What it's like to be a pirate

Peter looked that way and saw a huge man-more a horse than a man-who hadn't been there a minute before. His enormous black-booted feet were braced on the deck. His right hand held a long, coiled whip.

I wonder what he...

It happened in a second, at most two. A sailor bolted for the gangplank, his bare feet slapping wood. He had taken perhaps three long strides when the whip cracked-it moved much too fast for Peter to see it-and wrapped itself around the man's ankle like a snake. The sailor crashed to the deck as the giant jerked the whip back, dragging the man effortlessly, as if he were no more than a dead cat, to the feet of the scowling Slank.


 Slank glared around the deck."Anybody else having thoughts about leaving?"


No getting off the ship now, Peter thought.

-Peter and the Starcatchers

Painful.