At last Titty asked, “Where did Captain Flint get his parrot?”
Peggy Blackett swallowed a lump of molasses and began at once: “He brought the parrot from Zanzibar. He’s been all over the world. Mother says he was the black sheep of the family when he was young, so he was sent to South America. But he didn’t stay there. He went everywhere. Last year he came home and said he’d gathered enough moss and meant to settle down. Mother’s his sister, you know. But he always liked being at sea. So he bought the houseboat, and last year we were often in it. Last year he was one of us and we used to sail with him in Amazon . Then he gave us Amazon and went off again before the winter. And this year when he came back he said he had a contract and was going to write a book, and all through the summer he’s been living in the houseboat, but instead of sailing with us he’s in league with the natives. We’ve done everything we could to wake him up. But it’s no good. He even asked mother to make us leave him alone. So mother told us he was writing a book and had to be left alone. But we thought it wasn’t his fault to be writing a book, and that we would show him we didn’t think any worse of him for it. But he wasn’t pleased at all, even when we offered to come and live on the houseboat with him. It ended by his forbidding us to come near him.”
“That’s why we watched till he went ashore and boarded the houseboat and took the green feathers for our arrows,” said Nancy, “just to show him. He had them in a pot for pipe cleaners.”
“It’s such a pity, too,” said Peggy. “We were teaching the parrot to say, ‘Pieces of Eight,’ so that it would be a good pirate parrot to take with us to Wild Cat Island. It only says ‘Pretty Polly.’ That’s no use to anyone. But they say green parrots don’t talk as well as grey ones.”
“You said you thought he was a retired pirate, didn’t you?” said Nancy to Titty.
“Yes,” said Titty.