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Pete was very happy that he’d spent some money on pieces of wood for whittling when they were on their latest vacation. It seemed like a dumb thing to spend money on when there was so much wood just lying around that was free. He usually combed beaches for driftwood, which made some really great carvings, but he was drawn to some pieces for sale where the grain of the wood almost looked like waves on the sand, or maybe fur or scales or face of an animal. He’d never in his life had so much money, and it was a powerful feeling to have so much freedom and a lot less stress. It was okay to spend money on wood rather than food, because Captain Stede made sure they were all well-fed. He wanted to make something special for Lucius to show his love, since he wasn’t good with words like Lucius was. Making something he’d like was worth a piece of wood he’d paid money for.
What could he whittle for Lucius that would be special? He remembered Lucius once saying how cool it would be to have a pet chinchilla. Pete didn’t know what that was, and Lucius said it was like a little ball of super super soft fur.
After thinking of trying a chinchilla, he asked Captain Stede if he had a picture of one. Captain had to look through a couple of books (which he didn’t mind one bit), then found one. There was writing on the page and Pete asked Captain if he’d read it to him (which he also didn’t mind).
“Are you going to whittle a chinchilla?”
“Yeah, it’s gonna be for Lucius, so please don’t say anything, okay?”
“Of course not! I’m sure he’ll love it. I heard once that part of why handmade gifts are so special is because the maker was thinking about the receiver as they made it.”
“Thinking about him while I’m making it. I like that. And listen, Captain, uh…” Pete looked down at his feet. “I know you’re really busy, being Captain and all, so if you can’t, that’s of course okay… but I’d really like to learn to read and write, if you could teach me, but I’m way too embarrassed to ask Lucius to teach me. Maybe some of the other guys would want to learn too, so you wouldn’t be spending so much time on just one person?”
Captain Stede smiled like… well Lucius would have good words for it, but it was a really big smile, like if he was smiling at Captain Edward.
“I would love to, Pete! I’d been thinking of asking some of you if you’d like to learn, but I didn’t know how to ask without sounding pedantic — uh, like a know-it-all. Frenchie might want to write down song lyrics, and Roach might want to write down recipes. And if you’d like to borrow this book for reference that would be fine. Let me wrap it up in a towel for you.”
“Thanks, Captain Stede,” Pete said, taking the book carefully. “I know, uh, I talk about Blackbeard a lot and working for him. But you’re a good Captain, too. Just in different ways.”
“Why thank you, Pete! That means a great deal to me.”
Stede turned away from the door as soon as it was closed behind Pete. He picked up a handkerchief and sank into the sofa, dabbing at his eyes, which were leaking just a bit. He’d found out that Pete had been the primary instigator of at least one mutiny, so such kind words felt even more special coming from him.
After leaving the Captains’ quarters, Pete went to the sex nook and hung the sock on the hook outside it. Even though Jim and Olu had their own room and wouldn’t need to use the sex nook, Jim made sure that everyone knew what the sock meant. They still teased Lucius for not knowing what it meant “because you’d think a hombrecito like him would know, si?”
Pete sat on the pallet and opened the book, looking at the details of the drawing. Stede read that they had very soft fur, and Lucius had mentioned that too. Pete supposed he could attach some fur somehow, or he could sand it down so the wood felt very smooth. Maybe it was just dumb to try to whittle something that was very soft. Or it might be fun to just try it and see how it worked. If it didn’t, the wood could be made into something else, and Lucius didn’t need to know he’d even tried it.
The tail was very long and kinda fluffy, and the ears bare and very thin, like you could probably see a flame through them. Maybe he could use leather for the ears and tail! He knew that Frenchie and Wee John sewed things, so maybe they had some leather scraps he could have. He looked over the pieces of wood he had, paying special attention to the grain, looking at each piece from all sides.
One of the pieces of wood that he bought in the last port was perfect to be a chinchilla, so he was so glad he bought it. It was really important to him that it turn out good, and it helped a lot that Captain Stede was eager to let him borrow the book. That was another difference between the Revenge and other ships, and Captain Stede and other Captains. No one else, if they even had books that weren’t about navigation and sailing skills, would let him or any other regular crew touch them, much less take them out of Captain’s cabin for a few days. On the page with the chinchilla was a map. Pete didn’t know much about maps, but this map had a section of it all dark. He could ask Captain Stede about it when he gave the book back.
Before he came onboard the Revenge, Pete had considered books to be only for sissies, which meant, in his mind, men like Captain Stede and Lucius. Women like Jim were manly, and that wasn’t a good thing either. After the disguise came off Jim, Pete asked Lucius why people called Jim “they” instead of “she.” Lucius explained that some people weren’t men nor women, no matter what their bodies were like, but they were somewhere in between or something totally different, or just none. They used a long word Pete couldn’t always remember, but he could remember “enby.” Pete was always very careful to say they, them, and theirs when talking about Jim, and it was quickly a habit and didn’t feel weird at all.
Lucius explained why some people, including himself and Captain Stede, liked reading just for fun, whether it was stories or facts. You could read about London and learn some of what it was like even if you couldn’t go. You could read stories about fire-breathing dragons or the kraken. You could obviously learn about all kinds of animals. There were books with recipes for making new foods. All kinds of things. For the first time in his life, Pete thought it might be fun to learn something new other than fighting maneuvers and battle tactics.
