by Eve Yohalem
Which was really bad for her. Because of all the jellyfish.
Anna screamed a word that sounds like “shih tzu” but isn’t “shih tzu.” Ed screamed something even worse. Otis woofed a victory bark.
“Take the wheel,” Jules said. She picked up a wooden scrub brush that I’d left on the seat and hurled it at Ed, knocking the camera off his shoulder and into the water.
“JUUULES!” Ed yelled.
“Nice shot,” I said.
“No, it wasn’t,” she said. “I was aiming for his head.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
True Fact: The only predator that can kill a great white shark is a human. (TF supplied by the online article “Famous Shark Attacks in the Hamptons.”)
Forget the five-mile-an-hour-inside-the-cove speed limit. I gunned the engine.
Jules tidied up the dock ropes with the efficiency of a navy commander.
“Do you need a snack or insulin or anything?” she said, tossing a freshly coiled line into the storage locker.
“Nope, I’m good.” I’d tested and eaten right before Jules got to my house. “You good?”
“I’m good. Let’s do this.”
We zoomed past the marina, and I prayed to Lara Croft and Indiana Jones that Laurie wouldn’t see us speeding and arrest us.
The adventure gods heard my prayers. We made it to the water-bottle buoy with nobody coming after us.
Which would have been great if someone else hadn’t gotten there first.
Fitz.
And the Fitzminions. And the Windfall, which looked gigantic even from fifty feet away, especially since we were at sea level and the Windfall’s deck was twenty feet higher. They’d rigged a diving platform off the side of the boat, and the crew were on it, with Fitz barking orders from above. One guy was lowering a big grid-shaped net down to another guy who was treading water in full scuba gear. The submarine drone bobbed next to a huge white inflatable dinghy.
Fitz must have decided to come look for the ballast pile himself after Ed told him what we’d found. The water-bottle buoy floated next to us—Fitz and the minions probably thought it was just garbage, if they’d noticed it at all.
“They’re not even looking at us,” Jules said. “Let’s get started. How do you work this thing? It looks like R2-D2 had a baby with a giraffe.”
She wasn’t wrong. “This thing” was the airlift pump that Dad and I had rigged out of an air compressor, some PVC tubing, and one of Mom’s garden hoses (Dad is a big believer that with a couple of rolls of duct tape, you can make pretty much anything). The idea was that Jules and I would lower the tube down to the sea bottom, and the compressor would create a vacuum so it slurped up all the sand and mud, and hopefully uncovered one of the most famous missing treasures in the world. Assuming the treasure was even there. And the hose didn’t leak. And the compressor was strong enough. And we didn’t mess up. And Fitz didn’t chase us away. And Ed didn’t find us.
“Have you ever used a vacuum?” I asked Jules.
She rolled her eyes. “What do you think?”
Of course not. “You just push the end of the tube around the sandy bottom. We’ll take turns. I’ll go first so you can see how it works.”
I slid the PVC tube off the side of the boat and lowered it hand over hand deeper into the water. When I felt the tube hit bottom, I stopped. The tube was just long enough for me to hold the end and still have enough leverage to drag it.
“Okay,” I said. “Turn on the airlift.”
“Mutant robot giraffe baby activated,” Jules said.
The tube vibrated in my hands. Pretty soon there was a whirring, whooshing, glug-glugging noise as it sucked up sand and rocks. I stayed in one spot for a few seconds and then moved the tube a couple of inches to a new spot. The sand and rocks spewed out the top of the tube and splashed back into the water. If there were coins or any other lightweight treasure mixed in with the ballast, eventually they’d come up too.
I gave Jules the tube, and I anchored and then rigged a towel awning for Otis while she vacuumed. We traded off every few minutes when our arms got numb, not talking much because of the motor noise and also because if I’d opened my mouth the only thing that would have come out was:
Please, please, please, please, please!
Or maybe:
Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on!
Or possibly:
Now, now, now, now, now!
The motor got louder. At first I thought maybe the airlift was overheating, but then I realized the new sound wasn’t coming from our boat. It was coming from another boat about forty feet away and headed straight for us.
