Part 5 (2/2)

The Captain clicked his tongue thoughtfully. 'Hmmm . . . I suppose not. What does the small print on the Perkins contract say?'

The pirate with a scarf pulled the contract from his pocket. 'It says that the . . . ah . . . blah, blah . . . ”aforementioned adventure of which the full part is to be sponsored by the party of the first part must involve running through, deathly peril, a racy encounter, at least one chase, numerous incidents of bloodthirstiness, a few shanties and a comic bit with some creatures”.'

'Nothing about pontificating on the meaning of life?'

'No, sir.'

'And I don't suppose that a metaphorical running through of a poorly constructed argument is going to do the trick, is it?'

'It explicitly says in Clause 45b that metaphorical running through will not suffice.'

'Well, not to worry,' said the Captain, with a grin. 'You know what we're like. We're bound to run into trouble.'

The pirates couldn't agree which was the best thing to see in Paris, so they split into groups. One group decided to go to Madame Tussauds to see the waxworks. Another group decided to go to the Louvre to see the paintings. And the third group decided to go to the Folies Bergere to see the ladies who left nothing to the imagination. The Pirate Captain took the precaution of making sure each group took a packed lunch with them and learnt from the communists how to ask a policeman for help in case they got into any trouble.

The pirates who went to the Louvre were a bit disappointed to find that the gallery didn't seem to have a single one of those pictures of the girl with green skin, or of unicorns standing on a giant chessboard in s.p.a.ce.

'Why do you suppose they painted so many bowls of fruit in the olden days?' said the pirate who liked kittens and sunsets, stifling a yawn. 'Why not bowls of ham?'

'Yes. It doesn't exactly encourage healthy eating habits,' agreed the pirate with gout.

'These Pre-Raphaelite girls certainly look like they could do with a bit more red meat in their diet. Look how pasty they are,' said the pirate with a nut allergy.

'Oooh! This next room contains the Mona Lisa,' said the pirate with a scarf, looking at his guide. 'Who, according to this, is ”one of the most enigmatic ladies ever painted”.'23 'Does enigmatic mean not wearing a thing?'

'No. You know when the Pirate Captain says something like, ”I may lead a secret double life as a spy? Or maybe I don't. Who's to say?” and then he arches an eyebrow? That's enigmatic.'

'Ah. I always thought that was just annoying.'

There was quite a crowd in front of the Mona Lisa, and it took the pirates a little while to fight their way through. They all looked up excitedly, and this is what they saw: 'Well, I suppose it's OK. Though I'm not sure I can really see what all the fuss is about,' said the pirate with long legs.

'It lacks a certain something,' said the pirate with gout.

'This Leonardo da Vinci,' said the pirate with a scarf. 'He was supposed to be a genius, was he?'

'Someone's stolen the Mona Lisa!' shouted an adorable French child.

'Another outrage by those filthy communists,' said a gigantic statuesque blonde. 'They won't stop until they have brought civilisation cras.h.i.+ng to the ground.'

'When is someone going to come along and sort them out once and for all?' said another statuesque woman with blonde pigtails, a bit stiltedly, almost like she was reading from something. 'How much longer must we live in fear?'

The Parisians around the painting grumbled in agreement.

'This is bad,' said the pirate with a scarf.

The second group of pirates were having a much better time in Madame Tussauds. Over the course of their adventures they had met a great many famous people in the flesh, but they all agreed that meeting famous people in the flesh wasn't all it was cracked up to be, as they tended to be much more boring than you'd hoped, and also shorter. Whereas meeting them in wax form was brilliant, because you could stare at their faces as much as you liked but they couldn't let you down and you could pretend to have a conversation with them in your head where they were witty and erudite.

The pirates stopped in front of a High Seas display. There was Napoleon and Lord Nelson having an arm wrestle, and Jason and the Argonauts waving from the deck of the Argo, and next to that an exciting diorama of Black Bellamy riding atop a big wax squid.

'They've done Black Bellamy very well, haven't they? They've really captured that mischievous gleam in his eye,' said Jennifer.24 'But why is it that Black Bellamy has a waxwork when the Pirate Captain doesn't? Is Black Bellamy a more famous pirate?' asked the albino pirate.

'Of course not,' said the pirate in green defensively. 'I'm sure the Captain has been asked to pose, but he probably didn't think wax technology is at a sufficiently high standard to do justice to his air of resolute authority.'

'Do you suppose they have nipples?' the pirate with a peg-leg wondered out loud, trying to peer down Nell Gwyn's top.

'I wonder if they're wax all the way through?'

'Oh, no. They build a frame out of wire, or newspaper, or whatever they have to hand, and then they spray it with a special bee pheromone. That makes all the bees for miles around turn up and cover the frame with wax,' said the pirate who had once been a mailman.

'Really? I didn't know that,' said the albino pirate.

'You see, wax is basically bee sick.'

'What if there aren't any bees about? Bees get all sleepy in winter,' said the pirate who knew a bit about nature.

'Yes, well, in winter they probably use earwax from street urchins instead.'

'Look at me! I'm kissing Charles Babbage!'

'And I'm getting a piggyback from Oliver Cromwell!'

'Ha ha! Marie Antoinette is doing something unspeakable with the Pope!'

They wandered through to the Hall of Crowned Heads, which was supposed to be full of waxworks from all the royal families in Europe, although most of them seemed to be temporarily removed for repairs. The sa.s.sy pirate got a match and set about melting the nose of a crowned head who had once tried to trap the pirates down a well.

'Look, here's a waxwork of a dead waxwork-museum curator with a spear coming out of his back,' said the pirate in green. 'They've even done a little pool of wax blood! That's very clever, isn't it?'

The pirates looked at the dead waxwork-museum curator waxwork sprawled across the floor. Jennifer bent down and prodded it.

'I think,' she said, wrinkling her nose, 'that this is an actual dead body.' Even though she was a Victorian lady, she had seen a number of dead bodies since becoming a pirate, and was getting to be quite an expert on the subject, though she had not let this affect her breezy outlook.

'Was it old age?' said the albino pirate hopefully.

'I don't think spears in the back are often a symptom of old age, no.'

'Oh dear.'

'Moider!' said the pirate from the Bronx.

All the pirates jumped with a start as the sound of heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway.

'Somebody's coming!' said the pirate in green.

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