The Dare Sisters

by Jess Rinker

  “Just stop,” she says. “And don’t worry, Jolene. We will find it.” But she doesn’t sound enthusiastic at all. She sounds faraway, like she gave up a long time ago. Just like Mom.

  “You don’t know that,” Jolene says. “We might not.”

  “Jolene Dare.” I bend down to her and put my hands on her shoulders. I look right in her eyes. “What would Grandpa say about that?”

  “That if you think you can or can’t, you’re right,” Jolene says.

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t get it!” Jolene throws her hands up.

  “It means if you think you can’t find the treasure, you won’t. But if you think you can find the treasure, you will,” I say. “You are captain of yourself.”

  Jolene thinks about this and nods her head. “I’m Captain Jolene.” She turns and leads us down the street toward Ryan. When we reach him, he gives Jolene a high five and smiles at all of us. “You three look like trouble,” he says. He has no idea.

  “I’ll meet you at the beach,” Frankie says, all important sounding. “I have to get my little sisters home first.”

  “You do not,” I say. “We can get ourselves home.”

  Frankie looks at me like she might make me walk the plank.

  “I’ll be out in ten minutes,” she says. Ryan heads in the direction of the beach and we reach our porch without another word.

  When Jolene’s through the front door, I turn to Frankie and say, “We better find it now. You can’t quit.”

  Frankie dumps her skateboard in the sand and heads around the back of the house. I follow her. She looks worried as she talks but she’s also on a mission to find something in the shed. “I’ve been thinking, Sav.” The way she says it makes me realize she’s about to say something I don’t want to hear. I know this voice. “I’ve been thinking about what Mom and Dad said about Grandpa’s games, what Throop said, what everyone says.”

  “What about it?”

  “What if the map really was just for fun?”

  “Even if that was true, that doesn’t explain his letter to us,” I say.

  “It’s possible he was blending real history with fantasy and we’re chasing after nothing.” She yanks our dad’s old surfboard out of a corner and shuts the shed door. “He believed in ghosts.”

  “We believe in ghosts!”

  “No, you do.” She points at me, like she’s blaming me for something. “You’re the one who orchestrates it all. You do all the talking, you’re the one who knows all the codes, you push the Star Board paddle.”

  “I do not!”

  “It’s all make-believe.”

  I follow her back around to the front of the house, shaking my head through her entire theory. “No, no, no, no. It is not made-up! Grandpa didn’t do or say anything to make you think that when he was still here. You’re letting the grown-ups trick you.”

  “Sav, they’re not trying to trick us.” Frankie sighs and hangs her head back a little bit like whatever she’s thinking is too heavy for her shoulders. “It’s just, I don’t want to keep doing this. We don’t have a lot of time left. I don’t want to spend it digging holes in the woods and dressing up and talking like pirates, okay? I want to spend it with my friends.”

  “You mean that boy?”

  Frankie’s cheeks turn pink. “I mean all my friends.” She stands on one side of the fence and I’m on the other. She shuts the gate between us.

  “You’re not allowed to go surfing by yourself.”

  “It’s your turn to cover.”

  “What am I supposed to say?”

  “I don’t know. Make something up. You’re good at that.” She says it like it’s supposed to be a compliment but it feels like an insult. “Thanks, Sav. You’re the best.” Then she runs down the road to meet Ryan.

  Frankie seems like she’s giving up and I don’t know how to convince Frankie not to quit. A pirate would force her to obey, but I’m not that kind of pirate.

  I sit on the porch swing and take Grandpa’s ring off its chain. I open it up into its sphere shape and hold back tears as best I can but I’m so tired, it’s hard. How can she give up?

  A sparrow lands on the porch railing and startles me with its song. It’s a Savannah Sparrow. Grandpa taught me their name on one of our walks on the trails through the scrubby wax myrtle bushes that grow all over the island. “There are a lot of sparrows in this world, but she’s a sand sparrow,” he said. “Hard to spot because they dart in and out of bushes all day.”