“Whatever happens—” I said.
“We don’t stop vacuuming,” Jules said, handing me the tube.
I squinted in the glare of the sun. The other boat was the Windfall’s massive dinghy, a gleaming speedboat with Fitz and some minions aboard. Images of great white sharks flashed before my eyes.
Fitz raised a bullhorn over his head and blared it three times—HONK! HONK! HONK!—and then, “Attention, Mako! Attention, Mako!” HONK! HONK! HONK! “Mako! Clear the area!” HONK! HONK! HONK!
By now Fitz was close enough for us to see his navy polo shirt, his Pimientos cap, and the big gold medallion that gleamed around his neck. Nearness didn’t stop him from using the bullhorn, though.
HONK! “I repeat, clear the area. Now!”
“Jules…”
She shot me a look. “Stand our ground, remember?”
I thought about that awful night at Harbor Burger and channeled my inner Otis, the one who deflected an entire restaurant of people through the force of his determination.
“You’re right.” I straightened my spine and imagined flashes of electric power sizzling out the top of my head. “We haven’t come this far to get bullied by a stuck-up blockhead with a dumb hat.”
Jules grinned. “Exactly.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
True Fact: ALMOST. ISN’T. GOOD. ENOUGH.
“Girls! Are you listening to me? I said leave! NOW.” Fitz’s boat was fifteen feet away, and yet he was still using that stupid bullhorn.
HONK!
“Inside voice, please,” Jules said, like Fitz was a first grader horsing around during story time.
Fitz’s eyes bulged. I mean, literally actually bulged. The rest of the crew kind of shrank away from him. But then Fitz pulled himself together and smirked.
“I called the Coast Guard and they’re on their way.”
“Blue,” Jules said. “I think it’s my turn with the airlift, isn’t it?”
“Why, yes, Jules.” I passed her the tube. “Yes, it is.”
We may have sounded cool, but there were fireflies zooming between my ears, all wearing little Coast Guard uniforms.
“Go ahead,” Fitz said. “Whatever you suck up belongs to me.”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Fitzgibbons,” said a voice I couldn’t believe was mine. “We found it; we keep it. Plus, that payroll belonged to my ancestors.” Maybe. Or maybe they stole it, but either way it definitely didn’t belong to Fitz Fitzgibbons.
“So, actually, anything you suck up belongs to her,” Jules said.
Fitz smiled a new smile. I didn’t like this smile. It reminded me of Curtis Chesterman, the kid in third grade who liked to pull wings off moths and light caterpillars on fire.
“Little girls, let me explain the situation so you’ll understand. According to our federal government, my two permits mean I’m the finder and the keeper.”
Which was what Laurie and Marisol and Dad had been saying, but I hadn’t understood. Until now.
My heart started a slow crawl south.
“Ignore him,” Jules whispered. “He’s lying.”
“But if he’s right, we’re doing his work for him!” I whispered back.
The only thing worse than Fitz finding the treasure was Jules and me finding the treasure and handing it over to him. Fitz would invent a whole new smile for tha
t moment of victory.
A distant hum grew to a roar: another boat, one with an American flag flying from its mast and the words U.S. COAST GUARD emblazoned on its side. A Coast Guard officer wearing mirrored sunglasses like a state trooper (which made her look super cool) stood on the deck. Along with Mom and Dad, who were signaling their worry like beacons.
Mom looked over at Fitz and frowned. Dad looked like he wanted to commit a—what was the word?—a felony.
“Are you all right?” Mom yelled across the water.
I nodded. Even though I wasn’t.
“The Coast Guard called us,” Mom said, answering my unspoken question.
“What took you so long?” Fitz said, not into the bullhorn for once. “These kids have been here forty-five minutes already. What are my tax dollars paying for?”
The Coast Guard woman kept her cool. “I’m Officer Charlotte Dalvito. What seems to be the problem, sir?”
Fitz explained to everybody how Jules and I were trespassing and attempting to steal what was rightfully his, which was apparently something called super-huge grand larceny, and how Officer Dalvito needed to arrest us right this second.
