(Disclaimer: not mine)

Just the Way it Should Be

The rest of that evening was a blur in Pintel's mind. The last thing that he remembered clearly was sitting at the bar, swilling down what had to have been his fourth pint, and then stumbling out of the tavern when he saw that he had no more money. He couldn't recall whether or not Ragetti had followed him, but he knew that either way, he hadn't been terribly concerned about the matter.

The next morning, he woke to the feeling of hard cobblestone underneath his back and the smell of mildew and manure wafting into his nostrils. Pintel grimaced at these unpleasant sensations, still a few minutes away from regaining full consciousness. He must have fallen asleep on the ground just outside the tavern.

It was just then that his sense of hearing kicked back in, and the dazed pirate became aware of an awful racket blaring on only a short distance away from where he lay. It was a strange mix of barking sounds, as if two mangy dogs were carrying on just off to his right. Grunting to himself, Pintel slowly sat up and lifted his heavy eyelids. And then just like that, he was wide-awake and staring at the source of the noise with a jolting confusion.

Apparently, his guess had only been half right.

"What the devil are you doin'?"

Ragetti ceased his yapping at that instant and spun around to greet Pintel with an ear-to-ear grin. "I'm helpin' 'im dig a hole," he answered logically, pointing at the scruffy Irish terrier pawing into the ground beside him.

"I can see that, yeh bloody fool!" the older man snarled back. "I meant why're yeh doin' it?"

The boy seemed unfazed by this unfriendly disposition. "So 'e can burry 'is bone," he replied, then held up the sticky brown-tinted chew toy. "'E don't want the other dogs takin' it from 'im."

Pintel was about to say something sarcastic about buried treasure in response to this, but he suddenly forgot his comment as Ragetti turned his attention back to the dog and their pathetic hole and resumed barking stupidly.

"Woof woof! Woof!" And then the kid let his tongue flop out of his mouth and began panting loudly as he clawed wildly at the dirt.

Pintel twisted his face at the ridiculous sight. "Stop that!" he shouted, and—unable to think of anything else—grabbed a discarded rum mug that was lying nearby and lobbed it at the barking duo. The metal mug landed with a heavy clump right in the measly hole, and the two diggers recoiled and stared mutely up at Pintel in unison.

The man staggered to his feet as he glared back down at the boy. "Yeh look like a stupid idiot, yeh stupid idiot!" he shouted, then stopped when he realized just how redundant he'd been.

Curious about this odd new fellow, the dog resumed wagging its long tail and barked excitedly. Pintel responded by turning his pointed gaze to the brownish-gold animal then.

"Now don't you get 'im started up again!" he yelled.

At that instant, the dog decided either that it didn't like Pintel or that its bone just wasn't worth all this trouble, and it turned tail and calmly trotted away down the dirt pathway.

Ragetti sprang back to life just then as he witnessed the unexpected departure.

"Oi, wait a second!" he called anxiously after the slim terrier. "Woof! Woof!"

But the animal had already disappeared around the rear corner of the tavern, resolute and unresponsive to the calls.

Ragetti frowned and glanced back down at their shallow pit. "He left 'is bone b'hind…" he mumbled to no one in particular, then after a momentary pause, continued his digging. He was going to do the dog a favor.

Pintel growled, and was prepared to launch into another tirade at the boy's stupidity, but he suddenly fell silent. Ragetti was completely engrossed in his idiotic task, oblivious to everything surrounding him as he hunched over his deepening hole. The older man smirked to himself. That mutt had just given him the golden opportunity that he'd been waiting for.

Keeping a wary eye on the ten-year-old, Pintel slowly turned away and crept off towards the front corner of the tavern.

But just at that second, Ragetti lifted his head to grin at Pintel again, and saw that the pirate was walking away. He immediately started to get up to follow, but remembered his job of burying the bone, and hesitated for a second in his childish conflict. Finally, he picked up the bone again and hurried after the other man.

Pintel hadn't gotten more than a meter from the hole before he heard those little footsteps trailing behind him. He turned slightly to see Ragetti scampering up to him, and sighed loudly in frustration as he let his shoulders sag.

Another failed attempt.

"I fink I seen 'at dog b'fore," the boy said as they walked on, mostly thinking aloud. "Li'l brownish one, looked just like 'im, come up to me the other day when me mum was makin' me stand outside this same tavern. Didn't have a bone then, though."

Pintel could only assume that the boy was referring to the dog in his last comment. At that moment, however, a piece of their conversation from the previous evening flickered back into his thoughts, and the peculiar question was pushed aside. Ragetti had mentioned something about dogs last night too.

Somewhat reluctantly, he spoke. "So you been gettin' to know all the other mutts on this rock while your old lady was lockin' yeh out?"

Ragetti nodded his dopey head. "Yeah. I fink they likes me!"

"Well 'at's someone at least," Pintel grumbled to himself. "Your old lady lock y'out a lot?"

The lad shrugged. "Aye, I guess. She don't like me goin' in places wif 'er. Says it don't look good, 'er 'avin' a kid around."