  “She’s very cute,” I said.

  “You know, I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to have a bird named after me,” Grandpa pondered. “There’s definitely not a Cornelius bird. I’ve searched far and wide, all over the globe for one.”

  I giggled. “No, you didn’t, Grandpa.”

  “What does it feel like, to have a bird named after you?”

  “It doesn’t feel like anything, I guess.”

  “Well, it should! You and that sparrow share something special.”

  “We do?” I looked up at his blue eyes, still bright and friendly and full of stories. The way I always wanted to remember them.

  “Sure you do. Most people overlook sparrows. There’s so many of them, they all kind of look alike. There are so many other bigger, more colorful birds in the world. But the sparrow is one of the hardest workers around. Especially the Savannah Sparrow, to be able to live at the beach in harsh conditions. The heat, the storms. They have to be bold and strong.”

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Plus, all sparrows are a sign of protection. When you see one on your adventures, you will know someone is watching over you.”

  “Like who? Blackbeard?”

  Grandpa laughed until his face nearly turned purple. Finally he nodded and said, “Yes, actually I do believe Blackbeard watches over everyone who lives on this island.”

  But now, sitting on the porch of the Queen Mary, while I’ll never admit it to Frankie, I’m not entirely sure I believe Grandpa about that anymore. If Blackbeard was watching over us, if anyone was watching over us, why was all of this happening to our family?

  “What do you want?” I ask the little brown bird.

  It hops down the railing away from me, spins and ducks and doesn’t take its eyes off me.

  “Shoo!”

  It chirps at me one more time and flies off to a nearby branch.

  We stare at each other for a long while and I think about Grandpa’s words about protection. He never let me down before, why would I think he would now?

  “I won’t quit, Grandpa,” I whisper to the bird.

  I don’t understand why Frankie would give up. Frankie never gives up. She knows Grandpa wasn’t confused. All of the cool things he found and did throughout his life should be proof enough that he was onto something real and not a pirate fairytale. Although Blackbeard’s legend has a lot of made-up stories, he was still a real pirate, with real ships. And Grandpa believed he had real treasure. I know there’s something Grandpa wants us to find. Something he hid from Throop. Something we have to get to first.

  “I won’t let you down.”

  20

  New First Mate

  “Good to have you back, Savannah,” Mrs. Erickson says on Thursday morning. “I hope you’re feeling better.”

  “Much.” I grin, and take my seat.

  Peter taps my shoulder and whispers, “Faker.”

  “Shut up,” I whisper back.

  “I have to talk to you and Frankie at lunch.”

  I turn in my seat to look at his face. “About what?”

  “It’s about Grandpa. I’ll tell you later. At lunch.”

  Groaning, I turn back around. Whatever he has to say better be worth it and not more lies about Grandpa because now I’m not going to be able to sit still all day wondering. Truth is, I’m so tired from the last three days of digging that sitting still isn’t so hard. In history I almost fall asleep during a movie on ancient Egypt. Kate
pokes me in the ribs to wake me up.

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, do you want to have lunch with us today?” she whispers.

  I freeze inside. I do. So much. But Peter has to talk to me. Why does this have to happen at the same time! “I already promised Peter.”

  “Maybe another day.” She gives me a half-smile and goes back to watching the boring movie, and I’m really afraid I’ve missed my chance to call a parley.

  At lunch, I scan the yard for Peter and find him under a tree away from other kids. He has Grandpa’s walking stick propped up against the trunk. At least he’s taking good care of it. I start across with my bagged lunch and when I pass Frankie, I can tell she’s wondering where I’m going. But I ignore her. She wanted out, so she doesn’t get to hear what Peter has to say.

  “This better be good,” I say as I drop into the sand next to him.

  “I’m having a great day, how about you?” Peter says sarcastically.

  “The last time you had something to say, it wasn’t very nice.” I pick the crust off my peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich and throw it for the squirrels.

