Chapter 147

Eye After Eye After Eye

Gloom-glower

What the hell was Barnacle-eyes doing? She couldn’t help it, could she? She just had to flaunt her fleet right next to mine! Hadn’t she been put in her place enough? And where did she get such awesome ships? I deserved them! She should be giving them to me!

If that wasn’t enough, she somehow cheated a few hundred goblins into following her and serving her? Stupid snots! Goblins are goblins, but they’re also stupid. They need a king like me.

Barnacle-eyes was a problem. Her giant ships were a problem—and they looked stupid! Who the hell grew a jungle on ships? The biggest problem, however, were her goblins. They had an impact on my goblins, which had an impact on me.

“Fifty percent!” I said. “We were at forty percent all spring, and that was already too high! What are those good for nothing snots plotting? I better not find out you had a role in this, Stub-toes!”

“This winter was even worse than the before-winters,” said Stub-toes. “So many goblins died, and there were no new recruits to take their places. Your majesty, I have some ideas that would surely boost morale. If the goblins could only work a little less—”

“This is above your paygrade, Stub-toes.”

“B-b-but, you said serving your Majesty was to be my greatest and only reward. If the goblins could only—”

“Keep your mouth shut, Stub-toes. Now go get Rip-funny, Buck-rat, Who-runs, Meat-fist, Canker-wort, Fly-booger, Needle-nose, Wiggle-chin, and Flea-pincher.”

Stub-toes bowed in a way that put a hunch in his back. His arms hung before him like they were useless. “Yes, my king.”

While he fetched my Captains, I walked a few laps around my couches. After a knock on the deckhouse door, they came in chortling, chuckling, bumping into each other, elbowing their way through, picking noses, and itching under their ear-pits. I was so livid, I walked right up to a porthole, extended my monoscope, and put Barnacle-eyes’ fleet right in its bullseye.

Her goblins were cavorting in the jungles with the giant vines and giant flowers. It seemed that the jungle was coming alive, but that was only because her goblins were green, green-yellow, and dark green. The scent of smoked meat had come with my Captains and Stub-toes, and it lingered in the air. I could see—actually see!—the smoke drifting off Barnacle-eyes' Hand-O’war. And who gave her such a big ship anyways? Bellies rumbled behind me.

“Tell me, my superior Captains, what do you see?”

Flea-pincher hopped across the room in one bound, and picked the monoscope right out of my hand. He put his eye on the end and aimed.

“I see…some ships. Sturdy ships. One of ‘em’s even bigger than an orc ship. I see goblins. They’re eating something… Cheese! I see cheese! Melty, gooey cheese! And they’re shriveling their noses at the cheese! Must be really stinky.”

Rip-funny tore the monoscope from Flea-pincher. “Give me that! I see the cheese! So much cheese! And I see meat, too! I see…I see… Wow…oh wow… There’s giant garlic and giant onions! And they’re as big as mighty Tub-blubber!”

Fly-Booger snatched the monoscope and closed one eye. “Impossible! Lemme have a look.” Drool lengthened from the corner of his mouth. With a slurp, the line of drool ascended in the blink of an eye. “Holy Bite-tongue!”

Fly-Booger was having so much trouble, that Stub-toes stepped in to help him aim.

“I heard they ran into the legendary lime smack,” said Fly-booger. “But I don’t see any on board. Do you think they’ll bring us any? They couldn’t have eaten through so much already.”

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“Don’t believe anything you hear, Fly-booger,” I said. “Of course they’re not going to share any with us. They’re selfish! And selfish goblins don’t like to share. You know what that means? They’re taking your well deserved lime smack from you! Imagine that, goblins letting their superiors starve to death. Makes me sick.”

Who-runs shouldered Fly-booger from the monoscope and fisted an eye to the end. Stub-toes became the holder and aimer.

“Why aren’t they bailing?” said Who-runs. “Most of them are sleeping! How aren’t they sinking? They better get back to work fast!”

