Guinea Pigs on the High Seas

Captain Chuffy, of the HMS Parsnip, surveyed the view across his ship, sails fluttering gently in the breeze. He stood up on his hind paws and sniffed the salty air, his round, beady eyes fixed to the West. Somewhere, beyond the sea, somewhere, waiting for him, was a strange new (old) world. The land his forefathers had come from, generations before, was out there. And today, he would leave this green and pleasant shore to set sail for parts unknown.

He’d heard tales from sailors, adventurers, and double-dealing diplomats of the rich golden cities made of corn and mountains of green grasses that reached up the clouds of heaven. (Although Chuffy had never seen such a place — he was born to a loving guinea-sow kept by one of the noblemen at court who’d bought her off a sailor from Bristol). So Chuffy, brave and fearless guinea-boar, that he was, had resolved to explore this brave new world.

Yesterday, he’d bid a last farewell “Wheek” to his beloved Queene ( ‘Bess’ to those privileged to know her as intimately as he did) and scurried off under the red and white rose bushes through a hole in the Royal Garden wall. She’d wept and cried piteously, he knew, but he excused the hurt the parting would cause her by promising to win new lands, contest the Spanish claims, and increase his Queene's renown in the New World.

And today he was finally departing on his very own ship, specially crafted and outfitted by Her Majesty’s Navy for the Queene’s own 10th birthday celebration. How proudly she’d looked at him when he’d crept up on the ship’s mast to the crow’s nest and then down again to the deck— one would think Chuffy had been a sailor all his life! And as the ship went round and round the pond at the center of the Royal Palace garden, how all the other courtier children had clapped and cheered as Chuffy wheeked at them as stood at the railing!

The Parsnip was a good, steady ship, that was not to be denied. And she’d need to be: the waters between him and the fabled new (old) world, were teeming with Spanish treasure gallons, and the Spanish war ships and Pie-Rat ships that followed them. Chuffy would need to keep his wits about him at all times. Terrible storms were aways possible, so he had heard, even during the better times of the year for making the passage.

He knew he might be lost at sea, or captured and eaten by savage tribes, but something deep in side him called him there. To find adventure, treasure, and, perhaps, others like himself…

- TO BE CONTINUED (perhaps ?)