Officer Dalvito pulled a walkie-talkie off a clip on her waistband. “I’m going to need a few minutes to look into this with my commander, sir.”
Which was when Ed and Anna chugged up on an old lobster boat they must have borrowed out of desperation. Because it was really important that as many people as possible should see me completely and totally fail.
Jules: holding the airlift, laser eyes aimed at the sludge glug-glugging out the top of the airlift. Me: my heart somewhere near my feet. Otis: dozing under a towel awning. Mom and Dad: gripping the rail of the Coast Guard boat like they wanted to jump it and swim for us. Anna: fresh from a costume change with a big red jellyfish sting on her arm. Ed: purple with fury.
“Jules Buttersby, I need to talk to you right now!” Ed pointed at the deck of the lobster boat like he expected Jules to somehow float over the water and appear in front of him so he could yell at her up close, but Jules refused to tear her eyes away from the sludge.
Meanwhile, Officer Dalvito wasn’t giving Fitz what he wanted fast enough. Fitz yelled, “Ed, get your kid out of my water or I’ll take her out myself!”
Ed froze. Then turned to face Fitz, slowly, like a jewelry-box ballerina with the motor running low. “What did you say?”
“I said”—Fitz stretched the word “said” so it had three syllables instead of one—“get your kid out of my water or I will take her out myself.”
A whole story played out on Ed’s face: first anger, then doubt, then sadness, then horror. For once, I was sure he wasn’t acting, because after the story ended, Ed reached both arms out toward Jules and said, “You were right about everything. I never, ever, ever should have signed on to this movie. Can you please forgive me?”
Jules, her hand still on the airlift, started to cry. “Of course, Daddy.”
It was like the rest of us had disappeared. The hunt was forgotten; the boats were back on their moorings.
Until my dad broke the spell.
“Fitz Fitzgibbons! What are you doing with my father’s coin around your neck?”
Dad, who was on the Coast Guard boat, was closer to Fitz than me. I used the binoculars to zoom in on Fitz’s medallion. Gold, about the size of a half-dollar with the letters V-O-C on it.
Pop Pop’s coin!
“Ha!” Fitz sneered. “I bought it from an antique dealer who said you told him some story about how it’s been in your family for three hundred years and your father thought it might be part of the Golden Lion payroll. When one of my guys found your last name in the ship’s log, I had my people analyze the area.”
Wait. Fitz only knows about the treasure because Dad sold Pop Pop’s coin? I staggered back a step like the news was a bullet to my gut. Across the water, Dad turned pale. We locked eyes. I could see the sorry in his; I don’t know what he could see in mine.
Fitz patted his chest. “Best two hundred bucks I ever spent.”
I wanted to tear the coin off Fitz’s neck and strangle him with the chain. But Dad stayed calm. A scary calm. Still looking at me, he said, “My daughter has a right to be here. My family lives here. I work in Sag Harbor, I pay taxes in Sag Harbor—”
“Oh yeah?” Fitz said. “That’s very touching. You can leave now and I won’t press charges against your daughter and her little friend.”
That did it.
“Now look here, you blowhard, inheritance-stealing, city idiot!” Mom put her hand on Dad’s arm, but Dad was just getting started. “You can’t waltz in here—”
“Enough!” Ed boomed, and everybody hushed. Years of star power went into that boom. “Fitzgibbons, are you threatening my daughter?”
“Yes!” Fitz smashed his bullhorn on the wheel, where it broke into pieces. “You better believe that’s what I’m doing!”
Ed gripped the rail of the lobster boat and leaned forward as far as he could without going overboard. “Well, think again, because if you don’t back off, I’m tanking your movie.”
“Ed?” Anna said.
“Dad?” Jules dropped the airlift but I caught it before it hit the deck.
“What do you mean, tanking my movie? And it’s your movie too!” Fitz shouted.
“Not anymore.” Ed grinned at Jules. “I’m out. And if you don’t lay off my kid, I’ll make sure it never gets made. I’ve got a lot of friends in this business. So back off.”
