Here is my sister's entry for the contest. I poosted it straight from her email without reading it, so that I may have the pleasure of reading my own blog and not knowing what it says:

Once upon a time in Mexico, a gang of pirates happened upon a little forgotten pueblo called Comoapan. They had landed in the port of Veracruz and found themselves near booty-less, and bored. They tried some general plundering with the ships in the bustling port but the people of Veracruz responded by loading up the cannons at Fort San Juan de Ulua and just letting ‘em go until they hit the pirate’s ship and sunk it. With the last of the booty, the pirates jumped on their lifesaving rafts which they had stolen after the Titanic scare and headed south along the coastline until they felt they were out of danger.
Exhausted, thirsty and hungry after such an arduous journey, they laid down their paddles and surveyed their surroundings. Looked good to them, lush and green as far as the eye could see. Looking forward to a good meal and better drink, they stepped into the first cantina they saw. But Mexicans are nobody’s fool. Seaside dwelling poblanos weren’t about to let obvious pirates wreak havoc in their town. So they told the piratas to head to the town down the road, Pijijiapan, just 15 kilometres, nice little place, they’d love it.

Resignedly the pirates set off. But as one would expect, this was the kind of treatment they received in Pijijiapan, and Paso del Toro, and Chuniapan, etc. It wasn’t until they got about 100 kilometres from the coast that people stopped loooking askance. Well, to be honest, they still looked a little askance but that was for the eye patches, the dirty clothes and the rather offensive odour. Just some dirty extranjeros obviously, and hey if they want to spend their money in my cantina who am I to refuse?

Thus the pirates hung some hammocks in the two-tiered gazebo in Comoapan's park while they fattened themselves up a bit and decided on a plan of action. They were down to their last gold coins and since they knew the pinche Spaniards had ruined any honest pirate’s chance of some good pillaging they were a little stumped. They admired the industrious nature of the cheerful Comoapanians but were fairly sure they wouldn’t have the patience to sell coconuts at a peso per until they restocked the booty chest. Everyone in the region lived simply at best and in dire poverty at worst so there didn’t seem to be any viable targets for housebreaking or simple muggings. Besides, they kinda liked the smiling little Mexicanos. By this time they were routinely being invited to Doña Carmela’s house for lunch and Doña Alicia’s place for supper. Very hospitable, truth be told.

Then one day their luck changed. Two of the eight pirates were drinking Coronitas (little half bottles of Corona, by this time they were all the purse would stretch to) at Natcho’s Bar. They had tended to Natcho’s because it was a bar rather than a cantina and so didn’t employ the typical señoritas. Not that they had anything against señoritas, mind you, but they were a little worn out from the wenching they’d done when they arrived and as previously mentioned, the coffers were dangerously low.

Thus One-Eyed Wally and his best buddy George were sipping a little shame-facedly at their diminutive cervezas, and pondering as ever their dilemma.

“We could...” Started George.

“There’s always...” Returned One-Eyed Wally.

Giving up, they sipped in silence and batted at mosquitoes.

Then Francisco Rene and Marcos arrived with Heliodoro, Paco and Pepe. These were the guys who had gone most out of their way to befriend the pirates. They were generous with the Corona (and they bought the big ones, Caguamas, which litre bottles fit a lot better into the pirates’ meaty hands) and they liked to tell funny stories. So it was with glee that Wally and George gestured them to sit down.

“Qué tal Wally de Un Ojo? Qué ondas Jorge?”

The pirates by now were used to their Spanish names and had picked up a surprising amount of the language during their 7 weeks in the village. Just because pirates don’t generally go to school doesn’t mean they’re not interested in self-improvement. Besides, they liked the romantic sound and were dying to be able to sing the love songs, which continually brought them to tears after a few too many cervezas. There was this troubador named Chacho who played for his cousins Heliodoro, Marcos and Pepe whenever he blew through town. His voice was like nothing the pirates had ever heard, and they were hoping to learn his sweet melodies of undying devotion so that they'd be able to bring the tradition of the serenade to their homeland when they retired from pirateering. But Don Juan (Doña Carmela's husband) always requested one that basically said "I don't care if they call me a womanizer, I love them all." It sounded a lot better in Spanish obviously, but the pirates still thought it was in rather poor taste and secretly felt kind of sorry for the sweet Doña Carmela.

