TEACUPS, SPOONS & SCALLYWAGS

(first published 7 September 2012)

Yesterday we found a whole fleet of pirate ships in the kitchen! Actually when we found it, it was still just a tea set in a big box marked ‘for special occasions’ but we know every day is a special occasion and on special occasions you can turn teacups into pirate ships! It didn’t even take much work because they already had lovely gold patterns and curls painted on, so we just had to add a few pirate pictures and we were ready to set sail for the high seas…or in this case the little river by our house cause it’s much closer. When we got there we saw the goblins playing by the big willow tree and asked if they wanted to play with, and they did, so they helped us unpack the box while we explained the rules…and the rules went like this:

Lillo will be the sea monster cause she is the only good swimmer. She will be protecting the treasure that we will be trying to find. The treasure will be a whole week’s worth of cookies. They will go into the teapot and Liloo will go hide it on the wee little island on the river. Everyone else will be pirates and every pirate gets a teabag and a teaspoon. The teabags are for anchors and the teaspoons are for rowing and for fighting off the enemy! The teacups will of course be pirate ships and the saucers will be pirate rafts. It was a bit more difficult to sail pirate ships than we thought and we sank almost all the teacups while practising so in the end we set sail in the remaining teacups and the goblins got the saucers, we told them they must go to the other side of the river and race us to the treasure…but they must have misunderstood, cause when we sailed past the willow tree goblins came flying down from everywhere! Somehow they became space goblins with flying saucers, splashing and crashing into the water causing everything to capsize and sink!

Lucky for us we were all very close to the island and could paddle to safety. We were still crawling out of the water, covered in yucky river leaves and gasping for air when Liloo jumped from behind a bush, but instead of a growl she gave a scream, jumped into the water and swam away! She must have thought we were the real sea monsters. Usually it’s very funny to give someone a fright but this time the joke was on us! We were all stuck on a tiny island and the only one of us who can swim was miles away and was probably still running like a crazy bean.

So the only thing we could do was sit there eating our treasure cookies and remembering the good old days when we lived on the continent…but then my brother got a plan! It was a very risky plan, some might say crazy! It would take so much courage and sacrifice but it was the only thing to do….we had to throw the cookies in the river to lure the ducks! We started breaking them into little pieces so they would float better, rewarding ourselves with a wee piece every now and then for all our hard work and dedication…and the hard work paid off! A few minutes later all the ducks were there and after they ate all the cookies they helped us all back to the safety of our home soil.

Lucky for us the empty box in which the teacups used to live was still where we left it so we took it back home and filled it with old newspapers and potatoes cause if you have a box full of things you never use it doesn’t really matter if it’s full of lovely teacups or full of potatoes