The Indoor Pirates Read online

  Jeremy Strong once worked in a bakery, putting the jam into three thousand doughnuts every night. Now he puts the jam in stories instead, which he finds much more exciting. At the age of three, he fell out of a first-floor bedroom window and landed on his head. His mother says that this damaged him for the rest of his life and refuses to take any responsibility. He loves writing stories because he says it is ‘the only time you alone have complete control and can make anything happen’. His ambition is to make you laugh (or at least snuffle). Jeremy Strong lives near Bath with his wife, Gillie, four cats and a flying cow.

  Are you feeling silly enough to read more?

  THE BATTLE FOR CHRISTMAS

  THE BEAK SPEAKS

  BEWARE! KILLER TOMATOES

  CHICKEN SCHOOL

  DINOSAUR POX

  GIANT JIM AND THE HURRICANE

  I'M TELLING YOU, THEY'RE ALIENS

  THE INDOOR PIRATES

  THE INDOOR PIRATES ON TREASURE ISLAND

  INVASION OF THE CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS

  THE KARATE PRINCESS

  THE KARATE PRINCESS TO THE RESCUE

  KRAZY COW SAVES THE WORLD - WELL, ALMOST

  LET'S DO THE PHARAOH!

  PANDEMONIUM AT SCHOOL

  PIRATE PANDEMONIUM

  THE SHOCKING ADVENTURES OF LIGHTNING LUCY

  THERE'S A PHARAOH IN OUR BATH!

  THERE'S A VIKING IN MY BED AND OTHER STORIES

  TROUBLE WITH ANIMALS

  Read about Streaker's adventures:

  THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  RETURN OF THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  WANTED! THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  LOST! THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  Read about Nicholas's daft family:

  MY DAD'S GOT AN ALLIGATOR!

  MY GRANNY'S GREAT ESCAPE

  MY MUM'S GOING TO EXPLODE!

  MY BROTHER'S FAMOUS BOTTOM

  MY BROTHER'S FAMOUS BOTTOM GETS PINCHED

  MY BROTHER'S FAMOUS BOTTOM GOES CAMPING

  MY BROTHER'S HOT CROSS BOTTOM

  JEREMY STRONG'S LAUGH-YOUR-SOCKS-OFF JOKE BOOK

  Illustrated by

  Nick Sharratt

  PUFFIN

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  First published by Dutton 1995

  Published in Puffin Books 1997

  This edition published 2009

  1

  Text copyright © Jeremy Strong, 1995

  Illustrations copyright © Nick Sharratt, 1995

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-14-190886-1

  Contents

  Introducing the Indoor Pirates

  1 A Visit from the Postman

  2 The Treasure Ship

  3 The Hunt Goes On

  4 A Few House Alterations

  Introducing the Indoor Pirates

  Blackpatch came from a long line of pirates, and he really did have a patch too – although it was not over one eye. It was on the sleeve of his jacket, where he had torn it on a nail. His grandparents had been pirates. His mother and father had been pirates. It seemed obvious that he should be a pirate too. This was just a little unfortunate, because Blackpatch hated the sea. In fact, he hated water of any kind – drinking-water, bath-water, washing-up water – and most of all sea-water. Blackpatch wished he didn't have to go on boats at all.

  One day he got a letter from his great-grandmother, who was very ancient. She was 107, and she had patches too. There was one on her dress, one on her leather smoking-jacket (she loved big cigars), and another on her thumb, where she had cut it by mistake. It was quite a nasty cut, and it made Great-granny realize that she was getting too old to look after herself properly. She wanted her great-grandson to come home and see to her needs. The letter made Blackpatch very happy. At last he could live on dry land!

  Off he went, and he looked after Great-granny very well until she died. (By this time she was 112.) Great-granny left her house to Blackpatch, saying that she hoped he would look after it, and the first thing that Blackpatch did was to write a letter of his own. He wrote to all his friends at sea – all the ones who didn't like it, and he asked them to come and live with him at 25 Dolphin Street. And that was how the Indoor Pirates began.

  First of all, there was Bald Ben. He had huge muscles and was immensely strong. He could lift up two people at once, one under each arm. He hadn't a single hair on his bald head. Instead, right in the middle, he had a colourful tattoo of a rose, with I LOVE MUM written underneath. Bald Ben didn't like going to sea because it meant missing too much television.

  Polly and Molly were twin sisters. They looked just like each other, except that Polly's hair was bunched out by her right ear, and Molly's was bunched by her left ear. They were always, ALWAYS arguing with each other. Whatever one said, the other said the opposite, even if it was nonsense.

  ‘We're sisters,’ Polly might say.

  ‘No, we're not!’ Molly would snap. ‘We're…’ and she would screw up her eyes desperately ‘… brothers!’

  ‘You're stupid,’ Polly would answer.

  ‘You're the one that's stupid,’ Molly would counter, and so it would go on.

  The twins didn't like going to sea because they couldn't swim.