The pirates listened avidly as their gang of friends told countless stories and jokes. It was nearing sunrise when one of the guys brought up the duendes.

"Duendes? What are duendes?" This from George.

The Mexican gang took great pleasure in telling the pirates about the dirty little zombie children who only come out at night. They dress in rags, if at all, and like to kidnap people and rough them up. They bribed poor Don Emilio with a shot of tequila in his wayward youth and no one saw hide nor hair of him for four days. When he finally appeared he was naked, and covered in bruises and scrapes. Then there were stories like that of poor Don Cleto, who, back when he still had both legs, was behind his house using the facilities when a duende appeared. Of course Cleto was terrified and started shrieking. This annoyed the duende, who scratched the hapless man to shreds. All of Comoapan still remembered the sight of the man screaming like a girl and trying to run with his pants around his ankles.

It was rumoured, said Francisco Rene, that the duendes lived in the graveyard and there kept hidden a large stash of gold and jewels that not even the Spaniards had been able to wrest from them. No one really liked to mess with the undead little buggers. It was just a rumour really but the muchachos all seemed to believe in its validity. Every time valuables went missing from someone's house the duendes were blamed - the general consensus was that they had been adding to their collection for too many years to count.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" George asked his oldest friend.

Wally and George thanked their amigos for the Caguamas and hurried to tell the others. Irish Bill told them that the Cap'n was pressing tortillas, while the rest were still sleeping. They rushed to get the Cap'n and wake the others up, and excitedly told the group what they had discovered.

They set up camp in the graveyard that very night. It was an overgrown, unkempt place of riotous colours and ostentatious imitation cathedral-style grave markers alongside simple white crosses. And there were flowers everywhere, real and artificial, in vases in front of and beside the graves. All this was easily visible in the light of the full moon. A couple of the pirates shivered a little apprehensively and tried to blame it on the chilly night.

Waiting in relative silence for nearly two hours, they started to feel restless and wondered if all the night would net them was bug bites and sore asses. Suddenly Irish Bill felt a light smack to the back of his head and an mocking little voice said, "Waiting for us, puto?"

The pirates jumped up at once.

"Who you calling puto?" yelled Bill.

A gang of perhaps seven ragged little urchins were standing and looking up at the pirates. Their faces were very dark and the whites of their eyes were very, very white in the silvery moonlight. They were tiny, with the youngest looking about 3 and the eldest being no older than 8.

The one who had insulted Bill rattled off something in Spanish too quick for the pirates to understand. Perhaps he was explaining his motives for belittling Bill or perhaps he was addressing the rest of them in like kind. They couldn't know.

"Cap'n," said One-Punch Willy (he had come to the band much later than Wally but he wasn't about to change his nickname, he had earned his fame of knocking people out with one blow), "Cap'n, these are just mini little kids."

"Oro?" asked George hopefully. "Donde está el oro? We no kill if we get oro."

The urchins laughed. The pirates heard mutterings of gringos estupidos, and could feel the duendes' scorn. That did it, since this particular band was known for its toughness and didn't let anybody laugh at them, no matter how short.

Out came the swords and the swashbuckling began. Only... where did they go?

"Hey... ouch.... what????" One-Eyed Wally looked down at the blood on his hand in bewilderment. His face was bleeding profusely from an open wound down his cheek.

Irish Bill looked to be suffering the same affliction, whereas the Cap'n and George were mopping at long scratches down their torsos and legs.

One-Punch seemed to be doing a bit better, he had one of the niños by the throat and was winding up to deliver the fabled one punch. But before he could, the child hissed and with a twist used his teeth and nails on poor Willy until the pirate was forced to drop the duende amidst howls of pain.

And thus continued the fight until the pirates had no choice but to make a break for it. They ran as if the hounds of hell were on their heels, tripping on their own feet as they checked to see if the duendes were behind them. When finally they didn't see the zombie children anymore, they started to slow, then realized their mistake when they were attacked with a rain of mangoes and oranges from the trees lining the street.

