New story: Ghost Pirate Pie Eye and Three-Fourths Fred

320 Sycamore Studios publishes original kid stories served fresh monthly, plus essays, book recommendations, and postcards from Readerville. Everything is completely human-written. — Jeff

Late one night a few centuries ago, a ghost pirate named Pie Eye sat down on a tropical island beach to have a ponder on why he was so lonely.

Now, you’re probably wondering What was his name? and What kind of pirate was he? and Why was he lonely? and How can a ghost sit down? and Was his death terribly gruesome? and most especially Where was the treasure?

I promise to answer all of that. It’s why there’s a story, after all. If you still have questions at the end, feel free to answer them any way you like, because that’s how we roll here, Reader.

Deal?

I’ll take that as a yes.

Right. Now, let’s light this cannon!

On the last night of his life, the pirate captain Pie Eye celebrated a successful summer spent plundering European business ships. He reposed in his very own hammock on his very own veranda at his very own hut on his very own island, which was called Tarantella.

Pie Eye raised a glass to his three heartiest of hearties, the trio at the core of the crew who kept the pirate ship Poetic Justice undefeated and ship-shape year after piratical year. “A toast to ye men, the artfulest, most fearsomest bunch of maties ever to sail the Spanish Main. Or ... are it the Main-ish Span? Whate’er it is, there ain’t no nobler calling than plundering the plunderers. And there ain’t no hearties I’d a-rather be plundering with!” He raised his coconut concoction to the assemblage, Tingle, the first mate; Peg Head Mondo, the gunner; and Professer Grizzle, the quartermaster.

Pirate Pie Eye drained his grog and sadly sighed. “I wish you all were here in the realsome.” Because Tingle, Peg Head Mondo, and Professer Grizzle were merely portraits on the wall. Pie Eye’s actual hearties were off with their own families, since pirating season was over.

If his hearties had really been on Tarantella with him, Pie Eye would have told them that it was almost time to retire. How after next year they could build that condo resort and all live together on Tarantella, getting old, telling tales, and grogging it up for the rest of their natural-born lives. Never lonely. Hearties till the end.

The truth of Pirate Pie Eye’s life was that he possessed every material thing he ever wanted — beautiful beach, fresh running stream, capacious hut, outhouse with a lagoon view, and all the coconuts a pirate could hope for.

He lacked only for one thing, and that one thing made all the other having moot.

He lacked a true heartie.

After bedtime, Pirate Pie Eye tossed and turned, which is hard to do in a hammock. Deep in the night, when the sky was at its darkest and so the stars were at their brightest, he finally gave up. He ate a bowl of frosted coconut flakes with coconut milk and set off on a meander.

Pie Eye wandered out to Heap-O-Treasure Beach and glumped down on the sand. He mulled the syntax of ocean currents. He considered the vocabulary of wind. He contemplated the patterns in the stars. His thinkings circled round to his nemesis, Admiral Archibald Cheddar, captain of the business ship More and Pie Eye’s fiercesomest foe.

Finally, he stopped thinking at all. Because the night around him was what you might call an Everything Night, when the boundary between you and not-you grows permeable and you can’t help but be steeped in astonishment.

There under a million-billion stars, Pirate Pie Eye felt as small as an atom, whatever that is. He lay back on his elbows in the soft sand. “What’s it all about, then, eh Stars?” he whispered.

He listened a long time but the stars kept their silence.

When Pie Eye rolled over to scratch a flea bite on his poop deck, he almost squished an egg.

But he didn’t squish it, Stars be praised.

For the egg was a sea turtle egg. All soft and leather-like.

Since the Stars had not supplied him with an answer to his VBQ (Very Big Question), Pirate Pie Eye decided that the evening’s entertainment would be watching a sea turtle hatch and then make its gull-dodging dash to the sea.

Peck-rip-peck. An opening appeared in the shell.

You probably don’t remember since you were so young, but it’s quite a bit of hard work being born into this world out of the previous one. It’s the same with turtles. And you’re lucky, because after you were born, you didn’t have to scuttle across sand being dive-bombed by creatures that want to eat you. (If you did have to do that, I beg your pardon. You are an amazing human and will accomplish anything you ever set your heart to.)

The turtle better hurry, thought Pie Eye. Daybreak would bring seagulls.

