One

Pirate kitty was a pirate, and a kitty, and a reader.

He captained the fiercest band of pirate kitties that ever sailed the seven seas.  He had a dark blue coat, a bright red sash, and one green eye. 

All year long (except on bank holidays) they marauded up and down the English Channel.  They boarded ferries and stole all the passengers money, their jewels, and furs.  But most of all, and worst of all, they stole the books!

For Captain Pirate Kitty was a ferocious reader, his mate was a meticulous reader, his cook was a compulsive reader, his deckhands were debauched readers and even his cabin boy was a boisterous reader.

No pirate on his ship was ever without a book - and every month they gathered round (usually with tea and cake) and discussed what they’d been reading. 

‘This month’ said Pirate Kitty ‘I have been mostly rereading - for it seems there is nothing on this ship I haven’t read!’

His crew gasped - and all began to shout suggestions.

‘Joyce’ cried the Mate - but the Captain had read all of it - even Finnegans Wake (though he wasn’t certain he’d not dreamed that he’d read that one)

‘Agatha Christie’ shouted the Cook - but the Captain had read all of them so many times that he could tell you who had done it from the weight of the book in his hand.

‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’ yelled the Cabin Boy - but the Captain had read them all - even the Laughing Cavalier which wasn’t about the Pimpernel at all but about some random ancestor.

The Deckhands pulled out their collections of racy regencies, but the Captain just sniffed at them, and they had to hide them away in their hammocks for fear of getting told off by Cook for being a bad influence on the Cabin Boy.

‘We need more books!’  the Captain cried. 

‘But where from?’  asked the Mate.  ‘We’ve robbed all the ferries’

The pirates thought long and hard - and then the Cook said ‘I’ve heard tell that on the land there are such places as one might go to ‘borrow’ books.  Libraries, they be called.’

There was a murmur at this - the pirates didn’t go ashore if they could help it for fear of being seized by the police and not being able to sail away.  But they had all heard tell of libraries - of buildings full of books guarded by librarians.

‘I hear’ said the Mate ‘ that librarians are fearsome women, who can throw a book with such force that it’ll split your skull from fifty paces’

‘Aye’ cried the deckhands ‘ and they wear glasses which give them such fearsome powers of observation that they can spot a thief who is hiding behind a bookcase  even if the bookcase is behind them!’

‘And they are masters of the hidden art of Dewey - which gives them knowledge of all things and the places of all things!’  wailed the Cabin Boy.

‘Tosh.’ cried the Captain.  ‘I’ll not be thwarted by a bunch of women!  No matter if they have books, and glasses and a memory for numbers!  We are pirate kitties!’ 

So the pirates set sail for the coast, and after much consideration they decided to head for Brighton - where a bunch of pirate kitties would be easily lost among the general madness and which had a huge library of many floors and many books.

Inside the library they found an information desk.

‘Arrghhh’ cried the pirates to the librarian behind the desk ‘We’ve come to pillage your library!’  and they waved their cutlasses in the air.

‘Ssssshhhh’ said the librarian.  ‘If you want to be so noisy you’ll need to go into the children’s library.’

‘Madam’ said the Captain - drawing himself up to his full height and fixing her with his one green eye.  ‘We are pirates.  We do not shush.  We take!’

At this the rest of the pirates gave a loud cheer and waved their cutlasses again.

‘Sir.’ said the librarian, looking at the Captain over the top of her glasses, ‘This is a library.  You can borrow books, ask stupid questions, wave cutlasses and bash the computers with a stick.  But you cannot shout!’

‘Borrow?’  cried the pirates.  ‘Borrow?  We’re pirates.  We steal, appropriate, take, pinch, nick, mooch, scrounge, liberate and cadge.  But we do not borrow!’