  The fifth and last Indoor Pirate was Lumpy Lawson. He didn't look lumpy at all – in fact, he was tall and rather skinny with it, despite his love of food. No matter how much he ate, he never got any fatter. Lumpy Lawson did all the cooking (and most of the shopping too) and whenever he made porridge, there were gigantic stodgy lumps in it and that was how he got his name. He didn't like going on boats because if he tried to make soup at sea, it always slopped over the top of the pan. The boiling soup splattered on to his feet and made him leap about shouting very, VERY bad words like ‘Jigglepops!’ and ‘Pumplespizz!’

  Of course, it was no good having five pirates without a leader, and Captain Blackpatch decided that there was only one possible choice – namely himself. This was because:

  It was his house.

  He said so.

  He could shout louder than anyone else.

  He liked bossing people about and,

  See 2.


  Blackpatch's first decision was to make himself Captain. Then he made Lumpy Lawson the Ship's Cook, Bald Ben his First Mate, and told the twins he would make them walk the gangplank if they didn't stop quarrelling straight away.

  The Indoor Pirates did not want anyone to know where they lived, so they took the number off the front door and hung a skull-and-crossbones flag from the chimney-pot instead. All the neighbours knew immediately that they had pirates living near them, but they didn't mind, because the pirates stayed indoors most of the time. (That was how they got their name.)

  Old Mrs Bishop, who lived next door, even cut flowers from her garden every so often and gave them to Bald Ben, because

  she thought he was rather sweet. Besides, the pirates were not very good at their job.

  First of all, since they didn't like the sea, they didn't have a boat. (They had several small boats that they played with in the bath, but they didn't have a proper, full-size pirate boat with an anchor and lots of sails and cannons and ropes.)

  They were very fond of their little house, even if it was a bit cramped inside. It only had three bedrooms. The Captain had swiped the biggest – what a surprise! – and that left the twins sharing bunk-beds in one, and Bald Ben and Lumpy Lawson in the other. (Ben had a hammock. He liked to rock himself to sleep.)

  The Indoor Pirates liked to think of their house as a ship, even though they weren't at sea, so they had taken out all the stairs and replaced them with rope rigging. Then they had painted all the walls blue with little white, fluffy clouds and hung big plastic seagulls from the ceilings.

  They worried about being attacked by other pirates, so beside each window they always kept a good range of weapons: catapults, swords and several large buckets of dishwater. (The pirates all

  thought that soaking an enemy with water was THE WORST POSSIBLE THING that they could do to them.)

  The Indoor Pirates were very happy at 25 Dolphin Street. For a couple of months everything went swimmingly (even though the twins didn't like swimming), but trouble was never far away.

  1 A Visit from the Postman

  One morning Captain Blackpatch was standing in the front room, surrounded by heaps of clothes. He was very busy doing the ironing. Normally the Captain was very good at avoiding the ironing (not to mention the cooking, cleaning, dusting, washing, vacuuming and gardening), but now he was hot, cross and fed up.

  He reckoned he had been ironing for at least two hours and there was still a pile as big as an armchair. He slammed the iron down on the table, where it made a big black burn mark and a nasty smell. ‘This is ridiculous!’ he bellowed. ‘Pirates shouldn't have to do ironing. We should have slaves to do our work for us.’

  ‘That's a good idea,’ said Polly.

  ‘No, it isn't,’ Molly immediately butted in. ‘It's a really good idea.’

  ‘That's more or less what I said,’ Polly shouted.

  ‘Isn't.’

  ‘Is.’

  ‘Isn't.’

  ‘Is.’

  ‘SHUT UP!’ roared Captain Blackpatch. ‘I have worked out a brilliant plan. We all hide behind the front door and wait for someone to call. When they knock on the door, we leap out and grab them, drag them inside and keep them prisoner. Then,’ and here the Captain took a deep breath before he proudly announced the next bit, ‘we say to them: “You are our slave and you have to do everything we say or we'll be very nasty to you!” And they will be so scared that they'll do anything especially the ironing.’

  The Indoor Pirates all agreed that this was an excellent plan and they went and crouched down behind the front door. They made quite a heap, all squashed up together. Bald Ben seemed worried and at last he piped up,

  ‘We don't really have to be nasty to them, do we?’

  ‘We're pirates,’ grumbled Captain Blackpatch. ‘We're supposed to be nasty.’

  ‘I know, I know, but can't we just say we're nasty, and not actually be nasty?’

  Blackpatch heaved a sigh, but before he could answer he was interrupted by the twins quarrelling.

  ‘Stop pushing,’ complained Molly.

  ‘I'm not pushing, I'm pulling,’ said Polly.

  ‘Stop pulling, then!’

  ‘I'm not. I'm pushing now!’

  ‘Sssh!’ said Lumpy, peering through the letter-box. ‘Someone is coming up the path.’

  The letter-box banged in Lumpy's long face and a letter was stuffed into his mouth, much to his surprise. Captain Blackpatch ignored Lumpy's muffled squeaks and shouted. ‘All aboard! Get him!’

