Young, wannabe pirates steal a ship. The human aboard refuses to hurt kids, but they are NOT amused! -- Anon Guest
"What are you, twelve?" Human Oz glared down at the 'dread pirate' Bao, who had a kitten face on their overalls pocket. "I'm old enough to be your grandren[1]. I should send you to the corner."
"I'm eight," said the 'dread pirate' Bao. "And I'm the Captain 'cause of my mean scar, and you're s'posed to surrender." The 'mean scar' was a light graze on one cheek, possibly caused by a low-flying stick fragment. Previously unnoticed until they pointed it out. This did not improve anything.
"That makes it worse," said Oz. "You understand how that makes it worse, right? Where are your guardians? Do they know you and your little playmates took a whole-ass tug boat to play Pirates in?" Further parenting instincts kicked in and made hir say, "Has anyone put antiseptic on your boo-boo?"
"We're not playing pirates, we're real pirates," said one wearing a cheap cardboard bicorn hat. "Stand to and hand over your booty!"
Oz was singularly unimpressed. Plastic weaponry was having little effect on hir. Ze opened comms to the nearest station and announced, "Yeah, local security? Is anyone missing a tug? I have some neophyte delinquents telling me their pirates and holding me 'hostage' with costume swords. By the way, kids. Those are foam? You couldn't hurt anything with them if you tried."
"I've got a gun," said the kid with the fake eyepatch. It was a stunner from the emergency case. They shot Oz at can't miss range.
Oz plucked it out of their hands and inspected it. "This is on level four Havenworlder setting. Thanks for the pins and needles, kid, but don't play with weapons, okay? What if I had a heart condition? Huh? Would you be okay with sending me to the emergency drawer? Or worse?"
Every single one of the pirates started to cry.
"Flakk," Oz muttered. "I'm gonna print y'all some dinosaur nuggets and juice boxes, okay? We can talk about good decisions and silly decisions while security gets here." Then, ze bought out the big guns. "I'm not mad. I'm disappointed."
For the record, the 'dread pirate' Bao and their crew were very, very sorry.
[1] When a Rennie [parental] becomes a grandparent, some things have to be adjusted.
[Image by Markus Spiske on Unsplash]
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