I woke up in the morning refreshed, even sensing the filthy men's stench had made permanent residence in my nostrils. I bounced out of bed, blissfully ignorant to the lazy, fumbling masses around me and casually hopped up to my new BFF's bunk.

"Ahoy matey." I used my manliest accent.

He threw the covers off his face, looked up, saw me, and returned my face of badly suppressed glee.

"Ahoy." He smiled and rolled out of bed.

"You two are awful chipper," Jasper chuckled as he changed shirt. I half watched as his bedhead went in one end of the undershirt and perfectly tamed, fluffy hair came out the other.

I shrugged, breaking my stare.

"I feel like I should've signed up us a bathroom buddy too," he chuckled.

Fay and I shared a knowing amusement to how that wouldn't have worked out.

Sensing the conversation had died, I threw my musty, new brown pirate shirt, that looked surprisingly looked only like a lower collared version of my turtleneck, and my old grey sweater vest over that. Then I jogged down to the diner grabbed a banana and ate it before heading up on deck with my scrubber and bucket, where half the orphans including Cliff and Fay and Jasper, were already swabbing.

We chatted for the first time in a while.

"I kinda miss our old pranks." Cliff commented while pushing his mop around mostly unhelpfully.

I nodded.

"Remember when we filled Matron's pillow with worms?" I snickered to myself.

"Oh that was amazing!"

"I recall when you guys ordered 100 pizza boxes for the orphanage under the Matron's name," Jasper added in.

We all laughed to that one.

"How many pranks happened in that orphanage?" I tried to recall.

"I believe it was practically a prank for each month you were with us," Jasper responded.

I momentarily stopped scrubbing and looked up at the two boys.

"Did you guys not pull anything before me?"

They looked between each other and shrugged.

"I tried a few things: painting 'Matron Sucks' on the wall" Cliff began.

"She had us all paint over it," interjected Jasper.

"Made ghost sounds outside her door as she slept-"

"Matron came out and whupped him."

"And plastic wrapped her toilet."

"It doesn't work as well on girls."

Cliff paused and shot Jasper a funny look.

"Please don't call it that again."

"What?" Jasper returned a hesitant glance. "The Matron is technically female."

The tan boy shuddered.

"Don't lump my life's purposes with that thing."

"Life's purpose?" I scoffed.

"Are you calling women your life's purpose?" Jasper chuckled.

"Yes," he looked to the hidden stars dramatically. "I live for the female body." He outlined an hourglass with his hands.

"Oh, stop it." I cringed and forced a small laugh.

"Please don't pretend you can't appreciate the softness of their skin," Cliff chastised, eyes closed and mind open.

"God! You haven't even touched a woman!" Fay scrubbed closer to us, jumping into the conversation. He threw me a glance. "-purposefully."

"Psh. Psh!" He rolled his eyes. "I made out with a girl before I was in the orphanage!"

I did the math.

"How long were you in the orphanage?"

"...five years," he hesitated.

We all shot him a dubious glance.

"So you made out with a girl when you were like five years old then?"

He rolled his eyes again.

"Okay so I hugged one," he shook his head. "I'm sure none of you even got that far."

I glanced at Fay, the gay boy I flashed, and we shared a small chuckle.

"What's this exchange of chuckles? I sense I'm being left out of an inside joke," Cliff narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, they're bathroom buddies. They have plenty of shared secrets I'm sure." Jasper tried to laugh it off but there was a slight distance in his eyes that made me a smidge guilty.

"Oh that's cool so they've seen each other's butt cracks," Cliff scowled at us. "Even though Cal has a pretty face he doesn't count as a girl, Fay."

We did our best, which was pretty well, to keep our smirks down.

"But gosh, if you were a girl Cal," Cliff sighed. "Sorry but I remember when you first came to the orphanage. Everyone thought you were a girl." He snickered. "I could've sworn Jasper here even had a crush on you."

Jasper's ears noticeably pinkened. I laughed at him but I felt my pink spreading as well.

"Shut up man! That's so gay." He tore his eyes away from mine.

I glanced at Fay who concentrated on his scrubbing suddenly, and secretly sympathized.

"Whatever I'm just glad you got over it when we realized he was a guy." Cliff pat Jasper on the back. Jasper looked up and met my gaze with an awkward smile. I immediately broke that eye contact and cleared my throat feeling a warm tingle growing in my chest.