  The Indoor Pirates leaped up, instantly fell over each other and sat down again in such a muddled heap that heads were stuck between legs, arms appeared to come out of ears, and the whole lot looked like a major wrestling disaster. The front door slowly swung open and the postman stared down at a wriggling pile of pirates, one of whom

  had a letter sticking out of his mouth.

  The postman was so astonished that he just stood there. This gave the pirates plenty of time to stagger to their feet. Bald Ben reached out with two brawny arms, picked up the postman and marched into the house. The postman was plonked down on a chair in the back room and the Indoor Pirates crowded round, glaring fiercely at their victim. Lumpy Lawson poked his face right up close to the postman's and bared his teeth threateningly. (He'd taken out the letter.) ‘We are your slaves and we will do anything you say!’ he hissed.

  ‘No, we're not!’ shouted Polly.

  ‘Yes, we are!’ cried Molly.

  ‘No, we're not, stupid. We're not his slaves. He's our slave.’

  Captain Blackpatch was hopping from one foot to the other. ‘Jumping jellyfish! Let me do it,’ he roared. ‘Listen to me, postie person. You are our slave and you have to do everything we say. Right?’ The postman blinked back at them. He took off his spectacles and began to polish them on his shirt.

  ‘I'm very sorry,’ he began, ‘but I can't be your slave today because I already have a job as a postman.’

  This unexpected reply completely threw the Indoor Pirates, except for Bald Ben, who seemed quite relieved. ‘Does that mean we don't have to be nasty to you?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes, definitely,’ nodded the postman, carefully putting his glasses back on. ‘I wouldn't recommend any nastiness at all.’

  Bald Ben was very pleased to hear this, but Lumpy suddenly gave a howl of horror. He turned deathly white and held out the letter that the postman had just delivered. Lumpy handed it over to Captain Blackpatch, who stared at it, glared at it and then had to sit down in an armchair to get over the shock.

  ‘Whatever is it?’ whispered the twins.

  ‘It's the electricity bill,’ announced the Captain, just as if he was telling them that the Earth had exploded and everyone was dead. ‘Unless we pay up in four weeks, we are going to be cut off.’

  ‘Cut off?’ repeated Bald Ben, scratching his tattooed head. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means they cut off your legs,’ said Polly.

  ‘No,’ said Molly, ‘it means they cut off your arms.’

  ‘And your legs,’ insisted Polly. ‘And head. And nose. And ears and hair and…’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the postman. ‘It means that the electricity company will stop supplying the house with electricity unless you pay the bill. If they cut you off, you won't have any lights. You won't be able to cook or watch television or anything.’

  ‘That is just what I was going to say,’ growled the Captain. ‘How much money has everyone got?’

  The Indoor Pirates turned out their pockets and made a pile on the table. Altogether they had one paper-clip, three elastic bands, a lot of fluff, a broken penknife, a very crumpled, signed portrait of Captain Hook and a small heap of coins.

  Captain Blackpatch scowled at the pile. ‘That's not nearly enough. We need ten times that. Where on earth are we going to find the money?’ He stared at the other pirates, and they stared back at him with wild, blank faces.

  ‘THINK!’ roared the Captain. ‘
Think hard!’ A deep silence fell on the room. The five pirates paced round and round with strange, twisted expressions on their faces, which showed just how hard they were thinking. At last Blackpatch gave a triumphant shout.

  ‘I've got it! We hold the postman here to ransom! We keep him prisoner and we send a note to the Post Office saying that they must pay us… a million pounds, or they will never get their postman back.’

  ‘That's brilliant!’ cried Lumpy. ‘We shall be rich!’

  Even Bald Ben, who was beginning to think that the postman was quite a nice chap, thought it was a good idea. Captain Blackpatch sat down at the table and carefully wrote a ransom demand.

  ‘Now, all we have to do is send this letter to the Post Office,’ chuckled Captain Blackpatch. ‘Soon we shall be as rich as kings!’

  The postman got to his feet and smiled at everyone. ‘As it happens, I was just on my way to the Post Office. I'll take the letter with me if you like.’

  Captain Blackpatch was overcome. ‘You are kind. What a jolly nice postman you are. Thank you so much. You will deliver it safely, won't you?’

  ‘Of course,’ said the postman. ‘That's my job.’ He took the ransom demand, let himself out by the front door and walked off down the road, whistling cheerfully.

  The Indoor Pirates watched him go and then hurried into the front room, where they sat down by the window so that they could see when the postman was coming back with the million pounds.

  While they waited, Lumpy Lawson made everyone a lumpy cup of tea. (He left the teabags in the cups.) They drank their tea and they waited. Lunch-time came and went. Tea-time came and went. At last Captain Blackpatch got to his feet.

  ‘I think that postman must have got lost,’ he muttered.

  ‘Some horrible men might have kidnapped him!’ suggested Bald Ben angrily.

  ‘What are we going to do about the electricity bill?’ moaned Lumpy. ‘If I can't use the fridge, half our food will go mouldy.’