The shell-crack widened. A little beak appeared. Then two tiny, blinking eyes. Blink-blink. Followed by a tiny head. Then a flipper. Two flippers. Three. Fo--.

“Where be the rest o’ ye?” rasped Pie Eye.

There was no fourth flipper.

“Well I’ll be Davy Jones’s left armpit,” whispered Pie Eye. “There’s nought but three-fourths o’ ye.”

Dark drained from the sky. Suddenly the entertainment didn’t seem so entertaining. Pie Eye recited his old mantra: “People are people and nature are nature.” The world could be cruel sometimes but what are ye gonna do? “Besides,” he grumbled, “this-a-here world’s no place for the weak.” Pie Eye cursed the Stars for stacking the odds against the helpless. And while he accepted things as they were, that didn’t mean he wanted to watch the wee turtle meet his destiny. Which apparently was to be a breakfast.

“Argh. Suit yourself, Stars, ye scallywags,” said Pirate Pie Eye. He got up, shook the sand from his beard, and retreated to his hut and his hammock.

“It’s a wise thing leaving the wee turtle,” said Peg-Head Mondo from his portrait-frame. “Best be a-staying in yer own sea-lane.”

Peg-Head Mondo was called that because once in a battle with Admiral Cheddar and the Cheddarmen, a cannonball from the More bonked into Mondo’s noggin, bounced right off, and landed at his feet. He arose into such a fury that he hurled the cannonball back at Admiral Cheddar’s boat, which punctured the hull, swamped the More, and extended the win-loss record of the Poetic Justice to 172-0. After that he was always called Peg-Head Mondo.

“Thank ye for th’ wisdom,” said Pie Eye.

“Aye, Pie Eye,” said Professer Grizzle. “You’ll never run aground for letting Nature take its course”.

“I thank ye as well, Professer,” said Pie Eye.

“I third this line o’ philosophizin’,” said First Mate Tingle from his portrait. “Remember what happened last time ya got to a-interfering with the machinery of the Starworks.” (Tingle, incidentally, got his name because he felt prickly all-over when danger was near. Which, when you’re pirating, is a lot. Pirate Pie Eye relied on him profusely.)

“Right-O, Mr. Tingle. First time. Last time. Only time.” Pirate Pie Eye gave his eye patch a flick with a thumb. It made a metallic cloink.

This is probably a good time to tell you how Pirate Pie Eye got his name. (If you’re really worried about the wee little sea turtle vs. the hungry seagulls, you can skip ahead to the next section.)

Pie Eye wasn’t always called Pie Eye, of course. His born name was Thurston McDoofus the Third and he came from a long line of bankers. He never liked his name much, however. Nor did he cotton to banking. So when he was a lad just coming into his first chin-hairs he absconded himself from home, began calling himself “Pirate To Be Named Later,” and joined the first pirate ship he came across on a deck-swabber internship. He never looked back.

The event that catalyzed his nom de pirate occurred at a rum-sodden tavern called the Heartie Party in Port-O-Spain, or maybe Spain-O-Port, which is down by Trinidad or Tobago. Or both of them put together. Pie Eye could never remember and thought the name rather silly, since this particular morsel of geography were nowise in the neighborhood of Spain. Pirate To Be Named Later and his maties were celebrating after a successful raid on Admiral Cheddar’s fleet with rum and rum-tum pie. They were also getting into rumbles, eating rum balls, and dancing rhumbas. They liked anything to do with rum.

Pirate Pie Eye ordered an entire rum-tum pie for himself and slunk to a tavern-adjacent alley. “Can’t have none ‘o you lot a-filching me pie,” he called cheerfully to his maties. Secretly, however, what he really wanted to do was feed the scrawny tuxedo cat loitering outside the tavern.

He eased his keel part down to the cobbles, made himself easy, and extended the pie tin to the scruffy feline. But just as the cat opened her mouth for a rummy nibble, her meow turned into a hiss. Pirate Pie Eye looked up and found himself gazing into a Chedderman’s musket muzzle. Before he could even shiver his timbers, Blammo! goes the musket, sending its projectile right through the pie and pie tin Pirate To Be Named Later had held up in a useless gesture of self-defense.

