Xavier

The Hard Life Of A Pirate

       The ship keeps shaking and I can’t fall asleep. Thunder crackles and the lightning snaps. Everyone else has trouble sleeping too but we stay in our beds hoping we will fall asleep. Every once in a while someone talks and wiry laughs come right after. Rotten fruits roll and the floor and some jump up when the ship hits a wave. Lets just say I am fortunate to have a top hammock.

       Morning comes and I am lucky to just get a couple hours of sleep. The storm calmed down around after midnight. The whole crew can rarely get out of bed, but they know they must or they would get in trouble. Captain Blackbeard is very scary. Everyone aboard the ship fears him. He commands a solid dozen of us crew members to swab the deck which means clean it. A large towel and bucket with salt water is given to me. I work from morning to noon and thats when lunch is given to me. I’m handed to one orange. I am so hungry that I eat the peelings.

       I am given some spare time. A short 15 minutes. I pull my suitcase from storage where I hide it behind the powder barrels. I pull a sharp piece of metal from my suitcase along with a large hollowed bone. I think the bone is a use to belong to a whale. It was being sold at a stand when I stole it.

       I have already started carving my bone. I picture a town and many ships docking next to it. But I am no artist though so my picture is very bland and boring but it is still something I can do to pass the time. I am just finishing the second ship the biggest one, but that’s when I hear a bell. This sound is new to me though. I have never heard this bell. I put all my belongings in the suitcase and hide it in its original hiding place.

       I go upstairs and ask captain Blackbeard, “What’s the emergency!”

He replies with a stern voice, “An English ship about a mile ahead. Andrew still trying to get to the Caribbean to resupply and if we try to evade the English then we will lose the wind and we won’t be at our destination on time for we only have few supplies. So we are forced to get ready for battle.

       I am assigned at the bottom level cannons. I meet a youngster, around 16. He is assigned at a cannon next to me. He asks me my name, I answer, “Samuel, but everyone calls me Sam”. He doesn’t answer and we see the enemy ships close through the small wooden slits that are supposed to be windows.