The light faded from the woman's eyes. "Hush, bwoy. I so sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I nebah know."
Awkward silence.
"It's okay," Nellie said at last. It wasn't, but what were you supposed to say at a time like this?
"Yes," the woman said. "Is her time. Nobody cyant do nothin' when is their time." A pause. "My name Alice--you to call me Miss Alice."
"I'm Nellie, and this is Dan and Amy."
"I am surprise, seein' Grace's girl there," Miss Alice said. "But you is de one I waitin' on." She jerked her chin at Nellie.
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"Me? But how--I didn't--you couldn't--"
"Grace. She say you gwine come one day, tell me to look out for you."
"She told you that? When?"
Miss Alice wrinkled her forehead. "She here when ... twenty year ago? Maybe goin' on for twenty-five now."
Nellie turned toward the porch steps. "Okay, we're out of here," she said. "I don't know what your game is, Miss Alice, but I know for sure that the truth isn't part of it. I wasn't even born then, and I didn't meet Grace until this year."
Miss Alice scowled. "Ease up, dawta. You always so rude to them who is older than you?"
Nellie felt like a little kid, getting scolded like that. She hesitated, trying to decide on a response.
"Siddung, lemme finish." Miss Alice glared at her, then limped to a battered lawn chair and sat down. Dan and Amy sat on the porch steps. Nellie took the other chair but didn't plan on getting too comfortable. Miss Alice waited a moment, then went on.
"Grace come lookin' for me. Not me, 'zactly, but she lookin' for sint'in' I got. Sint'in' been in de fambly long time. She find it, meaning to say she find me, an' she aks a favor. She say, when someone come with de matchin' piece, I am to give mine to them."
Miss Alice made that sharp short laugh again. "Ha! I say, why I should do like she say? She a stranger, and
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this in my fambly for how long I don' know. But you know Grace, she don' give up."
Amy and Dan nodded at her and at each other.
"She tell me it important to her and her fambly, den aks me what do I want, what she to give me, 'f I do dat for her. An' I think on it a long time, long time. Two, three months. She stay right yah-so, visit me every day. We talk about Jamaica, she want to know all de old stories. She a give me time to think on it. And 'tween times we get to be frens.
"So I finally mek up my mind and I tell her, what I want is, Lester to get educated. College. He jus' a pickney then, no bigger dan dis"--she held her hand up at knee height--"but we not stoosh, get by all right, but college cost too dear.
"An' Grace say fine and lef, back to the States. But she call from time to time, memba me, memba Lester. Time come, Lester go a college in Atlanta, get hisself a fancy degree, an' now a good job. He study history and liberryin'."
Miss Alice nodded. "Yes. So den I must keep dat promise I mek. Grace dint say no rude American girl a come," she said with a sniff. "Jus' whoever come with de match."
"What match?" Nellie asked, mystified.
Miss Alice turned her head. "Lester!" she shouted. "Bring me dat box in de drawer 'side my bed."
Lester came out to the porch with a sandwich in one hand and a small box in the other.
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"Lester, meet dem folks," Miss Alice said. "Dey is Denny an' Ellie an' Jamie."
"Close enough," Nellie said under her breath.
"Lester sight you," Miss Alice said. "I don't get round much no more, so long time ago I told him what to look for. He see you at de archives, den call me." She beamed at him proudly.
Lester gave them that nice smile and handed Miss Alice the box. "Me going now, Granma," he said. They made their good-byes, and Lester left, still munching on his sandwich.
Miss Alice gave the box a little shake. "All dem years," she said. Then she peered closely at Nellie through her glasses. "Yah, is a match, alright."
Nellie was beside herself with curiosity. The match to what--my face? she wondered. It was all she could do to keep herself from snatching the box out of the old woman's hands.
Dan stood up from the step. Amy edged forward.
Miss Alice lifted the lid of the box and removed a protective layer of cotton fluff. She stretched out her hand.
They all leaned forward to see what rested inside. A small silver snake.
The identical twin to the one Nellie wore in her nose.
