The Only Girl in School

by Natalie Standiford

  “Okay …” Henry said. “You’re idea is better than Webby’s. I admit it. But … you have to convince him.”

  I didn’t even flinch.

  “Easy peasy!” I promised Henry. “I’ll take on Webby all by myself, and you don’t have to do a thing to help … on one condition.”

  “What is it?”

  “Will you crew for me in the spring regatta?”

  He hesitated.

  “I saw you and your dad out there. You looked good.”

  “Thanks, but … crew for you?”

  I didn’t see how this was so hard to understand. “Yes. I’m the skipper. But if you crew for me, I think we’ll win.”

  Henry thought it over.

  “You want to win, don’t you?” I asked him.

  “Sure I do.”

  “So? Say yes.”

  Henry smiled. He hasn’t smiled at me in so long!

  “It would be nice to win,” he admitted. “And Webby’s so bossy—even more bossy than you.” He paused to think about it for a few more seconds. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  We shook on it.

  Then Henry asked, “What about Gilbert?”

  Gilbert. I’m afraid he’s expecting to crew for me again. And I’m afraid he’ll be disappointed. But Henry is a much better sailor than Gilbert. I don’t have to explain every little thing to Henry. He just knows what to do.

  “Maybe he can crew for Webby,” I suggested.

  Henry laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I’ll figure out something. Do you want to practice tomorrow? We’d better get out on the water—we’ve got a title to defend.”

  That’s how it happened, Bess. Henry and I are a team again.

  I’m so glad.

  I told you it was a wild adventure, right?

  Claire

  Dear Bess,

  During social studies today, Mr. H. told us to split up into our groups to work on our projects.

  “By now you should have settled on the subject of your project,” he said. “Have you all decided what you’re going to do?”

  Everybody nodded and kind of murmured yes … except for me, Henry, and Webby.

  Mr. Harper continued, “If any group hasn’t decided what their project is going to be yet, raise your hands.”

  I looked at Henry and Webby, like, Shouldn’t we be raising our hands? Webby glared at us. We got the message: Raise your hands and I’ll shoot peas at you every chance I get.

  So we didn’t.

  Mr. Harper smiled. “Okay, good. Get to work!”

  Reluctantly, Webby, Henry, and I gathered at Henry’s desk.

  Cocking his head to make sure Mr. Harper couldn’t hear him, Webby said, “We didn’t need to raise our hands because we know what our project is. The Fish History.”

  “Actually—” I started.

  Webby tried to stop me with a Glare of Death. I went on.

  “No, really, Webby. This is big.”

  This got me a Glare of the Apocalypse.

  To which I said, “Tell him, Henry.”

  Henry didn’t like the spotlight turning on him. “You tell him,” he said. “We made a deal, remember? And anyway, it was your vision.”

  “Vision?” Webby jumped in. “That sounds fishy, ha ha. Get it?”

  Henry nodded. “Good one, Web.”

  Hmph. Whose side is he on?

  “It wasn’t a vision,” I told them. “It really happened.”

  Webby looked at me like I was a fly that wouldn’t get away from his ear. “Okay, tell me. What really happened?”

  “I saw the ghost of Smuggler Joe! He came to me in the body of the Killer Deer. And he told me where the treasure is buried! Or he was about to, when Starshine scared him off—”

  “Uh-huh,” Webby interrupted. “That’s totally believable.”

  “It’s true! I swear.”

  “Well, guess what. I saw a giant talking wahoo fish yesterday and you know what he told me? He told me he’s the ghost of the biggest fish anybody ever caught off the coast of Maryland, and he wants us to do our social studies project about him. If we don’t, he’s going to smack us to death with his giant slimy fish tail!”

  Henry and I stared at him. Henry blinked.

  “What?” Webby said. “It’s just as believable as your dumb story.”

  “But my story is true. If we prove that Smuggler Joe really lived back in the 1700s, we will make island history! And we’ll get an A in social studies for sure.”

