The Pirate Uncle

by Margaret Mahy

Published 1 September 1977
Uncle Ludovic has a great black beard and claims to be a pirate. One summer Caroline and Nicholas spend a wonderful holiday with him. Uncle Ludovic does some very piratical things, but Caroline hits on a sure way to reform him.


Relates the tangled events that lead the students of the Unexpected School on Hurricane Peak to foil the wicked Sir Quincey and his accomplices and to solve several mysteries.

In the first of these two short stories, Bassington, a rich little boy who has never had a birthday, decides to steal one from Mrs. Herringbone and Joanna Joy. In the second story, headmistress Tatiana Taffeta seeks an affluent farmer's hand in marriage.

A high-spirited story about two tyrannical robots who wreak havoc in two very different families.