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CHAPTER 10
* * *
"You order for me," Nellie said to Amy.
For the first time on the entire trip, Nellie didn't look at the menu. Her mind was too preoccupied to think about food.
They had stayed at Miss Alice's house for a couple of hours; it had taken that long to hear the whole story.
Hundreds of years earlier, an ancestor of Miss Alice's had worked as a nanny for a woman in Cuba. The woman put her baby in the nanny's care and also gave the nanny a pair of silver snake earrings. She told her to keep both the baby and the earrings safe.
The woman then left Cuba to join her husband. At sea.
They were pirates.
The baby died in infancy. The nanny was so distraught that she made a vow to take care of those earrings no matter what. Over the years, one of the earrings had gotten lost. But Miss Alice's family had faithfully guarded the remaining earring. Everywhere they went, they brought the little silver snake with
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them. It had been passed down, mother to daughter, for nearly three hundred years.
In some impossible way, Grace had discovered that the second earring had ended up in Mexico, with another branch of the family. It, too, had been faithfully passed down. A generation ago, there had been no daughters born to that family, so the earring was passed to a son. When he grew up and had children of his own, he gave the earring to his oldest daughter.
Nellie.
Now Nellie rubbed the back of her neck with one hand. She could feel knots of tension in her muscles.
"If Grace traced the earring to my family, she must have had her eye on me for years," she said. "But she never said a word about it. Why didn't she tell me?"
"Well," Amy said, "now you know how it feels."
Nellie stared. "What are you talking about?"
"You didn't tell us the whole truth, just like what Grace did to you."
Nellie felt the blood rush to her face. "It's not the same thing at all!"
Amy raised an eyebrow. "You don't think?"
Her calmness made Nellie even madder. "I'm talking about my whole life here!" she said, pounding the table with her fist. "Everything! Like--like--what about the flying lessons?"
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"Flying lessons?" Dan said, clearly mystified by the change in subject.
"They're expensive, right? But my dad said no problem. Did Grace pay for them? Come to think of it, it wasn't even my idea--it was his! Or maybe it was Grace's, and does that mean my parents were in on the whole thing all along?" Nellie caught her breath in what was almost a sob. "This isn't just about the stupid clues thing. This is my family]"
Amy looked at her for a long moment. "For the last few months," she said slowly, "our family has been the three of us."
Her sentence hung in the air almost as if it were written there.
Nellie looked at their faces, both as solemn as she'd ever seen them.
It's true, Nellie thought. Parents gone, grandmother gone, an aunt who doesn't want them. Guilt washed over her yet again--for lying to them and even more, over her part in what was soon to happen. ...
She slumped forward, her head in her hands. "Okay, I get it," she said quietly. "I thought I did before, but now I really get it. How you felt--still feel, I guess--about me working for Grace and McIntyre. You feel like you've been played, and that's what I feel like now, too."
The silence among them grew to awkward proportions. They were rescued by the waiter, who arrived with the three plates of jerk chicken Amy had ordered.
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Nellie was suddenly ravenous. She began attacking her chicken. It was delicious.
"Dude," she said. "This is good."
Spicy, but not just pepper-hot. Thyme, for sure ... maybe nutmeg, too? And mace? She'd have to look up a recipe and make it herself sometime.
Dan's mouth wasn't quite full as he spoke. "C'we talk 'bout shomething elsh now?" he said.
"Swallow," Amy commanded.
Nellie's phone rang. She took it out of her pack and looked at it.
"It's my dad," she said. She had left a message for him when they were at Miss Alice's house; she wanted to tell him about their newfound relative.
And now she had other things to talk about. She stood up from the table and walked outside to take the call.
A few minutes later, she came back to the table, shaking her head. "That Grace. She never quits."
"What? What is it?" Amy and Dan said at the same time.
"My dad got a letter from Grace. A few weeks before she passed away. He thought the letter was kinda strange because it was so short. It just said that if I ever found the mate to my snake, he should give me a message."
"What message? What was the message?" The sibling chorus again.
