"Oh Look," said the author's friend, who was holding the author's new puppy (and excuse for the late updates) in his arms, "You now have dozens of reviews."

"Yes," said the author, "but three reviews are from the same person, who is convinced I am either a relative of Lemony Snicket or Lemony Snicket himself."

"How many SoUE books have you read, anyway?"

"Oh..." said the author, counting on her fingers, "about one. After the second chapter."

While the author was repeating this information, her Maltese was sitting alone on the floor, glaring evilly at the puppy who had come into her home, stolen her best bed, liked to bite onto her tags and not let go, and taken all the attention from its proper place: her. His nerve! Why, She had never caused the updates to come late. She sat there, plotting her revenge.

Captain Jack Sparrow probably would have been concerned if he had taken any time to learn that Gwen had become the ship's cook. The fact is he never took any time to notice her, or pay any attention to her at all. He spent most of his time either at the helm, drinking, or in his quarters trying to open the chest. The plates of food sent to his cabin were eaten, not knowing that it had been made by a girl who despised him and some of its agreements were some foul things that said girl slipped in whenever she found the chance. (Nothing so foul as to be used in a toilet joke, but nothing you'd like to eat, let me tell you.) Sparrow, who had digested some much fouler things in his time, didn't notice.

It took Gwen a while to grow accustomed to living at sea. She spent the first few days never a foot away from a bucket, in case the seasickness overcame her. The ship, she was quick to notice (and above all, complain about) was filthy. This was sort of true. Compared to, oh say, a middle class house or even ship of the Royal Navy, the ship was very filthy, but considering it was a pirate ship inhabited by drunken pirates, its conditions wasn't that horrible. It's just as well we can't tell Gwen this, since even if we could, she wouldn't listen, but would be quite content to live in this misery and therefore martyrdom.

I do not know if you have yet realized this, dear readers, but our Gwen is not a particularly pleasant person. She happens to be stubborn, close minded, more than a tad self righteous and although polite under normal circumstances, she is not that nice a person. One of her few redeeming qualities, however, is that she is a very hard worker, something the crew of the Black Pearl could appreciate, sooner or later.

Gwen went to work in the galley and no one even had to tell her to work hard, or take mind of her. Indeed, the crew were thankful that the person working in the galley had some knowledge how to cook, compared to her predecessor, who thought the green stuff on the bread just added flavor. The predecessor was just glad not to have to work in the galley and was surprised to learn what actual food tasted like. The crew quickly grew used to her murmurings of how they were all damned for eternity and what the Lord did to sinners such as pirates; they were quite used to that already.

If Gwen had been anyone but the pirate's daughter, this would be a very darker and not-so-PG rated story. But the men knew that while Sparrow never saw the girl, it was still not such a wise idea to try anything improper with Gwen. And if they had, her ability to look as fearsome as a chimera would not have gone unnoticed. Three days into Gwen's journey Quartetto had gone into the galley for a midnight snack and was run out in a panic by Gwen brandishing a wooden spoon as if it was a rapier. (A rapier is a type of sword, in case you did not know.)

As cook, Gwen had her work cut out for her. Her little experience cooking came from helping out in the orphanage kitchen and occasionally making meals for the children she minded. Now here she was the cook of nearly two dozen men (and one woman) on a pirate ship only the Lord knew where. The galley itself wasn't exactly the easiest place to work in either. She had to be very cautious around the stove, which was hard to stoke without getting sparks everywhere possible sending the ship on fire. (Although Gwen herself did not mind this idea so much if not for the Bible commanding her 'Thou Shall Not Kill.')

As for the revelation that she was a pirate's daughter, Gwen wasn't so sure she could believe it at all. Imagine yourself in this situation, dear readers! What if after years of living a quiet solitary life in an orphanage, you found yourself the daughter of a famed and crazed pirate and was forced to join his pirating adventures?

(Sigh) And you had no idea who Johnny Depp was. Or had never seen the movie. Or been to Disney World.

You'd still be thrilled, wouldn't you?

You girls are weird.

Strange as it was, the crew grew oddly fond of Gwen. Her constant chastisements, her evil stares and her promises that they would burn in Hell for their sins, reminded most of the men of their own mothers. Although she was young in age, small in stature and ready to curse them (without using any true curse words and thus refraining from sin), she was at least good at her job. When she was not working, she was on her knees praying in the corner of the kitchen, the one place she could receive privacy. (In truth, it was because the men were afraid to enter lest she curse them again.) This was to say they didn't find her fundamentalist lectures annoying.

