✦The Sneeze That Sank the Fleet (Almost)✦

Grant was the finest pirate on the whole of Pirate Seas.

He had an excellent ship. He had an excellent hat. And he had the most powerful nose in all the ocean.

That last part was the problem.

It happened on a Tuesday. The sun was shining, the waves were sparkling, and Grant was standing at the front of his ship feeling very piratey indeed. Then his nose began to tickle. It tickled and tickled and TICKLED and,

"ACHOO!"

It was the biggest sneeze the world had ever seen.

Every single flag on every single ship ripped right off its mast and flew spinning into the sky. Up, up, up they went, the flag with the dancing crab, the flag with the sleeping octopus, the flag with one single sock on it, all of them tumbling and twirling and landing on completely wrong ships.

For one quiet second, nobody moved.

Then everyone went absolutely bananas.

"WHY IS THERE A SOCK ON MY SHIP?" bellowed Captain Barnacle, whose hat was so big it covered both his ears.

"If we're the Sock ship now," shouted his crew, "we demand sock-shaped biscuits for dinner!"

The pelican sitting on a nearby buoy looked at Grant and shook his head very slowly.

"Right," said Grant. "I'll fix it."

He grabbed the nearest flag, the dancing crab, and rowed it over to what he was fairly sure was the Dancing Crab ship. But it was not the Dancing Crab ship. It was the Sleeping Octopus ship. The Sleeping Octopus crew went from grumpy to extremely grumpy.

"WRONG FLAG!" they shouted, and three of them shook their fists, which made their hats fall over their eyes, which made them bump into each other.

"Sorry, sorry!" Grant rowed away quickly.

He grabbed the sock flag next. He was carrying it carefully across the water when a parrot swooped down, snatched it with both feet, and started flapping in circles above his head.

"That's MY nest!" squawked the parrot.

"It's a FLAG!" shouted Grant.

"It's a NEST!" squawked the parrot.

They went back and forth like that for quite some time.

Grant sat in his little boat and thought hard. There were too many flags and too many wrong ships and one very confused parrot. How was he going to fix this?

He looked at all the flags scattered across the water. He looked at all the masts on all the ships. He looked at the wind, blowing nice and steady toward all the right masts.

Then he got his idea.

It was an extremely good idea. Also possibly a terrible one.

He took a very deep breath.

The pirates nearby noticed. They looked at each other.

"Oh no," said Captain Barnacle.

"Is he going to—" said a sailor.

"Someone stop him!" said another.

"He's going to sneeze AGAIN," they all groaned together.

Grant grinned. He breathed in a little more. And then,

"ACHOOOOOO!"

Every flag on the water flew straight up into the bright blue sky. Up and up and then, oh, this was the wonderful part, every single flag drifted down, slow and spinning and perfect, right onto its very own mast.

The dancing crab flag: back home.

The sleeping octopus flag: back home.

The sock flag: back home.

Even the parrot's pretend nest was back where it belonged.

For one quiet second, nobody moved.

Then everyone cheered. Even Captain Barnacle, though he tried to pretend he was just coughing.

The pelican on the buoy gave Grant one slow, approving nod.

That evening, Grant sat on the deck of his little ship under a sky full of perfectly-placed flags. All the crews were happy. All the ships knew who they were. And somewhere on the Sock ship, someone was probably eating a sock-shaped biscuit.

Grant laughed until his tummy hurt. The waves rocked him back and forth, back and forth. The flags flapped softly overhead. He pinched his nose, just to be safe, and smiled the biggest smile.

Then he closed his eyes, and the whole of Pirate Seas went quiet and gentle and warm all around him.