Musket balls travel through rum pie and their concomitant tins with alacrity, which is why a few moments later, Pirate To Be Named Later had a musket ball for an eye instead of a real eye, not to mention splatterings of rum pie all over his face. “I don’t mind the eye,” he roared, rising to scuffle, “but by Garr, you should-a respected the pie!”

His hearties heard the commotion and thereupon followed a rollicking fracas with Cheddar and the Cheddarmen. The hullaballoo only ended when one of the maties accidentally stepped on the aforementioned feline’s tail and called a time out. After conferring to check on the cat (it was unharmed), the two teams decided to resume battle at a future date someplace where no animals would be jeopardized.

The one Chedderman who’d musket-balled our protagonist agreed, but only if “Pie Eye” committed to show up for the what-fer.

Pie Eye thought Pirate To Be Named Later. I like that.

“Aye-aye. Pie Eye is I,” he vociferated, “and you’ll pay for my eye!”

“All hail Pie Eye,” his maties hip-hip-hoorayed, before cavorting back into the tavern to their assorted rummy comestibles.

Pie Eye, however, strode to the Port-O-Spain or Spain-O-Port branch of Eyepatches Arr Us and selected out a nice darkness-colored one. He paid extra for the bit of embroidery that became the symbol of his new self: a slice of rum pie.

If you’re wondering about that cat, she had a happy ending. A bakerwoman who had witnessed the entire foofaraw adopted the cat (or the cat adopted the bakerwoman, but either way, same result) and named the cat Juno, in honor of powerful women everywhere. Juno, for her part, named the bakerwoman “Madam Factotum, Most Gracious and Assiduous Servant of Juno”. Many years later, Juno the cat passed away in her sleep, plump, loved, and happy.

Where were we?

Oh, right.

Back in the hut, Pirate Pie Eye was talking to his Wall of Hearties.

“I think you did the cat right honorably that day at the Heartie Party”, said the portrait of Professer Grizzle (who got the second part of his name because he was raised by a pack of grizzle bears in the Tongass after being left behind by absent-minded human parents; the first part of his name was a mystery). “What is this life if you don’t sacrifice for something? Therein true greatness lies.”

Pirate Pie Eye grunted. “Well elocuted, yer professorship.” Inside himself, he wondered if this was true. He thought about it. Chewed and stewed. Ruminated, cogitated, and contemplated. Finally, he found himself inclined to agree with the professer. Maybe because it was an Everything Night.

“Professer,” said Pirate Pie Eye at the end of his ponderance, “I agree most ardently.” He sprang from the hammock. “As you were, me hearties!”

“Aye-aye, Pie Eye,” chorused the hut-wall rogues.

Pie Eye was a-flooded with alarm tingles as he raced toward the partially flippered turtle. What if the gulls had got him? It was all of a grimness to consider. He hustled faster.

Whew!

The turtle was alive. “But yer doing a right terrible job of navigatin’,” Pirate Pie Eye observed. The little bugger had emerged free from his shell but was flopping uselessly in circles on account of his being differently limbed. Apparently the Great Maker of Turtles had simply forgotten to attach the back leftmost flipper, or had gotten distracted during assembly or run out of parts due to supply-chain disruptions or some such.

Pie Eye exhaled and stared up into the thin blue sky. “What to do, aye?” he asked. But he knew. Of course he knew.

He squatted down and cooed to the turtle. “You got a name? A-course ye do. Yer name’s Fred. Least-a-ways that’s what I be dubbing ye.” He held the little flipper flapper up for closer inspection. “Three-Fourths Fred, to be specific-like.”

Seagulls squawked all down the beachy breeze. Three-Fourths Fred bit the pirate’s finger. Pie Eye laughed. “Ain’t you the fierce one?”

It is a strange and mysterious happenstance that sometimes a human may forget whole years of its life. It is equally strange and mysterious how one or two moments of a life may loom as large as years entire.

When Pirate Pie Eye thought back on it later, the short walk he made down the beach holding that small bit of life cupped in his hands was one of those large-as-years moments. He felt the air tickle his whiskers, felt the crunch-crunch of sand under his callused footsoles, heard the gentle sighs of the wavelets as they gave themselves unto the shore. Everything that made up his life — pirating, doubloons, condo-resort dreams, Admiral Archibald Cheddar — all seemed suddenly not to matter.

