A Worthy Opponent. The Real Story of James Hook

Good Form?

Hook paced the deck of his ship thinking about what had comspired in the last twenty-four hours.

"Have you showed good form today?" a voice in the back of his head asked him with every step he took.

"Fame is mine!" Hook cried.

"Is fame good form?"

"I am the only man whom Barbecue feared and even Flint feared him." He reasoned.

"Barbecue? Flint? Who are they compared to good form?"

What most plagued his mind most though was the question: it is bad form to think about good form?

Hook began to be gloomy. He began to feel it was his last hour and that he should make the last speech.

"It would have been better for Hook if he had been less ambitious!" Only when Hook was in very dark destress would he refer to himself in the third person.

"No little children love me."

'Tis strange Hook had suddenly thought about this because he really didn't think about this before. Maybe he thought of it because his eyes had fallen on Smee working away at his sewing machine.

Smee thought all little children feared him but it was quite opposite in fact. No matter what he did to the children they still loved him. Micheal had even tried on his spectacles. Hook couldn't bring himself to tell him this though.

Smee was pathetic. What made him even more pathetic was the inability to think of how pathetic he was.

Hook watched him and wondered why children found him loveable. Why? Smee would hit them, threaten them, but still, they found him loveable. Was it perhaps good form?

Had his friend had something he had searched for all his life?

He then remembered you have to have good form before you actually realize it.

With a cry of rage, he lifted his hook to claw Smee but then a thought struck him.

"What would clawing a man for showing good form be?"

"Bad form!"

Hook collapsed on the deck as if he been chopped by an ax.

The crew thought he was out of the way for a bit so they began to dance and sing.

Hook rose from the deck with all traces of weakness gone and commanded them to be silent. Then he ordered for the lost boys to be on brought on deck.

It was done.

'Now then!" Hook said "Six of ye will walk the plank but we are in need of two cabin boys. Which of you will be willing to take the position?"

The boys looked at each other until one of them stepped forward.

"You see, sir," he said "I don't think my mother would let me be a pirate. Would your mother want you to be a pirate, Slightly?"

"No, I don't think so. Would your mother want you to be a pirate, Twin?"

"No. Would your mother want-"

"Enough!" Hook commanded then turned to John "You, lad. You look like you have some pluck in you."

"Well," John considered "I once considered calling myself Red-handed Jack."

"And so you shall," Hook said seeing he was making progress.

"What do you think, Micheal?" John asked his little brother.

"What would you call me if I join?" Micheal asked.

"Blackbeard Joe."

Micheal and John looked at each thoughtfully.

"Would we be respectful subjects of the king?" John finally asked.

"You would have to say 'down with the king.'"

"Than I refuse!" they said.

"Fine then! That seals your fate. Bring their up mother!"

When Wendy was brought up.

"So, you're going to watch your children die," Hook said sweetly.

Then he noticed Wendy staring at his ruff. He looked down and to his horror saw it had been soiled in all his communings. He quickly put it out of site but it was too late, Wendy had seen it and gave him a look of frightful contempt that made him nearly faint.

Wendy made grand of her last words to the boys and then she was tied to the mast.

Suddenly a noise penetrated the air.

Tick, tick, tick.

"The crocodile is boarding the ship!" Hook thought than collapsed on the deck and crawled as far from the noise as he could.

"Hide me!" he said to the rest of the crew hoarsely.

There came a splash then silence. No ticking was heard.

"It's gone, captain," Smee said calmly, wiping his spectacles "All's still."

Hook slowly rose and felt slightly embarrassed the boys saw all this.

"Then to Johnny Plank!" Hook said than sang a little ditty and even though dignity was lost for a moment he did a dance to accompaniment it. Then he ordered one of the pirates to get the whip from the cabin for the lost boys before they walked the plank.

The pirate went to the cabin and after a few moments, a cry came followed by an eerie screech.

One of the Pirates went into the cabin than came out and reported the man dead!