The Pirate Fairy by A.J. Llewellyn Page A

courtroom.
    “Proceed,” the judge said, his lips seeming to move into a half smile. He focused on Denny as though the gossip around him wasn’t taking place.
    Ebba cleared her throat. “Until a few months ago, Denny Derrick Dalton was the most feared pirate on the high seas.”
    Denny tried not to stick out his chest with pride.
    “He took pleasure in his fearsome reputation, most of it well earned, since he’d worked so hard at being very, very bad.”
    All eyes stared up at him. Denny saw surprise in many gazes and knew his fairy wings had ruined his scary look.
    “He had a difficult childhood. Born in East London in 1816, Denny was taught pickpocketing and thievery by his mother, Mrs. Mable-Anne Dalton. She would hit him until he became fearless about extracting money, with menaces and a flick knife.”
    Denny’s cheeks burned. How did she know all of this? His background was his private shame. He’d hated his mother then and hated her now.
    “Mable-Anne was a scary, shady character. She started beating her youngest child, Denny’s sister, Polly, who was seven, two years younger than Denny. He took Polly’s beatings for her. Things went from bad to worse when Denny’s dad left them for another woman—”
    How does she know all this?
    “And left Denny to care for his sister. His mother was never around, but Denny worked honestly as a chimney sweep.” She paused with a dramatic inhale. “And his father frequently beat him for those funds.”
    Ebba stopped reading from her notes and gazed, sad-eyed around the court.
    Denny’s ears went red. He could feel it. People were staring at him with pity.
    “Mable-Anne got caught stealing an onion and was sent to Botany Bay, Australia,” Ebba continued. “Denny’s father received a note from her several months later saying that the women on these ships were used as whores.
    “‘It’s a floatin’, bleedin’ bloody brothel,’ she wrote. Last heard, Mable-Anne and her common-law husband, another convict she’d met on the ship, had stolen the Australian governor’s eight-oared long boat, and escaped the prison island.”
    Denny was stunned. Why had he heard none of this? He leaned forward, keen to hear more.
    “Nobody has heard from them since,” Ebba reported, “but there is a bounty on their heads.”
    “Is there any news of my sister?” Denny asked, his voice cracking. “I’ve searched the world for her!”
    There was a murmur in the court, stricken gazes cast in his direction. Denny knew he’d made a terrible mistake. It would be the gallows for him, for sure.
    The judge banged his gavel. “Order! Order! The prisoner will refrain from idle chit-chat with the prosecution.”
    Denny’s hackles rose. “It’s not idle chit-chat. I’ve lost my sister!”
    “Shut up!” the judge boomed.
    The crowd gasped.
    “Yes, your honor.” Denny shrank back in his seat. He received an evil glare from Ebba, who then continued.
    “Denny’s father fell apart then, drinking and not paying his debts. His girlfriend left him and he spent most of his time in the pub, but had something of a home with his children. When Denny was ten, he and his father and sister entered a workhouse, where they were given horrible jobs. Denny picked oakum and frequently did his sister’s share of the work, too. Their father ground up human bones for fertilizer.”
    A gasp went up around the courtroom, which seemed to put a gleam in Ebba’s eye.
    “When they were released almost a year later, Denny and Polly were left to their own devices. They hardly saw their father after that. He’d taken over a pub in Westminster with the new woman in his life.”
    Ebba held Denny’s gaze when she said, “His father was often heard to be saying he had no son.
    “Denny took work in a cotton factory and the long hours meant he rarely saw Polly. He was eleven, she was almost nine, but Polly was too young by law to be put to work in a factory. Denny paid a family that had taken over his