The older man actually let out a dry laugh at this. "I bet it wouldn't," he said knowingly.

Ragetti looked up at him oddly then. "Why don't ye' likes 'er, anyway?" he asked. There was no trace of accusation in his voice, Pintel noticed; only innocent curiosity. "What she done to you?"

The older pirate stopped in his tracks and glared down at the boy—the boy who'd been dumped in his care solely out of spite. "What she done to me?" he echoed impatiently. He hunched his back slightly, bringing his face a little closer to Ragetti's as he set the notorious scene that had plagued him for nearly twelve years.

"Little while ago, before you was ever around, I had me own boat—small, one-man fishin' boat—an' I came to Tortuga to visit that li'l whore. Now, she'd been a louse to me b'fore all this, but I was still doin' her the favor a' bringin' her some coins 'cause she were my sister, and she was needin' the money. Yeh hear me? I was doin' 'er a favor!

"But for whatever filthy reason, she decided that that weren't good enough for 'er, and yeh know what she did then?"

Ragetti shook his head.

Pintel sneered. "She got some bloody chap she met t'loot me boat in the middle a' the night while I was winkin' out by the dock! I wakes up the next mornin', and the whole bloody fing's gone! The whole boat! Now, I don't know exactly wot happened that night, but I knows fer a fact that she were behind it. Know how I knows? Well I'll tell yeh how! I caught a glimpse of that lousy rat pointin' that fellow down the dock b'fore I was completely out. I saw her tellin' 'im what to do! She 'elped 'im rob me flat! That's wot she done to me!"

This said, he stood up straight again and stormed off with two white-knuckled fists, glowering into the distance. He was lost in his own fiery thoughts now.

Ragetti kept in step behind Pintel, laughing faintly as he dwelled on the unusual story.

"Boat was gone…" he murmured. The boy grinned to himself just then. "Sounds like me mum were a right old pirate!"

That did it.

Pintel whirled on the boy, his eyes burning black and his face throbbing red with absolute rage, and his temper finally exploded.

"Don't you ever, EVER be comparin' that filthy, good-for-nothin' whore to a pirate, you stupid, scrawny li'l maggot! I outta kick your skinny ass straight out to the next sea port for sayin' that! You bloody hear me?"

Ragetti immediately recoiled from the startling outburst, shrinking back and lowering his head to stare steadfastly at the ground. His rail-thin legs were rattling together in pure terror, and he was clutching the dog bone to his narrow chest with a death grip. He was an utterly pathetic sight to behold.

Pintel scowled down at the lad when his heated reprimand reached its end, observing this miserable display of submission with cold repulsion.

Just like a dog wif 'is tail between 'is legs, he thought disgustedly. His eyes strayed down to the bone in those shaky little hands just then, and after a second's pause, he reached out, snatching the grimy object out of Ragetti's grasp, and hurled it away over his shoulder.

"An' stop actin' like a dog!" he added crossly. He suddenly wrinkled his nose at the cowering boy. "It's bad enough yeh smell like one!" And with that, he turned and walked away once more.

But even as he'd reduced that boy to a trembling lump in the dirt with his explosive warning, Pintel grudgingly realized—with a boiling hatred that exceeded even his limitless intolerance for Ragetti—that he couldn't think of a single difference between himself and his backstabbing sister. He might have referred to that pint-sized fishing vessel as his boat, but the truth be told, it hadn't belonged to him any more than it'd belonged to Rebecca's filthy business partner; Pintel had stolen it himself from a sea port in Haiti just months before. He was no better…

He growled to himself as he shoved the thought aside, then wrenched open the front door of the tavern.

Ragetti didn't follow him inside right away; instead, the boy stayed rooted in his place for several seconds, temporarily locked in a tugging debate. He hadn't expected such a harsh response from the older man—his mother had certainly never acknowledged him long enough to scold him like that—and Pintel's rant had shaken him up quite a bit. But even then, he couldn't forget the other words that the strange fellow had given him on their first meeting.

Advice and a name. That was what Pintel had given him. He'd told Ragetti that he was going to be just fine without his mother, and the boy had believed him somehow. And then the man had given him an identity, the name Ragetti, and somehow, the boy liked that as well. And Pintel's comment about his canine odor was actually kind of funny, now that he thought about it out of context. Maybe the man hadn't meant anything at all by yelling at him…

More resolute than ever—and again laughing to himself—Ragetti dashed inside the tavern after his gruff companion.

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Pintel was never good at holding onto his money. Fortunately, he was able to counter this lack of rationing with a sharp knack for spotting new plunder-earning opportunities. And right now, he knew that his next opportunity was waiting for him somewhere inside that tavern. The only way for a pirate to profit from his craft was by joining a ship's crew.

And any ship captain who'd so much as heard of the word "pirate" knew that wherever there was rum, a crew would be found.

Stumbling around the array of tables and other groggy pirates, Pintel craned his neck and strained his ears to listen for the two words that would confirm there was another job prospect in the building. After only a minute, he heard them ring out clear as a dinner bell from his far left.

"Sign here."

