Free The Pirates! in an Adventure with the Romantics by Gideon Defoe Page A

back. Suddenly he felt his hand turn to jelly. Normally when he used that expression he was mucking about with the lads, pretending to be a ‘werejelly’ when the moon was full. But this time it was because of an emotion , which in many ways was more terrifying than any werejelly could ever be.
    ‘Let me get that strand of hair for you,’ he said.
    There was a creaking noise. The Captain hadn’t had as much experience brushing pretty girls’ strands of loose hair back into place as he liked to pretend, so at first he thought maybe Mary’s face was creaking. But then the towering bookshelf wobbled alarmingly. It pitched backwards, forwards . . . and suddenly an avalanche of books came crashing down right on top of them. The last thing the Pirate Captain saw before he pushed Mary out of harm’s way was a copy of Black Bellamy’s autobiography – Swashbuckled! – smacking him right in the eye.

Nine
     
    The Cannibal Hammock
     

     
    ‘Kraken’s ears!’ roared the Pirate Captain, flouting library etiquette. He rubbed the rapidly swelling bump on his head and looked about for his hat as Mary finished digging him out from the pile of books.
    ‘Isn’t this thrilling!’ said Mary, with a grin. ‘Almost killed by your own prose! Byron will go mad with jealousy. And look!’
    She led the Captain behind the toppled bookcase and pointed to an incriminating ladder.
    ‘I don’t think it was an accident! I think it was foul play! Somebody pushed that bookcase! It seems you were right about those shadowy figures all along!’
    ‘Good grief,’ said the Captain. ‘I mean to say, obviously I’m no stranger to attempts on my life: jealous husbands, cowboy assassins, exotic femmes fatales. But even so – you don’t expect this sort of thing in a place of learning. It’s what my old Aunt Joan would have described as “a bit much”. She would have probably gone on to blame gypsies, because she was slightly racist. Different generation.’
    ‘Well, obviously somebody doesn’t want us to get our hands on this mysterious book!’
    ‘The mysterious book!’ The Captain slapped his forehead. Without the pirate with a scarf around to write him useful little reminders he did kind of have a tendency to lose track of his adventures.
    They dusted themselves down and hurried on through the maze of shelving.
    ‘Paedocracy, phengophobia, philately . . .’ Mary ticked off the subjects as they went. ‘Ah, here we are: two oh four . . . ooh! It’s the philosophy section.’
    She darted forward, running her finger along the shelves.
    ‘Two oh four one oh four . . . Here it is!’ She pulled out a large book, and coughed as a cloud of dust billowed up from the cracked old binding.
    ‘Oh,’ said Mary, peering at it. ‘That’s not really what I was expecting at all.’
    There, picked out in fancy gold lettering, was the title:
     
    The Complete Works of Plato
     
    ‘A-ha. Plato,’ said the Captain knowledgeably. ‘He’s the one who thinks reality is somebody making dinosaur shadows on the wall of a cave, isn’t he? Or is he the one who’s always jumping out of baths because he’s trodden on a corkscrew? I get muddled.’
    ‘He’s the dinosaur-shadows-in-a-cave one,’ said Mary. 24
    The Captain gave the book a shake, hoping that a treasure map would fall out, or maybe a really nice bookmark. He didn’t think a bookmark would really count as ‘the key to every heart’s desire’ but sometimes in life you have to take what you can get.
    ‘Hang on a second,’ said Mary, grabbing the book back, and flicking to near the middle. ‘Look here! There’s a whole chunk missing!’
    ‘Probably weevils. We get them on the boat and they’re hungry little devils. If you leave a plate of ship’s biscuits out and so much as turn your back, they’re gone in ten minutes flat. Apart from ship’s pink wafers. The weevils aren’t so keen on those.’
    ‘I don’t think this is the work of weevils. Someone has got here before