Fortunately, the Milk

“We have come to your planet from a world very far away,” said the people in the disc.

I call them people, but they were a bit green and rather globby and they looked very grumpy indeed.

“Now, as a representative of your species, we demand that you give us ownership of the whole planet. We are going to remodel it.”

“I jolly well won’t,” I said.

“Then,” it said, “we will bring all your enemies here and have them make you miserable until you agree to sign the planet over to us.”

I was going to point out to them that I didn’t have any enemies when I noticed a large metal door with

EMERGENCY EXIT

DO NOT OPEN FOR ANY REASON

THIS MEANS YOU!

on it. I opened the door.

“Don’t do that,” said a green, globby person. “You’ll let the space-time continuum in.”

But it was too late; I had already pushed open the door.

I JUMPED.

I was FALLING.

Fortunately, I had kept tight hold of the milk, so when I splashed into the sea I didn’t lose it.

“What was that?” said a woman’s voice. “A big fish? A mermaid? Or was it a spy?”

I wanted to say that I wasn’t any of those things, but my mouth was full of seawater. I felt myself being hauled up onto the deck of a little ship. There were a number of men and a woman on the deck, and they all looked very cross.

“Who be ye, landlubber?” said the woman, who had a big hat on her head and a parrot on her shoulder.

“He’s a spy! A walrus in a coat! A new kind of mermaid with legs!” said the men.

“What are you doing here?” asked the woman.

“Well,” I said. “I just set out to the corner shop for some milk for my children’s breakfast and for my tea, and the next thing I knew—”

“He’s lying, Your Majesty!”

She pulled out her cutlass. “You dare lie to the Queen of the Pirates?”

Fortunately, I had kept tight hold of the milk, and now I pointed to it.

“If I did not go to the corner shop to fetch the milk,” I asked them, “then where did this milk come from?”

At this, the pirates were completely speechless. “Now,” I said, “if you could let me off somewhere near to my destination, I would be much obliged to you.”

“And where would that happen to be?” said the Queen of the Pirates.

“On the corner of Marshall Road and Fletcher Lane,” I said. “My children are waiting there for their breakfast.”

“You’re on a pirate ship now, my fine bucko,” said the Pirate Queen. “And you don’t get dropped off anywhere. There are only two choices—you can join my pirate crew, or refuse to join and we will slit your cowardly throat and you will go to the bottom of the sea, where you will feed the fishes.”

“What about walking the plank?” I asked.

“NEVER heard of it!” said the pirates.

“Walking the plank!” I said. “It’s what proper pirates do! Look, I’ll show you. Do you have a plank anywhere?”

It took some looking, but we found a plank, and I showed the pirates where to put it. We discussed nailing it down, but the Pirate Queen decided it was safer just to have the two fattest pirates sit on the end of it.

“Why exactly do you want to walk the plank?” asked the Pirate Queen.

I edged out onto the plank. The blue Caribbean water splashed gently beneath me.

“Well,” I said, “I’ve seen lots of stories with pirates in them, and it seems to me that if I’m going to be rescued—”

At this, the pirates started to laugh so hard their stomachs wobbled, and the parrot took off into the air in amazement. “Rescue?” they said. “There’s no rescue out here. We’re in the middle of the sea.”

“Nevertheless,” I told them. “If you are going to be rescued, it will always be while walking the plank.”

“Which we don’t do,” said the Pirate Queen. “Here. Have a SPANISH DOUBLOON and come and join us in our piratical adventures. It’s the eighteenth century,” she added, “and there’s always room for a bright, enthusiastic pirate.”

I caught the doubloon. “I almost wish that I could,” I told her. “But I have children. And they need their breakfast.”

“Then you must die!

Walk the plank!”

I edged out to the end of the plank. Sharks were circling. So were piranhas—

And this was where

I interrupted my dad for

THE FIRST TIME.

“Hang on,” I said. “Piranhas are a freshwater fish. What were they doing in the sea?”

“You’re right,” said my father. “The piranhas were later. Right. So . . .”