My Captains grumbled about that. They crowded the porthole and peered out at sea. They were so confounded by the lack of bailing. It wasn’t until then that I realized that Barnacle-eyes had anchored for several days without bailing a single drop. Stub-toes was the most confounded and he tried to peer through the monoscope.

Not on my watch. “Quit hogging the monoscope, Stub-toes! Let Buck-rat have a see-through!”

“Yes, my king,” uttered Stub-toes.

“Pretty colors,” said Buck-rat. “Wait, is that beer? They’re allowed to just drink, and not work at the same time? Why-come we aren’t allowed to do that!”

“I want a turn!” said Needle-nose.

Needle-nose elbowed Buck-rat off of the monoscope. After attempting a look-through, he smudged the lens. Stub-toes ran his tongue across the lens, and then wiped it on his apron until it sparkled in a shaft of sun. Needle-nose propped the end of the monoscope on one cheek.

“If they don’t need to bail, then they don’t need to work,” he said. “If they don’t need to work, then they probably don't need to bail. And that means all there’s left to do is eat and sleep. It sounds like paradise to me.”

“What did you just say, you little snot?” I said.

“I heard that the Admiral has been hiring goblins all over the world,” said Wiggle-chin. “Is that why they're here? To hire our goblins?”

“King Gloom-glower’s goblins,” said Stub-toes. That was a very important correction, and I’m glad somebody made it, even if it was Stub-toes.

“Stub-toes, I told you to shut it!” I said. I cleared my throat. “You mean my goblins, right Wiggle-chin?”

“I said exactly what I meant to say! I said Gloom-glower’s goblins.”

“Hey,” said Canker-wort. “I haven’t used the monoscope yet! Give it!”

As Canker-wort peered through the monoscope while Stub-toes aimed, I felt my blood boil anew. How dare she have a bigger ship than me! But I wasn’t jealous of Barnacle-eyes, was I? Yes, I was jealous. How could this be? Sailing all over the world? Didn’t she have to manage her mutiny? Why didn’t she need to bail? If she were a true freebooter goblin, why wasn’t her crew bailing?

“I think I know what’s going on here,” I said.

“Me…too?” said Fly-booger.

“I think this is all Slime-tooth’s fault.”

“Yeah, I bet you’re right! It’s always his fault!” said Meat-fist.

It did my heart good to see that every one of my Captains agreed.

“Remember when Ooze-Squeeze’s ship sank?” said Rip-funny. We all nodded. “I heard they needed just one more goblin to help bail. Just one more… If that good-for-nothing Slime-tooth had helped, it would still be floating.”

“Sabotage?” said Fly-booger.

Did he say sabotage? I hated the word! It was way too close to the word mutiny. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! You think you can get away with doing something that would displease the gods? No goblin on my fleet has ever or will ever sabotage anything! Not when I’ve been blessed by Peg-tooth himself. But I’m right, everyone. It’s gotta be Slime-tooth’s fault. And he never learns his lesson, does he? I’ll have to take a stern hand with him the next time I play teacher.”

“What a traitor!” said Fly-booger.

Traitor was also a word that was too close to mutiny. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let’s not throw around any more blasphemy! There are no traitors on my fleet. Nor will there ever be. Every single goblin in my fleet is a happy goblin. Right?”

What the hell was going on? Why were my goblins averting their gazes all of a sudden? Why were they fidgeting? They needed to get their fingers out of their noses, and they needed to do that immediately.

“Am I right, snots?”

They nodded, though I thought they did it solemnly.

After a final peek, I collapsed my monoscope and tossed it. Stub-toes gasped and dove for it. He caught it, and he tumbled head over heels across the room.

“Get a hold of yourself, Stub-toes! We’re not celebrating with backflips here! We need to do something about Barnacle-eyes. …We need…”

Oh, I didn’t know what we needed to do! While I made another loop around the couches, Stub-toes took it upon himself—without my permission!—to peer through the monoscope.

He peered and peered, until finally— “My king! I spy a blue sloop rat!”

I stopped my pacing. “I just came up with an idea. A spy! Let’s send a spy! Stub-toes, stop fiddling around and go fetch Shifty-looks!”