The Pirate Princess and the Mysterious Map - A children's story

The Pirate Princess and the Mysterious Map

by Anita K. Olsen Støbakk
You can listen to the audio version here!

The pirate princess also known as Abigail to people who care about names sails the seven seas with her trusty crew and her faithful friend Captain Crow. They sail on a ship called the "Jolly Robber" and have exciting adventures all over the world. The pirate princess is a tough little thing with flaming red hair and a shiny saber. she uses it to defeat evil monsters and cut tough pieces of cheese with. Captain Crow is a bird of quality and he lost one of his legs in a very unfortunate incident with an angry crab. He doesn't mind the loss of the leg much. Who needs legs when you can fly?

One day the pirate princess was standing on the deck of her ship looking through her spyglass searching the horizon for whatever it is pirates look for when they are looking through spyglasses, when she suddenly spotted something floating in the water. It was a message in a bottle! She commanded her first mate to steer the ship towards the floating mystery and quickly went to retrieve her fishing rod. She threw out the fishing line with expert technique and managed to fish the bottle out of the water with little effort. She yanked the cork of the bottle as soon as it landed in her hands and shook out the piece of paper that lay inside it.

"Shiver me timbers, It's a treasure map!" She exclaimed.
The paper showed a cartograph of an island with a big cave and a big red "X" marking the spot where the treasure was supposedly buried. Abigail and Captain Crow looked at each other and knew they were thinking the same thing. "We're going treasure hunting mateys, all hands on deck!" they shouted in unison.

They sailed for days through sunshine and storms before finally reaching the island that was pictured on the map. Captain Crow had become quite sea sick during the journey and was terribly relieved to see land again. The island itself was surrounded by jagged rocks and reefs, and the cave where the treasure could be found gaped into the water and was shaped kind of like the jaws of a shark. If you squinted a bit and tilted your head to the left. They couldn't sail the ship in to shore because it would be smashed into pieces on the sharp rocks. So the pirate princess and Captain Crow took a little dinghy and rowed it to shore. The rest of the crew stayed aboard The Jolly Robber to protect the ship. Well that's what they said, but the princess and Captain Crow had the feeling that they were just too scared to enter the dark cave. "We'll show them" she muttered to the crow.

They tied the dinghy to a rock outside the cave, lit a lantern and began to explore it. They had ventured quite a bit into the cave when they suddenly heard some very strange noises. They heard sloshing, wet sounds coupled together clinking and clanging and slithering. They followed a wide snaking tunnel trying to figure out where the noises were coming from and as they rounded a corner they could see a flickering light at the end of it. The pirate princess and Captain Crow looked at each other with nervous glances. What if there was a dangerous hideous monster at the end of the tunnel? The pirate princess was getting quite scared and it felt like ice cubes were dancing a rambunctious tango down her spine. She almost turned to run away, but changed her mind. She was the pirate princess after all, nothing was going to scare her, especially not when treasure was involved! She drew her saber and stormed into the light. Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw next! 

 

A giant squid was in the middle of pouring himself a cup of tea and in front of him there was small dainty table covered with a frilly pink table cloth. On it she could see a delicate assortment of cakes and biscuits and tea cups. The princess was stunned and speechless, she lowered her saber and gaped at the giant squid. It smiled at her, or at least it looked like it was smiling and said "Welcome little pirate girl, do sit down, have some tea and biscuits won't you?" In lack of any better ideas the pirate princess sheathed her sword and sat down by the little table. Accepting the tea cup that was being offered to her. "I hope you won't be too disappointed when I tell you that there isn't any treasure here" the squid said. the pirate princess wrinkled her brow "why would I find a map in a bottle saying that there was one then?"The giant squid shrugged, or it would have shrugged if it had had any shoulders.
"It gets quite lonely in these caves and I didn't think anybody would come if I wrote a letter saying - giant squid in scary cave, looking for company!" She had to admit that he was right, it didn't sound very tempting. She was silent for a little while before saying "I'm glad I came though, these cakes are delicious and I don't find you scary at all."

(c)Illustration by Anita K. Olsen Støbakk

So the princess and Captain Crow drank tea, ate biscuits and had wonderful conversations about cooking recipes, adventures and treasure with the giant squid. In fact they talked for so long that it had become night outside the cave and the princess was afraid that the crew might be getting awfully worried. She and Captain Crow had to bid the squid farewell and leave, but they promised to return soon for more tea and cakes. "It's a pity that we didn't find any treasure" said Captain Crow as they began to row back to the ship. The pirate princess smiled and said "We may not have found gold and diamonds, but we did find a new friend. I think that's a pretty great treasure don't you?" Captain Crow had to agree.