Pirate Pie Eye marched directly into the water, whereupon he paused. He held Three-Fourths Fred up to his face, kissed his beak quick, and whispered, “Go find your treasure, little pirate.”

Fred winked at him. At least that’s what Pirate Pie Eye told himself later in his brig cell.

The pirate lowered the turtle to the welcoming water. Three-Fourths Fred swam two ragged circles before ancient instinct claimed him and he headed for the high seas.

Pirate Pie Eye saluted the turtle and shouted his good wishes. “Ye can do it, me wee heartie! Look at me,” he flapped his eye patch, “I’m missing a piece as well as ye, yet here I stand on Heap-O-Treasure Beach, I, Captain Pirate Pie Eye, scourge of the seas and persistent needle in the aft-parts of the high-and-mighty Admiral Archibald Cheddar. I am the greatest pirate there ever were.”

“Thank you for that confession,” said a voice behind him.

Pirate Pie Eye whirled.

He found himself facing a row of muskets. Muskets held by soldiers. Soldiers commanded by Admiral Archibald Cheddar, captain of the business ship More.

“Aye,” sighed Pie Eye, “so that’s it.” The Stars had, in the end, spoken to him, but he wasn’t sure he liked the answer. He gave the sea a last sad glance, and slogged up the beach toward his fate.

Things don’t go well for pirates when they are captured, especially by businesspeople. And the more successful the pirate has been, the unweller it goes.

Pirate Pie Eye had been speck-TACK-ularly successful. He sat shackled in the brig of the More thinking about just how successful. “Can’t get much better than undefeated,” he said to a rat on the bench beside him. The rat nodded in agreement. Pirate Pie Eye held up his heavy handcuffs and feetcuffs. “You wouldn’t mind a-gnawing through me fetters, now, would ye, Rattie?” The rat shrugged sympathetically. “Aye, right. The metal’d be a tough chew, I reckon.”

Pirate Pie Eye got to forming a plan B. It shaped into something like this: Pretend to be allergic to cuffs and when Cheddar removed them, jump ship, swim for shore, hide for a few years, unbury his treasure, assume a false identity, and build his condo resort.

He was working out a few of the details when he was called onto the deck of the More.

He jangled down the corridor, up a ladder, and along the deck. He halted in front of the Admiral and gave him a rather inappropriate salute which made the assembled Cheddarmen giggle, even the one who’d originally musketed Pie Eye in the prior incident outside the Heartie Party.

Admiral Archibald Cheddar frowned. “Pie Eye ...” Here he paused and looked at the pirate curiously. “Is that your real name?”

“That is the name which I be called.”

“What’s your last name?” the admiral asked.

“Cheddargrinder.”

The Cheddarman guffawed.

Admiral Archibald Cheddar wasn’t amused. “Your real last name?”

“Never a-met it.”

“Surely your parents must have told you?”

“Never a-met ‘em neither,” Pie Eye untruthed. Pie Eye’s good eye looked around while his brain crafted Plan C. Slip the fetters. Five paces to the rail. Dive deep and swim. But out to sea, that’ll fool them. Swim through the night to the far side of the island.

“Arr, what ye be sayin’ Cheese?” Pie Eye asked.

“Your last name,” the admiral repeated. “Surely you must have needed a last name somewhere? For your college application, perhaps? Captain’s license? Mortgage? What name do you write on documents?”

Pirate Pie Eye chortled. “Never been much for no documenting. No call for it in my line o’ work.”

The admiral shrugged. “That will make it difficult to complete the forms, which could delay your transfer 2-3 business days. Nevertheless ... “

Pirate Pie Eye squinted. Here it was. The sentencing.

“... By the power invested in me, I hereby sentence you to live the rest of your days at the Pole of Inaccessibility.”

“Never sailed there,” mused Pirate Pie Eye. “Always glad to see a new port.”

“The Pole of Inaccessibility,” the admiral continued, “is the point of Earth farthest from any ocean. It’s in China, near the border of present-day Kazakhstan.” The admiral let the words sink in.

Pirate Pie Eye’s heart sank faster than a doubloon dropped in parts oceanic. He’d never see the sea again.

“Or,” said the admiral.

“Aye?” asked Pirate Pie Eye.

“You can repay your debt to business and tell me where you’ve stored your treasure.”