  “I was only telling you what my parents said. I wasn’t trying to be mean.”

  “I know. But you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

  “I don’t now.” Peter lowers his voice. “I overheard a conversation a couple days ago. I think you should bring Frankie over.”

  I look up at him and pretend I don’t know anyone named Frankie. “About?”

  Peter looks across the yard at my sister and back at me. “Okay. I guess you can tell her later. It’s about Grandpa and Dunmore Throop. My dad was on the phone with someone, I think someone trying to sell him a fishing boat. He needs a new one and they are too expensive, so he’s been calling around. Anyway, he was talking about how he’s expecting an inheritance from his dad—Grandpa—and that should cover the cost…”

  “That’s it? That’s not a secret.”

  “Give me a second to finish!” Peter takes a huge bite of his sandwich on purpose, smiling at me. I lean back on my hands and wait. And wait.

  “Peter.”

  Still chewing and grinning at me, Peter says, “My dad said the inheritance is in your house.”

  “In my house?” I ask. “Like hidden somewhere? That doesn’t make sense. I thought the house itself was the inheritance.” But then I remember Throop’s sketchbook. Grandpa clearly had things in the house we knew nothing about.

  Peter shrugs. “He also said Dunmore Throop wants a QAR.”

  “I don’t know what that means. Is that code for the thing that’s in the house?”

  Peter shrugs again. I’m getting annoyed. “I don’t know what it means either,” he says. “But look.” He stands up, grabs the walking stick, and lays it down in the sand between us. Rolling it, he then points to some symbols at the base. Carved around the very bottom and winding up the length of the stick are the letters “QAR” repeated over and over. At each end there’s a symbol for a key. The letters are linked together in a way that makes it look only like a pretty design at first glance.

  “I must have examined this thing for hours after the funeral looking at all the patterns,” Peter says. “I was trying to read the languages and wondering if I could learn to carve like this. I thought this was just a cool design until I heard my dad say that. For some reason it just clicked that it was actually the letters ‘QAR.’”

  “I’m more confused than ever.” And worried about Uncle Randy keeping secrets from my parents about our own house or something hidden inside it. Why would he want us to move?

  “I’m really sorry about what I said, because obviously something is going on that Grandpa only trusted you with.” Peter looks down and makes designs in the sand with his fingers. “And I guess that’s because he knew he couldn’t trust my parents.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” I say, even though I’m afraid Peter could be right. “Throop might be fooling your parents. He’s kind of shady, don’t you think?”

  “Super shady.”

  “Who’s super shady?” a little voice says. Jolene. She holds her eye patch up so she can see us better.

  “No one,” I say. “Go play.” She walks away with drooping shoulders.

  Now I’m the one keeping all the secrets.

  Grandpa had one of Throop’s books.

  Uncle Randy wants something in my house.

  Throop wants a QAR. Whatever the heck that is.

  Pretty soon I’m going to need a notebook to keep track.

  “Thanks for telling me, Peter.”

  “No problem,” he says.

  I guess his truth-telling can come in handy. I probably shouldn’t have been so mean to him in the past, but this is the first time the truth has helped me instead of gotten me in trouble.

  Well, at least it hasn’t gotten me in trouble yet.

  21

  Heave Ho!

  On Friday night we tell our parents that we’re having a sleepover in the attic. Frankie says even though she needs a break from the digging, she’ll still cover for me. We have sleepovers all the time, so Mom and Dad don’t suspect a thing anyway.

  “There’s not much to cover,” I say as we lay out sleeping bags on the attic floor. “They’ll never even know I’m gone.”

  “Then I’ll go to bed,” Frankie says, and starts to leave.

  “No!” Jolene whimpers. “We’re supposed to watch a movie and have popcorn.”

  Frankie and I look at each other and say nothing. Parley.