Instead, I looked around and saw Captain Gryphon and the navigator standing near the steering wheel. Hanging half out of the Captain's mouth was a small sardine, a satisfying snack I'm sure. The two men leaned over a table discussing something on it, out of my sight. They hovered with a certain intensity that peaked my curiousity.

"What do you think they're talking about?" I asked absentmindedly.

Fay and Jasper followed my gaze.

"Who knows?" Fay shrugged. "Some treasure map I'm sure, or we're lost and they're trying to find our course again." Jasper laughed for Fay politely. Fay beamed in response.

"Want to go find out?" Jasper stood up and looked back again.

I nodded and put my scrubber down then began to heave myself up, before I realized I stepped on the slippery sponge-like thing.

"Woah!"

My foot slipped. My upward motion moved to forward downward motion. That motion was slowed by a wall of dense meat with a sweet filling that was Jasper. Unfortunately, the inertia wasn't done with me.

We hit the floor with an "oomph", or technically he hit the floor and I fell on him.

I felt his warm breathe through my beanie, his heartbeat against my hand, his familiar, musty scent mixed with a new salty stench I wasn't digging. My body against his, the hardness of his body revealed my girly softness.

Cliff coughed.

WIth a start, I realized I had been laying on him for a bit more than a moment.

"You should take a shower probably take a shower soon. The pirate stench is growing on you." I cleared my throat as I rapidly rolled off him and jumped up, pulling my hat on tight.

"Will do, if you cover me." He smiled at me, blood moving from his ears to cheeks.

Damn. I bit my bottom lip lightly gazing into his emerald irises. Jasper then rolled back and forward to his feet.

"You know, you're surprisingly light," Jasper commented a smirk pulling at his face.

Jasper's smirk was a rare and meltable thing as demonstrated in the sturdiness of my knees. I looked down to concentrate my forces on my legs to function normally. Out of the corner of my eye I registered Fay with an interested, confused expression.

"Uhm, thanks?" I scrunched my face up and clicked my tongue. "Yeah, sorry and thanks for catching me… That was embarrassing." I made no eye contact.

"Yeah it was." Cliff laughed unashamed, luckily no one joined him.

"Anyway, I'll head up with you if you're still curious," Fay offered getting up.

"Oh yeah! Yeah, sure." I nodded, happy to change the subject and looked back up at the two pirates who were now seemingly arguing. A sardine tail still peeking out of the captain's mouth.

While they argued, a large pair of grey wings swooped in.

"Argh!" Captain Gryphon grunted as the large seagull lunged at him attacking his face.

"Cliff!" I yelled as I grabbed a pebble from the bottom of the mop bucket and tossed it to him as he whipped out his slingshot from his belt.

He shot up to a standing position, loaded the pebble, pulled back the rubber, took only a split second to aim, and released.

With an angry squawk, the bird was thrown back on the quarterdeck wood. Captain gave a relieved exhale.

"Watch that bird!" I yelled to Fay as I ran up the stairs to check on the captain.

I heard Cliff and Fay run after me. With a glance back, I noticed Jasper calming the other orphans and telling them to get back to work.

Upon closer inspection, I recognized the bird to be an albatross as it began to pick itself up and fly away, what was left of Captain's sardine in its mouth.

Ignoring the bird, I leapt to Captain Gryphon's side.

"Captain! Are you okay?" I asked inspecting his face for injury. There was a small scratch across his nose, but nothing besides that.

Fay ran over after us.

"Captain! The bird headed south if you wish to chase it," Fay panted.

The Captain took a moment to regain himself before glancing at his navigator who nodded.

"He's right."

"Hm, good job," Gryphon nodded. Howler with his parchment paper was beckoned toward his captain. Jasper reached us at the same time Howler did.

"What are your names again?" Gryphon inquired with a proud grin.

We each answered in turn.

"Well I'd like to commend each of you for your bravery and intelligence. That was some quick thinking, kid." The Captain put his hand on my back. Howler smiled at me before writing something on the paper.

However proud I felt, I couldn't suppress my curiosity.

"What's that paper?" I saw the parchment laying on the small desk the Captain and navigator were earlier examining.

The Captain followed my finger then looked back at me with narrowed eyes.

"Classified," he gave us a tight lipped smile then barked, "Get back to work now!"

I gave a final glance back at the paper. There was a large red "X" in the corner.

I gasped in thought.

It's a treasure map.

I then bit my lip and left to get back to work.

*Author's Note*

Hello and thank you for making it this far! Do continue reading! I promise the next chapter is one of the cuter ones (and just weird, but cute).

Look forward to it!