by Jess Rinker
“Can I see Grandpa’s poem again?” I ask Frankie. She hands it over.
And remember what I’ve said of thee:
Strength together, a cord of three.
“‘Cord of three,’” I say, and look at Frankie.
“What about it?”
“That’s us, the three of us. He used to say we were stronger when we worked together instead of when we fought, remember?”
“Yes, but I don’t get it.”
“The number three means something.” I tap at the paper. “But I don’t know what.”
“This is like all those silly riddles he used to say,” Jolene says as she hangs upside down from one of the smaller tree branches. “I couldn’t ever figure them out either.”
I keep trying things but the letters don’t make sense. There’re too many consonants, not enough vowels, like Frankie said. I think, What if this code is too hard for me? What if Grandpa was wrong thinking I’m smart enough to crack it?
Cord of three.
And then I’ve got it. “Cord of three!” I shout, then lower my voice. “Code of three. Grandpa had a code of three. It shifts the alphabet over three letters.”
“Huh?” Frankie asks. I love when I know something she doesn’t. It doesn’t happen very often. But Frankie was never as into puzzles as I was.
“Watch.” I write down the entire alphabet and show them how they translate.
A=D
B=E
C=F
D=G
E=H
F=I
G=J
H=K
I=L
J=M
K=N
L=O
M=P
N=Q
O=R
P=S
Q=T
R=U
S=V
T=W
U=X
V=Y
W=Z
X=A
Y=B
Z=C
I figure out all the real letters and write them in new groups.
O: TNAAHCW
C: HLDYOOU
R: NURIYO
A: GDTHINAHR
C: NTBOUT
O: IYRUNO
K: EOYLFTUR
E: BLEWTLEFO
“That’s still a jumbled mess,” Frankie says.
“I know, but now at least we have the right letters.” It takes a lot longer than the poem, but this time Frankie and Jolene help. We try forming all kinds of words, writing down all the combinations we come up with.
“All I get is ‘button,’” Frankie says. “I can’t do this.”
Nothing seems to go together until suddenly I form “left elbow” from the last group of letters.
“Left elbow?” Jolene says. “This is all too confusing.”
Frankie starts twirling her hair.
“Stop,” I say. “You’re going to pull your hair out again. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking exactly what Jolene was thinking a little while ago.”
“That you’re hungry?” Jolene’s eyes light up. She’s so ready to go home.
“No. About the riddles Grandpa used to tell us. Think, Savvy. Like he says in the poem—stories and puzzles we grew up with.”
“Oh!” I say. “ELBOW! Frankie, you’re a genius!”
Frankie smiles and shrugs.
“I don’t get it!” Jolene says.
“Watch.” I arrange all the letters in each group until I have the entire riddle written out on the paper.
What can you hold in your right hand but not in your left? Your left elbow.
“That was the answer to that riddle?” Jolene says. “I can’t believe I never figured that out!”
“Yeah, but now what?” I ask, losing all my excitement from before. “‘Your left elbow’ doesn’t make any sense at all. How does the riddle help us find the treasure?”
“I’m not sure yet, but Grandpa knew we’d get this far. He knew you’d be able to figure out the poem and find this code, Sav,” Frankie says. “And this clue is clearly only for us because he used to tell us that silly joke all the time. But how it’s all connected…” Frankie shakes her head. “I just don’t know.”
“Grandpa wasn’t keeping it so easy after all,” Jolene says.
“No, he wasn’t,” I say.
“Grandpa wasn’t keeping what so easy?” Peter asks, suddenly appearing next to us with Ryan, Kate, and LouAnn.
“Peter!” I cover the paper I’m working on.
Mortified, Frankie folds over the map and puts her head down. “This is so embarrassing,” she whispers to the table.
When none of us know what else to say, Peter continues, “What’s that map of?”
“Jolene!” I yell. She was supposed to be watching for other pirates. Peter is worse than a pirate. And Peter plus Ryan and Kate and LouAnn is the ultimate worst!
