Wow, all of your reviews to this story leave me amazed! Aquatic Calipso, the-american-hockey-girl, Genevieve05, and Jennifer Lynn Weston, thank you so much for taking the time to review! I'm so glad you all like it!! I'll try to make the next chapter a bit longer.

Chapter 6: Ears and Gibbs

It was bright when I woke up, so bright that it hurt my eyes. Did Mum forget to draw the curtains?

I scrunched my eyes and that made it so that only a little sunlight could get in. I looked around. But I didn't see my room anywhere.

There was lots and lots and lots of water instead.

I rubbed at my face. Maybe I was just in a nightmare…

I peeked open one eye.

The water was still there.

I leaned over the wood I was sitting on and stared down. My face stared back up at me, 'cept it looked all funny and twisted.

I would have played for a while but I wanted to find my Mum first. Then we could play with the water together.

She'd like that, I think.

And then we could go home. I'd be a good boy if I could just go home. I wouldn't track in mud with my shoes. I wouldn't make faces at Bettie when she wasn't looking. I'd even finish all my vegetables at the dinner table!

But Mum still didn't come for me.

Well, then, I was going to go find her. I'd be like the Blacksmith Pirate going after the Governor's daughter, strong and true.

Putting on my bravest face so that I could keep the monsters away, I put my hands in the water and started to paddle. I did it for a long time, so long that my arms started to feel like the preserves I put on my toast on Sundays.

I rolled onto my back and rested like Mum does sometimes when I've been 'specially naughty. I was getting hungry and that was distracting. After all, Mum said that in order to go on adventures you needed a full stomach. My tummy didn't sound full. It sounded very empty, echo-y in fact.

But I still hadn't found Mum. And she would know what to do and where to find food. I looked around the water for her again. I didn't find her but I did find something else.

It was that funny ship with black sails. Maybe Jack would be on there. He said he 'gotted to get back to his ship'.

So I waited while the ship came closer. It was a big one, bigger than my father for sure. I saw someone at the rail so I yelled to him.

"Mister!"

He didn't answer.

"Hey Mister!"

He turned the other way.

I frowned. Didn't he have ears? That made me think. Maybe he didn't have ears and that was the problem. Maybe he couldn't hear anything at all. "Mister! Do you have ears?"

He saw me then. "Wot?"

"Have you got ears?"

"Oi! You! Useless! Give the whelp a hand!" The man flapped his arms this way and that to somebody I couldn't see.

In two minutes, a rope splashed down into the water. Tied to the end was a bucket. The man told me to sit in it.

I did and then suddenly I was in the air. There was a jerk and I went higher and higher and higher. I came up over the ship's edge and saw that the man was that funny Jack!

"Hey! I know you! You've got ears!"

Jack's eyes got as big as Mum's dinner plates then he closed them tight and muttered, "this is not real. This is jus' a dream."

He opened one eye and after a second became all frustrated like while the man who pulled me up lifted me out of the bucket and put me on the deck.

"No, no, not good. Put it back!" Jack stuffed the bucket back in the man's arms and started to run away.

I went after him. Maybe he liked to play hide-and-seek. "Put what back?"

"Ever'thing!" he threw his hands up.

That didn't make much sense 'cause that bucket wasn't very big and the ship was much bigger. I told him so.

He didn't hear me, I think.

"Gibbs!" he yelled real loud.

"What's a Gibbs?"

He just yelled again. "Gibbs!!"

And then I knew what a Gibbs was. It was huge with bushy hairs all over his face. It clomped up to Jack and stopped a few feet away from me.

I screamed. It was the monster the village boys told me about. It had to be.

"Uh, aye, Cap'n?"

It had a voice, too! I ran fast behind Jack.

"The thing, get it off my ship!" Jack sounded scared, too.

I peeked my eyes through Jack's coat and saw that the monster looked confused.

"The thing…" It shrugged a little and gave Jack a weird expression.

I looked up to see Jack's hand pointing down at me.

"What are you doing?"

His hands dropped. "Nothin'."

"But why were you pointing to me?"

"I wasn't pointin' at anythin'."

I gave him the look Mum gives me. "Are you being an honest mister?"

TBC...