Chapter Text
Mikey came home from the first week of sixth form to a house overrun with relatives he didn’t know and children he didn’t like, convening for tomorrow’s funeral for Great-Grandma Holmes. The adults chattered interminably about autos and flower arrangements and the mediocre achievements of their children in spelling bees and dressage, the children themselves gossiping over glossy fashion magazines and tussling over whose turn it was to play Donkey Kong on an old handheld. Mikey was all too relieved to be sent to check on Willie, so much younger and yet so much cleverer than all his cousins, outside where he had been banished to play alone.
The early autumn sun cast a faint golden haze on the horizon. Mikey loosened his tie and trailed a hand through the toadflax and corn marigolds, analyzing the pollen tracing his fingers as he followed the path down the unmown estate hills. He found Willie and his Irish setter crouched at the bank of the narrow creek running behind their house. Willie had on an oversized striped jumper and belt of their father’s with one of their mother’s orange scarves tied over his soft brown curls; his toy eye-patch was strapped around his face. He was floating the first of the brown copper beech leaves down the trickle and wiggling the loose tooth he’d been worrying for the past month. One leaf spun over the blue-grey pebbles. His dog gave a single yap as Mikey approached and Willie, without looking up, announced, “Ahoy, Mikey!”
Mikey rolled his eyes at the blurred cirrus clouds above. “Off on another adventure on the high streams?”
Willie put his hands on his knees and addressed his dog. “What do you say, Captain Redbeard? Should we make him walk the plank?”
Redbeard sniffed intently at Willie’s face.
“Wise choice, Captain!” Willie stroked the dog’s coppery face then turned to Mikey. “He says you may live, but first you must prove your mettle.”
Mikey crossed the creek in one long-legged step. “And how exactly must I do that?”
Willie craned his neck up toward his brother. “By gazing upon the first mate’s ghastly wound without flinching.” He pulled back his upper lip to reveal his loose tooth, which hung by a thread and was starting to ooze blood.
“Willie, that tooth needs to go.”
His little brother’s face scrunched. “That’s not what I meant, Mikey, play along.”
“How long has it been like that? It’s going to get infected if you don’t get it out of there. Just pull it out already.”
Willie stuffed a hand in his dog’s silky fur and started to shy away.
“Here —” Mikey pulled a tissue from his pocket and wrapped it around the tooth, pinching his brother’s fingers around it. “This will give you a good grip. Now pull it out.”
“Noooo!” Willie’s shoulders hunched and tears brimmed in his eyes. Redbeard started to whine.
“Control yourself, Willie! Do you think pirates waited for their mummies to tend their injuries? They’d have died on the high seas. Don’t be stupid. Just tug it out. Like —” Mikey grasped for a metaphor “— like a timber shiver in your flesh. Do it!”
Willie squeezed his eyes shut. He wrapped one hand around Redbeard and with the other quickly yanked out the tooth. His eyes popped wide as he stuck his tongue into the gap and tasted the slight stream of blood.
“We did it, Captain Redbeard! We defeated the fearsome Kraken-tooth!” He danced along the bank with his barking dog before they both dropped to sit in the dust, Willie leaning with sinking eyelids into Redbeard’s soft coat.
“All right, first mate.” Mikey jiggled Willie’s shoulder. “Time you were back on dry land.”
“Piggyback ride for the wounded?”
“Okay, okay.” He knelt for Willie to climb on him. “I’ll carry you home, little brother.”
Mikey hoisted him onto his back and set off back up the hill, Redbeard trotting behind them. Butterflies rippled with the breeze across the golden flowers ahead — like tiny sails over the bounding main.