“None of your beeswax!” Jolene says to Peter. She’s flipped herself upright now and has her arms crossed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a good lookout, me hearties,” she says to us, her bottom lip starting to stick out.
“It’s okay, Jolene,” Frankie says, finally looking up from the map. She doesn’t make eye contact with anyone except Jolene. I don’t understand why she’s so embarrassed. “We were all focused on what we were doing. It’s not your fault.” She gives me the big-sister look of death.
“How’s it my fault?”
“Savannah, you’re exhausting.” She starts packing up all our things.
Peter sits on the table right next to me and asks us again what we’re doing.
“Boring things,” I say.
“Funny,” he says. “I was just teasing you. Come on, seriously. What are you doing?”
“I thought you were going to go find Colin,” I say.
“He was busy and I found them instead,” Peter says.
“We thought we could hang out,” Kate says. “Since we’re all here and…”
“It’s not a great time,” I say, but half regret it because part of me would like to hang out with Kate if she wants to be friends again. Peter slips the map out from under the other papers and unfolds it.
“Hey!” I scramble up after him, but it’s too late.
“What is this?” he asks. The other three look over his shoulder. “This is really cool. Is it one of Grandpa’s?”
None of us speak. Frankie still won’t look at Ryan. Or anyone, for that matter.
“Come on, guys. Let’s head to the beach,” Ryan says, shaking his floppy hair. “Frankie, you can join later when you’re done. You too, Sav, if you want.”
“What about me?” Jolene asks.
I smack her arm and tell her she’s too little anyway.
“Oh my gosh, she’s so cute with the eye patch,” LouAnn says. She and Kate say goodbye and leave back down the trail with Ryan. Frankie looks like she can breathe again and stops shoving things in her backpack.
“I’ll be right there,” Peter says. After they’re out of sight, he asks us again what the map is for.
This time I decide to tell him the truth. It’s not like any of our parents would even care if Peter tattle-taled that we were looking at one of Grandpa’s maps, especially one that involved Blackbeard, because they don’t believe Blackbeard had a treasure. “We’re trying to find Blackbeard’s buried treasure.”
Peter looks at all three of us like he’s trying to figure out if we’re tricking him again. I guess we do trick him a lot. But when none of us smile, he cracks up laughing. “You’re serious?”
“Yes, we’re serious,” I say. “Grandpa was serious. Why shouldn’t we be?”
Still laughing, Peter says, “Because everyone knows there is no treasure. Nothing has ever been found. It’s all a fake legend.” He jumps down from the table and dusts off his shorts. “Blackbeard was crazy, and, I hate to say it, but so was Grandpa. Don’t you know that? Don’t your parents tell you anything?”
We look at him blankly. None of us know what to say. Not even me.
“G
randpa. Was not. Crazy.” Jolene glares at him with her one eye, serious as ever.
“Yes, he was. At the end. My dad said so. I would never talk bad about him like some others do. Grandpa was always the nicest man, but he had some kind of memory problem. He didn’t know the difference between real and make-believe. Especially not in the last few months.”
“You’re a liar, Peter Dare!” Jolene screams, and jumps out of the tree to chase him down. I grab her by the shoulders and stop her. We all know Peter never lies.
“You better go home,” Frankie tells Peter.
“I’m sorry,” Peter says, actually looking very sorry now that he’s upset Jolene so much. “I thought you knew that. I thought all the cousins knew that. He was a good storyteller, though. I can understand why you thought everything about Blackbeard was true.”
“Just go home, Peter,” Frankie says again. “We don’t need you here to make fun.”
“I’m not. I promise. I thought you knew,” Peter says as he stumbles back from us. “I always say the wrong thing. I’m sorry.”
We watch him walk away before any of us says anything. I think my ribs are going to crack with how hard I’m breathing. I sit down at the table and put my head on the map. We knew Grandpa had memory problems, especially this last summer, but Mom and Dad never acted like it was a big deal. They said lots of older people have memory problems.
No one ever said he didn’t know the difference between real and make-believe.
“Tell me it’s not true, Frankie,” I say, hoping she can’t hear my voice shaking.
