Pyro Watson and the Hidden Treasure by Nette Hilton Page B

curling locks with a soft wrap that Simeon had made from the shirts of captured pirates.

    â€˜Take this!’ he’d cried as he threw down his needle and thread and raised the soft folds of cotton from his lap. ‘I’ve made ye a special towelly thing to dry your hair.’
    â€˜Oh,’ sighed the Sweet, ‘but what of the pirates who owned these shirts? Surely they’ll be wanting them back.’
    â€˜Ha! Ha! I don’t think so, me Sweet Calam! These pirates have met their match in Davy Jones’s locker.They flung their shirts upon the deck as they launched themselves into the sea.’
    Sweet Calamity had leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’ll cherish it,’ she’d said.
    The crew had all been busy then, with their needles and threads and ropes and twine, making things for Calamity, for they loved her truly and were very proud whenever it was their twined basket or their knotted waistband that she chose to wear. Today, however, she’d chosen the towel and, slightly disappointed that it wasn’t their gift that adorned her lovely being, they looked back to their brave leader, Simeon.
    â€˜Well, me hearties!’ he cried. ‘We’ve finished building up our defences and now we’re going to get onto the log!’
    The crew looked around.
    â€˜Log?’ said one.
    â€˜What log?’ said another.
    â€˜There’s not being any logs ‘ere!’ called out Derrick the Cook. ‘They all be up there behind ye!’
    As indeed they were. They’d dragged, lumped, pushed, pulled and heaved every log and branch and twig and trunk of tree from where it lay to form the deeply impenetrable defences.
    â€˜We’re not bringing ‘em back, are we, Cap’n?’ groaned the Blowfish. ‘I’m proper wore out from draggin’ ‘em up there!’
    â€˜No …’ San Simeon started to explain. His crew were quick but sometimes they were quick in the wrong direction. ‘No. Not that log …’
    â€˜Oh right!’ Derrick was pointing to a new log that had just washed up onto the shoreline. ‘He’d be meaning this one. Come on, lads. Last one on’s a rotten egg!’
    They were fast. Their bare toes and crusty old heels’d make many a surfer proud as they launched themselves across the sand and leapt, as one, onto the log.
    â€˜We’s here!’ they called. ‘We’s on the log, Cap’n. Now, what’ll you have us do next?’
    Simeon, who loved his crew and understood they’d fight to the last man defending the good ship Olga , took a deep breath. Brave they might be, but that didn’t stop them being as thick as bricks.
    â€˜Next,’ the sweet melodic voice of Calamity rang out, ‘you have to run on tippy-toes through the seaweed, over the big rock and under the yukka-ukka-ukka tree and line up, split-splot, in front of your brave Captain!’
    Before you could say ‘Jack-Splatt!’ they were lined up, panting and grinning from ear to ear, ready to listen to their Captain.

    â€˜We’re going to make a log …’
    A new frown creased the brows of the crew members but Calamity was quick to stop any more confusion.
    â€˜He means …’ she said so softly that every last man was bent double to catch the breath of her words as they left her lips ‘… he means we’re going to make a list. That’s what a log is! It’s a special list of all the things we’ll need and how we’re going to use them!’
    â€˜Course,’ sang the crew. ‘We knowed that all along.’
    â€˜I didn’t,’ confessed Derrick the Cook.
    â€˜A list!’ called Simeon before any more shenanigans could break out. ‘We have to think of every single thing we’ll need in there in case we have to hole up!’
    â€˜Aye! Aye!’ sang the crew.
    And, without any further ado, they began shouting