Isle of Dogs

"Mama's all messed up like you two were making out," she delicately offered. "And it's just a good thing Papa can't see what she looks like!"

"She wasn't messed up a minute ago," Andy replied. "She just showed me to the computer and left. And she looked exactly as she did when we were all at the di

"What are you doing in here?" Regina's tiny eyes were bright with suspicion. "I bet you're Trooper Truth, aren't you!"

"What a thing to think," Andy said.

"Prove you're not!"

"It's rather difficult to prove a negative," Andy replied as Regina squeezed her way past him and sat before the keyboard.

She logged on to the Trooper Truth website and made a startled sound when she noticed there was a brand-new essay. She clicked on it immediately.

"See," Andy said. "You tell me. Is it possible Trooper Truth could be off writing a new essay and yet be here with the First Family for a light supper at the same time?"

"Well, I guess you're right," Regina said as she eagerly began to read.

Her story begins with her birth in County Cork, Ireland, on March 8, 1700, the illegitimate daughter of a successful Irish lawyer named William Cormac and his wife's maid, whose name never made it into the records. When the scandalous tryst was revealed, William had no choice but to flee from Ireland with his new family and settle in Charleston, South Carolina, where he no doubt befriended Blackbeard and corrupt politicians. Soon enough, William became a very wealthy merchant and lived on a plantation just outside the city.

Not much is known about A

(Note: I pause here to emphasize to you, the reader, that A

When A

The young couple left Charleston in a huff and sailed off to New Providence in the Bahamas, where A

Many of the rough seamen who became her drinking buddies were ex-pirates and bored. One day, A

"I should have knocked out all her teeth," A

"Yay, ye should have." Pirate Captain Calico Jack nodded in agreement. "Would ye have her all nekkid, including her privities?"

"All nekkid," A

"Yay, 'tis better."

A

Over the next few months, A

A

"If there's a man among ye, ye will come out and fight like the men ye are thought to be!" A

The men below did not answer back, and all were captured and hanged except for the two pregnant pirates, who went to jail. Mary died of a fever inside her tiny damp cell and A

My theory of what became of A

This child, I suspect, was a son, and I believe it is from this cutthroat lineage that one certain governmental official descended. And if the governor is reading this essay, I ask him to think back on all of the times a certain disloyal, despicable individual has given him a sweet that is soon followed by an explosive gastric attack.