Captain Stinkbeard and the Hundred Gold Doubloons

The sun rose orange over the seven slightly-smelly seas.

On the deck of the good ship Kerfuffle, Captain Stinkbeard was digging.

“Dig, me hearties, DIG!” he bellowed. “The map says X marks the spot!”

THUNK! His shovel hit something hard.

“AVAST!” cried the Captain. “A CHEST!”

Up came a heavy wooden chest, crusted with barnacles and green seaweed.

The whole crew gathered round.

There was Blinky Banana, zooming in excited circles.

There was Sir Wobbleton, the most polite pirate on the sea, wobbling on his tiptoes.

And there was Princess Burple, the cheerful frog princess, strumming her tiny ukulele.

Captain Stinkbeard flung open the lid.

GLEAM! A hundred golden doubloons sparkled in the morning sun.

“RICH!” shouted the Captain. “We’re RICH as a royal cheese!”

“How many is a hundred?” asked Blinky, who could zoom but not count.

Princess Burple counted the coins into neat little piles of ten.

Ten… twenty… thirty… all the way up to one hundred.

“A hundred gold coins,” she said. “That is a LOT of gold.”

Captain Stinkbeard rubbed his hands together with a greedy little wiggle.

“I know EXACTLY what to buy,” he grinned. “One hundred rubber ducks!”

The crew blinked.

“One hundred… rubber ducks?” said Sir Wobbleton politely.

“AYE!” said the Captain. “One duck for every doubloon! SPLENDID!”

“But Captain,” wobbled Sir Wobbleton, “our ship has a leak.”

“And we’re nearly out of food,” beeped Princess Burple.

“And Bumbleshire village is very hungry this cold winter,” added Blinky.

Captain Stinkbeard frowned. “But… ducks are so SQUEAKY.”

Princess Burple hopped onto a barrel. “Captain, may I show you a trick?”

She scooped up the hundred coins and began to make three piles.

“When you have gold,” she said, “you don’t spend it all at once. You think first.”

“Pile one is for NEEDS. Things we must have to be safe and well.”

“Pile two is for WANTS. Fun things—but only AFTER the needs.”

“And pile three,” she smiled, “is for SHARING. Because a full belly is happiest beside another full belly.”

Captain Stinkbeard scratched his beard. It was a very smelly beard.

“Needs first, eh?” he said slowly. “Well… what do we truly NEED?”

“We need to fix that leak,” said Sir Wobbleton, “or we’ll all go GLUG-GLUG to the bottom.”

“Right you are!” The Captain plonked thirty coins into the NEEDS pile. Clink, clink, clink.

“And we need food to sail on,” said Burple. “Empty pirates are grumpy pirates.”

“Right again!” Another twenty coins. Clink, clink.

The NEEDS pile shone with fifty coins.

“Now, the WANTS,” said the Captain, his eyes drifting to the duck shop on the shore.

He reached out both hands for ALL the coins that were left.

“Ah-ah,” said Burple gently. “Just some, Captain. Remember to save the rest.”

Captain Stinkbeard took a deep, wobbly breath. Saving was HARD!

His fingers itched. The duck shop sparkled. SQUEAK, it seemed to call. SQUEEEAK.

“One hundred ducks,” he whispered longingly. “Imagine the bubble baths…”

But then he pictured the cold village, and the leaky ship going GLUG.

“No,” he said, standing up tall. “A wise captain thinks before he spends.”

Slowly, one at a time, he counted out twenty coins for the WANTS pile.

“Only twenty ducks,” he sighed sadly.

Then a grin crept across his face. “Actually… twenty is still a WHOLE LOT of ducks!”

Just then, Blinky Banana zoomed up with a wobbly idea of his own.

“Captain! Can I buy a golden jet-powered surfboard? It only costs FIFTY coins!”

Sir Wobbleton coughed politely. “Blinky… is that a need, or a want?”

Blinky slowed right down for once, and thought very hard. “…A want,” he admitted.

“And have we paid for our needs yet?” asked Princess Burple.

Blinky looked at the leaky ship and the empty pantry. “Aye. Needs first.”

“Maybe I’ll save,” Blinky decided. “A few coins from every treasure, until I have enough.”

“Now THAT,” said Princess Burple proudly, “is very clever pirate thinking.”

“And this last pile?” asked Sir Wobbleton.

Thirty golden coins were left, glowing in the sun.

Captain Stinkbeard looked toward Bumbleshire, where thin grey smoke curled from cold little chimneys.

He thought of the hungry children there.

“For sharing,” he said quietly, and he did not itch for them at all.

So off they sailed to the busy harbour.

With the NEEDS coins, they bought strong planks and a bucket of sticky tar.

BANG-BANG-BANG! The leak was patched. No more GLUG-GLUG.

They bought barrels of apples, wheels of cheese, and crunchy sea-biscuits.

The ship’s pantry was full to bursting.

With the WANTS coins, Captain Stinkbeard marched proudly into the duck shop.

Out he came with twenty rubber ducks in his arms.

SQUEAK! SQUEAK! He was the happiest pirate on all seven seas.

And with the SHARING coins?

The crew rolled out long tables in the middle of cold Bumbleshire.

They cooked warm soup in a giant pot. Bubble, bubble, glug.

Princess Burple played bouncy tunes on her ukulele.

The whole hungry village came—shivering—and left warm, full, and laughing.

A tiny mouse-child tugged the Captain’s coat. “Is this soup… really for us?”

“Every last drop,” said Captain Stinkbeard. “Eat up, little one.”

The mouse-child’s eyes shone brighter than any doubloon in the chest.

An old fisherman shook the Captain’s hand. “You didn’t have to share your gold, Captain.”

Captain Stinkbeard watched the happy, glowing village.

“Aye,” he said. “But a treasure feels twice as big when you split it.”

That night, the Kerfuffle sailed home beneath a sky full of stars.

No leak. A full pantry. Twenty rubber ducks bobbing in the Captain’s bath.

And a little pouch of saved coins, tucked away for the next adventure.

“Princess Burple,” said the Captain, yawning, “that was the best hundred coins I never spent all at once.”

Burple grinned and strummed a slow, sleepy tune.

And Captain Stinkbeard drifted off to sleep—SQUEAK—

with a smile on his face, a warm feeling in his belly, and one very happy rubber duck on his pillow.