  Webby gave Henry a doubtful glance and asked him, “Are you in on this Smuggler Joe idea too?”

  My heart dropped. I thought there was no way Henry was going to go for it now. Not when he was face-to-face with Webby.

  But Henry surprised me. “It’s a good idea. It’s not going to be easy, but if we can do it, it will be amazing!”

  Webby was outraged. “But you’re my friend! You’re supposed to be on my side! Not on her side.”

  The way Webby said “her” sounded like he was about to spit.

  “I’m not on anybody’s side,” Henry replied. “I just want to do a good project.”

  “Hey!” I said. “You were my friend first.”

  Henry knew he had a mess on his hands. “This isn’t about friendship,” he assured both me and Webby. “It’s a school project.”

  He kicked me under the table. The meaning of this kick was unclear. I took it to mean, Yes, we’re friends again, but let’s not set off Webby.

  But I could be wrong.

  Webby covered his ears and started saying, “Fish fish fish fish. Fish fish fish fish. Fish fish fish fish …”

  “He’s not listening to you,” Henry told me.

  “I can see that.”

  I yanked one of Webby’s hands off his ear and told him, “We’re doing Smuggler Joe whether you help us or not. If we get an A, you’ll get an A too, without doing any work. Okay?”

  Webby put his hand back over his ear. “No. Fish fish fish fish …”

  Mr. Harper strolled over to see how we were doing.

  “Is there a problem over here?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “This is our creative process,” Henry assured him.

  “Fish fish fish fish!” Webby said.

  Mr. Harper looked skeptical. “Well, okay. But if you need help, don’t be afraid to come to me.”

  He walked away.

  I turned to Henry. “Now that we have our subject figured out, we need to get to work. We’re behind everyone else. And I’m not sure Webby’s going to be much help.”

  We both turned to look at him.

  “Fish!” he said defiantly.

  It looked like the two of us would have to do our three-person project … and in record time.

  Henry and I rode our bikes to the Foyes Island Historical Society after school. Webby refused to go with us. He should have come, because the first thing we saw when we walked in was a giant picture of his grandfather holding Wally the Wahoo in 1973.

  I’m glad Webby didn’t come with us actually. That picture might have strengthened his case.

  “You know what?” Henry asked as we passed under the picture. “The acronym for the Foyes Island Historical Society is FIHS, which is an anagram of FISH.”

  “That is not helpful,” I told him. “It’s totally meaningless and a coincidence.”

  “I just noticed it, that’s all.”

  I don’t know if you ever went to the historical society when you lived here, Bess. It’s in the lighthouse at the end of Eliot Point. It’s not very big. Foyes Island history goes back five hundred years, but not a whole lot has happened here over those five hundred years. Basically, back then people farmed and sailed and fished and dredged for oysters and caught crabs. We do all those things now. Not that much has changed.

  The shape of the island has changed some, though. There’s a section in the historical society called Hurricanes, Droughts, Floods, and Storms that talks about some of the biggest natural d
isasters in the island’s history. There’s a map comparing the shape of the island now to how it looked when the first English explorers landed in the 1600s. Storms have washed away a lot of land over the years. Eliot Point used to stick way out into the bay!

  There are also pictures from the more recent hurricanes. The worst was Hurricane Agnes in 1972. The marina was under five feet of water! Some people’s houses washed away and boats blew out to sea. We saw a picture of the wreckage of the Three Fiddlers Pub, which stood on our property before my grandparents bought that land and built the house we live in now.

  The most exciting period was definitely the American Revolution, which was Smuggler Joe’s time. There’s a little diorama in the back of the historical society, behind a glass window, labeled Pirates, Smugglers, and Shipwrecks. It shows the marina with lots of big old-fashioned schooners and sloops and clipper ships anchored in the port, and little rowboats filled with bags labeled CONTRABAND, rowed by guys in pirate hats.

