Three Fourths a Tale  

“Who stole it?” Gennie burst from her cabin, boots pounding a path down the corridor.  

Sailors who spoke languages as foreign to Gennie as theirs were to her stumbled over one another clear of their new captain’s warpath.  

“A month!” Gennie raged. “A damned month I have had this junk on open water and I’ve to deal with stowaways, thieves, and rats?”  

“Pretty.” Maggie entered Gennie’s path. “You’re scaring the lads again.”

Maggie waved a gentle hand at the fear stricken sailors that had come along with the ship. 

“I know how high your guard is, pretty, but raging the decks is no way to gain a crew’s trust.” Maggie slipped her flask to Blackstrap.  

Gennie upended the flask and drown her ire in her namesake rum.  

“It is not so much theft that bothers me. Supplies on this junk will not soon run short thanks to Ecstasy’s hunger for lesser vessels.” 

Gennie led Maggie from the crew allowing the men to return to their tasks once more. 

With conspiratorial tone she whispered to her one trusted companion. “If there are ways to access my cabin so readily. Maggie, it is you and I who will be dead against this lot.”  

At this both women paused. Gennie had claimed Ecstasy only because the junk had been run aground, and with the aid of a galleon’s fire power. Maggie had only heard what Gennie found aboard the all but scuttled ship, but she was unwilling to tempt fate to see it for herself. 

“Maggie.” Gennie breathed and plastered a grin on her face. “You must help me find that rat.” 

“We will find and trap your rat before trouble boils. And he will serve as example.”  

 Where Solange had the luxury of welcome aboard Lenore and with little choice had openly joined Despair, Maggie spent a fair amount of her formative years as a stowaway. Forced to fend for herself Maggie understood this lowest class of sea thief. There were rules, there were lessons, and as with any caste, there were types.  

Maggie crawled the less welcoming portions of the junk. “I will find you, my little rat,” Maggie whispered into dark corners and alcoves. “I used to be you. Finding you is only a matter of  finding who I once was.”  

It cost several days and the captain’s best chocolates, but Maggie at last cornered the creature.

Gennie scowled at the prisoner. “What in the seven hells is that?” 

She dared to push the pale mop of hair out of the stowaway’s face.  

“Yao nuu!” The boy howled.

 Maggie stilled the boy in a basket hold. “Dammit pretty watch yer fingers, he does bite.”

The boy was soft-faced and indeed bared a surprisingly good number of teeth. Gennie gaped into honey-colored eyes that boiled with anger through a matted curtain of stick straight blonde hair.   

Sailors scattered from the entrance to the captain’s quarters as a tall, mousy-haired woman swept them aside. The woman’s apron was smeared with stains suspiciously the color of blood. The men shuddered in the wake of this tower of a woman though she had been cook aboard the vessel before it had come into Gennie’s possession.  

At the sight of the cook Gennie and Maggie both relaxed. 

“Faye! What is this rat yowling?” Gennie demanded of the only person aboard able to translate the native language of the crew. 

The cook had little patience for anyone aboard and Gennie suspected the woman was fierce with a knife. Gennie had not wanted to trust the woman after witnessing the violent state of her galley, but Faye spoke perfect English as well as Chinese.  

Faye pushed to the front of the crowd. At the sight of the child it was Faye’s turn to balk. 

The child howled again.

“Well, captain.” Faye all but spat the title. “The boy calls you yao nuu.”  

Gennie looked from Faye to child to Maggie. “Bien. Mais what does that mean?”  

The cook smirked. “Demon woman.” 

“Bizui! Fei-Fei duh Pi gu!” The boy spat at the feet of the cook. “Yao nuu!” He wailed at Gennie again.  

Several native crewmen snickered from the doorway. A look from their new captain silenced them. 

“And what did that mean?” 

“He called me a baboon’s ass.” Faye frowned.  

Standing too close to the child’s kicking legs she took a full swing to her shin. The speed at which Faye leveled a kitchen knife at the child stilled the boy’s limbs. The crew erupted  in laughter. At this Faye turned her knife on them.  

Gennie put out a hand to stay the woman’s anger before long pork made another appearance on the menu.  