The pirates began to stir at the first peal of the churchbell calling the people to morning mass. Confusedly they looked down and around, they were naked and lying in a heap in the middle of the park. What seemed to be half of the town's population (at least), was standing around, staring and laughing. Comments could be heard about men who love other men and to make matters worse, the flota had suddenly appeared (more likely on their way home from the cantina then on their way to mass), and their hoots of laughter were the loudest of all.

"You went after the duendes didn't you, you bunch of pendejos?" Paco was doubled over with laughter at the sight of the, as he termed them, dumbass pirates.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Wally mumbled defensively.

Heliodoro rounded them up and hustled them off to his house. Being a third year medical student he was the closest thing Comoapan had to a doctor, while his sister Marianela was the town's curandera, healer, although the pirates had heard that she also dabbled in the black arts of witchcraft. There were plenty of witches in the area, strangely enough.

While their wounds were being cleaned and dressed the pirates bemoaned their fate. They still couldn't understand what had happened.

"We got our asses kicked by a bunch of kids!" One-Punch Willy was humiliated.

"Kids with the strength of 10 men!" From Irish Bill, who tended to embroider stories.

"Hmm..." Said the rest a little dubiously.

But the Heliodoro, his sisters, and the rest of the family sat down to talk to them and insisted that the pirates had indeed been vanquished by forces beyond human comprehension. One didn't interfere with the duendes, and the pirates were fortunate that they had escaped with no more than a few gouged body parts.

Presently the band of buccaneers noticed that their eyes were itching and irritated. They gawked at each other when they realized that all of them had dreadfully red eyes.

"Ojos rojos! Ojos rojos!" Yelled the children of the house. They started screaming about the duendes and demons and that the pirates had joined the ranks of the undead.

"Let me take a look." Said Heliodoro calmly, gesturing for his niece and nephew to stop their caterwauling.

He inspected the Cap'n's eye for a minute or so and started laughing.

"You really are pendejos. You went and got yourselves infected with conjunctivitis! That's pink-eye to you gringos. What did you think was going to happen if you sat around in a graveyard all night? All that stagnant water - you're lucky you didn't get typhoid!" Helio shook his head, still chuckling, and went for some antibiotics.

A few days passed while the pirates recuperated from their injured bodies but not their injured pride. Poor One-Eyed Wally had it the worst of all because, owing to the pink-eye, he had had to remove his eye-patch, and the world learned his shameful secret. He was the embarrassed owner of two perfectly functioning eyes.

"Well, it's just that pirates always seemed so much tougher with a patch." He shrugged and blushed.

The Mexicans weren't the most subtle people and took great delight in ribbing "Wally de dos ojos" endlessly. He looked even stupider because after so many weeks in the Mexican sun, he had a very obvious tan-line where the patch had been and so no one who looked at him could forget his treachery.

"What a fockin' amadon y'are, Wally, ya look like a frickin' eejit." Irish Bill mocked him for hours on end. The pirates had never really been sure what exactly an amadon was but they knew it was a grave insult, and nobody likes to be called an ee- uh, idiot.

Nearing the end of their recuperation the pirates heard tell of a circus in the nearby town of Sihuapan. The younger pirates like One-Punch Willy were dying to go but were still suffering a bit from the fateful night. They heard tales of an oso blanco and were dying to see it. A white bear sounded like an awfully odd thing, and they wouldn't believe it could be until they had seen it with their own eyes.

One day Pepe was visiting and told them that he had heard many rumours from the people of Sihuapan, that the animal was rare and beautiful and that in the city of Mexico there were people who would pay many millions of pesos for something so magnificent.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Wally asked George.

And so it was that the next day the pirates set off from the town of Comoapan, each with a beautiful parrot on his shoulder as a farewell gift from the townspeople. Well, all but One-Punch Willy who, being the most junior of the bunch had to make due with a tiny, but handsome parakeet. The poblanos had only been able to rustle up seven parrots on such short notice.

The gang was off to try their hand with a white bear, whose claws they imagined to be less fearsome than the nails of those awful duendes.