Nellie frowned a little. "The message is even shorter. 'C/o The Right Excellent Nanny,'" she said. "The c/o,
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that means 'care of/ which is weird--you only ever see it as part of a mailing address."
"'The Right Excellent Nanny,'" Amy echoed. "Wow. Grace planned for you to be the one to find the missing earring all along."
The waiter came by to give them the check. He poured more water for them.
"Yeah, but it doesn't really sound like Grace, does it?" Dan said. "Too--too awkward, or something. 'The Right Excellent Nanny,' hmmm ..."
The waiter paused in his water pouring. "Oh, yah," he said. "You already been to the park?"
All three of them looked at him blankly.
"Heroes Park," he said. "Her statue there."
Then they looked at each other blankly. Nellie recovered first. "Whose statue where?"
Now he looked at them blankly. "Nanny," he said. "You talkin' about Nanny of the Maroons, yah? The Right Excellent Nanny?"
"That's somebody's name?" Nellie said, incredulous.
"One of our Jamaican heroes," he said. "Go see the National Heroes Park. In Kingston."
All three of them jumped up from their chairs.
Back to Kingston again. In the car, Amy and Dan had a quick whispered powwow. Then Amy climbed into the front seat.
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"No earbuds required," she announced. "We've decided that since Grace intended this hint for you, we might need you to be in on it."
Nellie nodded.
"We don't know exactly what we're looking for," Amy said carefully. Even though they had decided to include Nellie in this stage of the hunt, Amy still didn't want to give away too much. "But it might be something Janus. We think maybe Nanny was a Janus."
"So it could be something to do with a wolf," Dan added. "Maybe, like, a fang. That would be awesome--a big ol' wolf fang!"
Honestly, the things boys think are awesome ... "You'd probably love it if it had drool all over it," Amy said. Then she changed the subject before it could get any grosser. "Laptop, please?"
For the rest of the drive she researched The Right Excellent Nanny. Nanny Sharpe, known as Queen Nanny or Granny Nanny, had been captured in West Africa and brought to Jamaica as a slave. But she and her brothers escaped. High in the mountains of Jamaica, they established communities for runaway slaves, called Maroons. When the British finally found them, Nanny led the fight to keep from being enslaved again.
"She had all kinds of warfare strategies," Amy said. "She made sure the towns only had one point of entry, like up high on a cliff, so they could control who came in and out. And--oh, you'll like this--she had her
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Maroons put leaves and branches on their clothes. Then they'd hide until the Brits were practically on top of them and spring a surprise attack. It says here in one battle, the Maroons were seriously outnumbered but still managed to kill all but one British soldier."
Nellie grinned. "Dude, I am lovin' this. First a girl pirate, and now this Nanny. It's great, isn't it?" she said as she glanced at Amy.
"What's so great about it?" Dan asked.
"Women," Nellie answered. "Women kicking butt all over the place."
* * *
The entrance to the National Heroes Park was pretty grand for a laid-back island like Jamaica, with a big war memorial statue guarded by soldiers in fancy uniforms. A few minutes' walk to the eastern side of the park brought them to a triad of tall metal sculptures, each as high as a flagpole. Dan ran ahead to read the plaque in front of the sculptures.
"This is it!" he yelled.
The girls hurried to join him.
MONUMENT TO THE RIGHT EXCELLENT NANNY OF THE MAROONS
"Maybe it's some kind of code," Dan said doubtfully.
Amy pointed to the nearest sculpture. It was topped by a large metal horn that looked like an empty Thanksgiving cornucopia.
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"That horn," she said. "I read about it on one of the websites. It's called an abeng. It's from the Ashanti tribe in Ghana. In Africa. That's where Nanny was from. She used it to warn her warriors during battle."
The sculpture was constructed to be heard as well as seen. When the wind blew, the horn made a faint but eerie sound, almost like a wail.
Dan cocked his head, listening for a moment. Then he grinned. "That sound means it's hollow."
Amy gasped. "Something could be inside!"
