CHAPTER SIX
When I stepped on to the ship I was amazed. The entire deck was absolutely fierce with life! I had never seen so many people under the command of one man. My father was the captain of the single most amazing crew and ship I had ever seen. Suddenly, I noticed something I had not noticed before... The ship had black sails!! They only added to the ferocious and rugged pirate-legend that was Jack Sparrow... My father. The pirate. For the first time in nearly twelve years I felt at home.
"Ah, Rose!" I suddenly heard from behind me. I whirled around to see who's words those were. My father swayed toward me in a drunken, and albeit, somewhat feminine way. When he reached me he bent down to me and began to speak again, I could smell the rum on his breath. "How was the walk, love? Did ol' Murtogg an' Mullroy treat you well?"
"Yes, father, they treated me fine." I responded, somewhat distracted by both the smell of the sea and the desire to escape from the smell of his breath. "Now, where am I to stay, Captain?"
He took a breath as if to say something, but he just stood there with the usual confused expression on his face.
"Father?" I said after about five minutes, "Do you have anywhere for me to stay?"
"Well, to be perfectly frank with ye, no, I don'." He said regretfully.
"Alright, then," I remarked with an air of annoyance building in my voice, (I detest unprepared ness.) "What am I going to do for the voyage, eh?"
He seemed to be thinking, so I said no more. I decided this was the opportune moment for studying my father. His eyes were brown, a deep, deep brown almost mistakable for black. They were lined in kohl, which only added to the mysterious flow of his facial features. I found it mildly comical that whenever he was thinking about anything for a long period of time his mouth opened ever so slightly, though his jaws were tightly clenched, therefore bearing his teeth in a strangely animal way. I wondered if he meant it to be that way. His hair was brown, nearly black, all in dreadlocks and kept away from his face with a scrap of deep red cloth. Though some of his hair was still hanging loose from the cloth and dangling helplessly in his face. He didn't seem to mind. Entwined and looped into his messy hair were beads of assorted size, shape, and colour and a few other odds and ends, and... Was that a stick? A bone, maybe? Whatever it was, I was mesmerized by it until he spoke again, which startled you.
"Alright, love, since me crew is still down in Tortuga, the only people who know yer a lass, SO, you'll make yerself look like a lad, savvy?" This suggestion both shocked and disgusted me. Sleeping in the same room with old, disgusting, dirty, perverted men? I thought not.
"And how, pray tell, do you expect me to do that?" I asked in a plainly annoyed and disgusted tone.
"Well, you cut your hair, you wear men's clothes, you...erm... well, you do what you do. You'll be fine. I'll put ye in Annamaria's charge, she'll make you a man."
I felt sick at the thought of being a man for the rest of my life, or at least until I could learn better dirty fighting skills...
"Alright, fine, I'll do that. For how long?"
"Until I teach you to use that cutlass properly and you learn how to sleep light with a knife by you at all times, then you can sleep under the stars, in me firs' mate's quarters, or wherever you like. Savvy?"
"Meh... Er, it's savvy with me."
"Good, then I'll get the other ladies and you'll be off. ANNAMARIA!"
A head peeked over the deck to see who had jut yelled. Strangely, though, it was neither Annamaria's nor Annaclara's. It was a man's. Not dirty and disgusting like the other pirates, but clean, and somewhat attractive, or so it seemed from the distance you were standing at.
"Father, who is that?" you inquired, pointing in the strange man's direction.
"Ah," your father said, as if knowing exactly what was going through your head, "That would be Chaman,"
"Is he part of your crew, then?"
"No, picked 'im up while we were on the southern coast of India," he said blankly, "Chaman! Come 'ere, lad!"
The young boy obeyed and scampered toward where I was standing with my father.
"Hello, Chaman, My name is Rose," You say calmly, holding out a hand for him to shake.
"Erm, love, Chaman learned to greet in a different way..." My father said rather earnestly, with a slight snigger in his tone.