  Next to the diorama is a panel labeled The Legend of Smuggler Joe. I took a picture of it. Here’s what it says:

  THE LEGEND OF SMUGGLER JOE

  According to Foyes Island legend, the most devious and successful smuggler during the 1700s was a mysterious man known as Smuggler Joe. When hard-to-get provisions such as sugar or tea suddenly appeared in the Foyes Island Market, people whispered that it had been sneaked past the British blockades by Smuggler Joe. He was said to frequent the Three Fiddlers Pub, and the pub’s manager, Josie Maloney, claimed to be his close confidante. But whenever anyone—especially the police or government agents—went looking for him, he was not to be found.

  In 1789, a small ship wrecked just off the coast of Foyes Island. No one survived, but several empty wooden chests washed ashore. They were the kind of chests often used to hold gold and other treasures. Did the treasure fall out and sink to the bottom of the bay? No trace of it was ever found. Nor was Smuggler Joe ever seen again. Perhaps he’d died on the doomed ship. If he was a real person—which no one has ever proven—that fate seems likely.

  But what about the empty treasure chests? People said that Joe had buried his smuggler’s spoils somewhere on the island. They speculated that he had been coming ashore to dig up his treasure, put it in the empty chests, and take it away with him to the Caribbean. But he died before he could get to it.

  To this day, many people believe that his ghost haunts the island, guarding his buried treasure.

  Ever since then, when strange things happen on Foyes Island, people blame it on Smuggler Joe’s ghost.

  I was a little spooked out, but Henry didn’t seem as bothered.

  “There’s nothing here we don’t already know,” he said.

  I played it cool. “Yeah,” I said. “I wish they’d explain why I keep seeing weird shadows around the boat shed.”

  “Weird shadows?”

  I nodded. “And sometimes I think I see a face in the window. Mom says it’s Joe, but I know she’s teasing me.”

  If Webby had been there, I’m sure he would have been teasing me too. But not Henry.

  Henry was taking me seriously.

  “Maybe she isn’t teasing you,” he said. “Maybe she means it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Henry smiled. “I’m saying, let’s go to your house and see what we see!”

  We rode back to my house. It was getting dark. That’s the most shadowy time, right before night falls.

  “Where did you see this face?” Henry asked me.

  I pointed to the window in the boat shed door. Henry studied it carefully. He walked around the outside of the shed. Then he went inside. I flicked on the light.

  Henry tested some of the floorboards with his shoe. A few of them were loose.

  “Let’s say you saw a ghost in the window. Why would he be here?”

  “I don’t know. I thought he wanted a dry place to sleep.”

  Henry shook his head. “Ghosts don’t sleep. And they don’t get wet.”

  Mr. Expert! “How do you know?” I asked.

  “It just makes sense.”

  “If you say so,” I said. But I wasn’t convinced.

  His question started jingle-jangling in my mind, bouncing around through my brain cells, lighting up new thoughts. Why would a ghost hang around my boat shed?

  Maybe he was guarding his treasure.

  “Henry … are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Maybe. Are you thinking that it smells like your dad’s baking brownies for dessert?”

  “No.” I sniffed the air. It smelled like chocolate. “But I do think he’s making brownies.”

  Henry liked that answer. “Can I stay for dinner?” he asked.

  Just like old times! I was excited, but I didn’t want to spook Henry. So I played it cool. “Yes. But we’re getting off track.”

  “Right.”

  “IF the shadows I’ve seen are the ghost of Smuggler Joe, and IF he haunts the island to guard his treasure, then MAYBE his treasure—”

  Henry kicked up a loose floorboard.

  “Claire, look at this.”

  “—is buried somewhere around the shed!”

  “I already guessed you were going to say that.”

  “I know. I just had to finish the sentence out loud.”

  We lifted up the floorboard. The one next to it was loose too, and the one next to that. They were easy to lift.

  “What’s under here?” Henry asked.

  I didn’t have an answer. I’d never looked before.

  We both looked now. Underneath was nothing but dirt. I got a flashlight off the tool shelf and shined it on the ground.

  “It’s just dirt,” I said, disappointed.