All three of them ran to the base of the sculpture. The pole itself was made of metal, twisted evenly so it looked sort of like a rope. "I always wanted to climb a flagpole," Dan said eagerly.
Amy glanced around. There were a few people walking nearby, but nobody official looking.
"How do you think I should do this?" Dan asked.
"I saw these guys on TV, in the tropics somewhere, who gather coconuts," Nellie said. "They looped a rope around the trunk and used it to climb up."
"Fine," Dan said. "Rope, please."
None of them had a rope, of course.
Dan snapped his fingers. He took out his phone, dialed a number, and waited.
"Who are you calling?" Amy asked.
He held up one finger.
"Hey, Hamilton, it's me," Dan said. "Got a question for you. Ever climbed a flagpole?"
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CHAPTER 11
* * *
Hamilton Holt, it turned out, was a flagpole-climbing champ. Part of his dad's training regimen for the family, he explained to Dan, was climbing all manner of obstacles. Dan received detailed instructions in exchange for a promise to tell Hamilton what, if anything, was inside the horn.
"I don't know--" Amy said doubtfully.
"It's worth the risk," Dan argued. "There might be nothing inside. And even if there is something, I didn't promise to give it to him, only to tell him what it is."
He reviewed Hamilton's instructions. "Ham said that if the pole's metal, clothes make you slip." He pulled off his T-shirt.
Nellie's eyes widened. "So you're supposed to take off all your clothes?"
"Are you out of your mind?" Dan said. "I'm not climbing this thing naked!"
"I didn't say that--you said--"
"He said to wear sneakers and strip down as much
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as possible," Dan said. "I don't think I have to be completely naked."
Nellie covered her mouth with her hand and turned away; Amy cleared her throat several times. Both of them were clearly hiding giggles. So immature. He decided to ignore them for the moment.
"I'm supposed to keep my body as close to the pole as I can by wrapping my legs around it." Dan said. "Then I reach up with my hands, reposition my feet, and hike myself higher."
"Be careful," Amy said. She and Nellie stood on opposite sides of
the base of the sculpture.
Dan took one last look at the horn. Then he grabbed the pole, wrapped his legs around it, and began pulling himself up a little at a time.
The ridges of the twisted pole dug into his sunburned legs, making him wince.
After about six inches of progress, he let go and dropped back down to the ground.
"Okay," he said, flexing his fingers and hands. It hurt to grip so hard. "I've got the feel of it." He gazed again at the top of the pole; the horn suddenly looked much farther away. "It's harder than I thought."
"Want me to try?" Nellie asked.
"No, thanks, I'll give it another shot." He felt almost insulted by the offer.
"If we gave you a boost, you could start up higher," Amy suggested.
With some maneuvering, several grunts, and more
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than one "ouch," they managed to get Dan standing with one foot on Nellie's shoulder and the other on Amy's, holding on to the pole.
"Way better," he said. He was now already almost halfway to the top. Cautiously, he took his right foot off Amy's shoulder and wrapped his leg around the pole.
"Here I go," he said, and took his left foot off Nellie.
Hands--feet--hands--feet ... Hamilton had said to keep an even rhythm. It was almost like Dan's hands started looking forward to the tiny rest they got when he let go to move them up farther. In what seemed like almost no time, he reached the top.
"I did it!" he called down to the girls.
First mistake. He was much higher than he'd expected! It wasn't like being in a plane or on top of a building--there was nothing keeping him in the air but his own muscle power.
Dan gulped. Okay, so don't look down again, he told himself firmly.
"Look in the horn!" Amy was calling back. "Do you see anything?"
Now things got tricky. He was right up against the side of the horn. The flared opening jutted out from the pole almost an arm's length. There was no way he could look into the opening.
"I can't look into it," he said. "I'm just going to have to try to reach in."
He held on with his left hand and stretched out his right. Gingerly, he put his hand inside.
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Nothing but the horn's metal interior.
He adjusted his grip on the pole and reached in a little farther. Then he felt something else--prickly? No, crawly ...
The 39 Clues Book 9: Storm Warning Page 6