The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!

realising it was actually iron pyrite - fool's gold, the dreaded nemesis of pirates everywhere - and his pause gave the Bishop an opportunity to escape the Mineral Room and head into the Hall of Mammals. The Pirate Captain charged after him relentlessly, but the Bishop had managed to snap the tusk off a shabby-looking walrus, and as the two men grappled he slowly inched his makeshift weapon towards the Pirate Captain's neck. The Bishop was unexpectedly strong.

'Do you work out?' asked the Pirate Captain through gritted teeth.

'A little,' said the Bishop, his face turning red. And yourself?'

'When I have the chance.'

'What do you bench-press?' hissed the Bishop.

'Around a hundred and ten pounds. How about you?'

'Oh ... a hundred and twenty .. . hundred and twenty-five ... or thereabouts.' 'Damn.'

The trouble, reflected the Pirate Captain, was that the pirate boat's gym was covered in mirrors, so whenever he worked out he would glimpse himself pulling a ridiculously strained face, which just made him laugh and not be able to take it all that seriously. As a result he had failed to keep up with the weights regime which had been set out for him by the pirate who was a jock. But he was paying for it now. The Pirate Captain genuinely thought he was done for. The tusk pressed against his throat, cutting off his pirate breath, and as consciousness began to slip away the Pirate Captain felt like he was start­ing to hallucinate - it seemed as if the very exhibits behind the Bishop were writhing and coming alive! Then he realised that the exhibit behind the Bishop really was moving. A hairy arm reached out, there was the distinct sound of monkey fist smashing into bishop skull, and the Bishop of Oxford collapsed in a daze. The walrus

tusk clattered to the floor, and the Pirate Captain looked up to see that what he had taken to be part of the stuffed chimpanzee display was actu­ally Mister Bobo!

'Thanks for that, Mister Bobo,' said the Pirate Captain breathlessly, shaking him by the hand.

'Aaargh! Me. Beauties!' said Mister Bobo with his cards, laughing a monkey laugh.

Twelve

SWINGING FROM THE YARD-ARM!

D

arwin helped the Pirate Captain to his feet, and gave him back his hat. 'It's a good job I cut that question and answer session short,' he said. 'Looks like me and Mister Bobo only just got here in time.'

'No need,' said the Pirate Captain, gingerly rubbing his neck. 'I had the fiend just where I wanted him.'

'You'd started to turn blue.' 'Aaarrr. It's an old pirate trick,' said the Pirate Captain defensively. 'Not something lubbers would understand. But enough about me - how did the lecture go?'

'It was fantastic!' said Darwin with a big grin. 'I got five phone numbers from pretty girls! Five!' He waved some scraps of perfumed paper at the Pirate Captain. 'They couldn't get enough of Mister Bobo! And you were right, when he smashed that chair over the Holy Ghost's head, they almost jumped out of their seats! I'm sure

they'll go home and tell everyone how shocking it all was, and how science is in the infernal pocket of Lucifer, but secretly they loved it. I've been invited to do a tour of the American univer­sities! And Mister Bobo is going to appear on the cover of Nature.'

Mister Bobo gave a sheepish shrug, but you could tell he was pleased.

'Look, shall we grab a coffee?' asked Darwin. 'My shout. I've got to tell you all about the bit when I thought Scurvy Jake was actually going to sit on my head!'

'I rather think we should find out what this wretch has done with your missing brother first,' said the Pirate Captain, giving the Bishop a quick kick in the gut.

'Erasmus!' Darwin slapped his uncommonly large forehead with his palm. 'In all the excite­ment I'd clean forgot!'

The young scientist knelt down and shook the dazed Bishop by his bushy sideburns. 'Where is he? What have you done with my brother, you brute? I'll cut your pretty face!'

'No! Not the face!' cried the Bishop, holding

up his hands to protect his beautiful skin. 'He's tied to a big cog inside Big Ben! But you're much too late - as soon as Big Ben chimes midnight, he'll get another cog right in the chops!'

The unlikely trio hurried down to Parliament Square.

'Look! Only twenty minutes to go! How are we ever going to reach them in time?!' wailed Darwin.

'Aaarrr,' said the Pirate Captain, because he couldn't think of anything more helpful to say.

Darwin tried to look resolute. 'Climbing! It's the only way. One of us will have to climb up there!'

Big Ben loomed forbiddingly out of the fog. The Pirate Captain craned his neck, and felt a bit ill just looking up at the towering clock.

'Oh, well,' he shrugged. 'I'm afraid us pirates are notoriously rubbish at climbing up tall build­ings. It's like that old shanty says ... if a-climbing you need to go, leave those pirates down below, they're no good at it yo ho ho ...'

It sounded to Darwin suspiciously like the Pirate Captain was making this shanty up as he went along.

'What about monkeys? They're always climb­ing up tall buildings! How about it Mister Bobo?' said the Pirate Captain, giving him an encourag­ing slap on his hairy back.

Mister Bobo chose his flash cards carefully.

'No. F*!$%ng. Way.' signed the monkey.

'Well, Charles. It is your brother.'

Darwin squinted at the distant clock face, and shivered.

'Ah ... you know, me and Erasmus were never that close. He was a very solitary child. Not much of a brother at all.'

But Mister Bobo was holding up his cards again. 'What. About. FitzRoy. And. His. Airship?' he spelt out.

Ah-ha!' cried the Pirate Captain. 'The little pan-pongidae fellow has it! We could steal the airship, pop it with my cutlass, and fashion a big rope from all the silk!'

'Or we could float up there in the airship. Because it's an airship.'

'Yes. Yes, we could do that instead. Either way's good. I'm not bothered.'

They hailed an oldendays taxi - which back in those topsy-turvy times used horses instead of electricity - and hurried back to South Kensing­ton as fast as they could. Sprinting into the Natural History Museum the Pirate Captain quickly grabbed his men, who he found in the gift shop buying dinosaur masks and roaring at each other.²⁹

'Raagh!' roared a pirate. 'I'm a triceratops!'

'Grraagh! I'm a brontosaurus!'

It was like the usual pirate roaring, but even better. They all stopped and paid attention when the Pirate Captain burst in.

29 To this day one of the best things you can buy in the Natural History Museum gift shop is a lenticular dinosaur ruler. When you waggle it back and forth, the dinosaurs appear to attack each other in an exciting fashion.

'Stop mucking about, pirates!' he shouted. 'We've got a bit of traditional pirate boarding to do!'

The pirates all flung off their scientist disguises, but several of them kept on their dinosaur masks because they figured it made them look even more fearsome than they already were. Into the gentlemen's club they