Two

The librarian looked at the Captain.  ‘I’m not sure you understand.  These books’ she waved at the shelves ‘are for lending.  You can’t steal them, because then there would be nothing to lend.’
‘What care we for such things?’  said the Captain.  ‘We’d have the books!’
‘But you can have the books anyway, without going to the trouble of stealing them.’  The librarian was getting quite annoyed, and the pirates all tried to crowd behind the Captain in case she decided to throw one of the books which were lying on her desk.  ‘You can borrow them – all you need to do is join the library.’

The Captain narrowed his one eye.  ‘Join the library?  What madness is this?  We’re Pirates!  We belong to our ship and the sea and possibly the loyalty scheme at Mrs Miggins rum emporium.  We don’t join libraries.’
‘Then you can’t borrow books.’
The Captain did a quick count of his crew, and then turned back to the librarian.  ‘There are seven of us.  Seven hardened pirate kitties.  One librarian is no match for us!’

The pirates gave a whoop at this.  The Captain was right.  One little librarian kitty could hardly hope to stop them from despoiling the stacks, savaging the shelves and …
‘There is only one librarian on duty here.’  The librarian said.  ‘But there are plenty of staff in the building.  We have shelvers, assistants, senior assistants, librarians, all kinds, a mobile driver, and even a manager.  I can assure you that we can easily overpower your small crew of troublesome pirates.’

‘She’s right Captain.’  Cried the Mate.  ‘Such a posse of bookish minds would vanquish us for sure.’
‘Aye.’  Cried the deckhands.  ‘Let us go now – we could rob the bookshop instead.’
The Cook and the Cabin Boy nodded at this – the bookshop was notoriously lack in its security – to the extent that the Cabin Boy had got a job there last summer and they had managed to smuggle out everything bar the Jeffery Archers (they had enough fire wood) within a week.

But the Captain looked around the library, with its short shelves and tall ceilings and its books.  So many books.  More than he could read in a year at sea, more than the crew could read in ten years at sea.  He wanted these books, not to mention the huge cachet that would come from having stolen library books.  For literary pirates are a proud bunch, and there is no pirate more respected than he who has survived the den of the librarians and has the loot to prove it.

‘What sort of blood oath would you require?’  He asked the librarian.  Surely it would be fearsome, a trial of skill, agility, reading speed and comprehension.
‘Proof of your name and address.’ The librarian replied, before bending to dig around in the drawers of her desk for library cards.

‘Here’ cried the Cook and pulled up his shirt to show his shaven tummy, on which was tattooed a picture of the Pirate Captain’s ship.  ‘This be the Griddlebone, and I can attest that all here be crew aboard her.’
‘Aye’ cried the deckhands ‘and we have her flag – the skull and fish bones - tattooed on  our ears’
‘and I have a keyring’ said the Cabin Boy (who was too young to get a tattoo)

The librarian frowned.  ‘The computer doesn’t let me put tattoos as a proof of address.  Do you not have something normal – like a bill or driving licence?’
‘Normal?  We’re pirates!’  The Captain pointed his cutlass at the librarian.  ‘We don’t pay bills, or get licences!  We plunder the ferries of the English Channel!  We…’
‘We’ve got insurance.’  Said the Mate.  He pulled out a parcel of insurance documents out from his bag and gave them to the librarian.  ‘Dangerous business pirating.  Never know when you’ll slip on a bit of blood and do your back in.’
‘Aye.’  Agreed the Cook.  ‘tis a terrible trade to be in with regards to health and safety – what’s really needed is an effective union….’
‘No.’  The Captain glared at his crew.  ‘None of that talk now.  Tis bad enough we’re a workers cooperative without you getting all political as well.’

One

Pirate kitty was a pirate, and a kitty, and a reader.

He captained the fiercest band of pirate kitties that ever sailed the seven seas.  He had a dark blue coat, a bright red sash, and one green eye. 

All year long (except on bank holidays) they marauded up and down the English Channel.  They boarded ferries and stole all the passengers money, their jewels, and furs.  But most of all, and worst of all, they stole the books!

For Captain Pirate Kitty was a ferocious reader, his mate was a meticulous reader, his cook was a compulsive reader, his deckhands were debauched readers and even his cabin boy was a boisterous reader.

No pirate on his ship was ever without a book - and every month they gathered round (usually with tea and cake) and discussed what they’d been reading. 

‘This month’ said Pirate Kitty ‘I have been mostly rereading - for it seems there is nothing on this ship I haven’t read!’

His crew gasped - and all began to shout suggestions.

‘Joyce’ cried the Mate - but the Captain had read all of it - even Finnegans Wake (though he wasn’t certain he’d not dreamed that he’d read that one)

‘Agatha Christie’ shouted the Cook - but the Captain had read all of them so many times that he could tell you who had done it from the weight of the book in his hand.

‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’ yelled the Cabin Boy - but the Captain had read them all - even the Laughing Cavalier which wasn’t about the Pimpernel at all but about some random ancestor.

The Deckhands pulled out their collections of racy regencies, but the Captain just sniffed at them, and they had to hide them away in their hammocks for fear of getting told off by Cook for being a bad influence on the Cabin Boy.

‘We need more books!’  the Captain cried. 

‘But where from?’  asked the Mate.  ‘We’ve robbed all the ferries’

The pirates thought long and hard - and then the Cook said ‘I’ve heard tell that on the land there are such places as one might go to ‘borrow’ books.  Libraries, they be called.’

There was a murmur at this - the pirates didn’t go ashore if they could help it for fear of being seized by the police and not being able to sail away.  But they had all heard tell of libraries - of buildings full of books guarded by librarians.

‘I hear’ said the Mate ‘ that librarians are fearsome women, who can throw a book with such force that it’ll split your skull from fifty paces’

‘Aye’ cried the deckhands ‘ and they wear glasses which give them such fearsome powers of observation that they can spot a thief who is hiding behind a bookcase  even if the bookcase is behind them!’

‘And they are masters of the hidden art of Dewey - which gives them knowledge of all things and the places of all things!’  wailed the Cabin Boy.

‘Tosh.’ cried the Captain.  ‘I’ll not be thwarted by a bunch of women!  No matter if they have books, and glasses and a memory for numbers!  We are pirate kitties!’ 

So the pirates set sail for the coast, and after much consideration they decided to head for Brighton - where a bunch of pirate kitties would be easily lost among the general madness and which had a huge library of many floors and many books.

Inside the library they found an information desk.

‘Arrghhh’ cried the pirates to the librarian behind the desk ‘We’ve come to pillage your library!’  and they waved their cutlasses in the air.

‘Ssssshhhh’ said the librarian.  ‘If you want to be so noisy you’ll need to go into the children’s library.’

‘Madam’ said the Captain - drawing himself up to his full height and fixing her with his one green eye.  ‘We are pirates.  We do not shush.  We take!’

At this the rest of the pirates gave a loud cheer and waved their cutlasses again.

‘Sir.’ said the librarian, looking at the Captain over the top of her glasses, ‘This is a library.  You can borrow books, ask stupid questions, wave cutlasses and bash the computers with a stick.  But you cannot shout!’

‘Borrow?’  cried the pirates.  ‘Borrow?  We’re pirates.  We steal, appropriate, take, pinch, nick, mooch, scrounge, liberate and cadge.  But we do not borrow!’