Chapter Five

… the mast of a boat.

“Is that a boat? I thought we were up in the sky. Have you not been concentrating, Tickling Honda? Are we going to fall into the sea?” Mr Jamie was rather worried.

“Ah … um … no, no, don’t panic. We’re not going to fall into the sea” said the Tickling Honda. “We have however got a very little tiny bit of a problem.”

“Don’t worry”, said Mr Jamie. “I’ll help you sort out your problem. What do you need?” Mr Jamie liked sorting out problems.

“Um … um … I don’t suppose you happen to have brought a sword with you?”, asked the Tickling Honda.

“YES! Yes I have!” Mr Jamie was VERY excited. He knew it had been a good thing to bring his sword with him. Except … where was it? It wasn’t down his pyjama trouser leg where he thought he’d left it. He looked around the cot … and saw Beth, holding his sword, poking it through the bars of the cot and just about to let it go.

“BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETH. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. GIVE ME MY SWORD NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW.” Mr Jamie jumped up into the air and threw himself on top of Beth, grabbing the handle of his sword just as it was about to plummet down to earth. Mr Jamie was very relieved. Beth just looked a bit squashed. “Oops. Sorry Beth, but you know you’re not allowed to play with my sword. It’s for big boys, and you’re a little girl.”

“BabababababaYAbaya”, said Beth. Which Mr Jamie knew meant: “I wasn’t playing with it. I was just having a look. And now I’m going to have a wee in my nappy.”

“Here you go Tickling Honda”, said Mr Jamie. “Here’s my sword. What do you need it for?”

“Ah … um … well.” The Tickling Honda looked a bit suspicious, like Mr Jamie sometimes did when he was doing something he shouldn’t do and Mummy came and found him and asked him if he was behaving himself. “Have you ever heard of Cloud Pirates?”

“CLOUD pirates?” Mr Jamie was confused. “I know about pirates, and I know about clouds, but what is a Cloud Pirate?”

“It’s a pirate that lives in the clouds”, said the Tickling Honda.

“Oh”, said Mr Jamie. It was a bit obvious when the Tickling Honda said it like that. “I like pirates. And I like clouds. Are Cloud Pirates goodies?”

“Hmmm. Well. That’s the problem”, said the Tickling Honda. “Some of them are goodies, but some of them are really Bad Baddies.”

“Badder than Darth Vader?”, asked Mr Jamie.

“Worse. Badder than Jabba The Hut,” said the Tickling Honda. He paused dramatically, but Mr Jamie didn’t think he could have got that right. Everyone knew that Darth Vader was the Baddest Baddie that there was. Jabba The Hut liked eating poo, which was a bit disgusting (well, very disgusting), but he wasn’t a really Bad Baddie. Mr Jamie thought that Cloud Pirates might not be that bad after all.

“Can I see a Cloud Pirate?”, asked Mr Jamie.

“I don’t think you’ve got a choice”, said the Tickling Honda. “Look over there …”

The Tickling Honda pointed over the side of the cot next to where Beth was sitting, and Mr Jamie could now see not only the mast but the entire ship, sailing quickly towards them through the clouds. It was black, with lots of really big sails and a big bad scary looking skeleton flag at the front. Mr Jamie thought maybe he didn’t really want to see a Cloud Pirate after all. He moved a little bit closer to the Tickling Honda (who was looking very worried) and put one hand on his sword, and the other one on his willy, just to keep them both safe. He hoped the Cloud Pirates wouldn’t see them, and would just go sailing by to find some other Cloud Pirates to have some fights with and take all their treasure. If they just kept really quiet …

Unfortunately, it seemed that Beth liked Cloud Pirates a LOT. The moment she saw the boat coming towards them she pulled herself up onto her feet and started shouting very, VERY loudly at the Cloud Pirate boat. “BaBAyaYAbabababaYAbaYAbayayayaya.” Which Mr Jamie knew went: “I don’t know what that is over there but I really really REALLY want to get it and put it into my mouth to see whether it’s something good to eat.” Mr Jamie sighed. Beth could be so silly sometimes. Even she couldn’t eat a whole ship, and now look what she’d done. Mr Jamie could see some people – Cloud Pirates, he assumed – running onto the deck and shouting and pointing in their direction.

“Oh Beth. You silly baby. Now look what you’ve done.” The ship was now moving very quickly towards them, and Mr Jamie could see the faces of the Cloud Pirates. They didn’t look very happy, although they all had extremely big beards, so it was quite hard to tell. Mr Jamie thought he might like to grow a beard when he was a bit bigger. He could do that, because he was a boy. Girls couldn’t grow beards. That would just be silly.

“Tickling Honda, what shall we do?” Mr Jamie looked over at the Tickling Honda, who looked VERY worried.

“Um … um … um … well, I suppose we’ll just have to sit here and see what happens. Get your sword out, and if they start getting fierce then, well, just wave them at it and see if that makes them go away.”

“Shall we do our fierce faces?”, asked Mr Jamie. He had an excellent fierce face which he had been practising for a moment just like this one.

“If you like”, said the Tickling Honda. “Right then. Here they come. Don’t look scared, whatever you do …”

And, with their fiercest faces on, Mr Jamie, Beth, and the Tickling Honda watched as the ship drew up beside the cot, a rope was thrown over the side, and down the rope, heading towards them, came a very, very Bad looking Cloud Pirate …