She clicked off her headlamp and stared at the glowing red numbers of the clock across the room. When would Hattie, Pops, and Grandma go to sleep? It was 10:29, and if they wanted to get to the island and back before morning they had to get started soon.
The clock clicked over to 10:30. She counted the hours to sunrise on her fingers. 10:30. 11:30. 12:30 …
12:30.
1230!
1230 wasn’t a year. It was a time! And it had been carved on the rafter where she’d found the map!
Maria got out of bed and slipped quietly across the floor. She located the sheaf of printouts from the library and examined the different angles of the Cassiopeia constellation on July 16, arranged by hour. She pulled out the star map for midnight, and the one for 1:00 a.m. Cassiopeia’s feet pointed to northeast in both. Slightly more north by 1:00 a.m.
Maria sat back and reasoned it through. She compared the star charts to the compass on Murdefer’s treasure map. If she was right, even though they weren’t sailing on the correct date and they couldn’t see the stars, they could still follow the correct compass heading. As long as they sailed with the compass pointed around 33 degrees, they would be headed in the right direction!
Maria was so excited, she almost missed Paolo’s signal. Two taps on the walkie-talkie. She peeked out and saw him waiting beneath the burlap-wrapped peach tree with both their bicycles.
The rope ladder worked as it was supposed to: she tied it to the bed and then used it to lower herself to the grass.
She grabbed Paolo and pulled his ear to her mouth. “I know where the treasure is!”
“How? We can’t even see the stars.”
“I’ll explain on the way.”
She looked back at the rope swinging from the open window. The wind blew it back and forth, but it was nearly invisible in the starless, moonless dark.
“You think it’s okay to leave it like that?” she asked.
“You’ll need it to get back in,” he said. He climbed on his bike and pushed off.
“What if someone sees it?”
“My mom is in the back room, and she never gets up. Grandma took off her glasses and hearing aids, so she wouldn’t notice anything, even if she did wake up. And Pops is whacked on painkillers for his back. Frank is off-island, and Harry’s at his girlfriend’s house.” Paolo coasted beside her. “Tell me about the treasure island.”
Maria explained her discovery about the star maps.
“That’s amazing! You’re amazing!” Paolo said. “I can’t believe how smart you are.”
“No. You could have figured it out yourself.”
“No way. I just don’t think like that,” Paolo said.
Maria was glad he couldn’t see her blush in the dark. She pedaled ahead and let the night air cool her hot face. The wind bent the tops of the pines and made a loud shushing that sounded like the ocean. No cars passed by them. It was late. Everyone was either off-island already or in bed.
* * *
They got to the Ironwall Estate quickly and hid the bicycles behind the Old West Shed. Then they ran through the field, past the Great House, and onto the empty beach. In less than half an hour they had the canvas off the boom and the sails raised. Though the waves were choppier than usual and the wind was stronger, they managed to maneuver the boat smoothly from the dock. Maria still could not believe they were finally, after so many weeks of preparation, sailing toward the outer islands, toward the treasure.
The first leg was not as easy as it had been on the shakedown sail, as the wind was against them, but the island largely protected them and they were able to slowly tack their way east. But as soon as they left the lee of the island and hit the open sea the temperature dropped, and The Last Privateer plunged headlong into a huge wave.
It felt like a cannonball had struck the hull.
After a lull of smaller waves, another large one hit, pounding their little boat. The red and green running lights swung in crazy circles. A great gust of wind pushed the sails over so the deck tilted and the shrouds dipped toward the water.
“I thought the storm wasn’t coming till Saturday!” Maria said.
“It’s not; I guess this is just the rough seas ahead of the storm,” Paolo said. “No one is out in this weather. Except us.” He stared at the black waves. “This is stupid.”
Maria knew he was right, but ignored him. The wind drove splashes of water from breaking waves into her face. She swiped her fingers across her glasses and took a step forward.
Suddenly the boat shifted under her feet. She fell down through a hole and hit her left shoulder against something hard. She gasped with the sudden pain. A gush of water doused her from above. She looked up.
Paolo shone his headlamp down at her. He stood at the top of the companionway. Maria realized that she must have fallen into the cabin.
“Are you okay?” he shouted.
“I fell.” Maria tried to raise her hand to block the blinding beam of his headlamp and pain shot through her shoulder. She immediately sat on the nearest bunk. Paolo disappeared.
“Paolo!” she yelled. The wind whipped her voice away and she heard no reply. “Paolo!”
She pulled her feet onto the mattress and hugged her injured arm. It felt better if she didn’t move it.
Finally Paolo came back.
“Where were you?” she yelled up at him.
“I had to take in sail and tie the wheel,” Paolo said. “I need you up here. This boat is too big for me to handle alone.”
Maria stood. Then the boat rolled and she skittered sideways and grabbed for the companionway. An electric pang zinged up her left arm.
“I think we should turn back.” Paolo sounded concerned.