“My treasure? Whatever treasure be ye talkin’ about?” asked Pirate Pie Eye.

“Your plunder,” the admiral said.

“Plunder? I don’t be understandin.”

“Your booty!” the admiral thundered. “SHOW ME YOUR BOOTY!”

Pie Eye turned around and slapped his sternside. “It’s right here, ye big stinky Cheese. Now do your duty and kiss me booty.”

Admiral Cheddar’s sailors doubled over with a severe case of laughter-quakes. Pie Eye took advantage of the sudden disorder to dare a dash to the railing. However, he wasn’t used to shackled sprinting. He splatted on his face and was quickly caught.

The embarrassed admiral forgot all about the life sentence at the Pole of Inaccessibility and made Pirate Pie Eye walk the plank. Pirate Pie Eye, still would not reveal where his treasure was. He was making Plan D even as he walked the plank.

Too late.

He died.

Just like that Pie Eye passed from this world to the next.

It was too ghastly to describe here. This is a family story, after all. There is however, one detail worth noting.

Pie Eye’s last human thought was, I wonder how wee Freddie’s a-gettin’ on.

After that he was a ghost, so he had ghost thoughts.

There you go. That’s how Pirate Pie Eye became Ghost Pirate Pie Eye. If you want to know what happened after, there’s more story ahead.

In case you were wondering, your problems don’t magically go away once you become a ghost. Sure, all your pimples and muscle-pulls are gone and it feels nice to see with all your eyes again. And yes, it is pretty sweet to be able to float around and basically wish yourself from place to place and ooze through things, like volcanoes or state capitol buildings or opera singers. But pretty soon, your life (or, “afterlife,” to be precise) kind of goes back to how it was before. If you were nice in your human life, you’ll be nice in your ghost life. If you were happy as a human, you’ll be happy as a ghost. And if there was something missing before, that something will still be missing. It’s the biggest adjustment for new ghosts. That, and not being able to talk to human people except when they’re dreaming.

Because he was a good-hearted-but-lonely person in life, Pirate Pie Eye was a good-hearted-but-lonely ghost. So, after he’d gone floatabout for a while feeling sorry for himself, he had the idea to visit his three heartiest hearties.

Whereupon he encountered three surprises.

Surprise number one was that First Mate Tingle used his pirating proceeds to run an orphanage farm in the Upper Pyrenees. During the day, he taught the children how to grow lavender and turn it into essential oils and aromatherapy products. At night before bedtime, he made up stories for them. He was a man of service.

Surprise number two was that Gunner Peg-Head Mondo was married. He lived in Sweden on a country estate and was a stay-at-home dad to his seven boisterous daughters while his wife commuted to her mathematics-professor job in the city. Since Sweden has such a generous family leave policy, she was able to take time off to tend the children whenever Mondo got the itch to do some freelance pirating. He didn’t really need to work any more, but he liked having a bit extra to buy educational apparatuses for his daughters. He was a man of family.

Surprise number three was that Professer Grizzle actually was a professor. He lived in Oxford, England, where he taught Eastern and Oriental philosophy. Pirate Pie Eye now understood why the Professer had been only available for raids and plunders during summer break, two weeks at Christmas, and a week in the spring. All of the Professer’s pirating money seemed to be spent on rare books. He was a man of ideas.

Ghost Pirate Pie Eye felt as insubstantial as any ghost can feel. Which is pretty insubstantial. “What was I a man of?” he moaned. “A man o’ the winds? A man o’ condo resorts? A man o’ merely meself?” He chewed these questions as he drifted leftwardly, across the Atlantic, across North America, and into the wide Pacific.

He worked his thinkings like a dog works a bone. Gnaw-gnaw-gnaw. “Me hearties all had lives and families,” he said to the Stars. “They all had purpose. They were never a-going to come live with me in side-by-side-by-side-by-side condos on Tarantella. I never really knew me hearties at all. Oh, arr.”

If a ghost could cry, Ghost Pirate Pie Eye he would have. But since they can’t, he made a ghostly sob no humans heard, except for the dreaming whaleship-men he passed over in the night. They all got nightmares and woke up late the next morning. The whale got away, thank goodness.

Ghost Pirate Pie Eye drifted and he drifted and he drifted. And he drifted some more.

