Free Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman Page B

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 . . .”

I was out at the end of the plank, facing certain death, when a rope ladder hit my shoulder and a deep, booming voice shouted,

    “QUICKLY! CLIMB UP THE ROPE LADDER!”

    I needed no more encouragement than this, and I grabbed the rope ladder with both hands. Fortunately, the milk was pushed deep into the pocket of my coat. The pirates hurled insults at me, and even discharged pistols, but neither insults nor pistol-shot found their targets and I soon made it to the top of the rope ladder.

    I’d never been in the basket of a hot air balloon before. It was very peaceful up there.
    The person in the balloon basket said, “I hope you don’t mind me helping, but it looked like you were having problems down there.”
    I said, “You’re a stegosaurus!”
    “I am an inventor,” he said. “I have invented the thing we are traveling in, which I call Professor Steg’s Floaty-Ball-Person-Carrier.”
    “I call it a balloon,” I said.
    “Professor Steg’s Floaty-Ball-Person-Carrier is the original name,” he said. “And right now we are one hundred and fifty million years in the future.”
    “Actually,” I said, “we are about three hundred years in the past.”
    “Do you like hard-hairy-wet-white-crunchers?” he asked.
    “Coconuts?” I guessed.
    “I named them first,” said Professor Steg. He picked up a coconut from a basket and ate it, shell and all, just as you or I might crunch toast.

    He showed me his Time Machine. He was very proud of it. It was a large cardboard box with several pebbles on it, and stones stuck to the side. There was also a large, red button. I looked at the stones. “Hang on,” I said. “Those are diamonds. And sapphires. And rubies.”

    “Actually,” he said, “I call them special-shiny-clear-stones, special-shiny-bluey-stones, and, um—”
    “Special-shiny-red-stones?” I suggested.
    “Indeed,” he said. “I called them that when I was inventing my Really Good Moves Around in Time Machine, one hundred and fifty million years ago.”
    “Well,” I told him, “it was very lucky for me that you turned up when you did and rescued me. I am slightly lost in space and time right now and need to get home in order to make sure my children get milk for their breakfast.” I showed it to him. “ This is the milk . Although I expect that one hundred and fifty million years ago you called it ‘wet-white-drinky-stuff.’”
    “Dinosaurs are reptiles, sir,” said Professor Steg. “We do not go in for milk.”
    “Do you go in for breakfast cereal?” I asked.
    “Of course!” he said. “Dinosaurs LOVE breakfast cereal. Especially the kind with nuts in.”

    “What do you have on your cereal?” I