The Mystery of Black Bean the Dreaded Pirate (7)

THIS BOX IS PART OF INTERNATIONAL PLANT A MYSTERY BOX DAY

Black Bean The Dreaded Pirate -- A Modern Fairy Tale

Once upon a time in England, a man and his brother were taking part in the family business, smuggling without care, when the authorities began to investigate. One of them, Pop Corn, made immediate plans to move his family to the Caribbean. He tried to persuade his brother to join him, but his brother refused, and was caught and transported.

Time passed, and the children grew. Pop Corn wrote a letter to his brother, and made arrangements for his sweet daughter, Chick Pea, to be married to her cousin. Chick’s older twin brothers agreed to take their sister to her wedding. So Chick Pea boarded her brothers’ pirate boat. She would be quite safe on her wedding journey in the care of Black Bean, the Dreaded Pirate, and his identical twin, White Bean, the Terror of the Seas. They sailed off south across the ocean, down the coast, and around the cape named for a musical instrument, before striking a westerly course past the large reef to the land that lies down, under the rest of the globe.

Their cousin, Limey Bean, met them at the pier, and promptly invited the brothers to stay for the wedding. After the wedding, Black Bean suggested that Chick Pea and Limey Bean might like to come on their trading trip, for a honeymoon journey. Limey Bean and Chick Pea agreed, so they all set off on the next leg of the journey. After a stormy Pacific Passage, they made landfall on the coast. They were exhausted by their journey, and decided to rest for a few days in the same Spanish mission where the swallows rest from their annual journeys.

When they were ready, they jumped into a land yacht and set off down the coast until they came to the border, then made a long run nearly due east, and just a little further south, across the desert. After about four hundred and fifty miles, they came into sight of a small church that reminded them of a white dove, sitting in the desert. When they got closer, they could see that the small mission had never been finished, because one of the bell towers had no dome. While there, they met up with their good friend and blood brother, Anasazi Bean. He and his pinto bean pony often worked as native guides. Anasazi Bean took them to a major trading post about a hundred miles to the north.

While they were at the trading post, the man in charge told them he knew where a great treasure was hidden. Of course, Black Bean the Dreaded Pirate and his twin, White Bean the Terror of the Seas were interested in a great treasure, so they traded with the man and his little yellow chick, and got the clues to the treasure.

He told them to follow the rising sun for twenty miles and two more, until they came to a real peach of a park; a place where the fruit did not cling to its seeds, and even the rocks were without price. They were to enter the park at the intersection of a street named for the Catholic Saint who is the Patroness of the Americas, and a street named for the park itself.

From this intersection’s lovely red, yellow, and green light, they charted an initially southerly course in their land yacht, but the current carried them in a curve, and they found themselves at the place where the park-named street actually intersected with itself. Upon seeing the red octagon, they stopped for a moment, and looked around to make sure nobody was coming, before continuing on, making a turn to port to resume their mostly southerly course.
When this part of the park-named street crossed a street named for a tree that never changes color, they continued straight forward into the park itself, until they could go no further without a turn.

Again they turned to port, and sailed to the far end of the marina before tying up their land yacht in the very last slip on the port side. They sat for a moment or two looking out over the bow of the ship, then climbed out. The figurehead of the ship was pointing directly at a narrow dirt road, so they went down the small hill onto the roadway, and stood between the pair of grates. Black Bean the Dreaded Pirate knew that the “grate-est” times of his life were when he was in the right, because he didn’t like being left behind. Because of this knowledge, he stood with the grater grate on his right, and the lesser grate on his left.
Black Bean referred to the directions the trader had given him, and stepped carefully thirty two steps down the center of the road, and then stopped to look around. Sure enough, the round black thing was half-buried in the gravel to his right. He stepped another thirty two steps down the road, and found he had passed many plants on the right, but only two of them were wide and low-slung evergreeny type bushes, and he was standing right next to the second bush.

Suddenly Limey Bean chased his new wife into the bushes. After listening to the pair of them giggling, Black Bean, White Bean, Anasazi Bean, and Pinto Pony Bean ran into the bush too. Much to their surprise, they found Pop Corn waiting for them there, and they all laid down to take a nap under the bush. Chick Pea and Limey Bean, wanting a little privacy on their honeymoon, found a separate bush to rest under, but they left Black Bean a note telling where they had gone. Anasazi Bean took his Pinto Bean Pony a little further to find their own bush where the pony would have plenty to graze upon, but they left a note with Chick Pea. Our tale ends on a woeful note, for a wicked fairy came along and cast a spell, transforming them into small bits of pink rubber, and if no one has taken them, why, I suppose they are there still.