THE BAD PIRATE

The Bad Pirate

Black Eyes, the pirate, lived on a pirate ship. A flag, the Jolly Roger hung from a mast and waved back and forth when the wind blew. A lot of other pirates lived on the ship with him and they did not like Black Eyes. He was not a nice person. He didn’t let them eat much food and when they ate, all that was left was stale bread and apples with worms in them. Black Eyes ate the fruit and vegetables. He didn’t let them sleep. He made them stay up late to swab the deck after dark and they also had to shine Black Eyes’ gold for him. He did not share his gold and treasure. He kept it all to himself. Black Eyes was a bad pirate. One day, when the ship had been at sea for two weeks, one of the pirates, Skull, went up the mast and stood in the crow’s nest. A crow didn’t live in the nest. Pirates just called it a crow’s nest. Skull took out his spyglass and looked across the sea. “I see an island over there!” Captain Black Eyes told Skull to come down from the crow’s nest and they set sail for the island. Skull told one of the other pirates to lower the anchor. It fell into the deep water. Black Eyes and a few of the other pirates got into a small wooden boat and rowed to the island. “When we get to the island, I want you to go and find some coconuts,” Black Eyes told Skull. “The rest of the pirates will stay on the sand and polish my gold and then we’ll bury it.” Skull jumped out of the rowing boat and pulled it onto the sand. He ran into the trees to find some coconuts. The other pirates rubbed the gold with their shirts and got it all shiny. Black Eyes sat in the grass under a tree and let them do all the work. “Bury my gold.” The pirates had to dig a deep hole in the sand and put all the gold into it. “Cover it up now!” They pushed the sand back on top of the gold and filled the hole in. Skull came back with a few coconuts. “Is that all you got?” Black Eyes asked. “Go back and find some more. All of you go with Skull and help him find more. I want more!” Black Eyes lay down and took a nap while the others went into the trees to look for coconuts. When he woke up he didn’t see his rowing boat. He didn’t see the pirate ship. Skull and the other pirates had rowed back to the big ship and sailed away while the Captain took his nap. They had dug up all his gold and taken it with them too! Black Eyes was mad. He was on an island and he was alone, with no gold, no pirate ship, and no rum. Just then a parrot flew down from a tree. “Yo ho hoho, a pirate’s life for me!” The parrot sang. The parrot’s name was Patches. Patches and Black Eyes stayed on the island for the rest of their lives. Black Eyes had to eat coconuts and listen to Patches sing every single day. If only he’d been nicer to the other pirates, but, ah well, he was not!