Page 129 of Storm over the Caribbean
Oh yes. I was the cook for a whole camp full of hungry, hung-over pirates. Lovely.
Was it too late to become a housewife?
Patience, Lilly. Patience. You’ll get out of here. And then you’ll make Mr Rikkard Ambrose cook all meals for three months straight. Dressed in a flowery apron.Onlya flowery apron.
“Freddy? Freddy!”
“Uh…oh. What?” I blinked at the pirate.
“Are you all right? You looked out of it for a second there. And you were drooling.”
“Ehem, I…I was thinking of the meal I’m going to make. Yes, exactly! I was thinking of some, err…juicy bacon.”
“Great!” Beaming, he clapped and stepped back. “I’ll tell the others you’re gonna get started right away. I can’t wait to bite into that bacon.”
I think Mr Ambrose might have something to say about that.
Deciding not to say that out loud, I waited until he had left, then turned to survey my kingdom. Last night, for, ehem…certain reasons, I had not paid a lot of attention to my surroundings. Now that I truly took the kitchen tent in for the first time, I was not impressed.
The place was a mess. Piles of half-cleaned bowls and cutlery littered the tables. Supplies were stashed in two dozen different crates, all unlabelled and rather too dirty for my liking. Mould was growing on several of them. Oh, and then there was the crown jewel in this treasury of grime and chaos…
“Croak! Polly wants a cookie! Polly wants a cookie!”
I levelled a glare at the bird in the cage that hung from the central post. Ah yes. The parrot.
The previous cook, who apparently had recently died from heavy metal poisoning (i.e. a heavy metal cutlass through the gut) had decided, in his infinite wisdom, that it was a good idea to keep a poop-happy bird in the same tent used to prepare food for his entire crew. Such a good idea, in fact, that he had nailed the blasted bird’s cage to the main post so hard you’d need a crowbar.
“Cookie?” The parrot enquired. “Squawk! Want cookie!”
“Shut up, you stupid bird!”
“Squawk! Shut up! Shut up, stupid!”
“Polly wants caviar!”
I felt one of my eyebrows twitch. Quite demanding, eh?
Thank God that blasted bird hadn’t been awake last night. If he was in the habit of repeating everything anyone said, I was profoundly grateful he had not listened to the, ehem, goings-on last night, or else he would—
“Ooh! Aaah! Give it to me! Squawk! Oh yes, give it to m—”
Clang!
“—squawk!”
The pot bounced off the cage, unfortunately doing no damage to the blasted bird in the process. So much for that! Well, at least nobody was here to hear—
Crunch. Crunch.
Footsteps!
A moment later, Jackal stuck his head into the tent once more. “Is something wrong? I thought I heard some strange noise.”
“N-no, everything is fine!” Smiling brightly, I waved him away. “I just dropped a pot. There’s nothing wrong here. Nothing whatsoever.”
“Give it to me! Squawk! Cookie! Give it to me!”
I covered my face with both my hands.