“I don’t know,” Frankie says.
And that’s bad because Frankie might not know codes, but she knows everything else.
10
Cleaning Out the Captain’s Quarters
“Did you have a nice time with Mrs. Taylor?” Mom asks when we come through the door. She’s sitting at the dining table sorting piles of old books and notepads. Mom is often organizing things like this because she studies languages and gives talks on stuff like how important the letter “Q” is. When I think about it, maybe that’s where I get my superdecoding ability. I’ll have to talk to her about that one, but for right now, she must be able to tell we didn’t have a nice time because she stops what she’s doing and asks if everything is okay. “Frankie? You look angry.”
“Everything’s fine,” Frankie says, and looks at me like she’s warning me not to tell Mom what we were doing. Jolene seems uncertain too.
“What’s all that?” I ask Mom.
“Oh, just some of Grandpa’s notebooks and sketches from one of the old trunks,” she says. She gently sets down the old book in her hand and looks at us with a little frown.
“Are you throwing these away?” I ask, stepping up to the table and lifting a few things. I can see Grandpa’s work on everything, diagrams of ships, half-finished maps, pages and pages of his loopy handwriting.
“No, not yet, Savvy. I’m simply organizing. There were three or four trunks filled with paper. I’ve gotten it down to this. Trying to figure out what’s important.”
“It’s all important!” Jolene says.
“It does seem that way, doesn’t it?” Mom says, looking at the huge pile in front of her. Frankie and Jolene each pick a chair next to her as she pages through a leather journal. “These aren’t things that people will want to buy, I don’t think. I’m not sure how to decide.”
“It’s easy,” I say from across the table. “We keep it all.”
Jolene rests her head on Mom’s shoulder as Mom talks. “In a perfect world, that’s exactly what I would do. I’d keep it for as long as I could, until you girls were old enough to sort through it yourselves. But we don’t have that much time, so tough decisions have to be made now.”
“Why don’t we have time?” I ask.
Mom clears her throat and goes back to sorting. “I only meant the quicker the better.”
The portrait of Grandpa is on the wall right behind Mom’s head. I keep looking at it, wishing he’d give me one of his funny expressions, or maybe climb right out and tell Mom she’s making a huge mistake.
“Mom,” Frankie asks, pulling me out of my daydream. “Did Grandpa, um, was he…?” She can’t figure out how to ask the question in a polite way.
“Frances wants to know if Grandpa was crazy,” I say, crossing my arms.
Mom looks at all three of us, concerned. “Of course not. And I don’t like that word. He was, well, he was eccentric, but he most certainly was not crazy.”
“What’s ‘centric’?” Jolene asks.
“It means he was a little weird,” Frankie tells her.
“He was not!” I say, slapping my hand on the table. Mom covers it with hers.
“Calm down, loudmouth,” Frankie says. “I didn’t mean bad weird. I meant different weird. Even Grandpa said he was weird!”
“‘Crazy’ and ‘weird’ might not be the best words to use,” Mom says, glancing at me. She knows how much I hate it when kids say that to me. “Girls, your grandfather was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. And very smart people sometimes look at the world a little bit differently than others, which sometimes makes other people think they are weird. Cornelius Franklin Dare was none of those things. He was certainly not crazy. He was kind, gentle, and an amazing storyteller. But you all know this. You lived with your grandfather your entire lives. So what makes you ask that, Frankie?”
Frankie shrugs. “People say stuff.”
“Then you let people say stuff,” Mom says. “You’re named after one of the most amazing people this town has ever known.” She rubs Frankie’s cheek, which makes my sister smile. I wish I had been given Grandpa’s middle name. I’d appreciate it way more than Frankie.
“So, if he wasn’t cra … what Peter said he was, then he was right,” I say. “About stuff like buried treasure.”
“Peter said this?” Mom tilts her head a little bit. “Savvy, there’s a big difference between what people say and being fanciful. Your grandpa loved to tell you girls ghost stories, and give you puzzles and games to figure out. But that doesn’t mean every single thing he told you was true. Does that make sense?”
