ned’s company. The rest merely followed his orders with the resignation common to all those who live in fear.
What could create such a canker of cynicism and negativity inside a person, and yet leave its host’s life unconsumed, Little Jane did not know. But what she did know, just as surely as she knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west, was that Ned did not like children.
Actually, Ned Ronk detested children even more than Little Jane suspected. To his mind children were excitable, overly-enthusiastic little beasts, who wept if they scratched their knees and expected you to go into raptures if they picked a daisy. Children to him were like insect larva — necessary for the continuation of the species, but inherently weak, soft, and useless until they grew to a proper size. The affection otherwise reasonable adults had for things they deemed cute made no sense to him. The very words cute and childish set his teeth on edge. The best thing a child could do in his opinion was to keep quiet and stay out of an adult’s way. And yet, much to Ned’s exasperation, certain children (meaning Little Jane), failed to understand how a child ought to behave. These disgusting brats seemed to think their mere existence was a fact to be applauded. Any child who insisted on being not only seen, but heard as well, and heard often, annoyed him beyond all measure.
Though his attitude was plain to Little Jane, it was infuriatingly unapparent to most adults. And so Ned Ronk continued on in her parents’ employ unhindered.
However, some slights cannot be tolerated, even in the world of adults, even when disguised by polite manners and a proper outward appearance. And so it was that Ned Ronk’s reign of humiliation came to a rather sticky end fifteen days after the Pieces set sail.
At first it did nothing but please Little Jane that she should be the instrument through which all those unfairly denigrated by Ned Ronk should observe his comeuppance. Later, though, she would come to seriously regret her involvement in the matter.
It
