Barrie wrote only five words about him
“Cecco, the handsome Italian.” That was the whole of it. Everything else in his story is what a harbour town and a lifetime at sea would have made of a boy who ran away at twelve.
Meet the Characters
The True Story of Cecco
Barrie gave him five words. Here is the rest of it.
Featured on the map at The Jolly Roger
Did you know?
Two gold coins in his ears
One for each of the things he missed. He never said out loud what the two things were, and nobody on the crew was brave enough to ask him.
He played the tin whistle very badly
At night, when the ship was quiet. Nobody had the heart to tell him. He could also go up a rope faster than any man aboard, and come down it laughing.
Would you rather?
So — would you rather be the fastest one up the rope, or the one who plays badly and doesn't care?
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Family reading companion
The True Story of Cecco
A short bedtime version — one screen. Read it aloud together.
Barrie only gave him five words. Cecco, the handsome Italian. That was all. So here is the rest of it.
He came from a fishing town where the boats were painted like sweets, and he ran away to sea at twelve, and he never once wrote home.
He wore two gold coins in his ears, one for each of the things he missed. He could go up a rope faster than any man on the crew, and come down it laughing.
At night, when the ship was quiet, he played a little tin whistle very badly indeed, and nobody had the heart to tell him.
He was a pirate, and that is not a good thing to be. But he was also a boy from a harbour town, a very long way from the sea he grew up on.
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