“But he spent his whole life trying to find Blackbeard’s treasure,” I say.
“Exactly,” Mom says. “And he never found it.”
“Because it’s still out there!”
Mom sighs. “I don’t know that it is, sweetheart. Most shipwrecks and artifacts your grandfather searched for, he found, but not all. His work was often collaborative with other historians, based on logic, science, and history. Until he got swept up in this Blackbeard thing.”
“But don’t you think if anyone knew the truth it would have been Grandpa?” I ask.
“Almost all experts agree there is no treasure,” Mom says. “But your grandpa wouldn’t accept that. I don’t know if you girls know this, but he gave up his job for it. Left his business partner, decided to move here. And because of his dementia, eventually his memory and ability to make sense of things was not what it used to be, so he was on a quest that was forever changing. I wouldn’t take it as far as what Peter told you. Uncle Randy and Aunt Della have different ideas about these matters. Regardless, Grandpa never found anything.”
“Blackbeard was very crafty,” Jolene says.
“Perhaps,” Mom says, scratching the top of Jolene’s head. “I don’t mean to ruin your fun, girls. I know you love and miss your grandpa and this is a wonderful way to keep him close to you. There’s no harm in believing in a little magic, but I want you to understand the reality of it all.” She looks at the pile and sighs. “I think I’ll let your father do this part. I’m going to go start on the closets.”
“I’ll help,” Jolene says, and she takes Mom’s hand as they leave the room and head upstairs.
Frankie and I stare at the pile.
“Do you think she knows what we’re doing?” I ask Frankie.
“No. She’d have said something about the map if she knew. Wh
at are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we need to sort through this pile,” I whisper. “There’s probably a lot of important information in here about where the treasure is.”
“Did you listen at all to what Mom just said?”
“Of course I did.”
“You don’t believe her? That Grandpa’s illness made him obsess over something that wasn’t true?”
“No.”
We look at each other for a few seconds and then Frankie says, “Me either.” But I don’t think she’s telling me the whole truth.
We page through books and examine maps without really knowing what we’re looking for. Everything is dated, but we have no idea what is what and if it even has to do with our island or some other place Grandpa explored. But then I find a journal that’s only about ten years old and labeled OCRACOKE BOTANICALS. When I flip through it there’s page after page of hand-drawn trees, leaves, and flowers. It doesn’t seem like something Grandpa would usually do. “Look at this, Frankie.”
She takes the book from me and flips through it. “Wow, he was such a good artist.”
“Why was he drawing all those trees and plants?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Maybe he was studying them? He wrote down their scientific names.” She points out one. “These are all Latin. We learned about it in science.”
“Mom knows Latin,” I say, but shrug it off. We can’t ask her anything. Not that it matters. We’re not looking for a plant. We’re looking for gold. I toss the book back on the table. If Grandpa wanted us to find the treasure, why would he have made this so hard?
Dad walks in and asks us how we’re doing. He looks down at the table and says, “Oh, wow, look at the treasures you found.”
“Mom got them out,” Frankie says. “She’s trying to sort through and pick out the important stuff but decided to let you do it.”
Dad kind of waves at it. “Tell you what, do you want any of it?”
Frankie and I both nod.
“Go ahead and pick three favorite things each. Let Jolene do the same. The rest is going to be boxed up tonight and donated to the museum and Mrs. Taylor can decide if it’s worth keeping.” Then he heads into the kitchen and it sounds like he’s putting dishes away between sniffles.
Frankie and I spend the next several minutes trying to decide what we want. I realize how hard it had to have been for Mom. I end up keeping a big sketchbook of maps of North Carolina, a huge rolled-up star chart, and a puzzle book like the ones Grandpa used to give me in church, only this one he was making himself and never finished. Frankie keeps a journal about one of Grandpa’s shipwreck searches, a dive log, and a diving lexicon, which is basically a dictionary about scuba diving in the ocean. She loves swimming, so that makes sense even though I think it’s kind of a boring choice.