After you drift a while, you come to a wall. The wall is labelled “Truth”. There are two doors in the well. The first one says “Avoid It.” The second one says “Face It.” You have to choose.

Ghost Pirate Pie Eye chose “Avoid It”. Most people do.

He drifted on.

Somewhere over Kamchatka, he got inspiration.

Revenge.

Admiral Archibald Cheddar lay slumbering in his stateroom on the More. For months he’d been methodically scouring the Caribbean looking for Pirate Pie Eye’s treasure. He’d found nothing. His wall map was full of check marks on every island he and his crew had scrubbed clean of jungles and mountains and people. In fact, the Cheddarmen had made many messes and not cleaned up a one of them. Before going to bed each night, Admiral Cheddar spoke a prayer aloud. “Grace me, O Business, and reveal unto me the treasure.”

That night, Admiral Archibald Cheddar received a vision.

He woke in a sweat. “Madagascar. The treasure is in Madagascar. I know it. I don’t know how I know it. I just know it.”

Madagascar of course, was the next ocean over to the right. So Admiral Archibald Cheddar commanded his slightly grumbly crew to set sail immediately. They rounded the southern tip of Africa, skooched halfway across the Indian Ocean, and arrived a month later, ready to dig, uproot, and topple. Starting tomorrow.

That night, Admiral Archibald Cheddar received a second vision.

He woke in a sweat. “The Galapagos. The treasure is in the Galapagos. I know it. I don’t know how I know it. I just know it.”

The Galapagos of course, were in the next ocean over to the right. So Admiral Archibald Cheddar commanded his moderately grumbly crew to set sail immediately. They rounded the northern tip of Australia, skooched most of the way across the Pacific Ocean, and arrived a month later, ready to dig, uproot, and topple, starting tomorrow.

That night, Admiral Archibald Cheddar received a third vision.

He woke in a sweat. “The Pole of Inaccessibility. The treasure is at the Pole of Inaccessibility. I know it. I don’t know how I know it. I just know it.”

The Pole of Inaccessibility, of course, was the next ocean over to the right, then through a sea, and across a big bunch of continent. So Admiral Archibald Cheddar commanded his extremely grumbly crew to set sail immediately. They skooched halfway around the world and arrived a month later at the Pole of Inaccessibility ready to dig, uproot, and topple.

They dug. They uprooted. They toppled.

They found no treasure.

That’s because Admiral Archibald Cheddar had never received any visions at all. Only Ghost Pirate Pie Eye revenging on him by whispering into his dreams.

Upon finding no treasure at the Pole of Inaccessibility, the admiral was kindly asked by the More board of directors to retire forthwith. He lived out the remainder of his days in befuddlement at the North London Rest Home for Old Business Sailors, where his twin dorm room had a partially obstructed view of the River Thames.

After extracting his revenge on the admiral, Ghost Pirate Pie Eye exulted. For a little while. For revenge is a hollow thing. An empty barrel that when you bang on it makes a big sound but there’s nothing inside.

Pretty soon Pirate Pie Eye felt adrift.

Just like always.

A hundred years passed.

A hundred miserable years.

During that sad century, everyone Pirate Pie Eye ever knew became ghosts. While his ghostmaties hadn’t forgotten about him and were polite when he went to visit, it was clear they’d rather be with their own families from their own lives. Their true hearties.

Time stretched a bleak infinity before Ghost Pirate Pie Eye.

Drifting. Always drifting.

Skimming the Atlas Mountains. Down the Orinoco. Bouncing along Lake Baikal and through the New Zealand fjordlands. Surfing the tabletop mountains of Venezuela. The pyramids at Meroe. The ruins at Ephesus. He watched cities grow, saw people move faster and faster and faster going nowhere. He floated with an empty heart from there to here and here to there and back again. He went every place and went again. Every place but one, that is. He could not return to Tarantella. The beach of his capture. His place of lost resort.

There came at last a day just about like all the others. The only difference about this day was that the old ghost pirate was finally too worn out with avoiding. Ghost Pirate Pie Eye could finally feel it. A faint but vital tug on his spirit pulling him finally toward the other door in the wall of Truth, the one called “Face It.”

He passed through.

And soon found himself at Heap-O-Treasure Beach.