“I don’t want to turn back,” Maria said. “We still have time to find the treasure if we hurry.”
“Forget the treasure,” Paolo said. “You’re hurt and we have to get home before this weather gets worse.”
“No!” Maria clung to the companionway with her right hand and breathed deeply, willing herself not to puke. “We have to try!” She groped for some way to convince him. “Anyhow, we’re closer to the outer islands than home.”
“You can’t even use your left arm.” Paolo looked at her. “I bet your shoulder is dislocated. I dislocated mine skateboarding once; it hurts like crazy.”
“Then if it was dislocated, I’d be passing out with pain. I’m fine. Just bruised a little.” Maria climbed the ladder as quickly as she could one-handed to show him she was okay. “Don’t tell me we stole a boat for nothing.”
Maria took the wheel before Paolo could argue. She breathed slowly and evenly; in through the nose and out through the mouth, four counts in, eight counts out, willing her nausea away. Her shoulder did hurt like crazy. Paolo was probably right, it probably was dislocated and it probably was stupid for them to go on.
Then, suddenly, the clouds parted and Maria could see Cassiopeia.
“Look!” She pointed her chin to the sky. “It’s a sign!”
Paolo looked at her for a long minute, his mouth set in a hard line. “Okay,” he finally said. “But only because we’re probably closer to the outer islands than home. Keep her steady on this course. I’ll be right back.”
Paolo went belowdecks. When he came back up he had a sheet he’d torn and folded in a triangle.
“At least let me tie it up for you,” he said. He made a sling and gently positioned her arm against her stomach, tying it securely in place.
“I really am okay,” she said.
“Sure you are,” he said, as if he didn’t believe her.
They pointed the prow as close to the correct heading as the wind would allow and sailed on, tacking back and forth. Maria steered; Paolo handled the sails. The boat still creaked and bucked against the waves, but the swell gradually lessened, broken by the small islands somewhere ahead in the dark. Now and then Cassiopeia winked at them from behind the clouds.
Then, ahead, Maria saw a dark mass, more like noth
ing than something.
She shone the high beam of her headlamp over the bowsprit. “I think I saw an island,” she told Paolo.
Paolo shone his light with hers. “There’s something out there,” he agreed. “I don’t see a door, though.”
They peered together into the night. The stars had disappeared behind the clouds again. It was so dark it was nearly impossible to see the difference between land, sea, and sky. But then a cliff face came into view.
“Hold the light high and watch for rocks,” Paolo said. “We need to find a safe place to anchor.”
“But can’t I keep our heading at 33 degrees?” Maria asked. “Just in case it is the right island?”
“Right now I just want to get off this boat,” Paolo said. “I don’t care where we are.”
Maria kept her light trained on the approaching island, and her compass heading as close as she could manage. Just as they were about to hit land, a wave tossed them and the cliff opened up. There was a cave! It had been hidden by a large rock that had created the illusion of a solid cliff.
“The door,” Maria whispered. Small waves curled into the mouth of the cave. “We found it.”
“What?” Paolo said.
“The door! It’s there!” Maria pointed with her chin.
Paolo shone his light in the direction she pointed. There it was. A cave. A door.
“Let go the anchor!” Paolo shouted, as he let the anchor go.
33
TREASURE ISLAND
The red and green running lights on the Privateer grew smaller and dimmer the farther they rowed from her. To Maria, sitting one-armed and useless, the waves felt bigger and more dangerous now that they were in a small rowboat, but Paolo pulled them steadily and confidently toward the beach beside the cave.
When they came to the shore break, Paolo jumped out and Maria followed. She used her one good arm to hold the dinghy’s painter while Paolo lashed it to a rock. The ocean wind had modulated to a cold, damp breeze. Their headlamps shone on the rocky beach and cliffs. It was so dark, and they were so far from any other humans. If something happened to them, no one would know where they were. No one would find them. No one came to this island except park rangers and biologists—and then only rarely.
“It feels like we’re the first people to ever land here,” she said.
“Well, I hope we aren’t. I hope pirates landed here.” Paolo pointed his headlamp toward the cave. He took her good arm and helped her scramble over the slick rocks. Even so, each step jostled her bad arm, and her shoulder throbbed with her heartbeat. But they were here! This had to be the treasure island. She steadied her breathing and walked carefully on.
The cave was bigger and deeper than it had looked from the boat. A curved dome of rock, about six feet at its highest point, formed the ceiling, and on the floor a stream of outgoing water weaved around boulders of varying size. Water dripped from the ceiling, and the floor was slippery with greenish-black slime. The rock walls sheltered them from the outside wind and the relative silence was a relief. The warmer air smelled of mildew and moss.
“What if we followed this stream?” She pointed her light at the rivulet. “It seems to be coming from somewhere back there.” Her light disappeared in the recesses of the cave.
“Okay. You first.” Paolo let her lead.