He swung his head around to follow the level, authoritative sounding voice, and sure enough, caught sight of a slim-formed commander seated calmly at a table by the opposite wall. A broad-shouldered pirate stood across the table from him, hunching down to scratch some distinctive mark onto a yellow piece of parchment that the captain had placed in front of him—the crew list.

Grinning to himself with triumph, Pintel turned and made his way over to the hopeful scene.

Even from across the tavern, he could see that this commander was no ordinary cutlass-swinging sea rat who fancied calling himself an authority figure; rather, he presented himself as a proper Englishman with a distinguishing blue raincoat and sharp-looking tri-cornered hat. He appeared to be only a few years older than Pintel, maybe forty-three, and his dark hair was pulled back into an orderly ponytail that hung down his straight back. The man looked as much at home in this splintery building as a cactus would look growing in the middle of an iceberg.

Keenly, Pintel approached the table.

"You roundin' yerself up a crew, sir?" he asked.

The Englishman eyed him stiffly. "It would seem I am," he replied.

Pintel took that for a yes. "Well then, sign me up for it, Cap'n!"

The other man showed no reaction to the zealous comment. "And what qualifications do you have that would convince me to do so?"

Pintel stopped, taken back by the question. "Wot?"

"What can you do?" the Englishman rephrased impatiently.

The stocky pirate hesitated at first, confused by this apparent debriefing. In all his years of practicing this sea-faring profession, not once could he ever recall having to go through an interview to join a crew. What did a Caribbean captain care that his men could do? They wouldn't even be pirates if they didn't know how to handle a weapon!

He thought for a second. "I can swing a sword, shoot a pistol, and fire a cannon."

"Anything else?" The clean-shaven captain seemed hardly impressed.

"I can mop a floor too," Pintel added reluctantly.

This, oddly enough, earned a slight change in the Englishman's facial expression. "How long have you been a pirate?"

"Twenty years, give or take."

The other considered this for a minute, then sharply nodded his head once.

"Very well. My name is Captain Pellinore, and my ship is the Glass Urchin." Then he reached for his quill pen to hand it over to his new recruit.

It was at that exact moment, however, that Ragetti finally arrived onto the scene, scurrying over to stand beside his balding acquaintance. Pintel sent the boy a crooked glance of recognition, ignoring the harmless smile that he was given in turn. Squaring his jaw, he then turned his attention edgily back to Pellinore.

"It looks like I'll be bringin' this li'l lunk head wif me too," he muttered. Ragetti stifled a giggle.

But the Englishman wasn't about to let this awkward child slip through his strict selection process. "That depends," he said. "Does the boy have any sailing experience?"

"It ain't likely."

Pellinore raised his thin eyebrows condescendingly. "You don't know?"

"I only just met the kid," Pintel admitted sheepishly.

The captain frowned. "Do you know if he has any skills that might qualify him for a position on my crew, then?"

Pintel paused in deep thought. "Well…he's kinda good at diggin' 'oles, if that's a service you'll be needin'."

This earned another quiet chuckle from Ragetti.

Pellinore was not nearly as impressed. "It isn't." he replied flatly. "What else can he do?"

Pintel looked down to meet Ragetti's eye. "Wot else can yeh do?" he echoed.

The boy's hands fidgeted as he tried to think. "I dunno," he said finally, shrugging his narrow shoulders.

Pintel shrugged mockingly as he looked back at Pellinore. "'E dunno!"

"Then I have no use for him," the Englishman concluded.

The pirate blinked. "Wot'm I s'posed to do then? 'E won't leave me alone."

"I don't know," Pellinore answered. "But I won't have him on board my ship. You'll either come alone, or not at all."

Pintel snorted to himself. He was faced with a decision now: either join this captain's crew out on the high seas with a guaranteed profit in store, or stay here on Tortuga with a kid who thought he was part mongrel.

He rolled his eyes furtively. "Where do I sign?"

Pellinore nodded once, then pointed to a blank space on the list as he handed the quill to Pintel. "Right here. An 'x' will suffice."

Hiding a wry smile, Pintel took the quill and swiftly scribbled his surname down onto the parchment. It was extremely jumbled and poorly crafted—barely even legible—but it was a signature nonetheless. Evidently, growing up in a relatively civilized settlement had its benefits.

Pellinore couldn't help looking dryly considerate of the unexpected feat, and turned the parchment around to read the name.

"…Welcome aboard, Mr. Pintel," he said routinely. "The Urchin will be setting off in no less than an hour. Be sure to report to the dock before then."

"Aye, Cap'n," Pintel nodded, grinning. Immediately, he turned and walked away from the table, making room for another pirate who was hoping to meet Pellinore's particular requirements. Ragetti, who had been listening to their conversation with only a half-hearted interest, automatically joined the older man in taking leave.

Pintel's head was swarming with thoughts as he pushed open the tavern door and stepped out into the blinding sunlight again. Only one hour until the Glass Urchin set sail.

He would have to make short work of ditching this kid.

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For the record, Pintel is by no means good at reading and writing; he only knows just enough to get by, which includes how to write his name.