Not Scary, Just Salty

Friday. A small boy asked me at the door whether Pirate Island was scary. He was nine and holding his dad’s hand quite hard.

I crouched down, which with this face can go either way, and told him the truth. It is a beach hut. It is sunny. You can hear the sea. Sometimes the light goes a bit moody when the captain’s ship gets closer, and once or twice something flickers, but frights are few and far between. I made sure of that. Personally.

He asked who I was. I said I was the scariest-looking pirate on the island. He looked at me for a long time and said, you don’t seem scary. Nobody has ever said that to me before. I had to go and stand behind a palm tree for a minute.

His crew found the treasure. He found a good deal of it himself. On the way out he gave me a high five, and his dad gave me a look that said, thank you, whoever you are.

I think I will tell the next child the scar came from a very angry pineapple.