Then he started whittling the chinchilla. He was glad he’d bought himself some new tools, too. Some he hadn’t used before, so he practiced on scrap wood first. He kept a rag on his lap to catch all the whittled off bits. Captain Stede was right about him thinking about Lucius the whole time he was working, and that made him smile. Even though he used to think that love was for sissies, he didn’t think so now (nor did he think any people were sissies. It was a dumb word and a dumb idea). It was the best feeling he’d ever felt, and it was extra good knowing that Lucius felt the same way about him.
One good thing about Lucius being the Scribe was that he spent a of time with Captain Stede, which meant that Pete could get in some whittling when he was on deck. He could just work on it in a corner on deck and not have to spend extra time going below then coming back up and all that, and not worry about Lucius maybe coming over to see what he was doing.
Once he got going, most of the chinchilla wasn’t as hard as he expected. It was mostly big round body. Its legs and feet were pretty small, so he didn’t carve them in detail, just lines to show multiple toes. It looked like they were pretty much hiding under the animal’s body anyway. It had huge dark eyes and a cute little nose. The mouth didn’t show much, so he’d make it simple, and the details would be in the eyes and nose. It was important to get the body proportions right. He knew Lucius would love it no matter what, just because Pete made it for him, but he wanted to make it as good as possible.
In a few days, he finished all the knife work. Now it was time to make the wood smooth. He hadn’t done it on Lucius’s finger because the roughness of the strokes might help it grip better. The sanding was relaxing and didn’t require the hand and finger control and the concentration that the cutting tools did. He could’ve done the sanding while talking with people, but he really wanted it to be a surprise, so the fewer people who knew about it, the better. He sanded with rough grit for starters, then finer grit, then a polishing cloth. When he was done, the wood was smooth, smooth enough to pet. Next, he got some leather scraps from Frenchie and Wee John, some very soft thin suede for the ears, and thicker for the tail. He got some little tacks to attach them, and hammering on deck made it look like was actually working.
Then it was done. He wanted to give it to Lucius in private, so he wrapped it in a clean rag and put it in a corner of the sex nook. When he and Lucius both had some free time, he said “I have something to give you that I want to give you in private. It doesn’t have anything to do with where we’re going okay?”
“Ooh, mystery! Secrecy! There isn’t a secret I need to keep, is there?”
“No, love, no worries there.”
As Lucius got settled sitting on the pallet in the sex nook, Pete lit the two lamps. Then he picked up the wrapped bundle of chinchilla and put it in Lucius’s hands. “I love you, but I’m not good with words like you, so I made this for you to show you how much I love you.”
Lucius opened the towels and took out the carving, gasping in surprise as he turned it this way and that, running his fingers over the sleek surface, touching the leather ears and tail carefully. “A chinchilla! Oh my god, Pete, you made me my own chinchilla!” He leaned over to give Pete a kiss, then examined it in more detail, the way the grain of the wood gave some definition of the parts of the body and the face, delicate leather ears, and wonderful long leather tail.
He gently laid it in his lap, then turned to Pete again, smiling so widely it might hurt his face later, but so worth it. “I love you, Pete. I can see love shining from your eyes, your whole face. My favorite face in the world is yours.” He planted several kisses on his face, then picked up one of his hands and kissed it all over, paying extra attention to his fingertips. “I feel so loved, that you put in so much time and work and effort. You are so skilled, sweetheart. Thank you so much.
Pete couldn’t stop beaming. He couldn’t have dreamed of such a great reaction. “I love you too, babe. Captain Stede said, when I was borrowing a book from him, I’ll show you that too, that part of the magic of making something for someone is that you’re thinking of them the whole time you’re making it, so your caring stays in the thing you’re making.”
“So now I have a chinchilla of love! I think it was love, too, that you remembered that I said once that one would be a cool pet. You remembered even though you’d never heard of them before. How did you get all the details so perfect? These huge suede ears, the big eyes, everything.”
“I asked Captain Stede if he had a book that showed one, and he looked through a few and handed me this,” Pete said, turning to the chinchilla page. “He read all this to me, but I didn’t think to ask him about the map. Why is this part of the map blacked out?”
“The black parts are where the animal lives. This whole outlined part is South America, and this is the west coast, where they live, in the countries of Chile and Argentina and Peru.”
“Are we on that map?”
“No, the Caribbean is up here, to the north east.”
“Okay, so is this right: west is here, where the chinchillas live, and the other side is east. North is always up on a map, here’s the big N with an arrow, so down is south, so to be north east, we go some north and some east, both. Is that right?”
“Exactly!”
“I saw that different animals have different maps with different parts blacked out, so they live in different parts of the world, yeah? Are there any animals that live everywhere?”
“Hmm, animals that live everywhere,” Lucius said, paging through the book. “Oh! Seagulls!” He looked at the index, then turned to seagulls. “See, they live on the edges of land and ocean everywhere. Not one animal lives all these places, like I think Karl and Olivia mostly stay here in the Caribbean, and other seagulls live on the east side of South America, and some on the west side of it.”
Pete thought about all those things in books and decided that yeah, it might be really fun to be able to read.
Lucius wrapped up the book and set it and the chinchilla aside, nuzzling up to Pete’s neck in the way he knew he liked. Very quietly, he whispered in his ear, “You know, while we’re here, we might as well take advantage of it. Plus, I like showing my love for you with my body.”
“Mmmmmm, I like that too, babe. I’ll put out the sock,” Pete said.