At the very same time as Willie Gates VII took the first step to world domination, a pair of hairy feet in pink flip-flops faded by the sun, stepped up to Roger Bonny and nudged him on the shoulder with a rough, probing big toe.

“Are you alive, or what?”

Roger slowly opened his eyes and tried to get use to the bright light of the sun. He spat out some sand and salty water. He was lying face down on a warm, white beach. He could hear the wind rustling up high in the palm trees above his head and his feet were washed over by warm, gentle waves. He felt sick.

“Or what,” he mumbled.

The hairy toes in front of him wriggled thoughtfully in their pink flip flops.

“Ok … “ He heard the clinking of a drink stick being stirred in a glass filled with refreshing ice cubes. “ I just wait here until you feel a bit more alive then.” He heard a match being struck, a cigarette being lit, and when the burnt out match landed inches away from his face a pungent smell of phosphorus hit his nose. He flinched.

“Do you mind?” He looked up on the figure hovering above him. Because of the sun, he could, apart from the flip flop clad feet, only see the silhouette of a man wearing way too small Speedos and a baseball cap.

“Oooops … Sorry.” The man placed his foot on the match and pushed it into the sand and in doing so; he also managed to refill Roger’s mouth with sand.

“Please!” Roger spat again and dragged himself up so he was kneeling.

“What’s your name?” The man stirred his drink a bit more and held out a hand to help Roger get up on his feet.

Roger reached for it and pulled himself up. “Roger, if you need to know. Roger Bonny.” Roger felt quite irate. Sand has a nasty way of getting stuck between your teeth.

“Well, you’re not so jolly, are you, Roger?”

“Would you be, if you had just been thrown off a cruise ship you paid a fortune to be on?”

The man pushed his LA Lakers cap up a bit and scratched his forehead.

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Why I had gotten thrown off.”

“Because of a teeny weenie gambling debt, not that that is any of your business, though.”

The man took one last a puff at his cigarette and then flicked it into the water.

“Then, I would be happy.”

“Happy?”

“Yeah. I hear they shoot people for things like that nowadays.” He took a sip from his drink. “And besides, it is my business, since you have floated ashore in my kingdom. I’m King
Billy-Bob of Petland.”

Roger stared at the man in front of him. He was, without a doubt, the least royal looking guy he had seen in his life. Surely a king should be able to afford Speedos of the right size, Speedos that did not look so dangerously close to bursting as they strained over the crown jewels?

“Yeah, right!” Roger didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t feel very well. His stomach was upset. Three weeks of drunken debauchery on the cruise ship hadn’t made him sick. A couple of hours in the ocean had. Water was clearly a much bigger threat to his health than all the colourful drinks he had gone through on board. Speaking of drinks, he was thirsty. He glanced at the drink in King Billy-Bob’s hand.

“I could invite you back to the palace for a drink …” said Billy-Bob and stirred his drink again.

“Please do,” said Roger quickly. This man may well be a nutter, but he apparently had access to drinks and that was something that Roger really needed at that moment.

Billy-Bob eyed him. “Well, you sure look like you could use a drink.” He stumped out his cigarette on the trunk of a nearby palm tree. “Come on.”

Billy-Bob turned around and shuffled along the beach in his pink flip-flops. Roger followed, but when he came up alongside the self-proclaimed king, Billy-Bob held his arm out and pushed him slightly back. “Hey, hey! You’re dealing with royalty here. Half a step behind, if you please.”
Roger sighed and fell back half a step.

“Does anyone else live here?” He wasn’t sure if he fancied the idea of spending too much time alone with this maniac on a deserted island.

Billy-Bob turned around. “You think I’m crazy, right?”

“Well…”

“It depends who you ask. If you ask the Billy-Bob-girls, I’m God’s gift to women. My ex-wife would, of course, disagree, but then again she never was much of a woman, was she? She recently got an extension job done and is now living in No-Man’s Land where she calls herself Rico Fantastico.”

Roger’s battered brain felt overloaded. Billy-Bob was clearly insane. He didn’t make any sense with all his gibberish about Billy-Bob-girls, extension jobs and No-Man’s Land. He did feel some pity for the man, though. The kind of pity that all men with mad ex-wives feel for each other.

“An extension job? Why would a bigger house make her call herself Rico Fantastico?”

Billy-Bob stopped. “Are you stupid, or what?” He lowered his hand to the Speedo area and made a gesture that indicated something elongated. “An EXTENSION JOB, moron!”

“Oooh! You mean that she…” he didn’t know quite how to put it. Billy-Bob was clearly upset about his ex-wife’s recent sex change.

“YES! And now I prefer to talk about my supposed insanity instead. Ok?” Billy-Bob started walking again.

“Ok…”

“If you ask Willie Gates, I’m a raging lunatic, but who cares about him anyway?”

Roger grabbed Billy-Bob’s arm.

“Willy Gates VII?”

Billy-Bob tried to wriggle away, but found himself stuck in a vice-like grip. “Yes?”

“That weasel of a man!” Roger spat and tightened his grip.

“I gather you don’t like him much either?” gasped Billy-Bob.

“Any enemy of his is my friend. He’s ruined my life.”

They stared at each other. Billy-Bob looked tortured.

“Fine, but you might want to let go of my arm. It’s going numb.”

Roger let go, but his hand left a red indentation that made him realize how hard he must have squeezed the royal extremity. “Sorry… But I swear I’ll do anything to make little Willie’s life hell.”

“So would I. And we could, if only we could hack into his Egghead3000.”

Roger had seen all the ads for Egghead3000, but he hadn’t given them so much thought. He didn’t need a memory enhancement. If anything, he wanted something to make him forget things. He wanted to forget his first day in kindergarten. He wanted to forget his room mate in college. He wanted to forget his ex-wife, Fiona. Especially he wanted to erase Willie Gates VII from his memory. He was after all the guy who ruined his first day in kindergarten, his college life and his marriage. Getting Egghead3000 would not only put money in little Willie’s pocket, it would be a constant reminder of his very existence and that was the last thing Roger needed. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that Willie was using Egghead himself, as he must be well aware of all the security glitches in all MegaSmooth’s software.

“Is he really using it?” he said doubtfully.

“Yes, indeed he is. And better still. He is apparently stuck with a beta version that seems to work so-so. But we haven’t been able to hack into it yet.”

“Have you tried using his password?”

“Well, no. But I’m sure it will take a bit more than that to get in there, don’t you think? Besides, we don’t know his password anyway.”

Roger suddenly felt much better. His head cleared and his stomach seemed to have settled down. Maybe all his years in little Willie’s shadow hadn’t been a waste of time after all.

“I do.”

Billy-Bob raised his eyebrows in disbelief, then he carefully studied Rogers face, smiled and slapped him on the back with a huge, friendly hand that left Roger breathless.

“Come on then, friend. It seems like we share an interest in little Willies misfortune.” He lifted his glass. “Let’s go and get a top-up and chat a little bit more about that.”

Roger followed him, but Billy-Bob urged him on. “Come on, now. What are you doing back there?”

“But you said…”

“Never mind that. You’re a friend now. You can walk wherever you want except on my toes.”

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You can help develop the story of Not-So-Jolly Roger! Learn more about it here. Visit Pirate’s Cove , create your own pirate and talk to Roger and his friends.