On her seventh day onboard, Gwen went into the store room to find some turnips. She hated this room; it stank and was populated with rats. Unfortunately because of her duties she had to go into this room often, and today would be the day that would seal her hatred of it forever.

As she gathered some turnips from a basket, she heard a voice call her name. "Gwen." She looked around her. She was alone; there wasn't anyone with her or even outside the door.

"Gwen," came the voice again, in a low whisper.

"Hello?" said Gwen, "Is someone there?"

"Gwen," came the voice again, "It's me…Satan."

Gwen stood perfectly still, save to grab her rosary out of her pocket. The voice continued. "I promise to get you off this ship…in exchange for your soul!"

Gwen ran out of the room screaming.

Sparrow was at the Helm when he, along with all of the crew on deck witnessed Gwen running up screaming "The Devil's in the Store Room! The Devil's in the Store Room!" with arms wailing.

"What?"

"The Devil!" she screamed, "I could hear his voice in the storeroom speaking to me!"

Sparrow wondered if she had gone mad. It wasn't that uncommon.

"I speak the truth!" she said.

Sparrow stared at her, but with nothing better to do, he motioned two of his men to follow him to the store room. As they approached the room Sparrow drew his sword, as if this would help defend him from the Devil. What he was going to do if the Devil was in fact in the storeroom he wasn't sure, (perhaps make a business deal?) but he knew it was better to see this for himself just in case.

As they entered, he and the two men with him heard bawls of laughter coming from beneath them. Laughter that sounded very familiar. Sparrow moved a basket and saw that in the floor one of the boards had rotted and there was a hole down to a lower deck.

He yelled down into the hole "Ladbroc, Moises, is that you?"

The laughter quieted. "Captain?"

Jack looked through and saw two of his crew looking up at him. "What, if I might incline, are you two doing down there?"

"Well sir," said Ladbroc, "we thought we'd play a little joke on Gwen up there. We'd thought we'd talk through this hole and make her think that we were the-"

"Devil, yes I know that."

There was a brief silence. "Well," Sparrow said, "carry on." He returned to the helm.

"Did you see it?" said Gwen as Sparrow came up from below decks. "Did you see…him?"

"Unless the Devil takes the form of two the crew speaking through a hole in the wood boards, I'm afraid the Pearl's not playing host to Satan."

"What?"

"Sorry," said Sparrow unconvincingly and he stepped up to the wheel.

Gwen stood there a moment.

There are quite a number of things people would do if in the situation where they are completely humiliated. Some would run away and cuddle up in a dark secluded spot and think to themselves how stupid they were. Others might turn red and try to go on with business as usual and try to ignore the jeers of those making fun of them. Some well-adjusted people might laugh at themselves for falling for such a silly prank.

Gwen chose the fourth option, in which she became dangerously angry, or at least as dangerously angry as Gwen could get.

She walked up to Jack Sparrow and gave him the longest, angriest, fiercest and due to its lack of colorful words the most boring speech Sparrow had ever heard in his life.

I can't tell you what exactly she said, because frankly by the end of this story you would have had enough of Gwen's self-righteous rants, so there's no need to completely tire you out now. None of this had any effect on Sparrow himself, understand. He was a veteran of suffering self-righteous rants. He was now suppressing the idea of throwing her overboard. (He'd throw her a rope, mind you, not right away, but after an hour or two…)

At the time Gwen was done with her rant she stomped off to the kitchen to return to prayer begging the Lord to save her from these evil, wicked pirates. She did not know that these men weren't evil, or that wicked for that matter. She also didn't know that soon she would meet people who in fact were very evil and very wicked, and with any luck (or Grace) she will survive these encounters.

And with that wickedly tantalizing hint of chapters to come, the author will stop and leave you to wonder.

My apologies for tardiness. My mother and I are the new owners of a proud puppy Scottish Terrier, so I find myself spending a lot of my time making sure that he's not pissing all over the floor or harassing my Maltese. (I think she likes it though.) School's re-started, and even though I have fewer classes, I find myself with much less time. So now I'll just blame everything else in the world besides my own incompetence and start on the next chapter. (As you can see, I've added Chp 4 and 5 together. This was my idea of a Christmas gift. I didn't mean for it to be a Christmas Gift in February.)

Note: My New Years Resolution is to not answer individual reviews within stories, so there.