  Mom and Dad go to bed around ten and we watch a movie about a bunch of kids who find tunnels under their town and go looking for treasure. They’ve got it all wrong, though, ’cause pirates would not dig tunnels under a town. At least they wouldn’t here in Ocracoke, or really anywhere on the coastal islands. It’s all sand. No one even has basements. And I seriously doubt pirates went very far inland because they had to make fast escapes. The whole reason Blackbeard was on Ocracoke was because it was a good place to hide and then quickly sail out to the open sea. Though Grandpa said Blackbeard did visit Philadelphia once, because there’s a big river he could sail up into the city. Grandpa went there himself for research, and came back with tiny Liberty Bells for all of us.

  “How big was the city?” I asked him. The biggest town I’d been to was Kill Devil Hills, which is up the beach about three hours away.

  “Like nothing you’ve ever seen, Savvy. People and cars and buses everywhere. Very noisy, but there’s so much to see. So much architecture and history.”

  “Pirate history?”

  “Some. But mostly government, music, art. One day I’ll take you,” he told me.

  But I still haven’t seen Philadelphia.

  We eat way too much popcorn to try to stay awake. Jolene falls asleep, and I have to admit it’s hard for me to keep my eyes open after so many days of nonstop digging and late-night homework, but I drink a lot of iced tea. I’ve got this.

  Frankie shakes me awake at midnight.

  “If you want to do this, you better get up,” she whispers.

  I yawn and pull on my backpack, partly wishing I was the one being the lookout.

  “This is your last chance,” I tell Frankie.

  She looks hard at my face. “I don’t want to do it anymore.”

  “Fine.” My bag is heavy—full of ropes I took from the shed, in case I need to tie Will’s backhoe to the board, or to use like a pulley to lift the treasure chest out of the ground. Frankie hands me a giant flashlight and I’m about to leave until I think of a better argument. “I’m never going to be able to get that thing on my board by myself. Can’t you just help that much? Then I can roll it to the park and you can come back home and be cool all by yourself.”

  She twists her mouth into a frustrated frown and sighs through her nose. “You’re exhausting, Savannah.”

  “You always say that.”

  “Because it’s true. You never stop.”

  “You swore you�
�d help find and protect the treasure,” I say. “Or did you forget what you promised Grandpa?”

  “Shhh! Don’t wake up Jolene and don’t try to make me feel guilty. This was all your idea. I didn’t promise Grandpa anything.”

  “Yes, you did!”

  “No, I was mostly promising … you. Because you were so sad and I wanted you to feel better.”

  I pick at the seam on the arm of the couch. If Grandpa were here, he’d go with me. He’d lead the way. My insides hollow out just thinking about how much is gone. Even more if I’m not successful. But how am I supposed to do this without him or Frankie? A hiccup escapes.

  “Savvy,” Frankie says, putting her hand on mine. “Don’t cry.”

  Of course her just saying that makes the sad and frustrated feelings bubble up and take over the whole room, squishing me on all sides. “I can’t help it. Everything is falling apart.”

  “Not everything. We’re all still together. We’re going to be okay.”

  I grip Grandpa’s ring tightly. “We are not all together.”

  “Grandpa will always be with us.” Frankie pulls me close to her. I can’t remember the last time she hugged me. Maybe preschool. Although that’s been more my choice than hers. “Look. I’ll go with you tonight, but this is it for me, okay? If we don’t find anything, and I’m pretty sure we won’t, I’m done. I can’t do it anymore.”

  I wipe my nose and nod. “We will find something. I know it.”

  Frankie laughs. “You really are so much like Grandpa. You carry a piece of him with you just by being you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” She squeezes me again, straps on Grandpa’s leather satchel, and says, “Come on, one last try.”

  We sneak down two flights of creaky steps and make sure Py doesn’t bark on our way out. She just quietly wags her tail, hoping we will take her with us, but this time we can’t. I tell her to go up to the attic and snuggle with Jolene and she trots right up to find her.

  I’ve never walked around town after dark before, at least not without our parents, and never this late. As we walk, I bring Frankie up-to-date on everything Peter told me about his dad mentioning that something was in our house and about the QAR.