  But Henry was still looking. “What’s that shiny thing?” he asked.

  Something glimmered in the beam of the flashlight, something mostly covered by the soil. I reached down and brushed some dirt away.

  “It’s a metal loop,” I reported.

  I got a spade and we started digging more. The metal loop was attached to a rusty chain. And the rusty chain was attached to something buried under the shed.

  Henry couldn’t believe his eyes, and neither could I.

  “Claire, I think there’s something down there,” he said.

  “So do I,” I agreed.

  “We’ll have to pull up more floorboards!”

  I knew he was right. And I also knew that I couldn’t tear the shed apart without permission, treasure or no treasure.

  “We better ask Dad first,” I told Henry.

  I went into the house to ask Dad, but everyone else—Mom and Dad and Jim and Gabe—heard what I was up to, so they all came out to see the metal loop and the rusty chain. Mom looked at Dad. Dad looked at Mom.

  “Go for it, kids,” Mom said.

  “But wait until tomorrow,” Dad added. “It will be easier to work in the daylight.”

  “Dad! No!” I protested. “We have to do it now!”

  But Dad wouldn’t budge. “If that chain leads to treasure, it’s been there for a long time. It can wait one more day.”

  So I had to go to bed and wait to see what’s under there until tomorrow. It’s impossible to sleep. I’m dying of curiosity!

  What if I’m right, Bess? What if we found Smuggler Joe’s treasure?

  More news tomorrow,

  Claire

  Dear Bess,

  Today was the big dig day. I got up early and called Henry. He came over right after breakfast. We went into the shed and started digging. A few minutes later, Webby arrived.

  I was surprised, to say the least.

  But Webby acted like it was the most normal thing in the world. “I’m here!” he said. “We can start digging now. Hey! You started without me!”

  “How did you find out about this?” I asked.

  I may have sounded a little hostile.

  Henry turned away and started digging harder.

  “Henry told me last night,” Webby said, confir
ming my suspicion.

  “He’s on our team,” Henry said. “He should know what we’re doing.”

  “Okay,” I said. Then I locked my eyes on Webby. “But this means you agree that our social studies project is about Smuggler Joe and not about Wally the Wahoo, right?”

  Webby stood firm. “That depends on what’s buried under this here boat shed.”

  Ugh.

  I didn’t feel like arguing. I felt like digging.

  We dug around that rusty chain for half an hour until my shovel hit something hard.

  “I think this is it!” I called.

  I ran inside to get Dad and Jim to help us dig out whatever was there. We saw a bit of old wood. We saw a strip of rusty iron. The strips of wood and iron began to look like a small chest.

  Dad was so excited. “I don’t believe it! I think this really is a treasure chest.”

  We dug and dug until we could pull the chest out of the ground. It was very heavy. It was closed with a big lock that was so old and rusty Dad broke it pretty easily with a hammer.

  By this time the shed was crowded. Mom and Gabe had come out to see what we’d found. We made everybody promise to keep the whole thing a secret until we knew what we had.

  Mom rubbed her hands and said, “Here we go!”

  “Claire, would you like to do the honors?” Dad asked.

  I knelt beside the chest and lifted the lid. It was very heavy.

  Inside were some wads of cloth.

  “What is it?” Gabe asked, peering in. “A bunch of old clothes?”

  I rummaged through the cloth until I felt something hard. Nestled among the fabric was a glass bottle stoppered with a cork.

  Webby sighed. “That’s it? An old bottle. Great job, Claire.”

  “Wait—there’s something inside!” I announced. “A piece of paper!”

  I tugged on the cork but it wouldn’t come out. Dad got some pliers and yanked it out of the bottle. I pulled out a rolled up piece of paper. The paper was yellow and crumbly around the edges and very delicate. I carefully unrolled it.

  It was a map of Foyes Island! It showed Eliot Point, and the lighthouse, and some houses that are gone now and a few others that are still standing. One spot on Eliot Point was marked with a big X.