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recovered, they told him what had happened and revealed that the pirates were all safely tied or locked up on the ship next door.
    “Well done,” said Captain Foster. “Now all we have to do is to sail back to the island and tell them that all is well.”
    The last leg of the journey was not difficult. Hermione went on board the popcorn ship and Lucy and Sam stayed on the pirate ship. Biscuit, of course, stayed with his master, and kept a very close eye on him.
    They sailed through the afternoon, and into the night. During the night, Lucy and Hermione flashed messages through the darkness to one another. This was very useful, as in this way Captain Foster was able to tell Lucy what to do.
    “Captain Foster says you should pull your foresail in a bit,” flashed Hermione.
    “Aye, aye!” Lucy flashed back.
    And then, when they were nearing the island harbour, and it was still dark, Hermione was able to flash the detailed instructions on how to make their way through the tricky channels that marked the harbour entrance.
    Flash , flash , she signalled, which meant, “Go a little bit to starboard.”
    Or, Double flash , flash , flash , half-flash , which meant, “Captain Foster says you should look out for rocks on the port side.”
    Lucy made no mistakes, and when she finally brought the pirate ship safely into the harbour, Captain Foster and Hermione let out a great cheer from the popcornship. Then they tied up their boats, and stepped out on to dry land.
    “We’re home,” said Lucy. “I can hardly believe it, but we’ve made it.”

    That morning, the news of what had happened spread round the island within minutes of sunrise. It also spread to the smaller islands, and soon people were flocking across by boat to see the captured pirate ship.
    The children were terribly tired, but they were determined not to go to sleep just yet, and so they stayed down at the harbour to give their statements to the island policeman and to watch the pirates being arrested.
    The pirates made a sorry spectacle. All of them, except for Ed, were covered in bits of popcorn and looked thoroughly miserable. The island policeman looked at them sternly, wrote their names in his notebook, and then put handcuffs on them to prevent them from running away.
    “What will happen to them now?” Lucy asked Captain Foster.
    “They’ll go to jail,” said the Captain. “And they’ll stay there until Christmas. Then, if they promise to give up piracy and take an honest job somewhere, they may be allowed to go free.”
    *
    And I’m happy to say, that is what they did. Every single one of them, including the dreadful Stinger, became very sorry for what they had done, and all of them got honest jobs and became decent citizens. Bert was given a job as captain of a pirate ship in a theme park (not a real pirate ship, of course), and Mrs Bert took a job making hot dogs for the visitors. Bill, Ed, Charlie and Tommy all got jobs in Hollywood as actors in pirate films, and indeed they became quite famous for this. But they never forgot their promise to be good, and in fact they gave quite a lot of money to build a home for old sailors.
    And as for Stinger, well nobody thought he would ever succeed in keeping an honest job for long, but he did. He became a shark scarer at a famous beach. Whenever a shark was sighted getting too close to the swimmers, Stinger would go out in his little boat and then jump into the sea near the shark. At the sight of the dreadful Stinger, with his frightening face and his mean look, the shark would usually turn tail and flee. It was a job that suited Stinger perfectly, as he was always happy when snarling, and snarling at sharks is as snarly a job as anyone can imagine. Of course it was possible that one day he might meet a shark who wasn’t frightened of him, butthen that’s another story, and no job can be perfect in all respects.

    But what about the Popcorn Islands? Well, life there returned to normal, and Captain Foster