The timbers of the plywood galley shivered with the dull January frost and the relentless boarding of schoolchildren, their teacher grading, with a glance, her PVC sword, striped Lycra leggings and Velcro headscarf for authenticity. Curtain up! she remembers, visualising stills of Streep – no – Winslet.
Half-packed under the headscarf: long hair – auburn, not ‘ginger’, not ‘orange’ and not ‘carrot’. The mini-hoard encircle her. Your character is the spectacle, not your head, and she braces for barbs that never come, at least when teacher is near. Instead, shy interrogation meets stock response.
“No, not all pirates were from the Caribbean.”
“Yes, there were lady– female pirates.”
“It’s Irish, that’s why I ‘sound like that’. Actually, Grace O’Malley was–”, but the child had not come here to learn and was already distracted, feverishly spinning the galley wheel, which had been repurposed from a Ford flatbed and encrusted with seashells and Do Not Touch stickers.
Across the tarmac, a McDonald’s roof peers back at the scene: minimum wage, guaranteed hours. Its steaming steel vents promising constant warmth and free Method training playing a jaded seller of unchanging meat.
Then a half-remembered scene begins to replay, this time from the POV of a grown-up. “How do you learn to be a pirate so good?” There was no mockery in her small voice, only a question from someone discovering where they wanted to be, but not yet how hard some waters will jostle their course.
Just before breaking character, sunlight catches their hair.
By day, Clint works in the IT sector in Edinburgh. At night, he focuses on writing, filmmaking and staring into the void.
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