The Pirates! in an Adventure with the Romantics by Gideon Defoe

Thing.’
    ‘Neptune’s biscuits,’ said the Pirate Captain, trying to take it all in. He slumped back in his chair, a bit overwhelmed. The pirate with a scarf fanned him with his hat. ‘Could it be possible?’
    ‘Nobody has ever been able to find out! The only copy of “On Feelings” was supposedly destroyed back when the Library of Alexandria burned down in 391 AD. But there have been all sorts of stories about it since then. Translations popping up here and there over the millennia, only to vanish again. Accounts of scandalised monks trying to conceal the potent secret contained within. All that kind of stuff.’
    Shelley paced feverishly up and down the length of the cabin.
    ‘Oh! This is so frustrating! I feel like a caged animal!’
    ‘Yes,’ agreed the Captain. ‘Though not a wolf or a bear or anything like that. I’d say you were more of a wan dormouse.’
    Shelley punched his own palm. ‘To think that we’re on the brink of such a discovery, yet here I am, trapped on this confounded boat because I’m too much of a threat to the Establishment.’
    ‘Also, don’t forget that someone tried to kill your girlfriend. You don’t seem particularly concerned about that,’ said Jennifer. She mouthed a word that Victorian women aren’t supposed to know.
    ‘Of course. Thanks for saving her life and everything, Pirate Captain. Very noble of you.’ Shelley put an arm around Mary. ‘Anyhow! My mind is made up! It’s time Percy Shelley turned his full searing intellect to the matter. I shall plunge my head directly into the lion’s maw!’
    ‘The ship’s lion wandered off last February,’ said the pirate with gout, apologetic.
    ‘According to this,’ Shelley continued, indicating where a list of names was pasted into the front cover of the book, ‘the last person to borrow the book, some hundred and fifty years ago – was an undergraduate at my old College. Perhaps that might give us a lead. I shall steal in there, and find out what I can.’
    Mary started to put on her coat, but Percy held up an imperious hand.
    ‘No, Mary. I welcome your eagerness, but there are some things a man must do alone.’
    ‘Are you sure?’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘A few lines about a woman’s “pale and anxious brow” aren’t much use against a bookshelf-wielding maniac.’
    ‘True, Pirate Captain, but I’m simply too idealistic to let danger get in the way of our prize. Now, I will be requiring some sort of disguise. Ideally something in green, to go with my skin tone.’
    The Pirate Captain stroked his beard and crossed over to the dressing-up box.
    ‘Well, let’s see what we’ve got. Tourist? No, bit obvious.’
    ‘Wealthy benefactor?’ suggested the pirate with a scarf.
    ‘Visiting matador?’ said the pirate in red.
    ‘Polar explorer?’ said the pirate who didn’t really listen to conversations but couldn’t resist contributing anyway.
    ‘Here we go,’ said the Pirate Captain. He pulled out a set of dirty overalls and a long hooked pole. ‘Drain Technician! Wear these, stick your arms down a few drains and nobody will look twice at you.’

Ten
     
    The Haunted Teeth
     

     
    While Shelley was gone, everybody else decided to check out the shops and museums of Oxford. They all agreed that although the Ashmolean had a nice display of Etruscan forks, the Pitt Rivers was the best museum by far, mainly because of the shrunken heads. After their trip they stopped off at a little café in Jericho. There was quite an academic air to the party now, because most of the pirate crew had bought themselves university scarves and mortar boards, and the pirate with a hook for a hand even sported a gown that identified him as a Dean of Divinity. Everybody drank their coffee and had an intellectual discourse about what the best way to shrink a head would actually be. Byron thought the best way to shrink a head would be to use some sort of Egyptian curse. The pirate with gout thought you could probably do it by