To the crew she ordered. “Back to work, the lot of you! This ship does not sail herself!”  

The crew, still vague in the languages Gennie spoke, understood the tone well enough.

Gennie, Maggie, and Faye returned their attention to the boy.  

Tiny though he was, his capture didn’t put fear in his small soul. If anything, he seemed eager to fight to death.  

When searched, the child’s possessions were not those expected of a child. Gennie glanced at the hook-like blade on the table beside her, the diminutive crossbow, and the pile of explosives that had been discovered on the boy. The short  bow and clutch of arrows were found in a hidden bunk on the ship.  

“Tell him to calm,” Gennie commanded Faye.  

As the cook attempted to placate or threaten the boy, Gennie and Maggie watched on uncertain of the words passing between the two. Still the child railed and wailed, kicking, and spitting. 

From her pocket Gennie drew out another item found in the child’s trove. The remains of a brick of chocolate the boy had been caught stealing. Gennie knelt out of kicking range and offered the morsel.  

“Yao Nuu!” The boy opened his mouth wide to pass the insult.  

It was the move Gennie had been awaiting. She  slammed a mouthful of bon bon into the boy’s face.  

The boy coughed. His eyes wide, then grinned, chewed the  sweet, and swallowed. In complete defiance, he opened his mouth for another.  

Gennie laughed as she sat back on her knees and shook her head. “Ask what his name is while he is quiet.”  

Faye did as asked. “He is a half-wit.” Faye crossed her arms.  

“San-ji.” The boy opened his mouth for another chocolate. 

Gennie sized up the child. The task of capturing him had not  been easy. “Oui, he is much too clever and cunning to be a lack-wit.” 

“Maybe he is no longer speaking the language of the ship?” Maggie offered.  

Faye shook her head. “As you say, captain, but his speech is very poor for his age. And clearly it can’t be his native tongue, no more than it is mine.”  

Gennie observed the shaggy golden locks on the boy. “Perhaps, but he may know more  than he is letting on.”  

“I am classically trained in the languages most used by the East India companies.” Faye scowled. “This boy is no more than an animal.”  

This time Gennie broke another piece and gave him some,  minding her fingers. She was enjoying the game but would not press her luck.  

“Sanji, oui.” She mispronounced the words with her own accent. “And je suis Yao nuu,  n’est pas?”  

The conjuncture of languages confused the boy enough to give him pause. 

It also made Faye think again. “The language of the closed islands. San, means three, ji, or as he is pronouncing it, shi, means four. Or disaster.”  

Gennie rose to look up at Faye. “So he does think, and learn, at least three-fourths as well as you.” Gennie played with the name.  

“And, at three-fourths your height, captain.” She fired back.  

“But to the point at hand. We have all seen reformation of stowaways,” Maggie noted. 

“You still think our plan a good one then?” Gennie eyed the boy.  

The women had been of the same mind since finding the urchin. Neither desired to kill a child, even if it would drive Gennie’s power better than the death of a grown man. Showing mercy might send an equally powerful message.  

“Tell him I’ll cut him free. If he’ll work for this.” Gennie held out the chocolate. 

Faye asked and all gauged the boy’s response. When he did not wail or kick, Gennie grinned.  

“Ask his age.” She demanded.  

The child held up one hand with fingers splayed, and the other with only the longest one. 

“I’ll take that to mean six.” Gennie took the knife from Faye and tossed it to Maggie. 

The boy held his breath but did not cower at Maggie’s approach. Gennie recalled the last man Maggie had approached with a blade. A man decades older than this whelp, a  captain, and all but pissing himself.  

“You are small, brave, and possibly stupid, mignon, but I know what it is to be small, brave, and stupid as well.” The boy did not fully understand his new captain, but he would learn.  

Sanji did not run when the blades cut the ropes instead of his flesh. He rested in the chair then opened his mouth and put out a hand.  

The trio looked from the boy to one another. 

Faye frowned. “Well I’m not going to mother him, but I’ll teach him any language you like.”

“I intend to learn from him when you do.” Maggie nodded.

 Gennie tossed the last of the chocolate to the boy. “And use it to our advantage.”