Jill lived with her mother. Her father (a pirate) had gone to sea and not come back when Jill was very small. She did not miss him because she could not remember him and photographs had not been invented yet.
Jill's mother did not miss him either, but for other reasons.
Jill and her mother were very poor and sometimes went without food. Jill's mum was very thin; had she been around today she would be a supermodel but as it was then she was just very thin.
Mum did washing and cleaning in the village to earn their meagre income. She had very painful aches in her feet; some days she could hardly walk.
This made her grumpy. When her feet ached at the same time as she was thinking about the pirate she was very very grumpy indeed.
One grumpy day Jill's mum handed her a few coins and asked her to go to the market to buy something for them to eat that evening.
'This is the last of our money' She said. 'So be careful how you spend it'.
'Yes mum'. Said Jill.
On the way to the market Jill met a little old man. He was carrying a sack as well as leading a cow on a piece of string. The cow was brown and white. The string was blue.
It was the exact colour of the sky and Jill's eyes and the ribbon in her hair.
'Hello Jill'. Said the old man.
'How do you know my name?' said Jill.
'I know everything'. he said. 'And I have just the thing you need in my bag'. He put the bag on the ground and started rummaging through it.
'If it is magic beans I don't want them'. Said Jill. 'Magic beans caused a load of trouble for my friend Jack'.
'Not beans'. Chuckled the old man. 'These'. He held up a pair of pink furry slippers. Not only were they pink they had a nose, two glass eyes and two ears. They looked like little pink puppies.
Jill thought them very cute and told the old man so, adding that she did not have money for slippers as they were very poor and only had money for food.
'They are not for you' He said. 'They are for your mother, they are magic slippers. They will stop the aches in her feet, sort out pirate problems and make you comfortably rich'.
Jill bought the slippers from the old man, thanked him then turned around to walk home hoping that her mother had stopped thinking about the pirate and would not be too grumpy.
Jill was out of luck. She was packed off to her room without supper (there wasn't any supper anyway) even after explaining that they were magic slippers which would cure her feet (she didn't dare say 'and your grumpiness').
When Jill was in bed and fast asleep her mother slipped her aching feet into the slippers.
The aches disappeared immediately, the memory of her aches went too taking her grumpiness with it. She smiled as she danced up the stairs and into Jill's room to kiss her gently on the forehead.
'Darling child'. She whispered. Life got very much better after that.
A few weeks later a strange thing happened: The pirate came back.
The pirate came back and they found him in the kitchen with a blank look on his face.
'Hello'. He said. 'I've lost my memory'.
'Then how did you find your way here?' Jill's mother asked frostily.
'I don't know'.
The pirate went on to tell them that he lost his memory many years before when hit on the head by a coconut falling from a tree. He could remember everything after that but nothing from before but somehow he had instinctively found his way home. He then went on to say that he had hidden a big bag of gold coins in the house before he left all those years ago.
Sadly he could not remember where it was hidden.
They spent the rest of the day searching for the gold without luck until it was bed time and the pirate slung his hammock between two trees in the orchard and bid them good night.
Unbeknown to the pirate a pair of really nasty pirates has followed him to the cottage in the hope of finding and stealing the gold for themselves. They broke into the cottage noiselessly but did not expect the noisy floorboard in the hallway.
It creaked loudly as noisy floorboards do.
Jill's mum (who had been sitting up late thinking about the return of the pirate) heard the creaking board from her bedroom, put on her slippers then went out onto the landing to see who it was. When she reached the top of the stairs she was horrified to see the brigands below her.
One of them drew his sword and started up the stairs.
Suddenly the slippers on her feet started yapping madly and straining to get to the intruders. They tugged so hard that Jill's mum sat down with a bump. The slippers tugged some more and she went bump, bump, bump down the stairs on her bum.
On the 13th stair there was a crack and a crash instead of a bump. The board had broken and her bum became stuck fast.
The slippers tugged and tugged so much that they flew off her feet, down the remaining stairs and at the ankles of the intruders, biting them very nastily.
The pirates turned and fled the cottage running screamingly up the lane towards the moor the little puppy slippers close on their heels.
Jill and her father had heard the commotion and came to her aid; they prised her out from her predicament and when she stood up the broken board was still stuck to her backside.
And there in the hole where the stair had been lay a large canvas bag.
'Ah. That's where I hid my gold.' Said the memoryless pirate.
Of course they all lived happily ever after. No aching feet, no grumpiness and definitely no more pirating.
They never saw the brigands again. Or the slippers. But on still nights an eerie yapping and screaming could be heard far off on the moors.
No comments:
Post a Comment