That made me not so happy anymore. Rotten Tooth had only taught us the Sheepshank Man-o'-War knot to keep us out of the way. I looked at my friends, and they didn't look so happy, either.
“Arrr . . .” I started to say, but Rotten Tooth put his hand over my mouth.
“Aye, Cap'n. But I couldn't have done it without these here kiddies,” he said. “They be a clever bunch of pirates.”
None of us could believe our ears! Not only had Rotten Tooth said we were clever, but he hadn't even called us dogs, or pollywogs, or anything else mean. He'd called us
pirates
!
Captain Stinky Beard told us again how proud he was before he walked off to steer the ship. We all turned our heads up to look at Rotten Tooth. Our mouths were still hanging open in surprise.
“Does this mean we can learn something more fun than knots tomorrow?” I asked.
“Aye!” Rotten Tooth said.
“HOORAY!” we cheered. Then we all danced around happily, even though it wasn't very piratey to dance.
“Tomorrow, I'll be teaching ye to stitch the sails,” Rotten Tooth said with a rotten grin. We stopped dancing right away. I guess Rotten Guts hadn't completely changed his mind about us after all.