The memories stung terribly and totally and jabbed fiercely. All that lostness. Lost treasure. Lost friends. Lost life. His ghostly sobbings were everlasting in their ache.

Ghost Pirate Pie Eye drifted to Heap-O-Treasure Beach, where the turtle nest had been so long ago. (Oh! You asked earlier how ghosts sit. I forgot to tell you: They do it the same way clouds form new shapes, sort of holding the form in their mind till they assume that form. It’s pretty cool.) Pie Eye laughed to think how the treasure had been buried on the beach, right in front of Admiral Archibald Cheddar that morning on the beach and the admiral had never seen it.

Strange how what we seek so often rests right before us.

A crab scuttled by. “What was Cheddar a-going to do with all those doubloons, anyway?” Ghost Pirate Pie Eye asked the crab. “What was I a-going to do? Build a resort? Bah! I’m a pirate! Well, I was a pirate. And a pirate be needing adventures. Fierce wind! Galloping waves! Rousing ruckuses! Give me a mug of scorching joe on a deck of the morning. Give me endless tins o’ rum pie to share about. Give me a true heartie. Arr, that’s the utmost, Crabbie. It’s the living that’s the treasure.”

The crab, who already knew this, carried on scuttling.

Pie Eye held the thought in his mind and lay back in a hammock of air. The lostness feelings began to disperse on the wind. He whistled a ghost tune. An old sea song from long ago, something about the bodysurfing mermaids of Rarotonga. He let his gaze drift waterward and immediately his two far-seeing eyes noticed a darkening patch of sea. A watery shape somehow not water its ownself. Pie Eye stopped mid-whistle and watched the shape transform from shadow into substance. Into a living creature Pie Eye had never seen before.

Or had he?

“What the Freddie?!” he shouted. “Naw, it a-can’t be.” But it was. “Freddie!” he shouted. “Freddie Freddie Freddie!”

Ghost Pirate Pie Eye raced across the sand.

Three-Fourths Fred was coming home at last from the ocean. The now-ancient turtle heaved its slow way up the beach. Seeing him struggle, Pie Eye tried to help. He pushed. He shoved. He shouted encouragement. But it was no use, Pie Eye was ephemeral and Fred’s time was done. The turtle’s eyes were cloudy, and his shell had chipped and faded, and his three flippers were crusted in barnacles. But his wise face radiated the contentment of a life well-lived. Fred stopped at the place where he had first entered the world, and he sighed.

With one last shudder and the slightest of smiles, Three-Fourths Fred passed into the next life.

Pie Eye hugged the turtle’s lifeless body with arms of mist and wept for his friend. “We could have had such adventures, me heartie,” said the ghost pirate.

“Can’t we still?” said a gentle voice behind him.

Pie Eye whirled around, “Freddie?” Then he laughed. “A-course! Yer Ghost Three-Fourths Fred now!”

The turtle smiled. “Thank you for rescuing me all those years ago.”

Pie Eye hugged him, spirit to spirit. “It’s good to see you Laddie.”

Three-Fourths Fred laughed warmly. “There’s just one thing. I am no laddie.”

“Well, I’ll be a gobsmackered!” shouted Ghost Pirate Pie Eye. “What’ll I call ye?”

“How about ‘Finely Flippered Frida’?” she said. “Because of you, I was able to see the seas and have adventures and make lots of little turtle babies. They’re out there now,” she waved a flipper toward the horizon, “and I told every one them about the goodness of humans.”

“Well, I’ll be a narwhal’s left butt fin,” Pie Eye marveled. “Goodness of humans, ye say? Even an old rapscallion such as I?” The turtle nodded.

All that day, the pirate and the sea turtle drifted side by side above the peaceful beach, telling each other the stories of their lives, making jokes, asking questions, and sitting in companionable silence. By the time the sun went down, they both felt like there was never a time when they hadn’t been true hearties.

Dark came, and with it a jeweled sky.

Pie Eye and Frida stared in wonder. It was an Everything Night.

“What now, me heartie?” asked Pie Eye.

“How about we go exploring?” said Freida.

“Where?”

“Why not there?” she whispered, not taking her eyes off the stars.

“Why not indeed.”

And so the two true hearties sailed forth.

The treasure’s right before ye.

~The end~

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Illustration credit: Amanda Sala.