Maybe it was my imagination, but the mud glug-glugging through the airlift started glug-glugging a little faster.
Fitz threw what was left of the bullhorn on the deck and roared. He flung everything he could get his hands on into the water, at his crew, at us. “Ram that boat!” he commanded the crew guy at the wheel.
Jules and I shared a look of horror. He meant our boat.
“No way!” the crew guy said.
“Then I will!” Fitz pulled the crew guy out of his seat, grabbed the wheel, and shoved the throttle. The dinghy sped toward us like a great white shark, flesh gleaming, mouth gaping. Huger and huger, louder and louder, closer and closer…
Mom, Dad, Ed, and Anna were shouting. Officer Dalvito tried to calm everybody down by waving her arms and yelling things nobody could hear.
Slam! The Windfall dinghy smashed into us and the Mako heeled over, hanging half out of the water for endless seconds, teetering on its edge where no boat should ever be.
“We’re going to capsize!” Jules yelled.
The Mako was inches away from flipping and trapping us underneath.
“Jules! Otis!” I yelled.
Otis howled from under the towel awning, where he was tangled in rope and cloth. Jules screamed. I screamed.
Slam! The Mako swooped back down.
Miraculously, I still had hold of the airlift, and it was still glug-glugging. But Fitz was climbing over the side of his boat to board ours.
“GET AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER!” Ed shouted.
Officer Dalvito swerved the Coast Guard boat in our direction. Otis thrashed and growled under the towel.
“Jules! Help Otis!” I said.
Fitz climbed over the stern rail of the Mako. Jules fumbled with Otis’s towel while he pitched and barked, desperate to be free.
I threw a glance over my shoulder. Mom, Dad, Ed—they were all too far away to protect us.
We’re on our own.
I tightened my grip on the airlift pump, bracing myself for Fitz’s attack. Jules gave up on untangling Otis and grabbed a boat hook. She waved the long pole in front of her like a Jedi knight and yelled, “Get back!” which would have been much scarier if the boat hook actually had a sharp end. Fitz snatched the boat hook and flung it into the water.
He lunged for Jules.
Which happened to be the exact moment that Otis shook himself free.
In an act of fearsome bravery that was glorious to behold, eighty pounds of fur and fangs flew the length of
the Mako—jaws wide, claws out, fur puffed to twice his usual size.
OTIS.
My furious German shepherd landed fully on top of Fitz and tackled him to the deck.
“Call him off!” Fitz begged.
Not a chance. Not for a single second.
The airlift tube sent vibrations up my arm.
“Jules,” I said. “Jules.”
“What’s wrong?” she said, turning back to me.
“Feel this,” I said.
She put her hand next to mine on the airlift tube, where the glug-glugging had turned to click-clacking.
Her eyes went wide. “What the…?”
“Something’s coming up,” I whispered.
The shouts and growls faded away. There was only the sun on my bare head, the smell of Jules’s French sunscreen, the vibration of the tube in our hands.
Click.
Officer Dalvito turned off the motor on the airlift.
“I’m sorry, girls. I really am. I think you deserve to keep searching, but the law is on this—this—” Officer Dalvito jerked a thumb in Fitz’s direction. “This person’s side.”
“No!” I shouted. “You don’t understand. We just need five more minutes!”
“One more minute!” begged Jules.
Otis released Fitz and came to stand beside me and Jules.
Officer Dalvito shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
Jules scrambled for the power button, but Officer Dalvito stopped her. “No.”
I grabbed Jules’s hand, and we squeezed so hard I thought our bones would break.
“This can’t be the end,” I whispered. “Can it?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
True Fact: Sometimes being right feels wrong.
“Come on, Belly,” Dad said from the Coast Guard boat, which was now alongside the Mako. “Let’s go home.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Blue, you heard Officer Dalvito. It’s over,” Mom said.
“She didn’t say we have to leave. She just said we had to stop searching,” I said, trying to keep the wobble out of my voice. “Right, Officer Dalvito?”