She picked her way carefully to what seemed like a dead end. But as she got closer, she saw that it was really a large boulder that had created a false back wall to the cave, and that behind it lay a tunnel through the cliff.
“It’s like a passageway,” she said. She peeked into a long rock hallway. Her light disappeared into the murk. “I don’t want to go first. There might be bats.”
“There aren’t any bats anymore,” Paolo said. “They all died from some weird bat disease. Don’t you read the news ever?”
“Oh, so we may be stepping on bat skeletons? That’s too creepy.”
Paolo didn’t answer, but he took the lead. All along the cave walls natural shelves jutted out at various heights. Paolo and Maria shone their lights onto each one, but each one was empty. It got colder and damper the deeper into the cave they went, and the dark walls closed in around them. She took hold of the back of Paolo’s shirt and he didn’t complain; he just reached back and took her hand in his. They crept like that through the narrowing passage for a long time. And then, suddenly, Paolo stopped.
“Look!” he said.
Maria came up beside him. Their headlamps shone into a large, round room. There were no exits but the passageway they’d come through.
“This is the end of the line,” Maria said. “If it isn’t here, it isn’t anywhere on this island.”
They shone their lights around the walls. Here, there were no weird rock shelves. Just smooth granite flecked with bright bits of mica. The floor, unlike the rest of the cave system, was oddly sandy.
“That’s weird,” Maria said.
“What?”
“There shouldn’t be sand here.” She got down on her knees and began sweeping away at the sand with her good arm. “All the rest of the cave is rocky. And we’re really far from the beach. This sand is too perfect, like it was trucked in and dumped. To hide something. Help me look.”
Just as she spoke, her hand brushed against something hard. “Come here and dig.”
Paolo got the shovel from the bag, but it wasn’t necessary. The chest was buried so shallowly they could find it with their hands. A brass corner poked from the sand. A little more digging revealed a leather handle.
Paolo whistled. “I never really thought…”
He grunted and pulled, but could not haul it up. Together, they dug away the sand to expose the top half of a wooden treasure chest. A large padlock secured the front.
“Oh, wow.” Paolo sat back. His hands raked his hair. “Oh. Wow. Can you believe it?”
Maria lifted the padlock and let it drop. It was real enough. Some kind of heavy metal. But the skull and crossbones carved on the back seemed theatrically pirate-esque. It reminded her of something.
“We don’t have a key. I guess we could carry it out.” Paolo tried to lift the chest. “Jeez. This thing weighs a ton.”
“Wait a second,” Maria said. She fished through her backpack. There it was, down at the bottom. The key with the skull and crossbones. The key she’d found on the boat.
She slid the key into the lock. It fit perfectly. With an easy turn of her wrist, the tumblers clicked over and the lock sprang open. Maria sat back on her heels, surprised.
Paolo stared at her with a puzzled expression. “How’d you get that key to work?”
“Remember how this didn’t fit in the engine starter?” Maria said. “Because it wasn’t for the boat. It was for this treasure chest.”
“But why would Mr. Ironwall have the key to this treasure chest in his sailboat?” Paolo asked.
“Why would he have had the treasure map in his cottage?” Maria answered. “Maybe all these artifacts were handed down to him from his ancestors, but he just didn’t put two and two together.”
“Well, let’s open it!” Paolo cried. He sprang forward and lifted the lid.
They both peered in, shining the beams of their headlamps together. There, nestled on a bed of sea-smoothed rocks, sat a fork.
“That’s weird,” Paolo said.
Maria picked the fork up and inspected it. It was badly tarnished, but it felt heavy and expensive. She rubbed a bit of black off and silver shone through. She rubbed a bit more, and the letter I appeared in the handle. The shape looked oddly familiar. Like the silverware she’d found on The Last Privateer that first day she’d gotten aboard. The set that was missing one fork.
“Oh,” Maria said. A horrible feeling washed through her. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“What?” said Paolo. He hovered near her shoulder. “That looks like real silver. Are there more in there?”
Maria’s head swam and she thought she might pass out. She bent over and took a few
deep breaths. It felt like cold black oil was filling her lungs and she couldn’t get enough air.
“Well, it’s worth taking back,” Paolo was saying. He scrabbled around in the chest, moving rocks. “But it’s not enough to make us rich.”
“Don’t bother,” Maria said. “That’s all there is.”
“How do you know?” Paolo said. He kept lifting out rocks and chucking them on the sand. “I bet the treasure is under all this—these rocks are just a decoy.”
“No. I know who the fork belongs to,” Maria said. She straightened up and shook the fork at Paolo. “See? The initial says I.”
“So?”
“I is for Ironwall. Mr. Ironwall,” Maria said. “And this is his fork. There were only three in the boat. There should’ve been four.”
“So what?” Paolo said. But he stopped chucking rocks.
Maria shone her light over the ground, carefully this time. A corner of paper stuck out from the bone-dry sand. She pulled it gently free and held it under her light.
It was a map, not unlike the map she had found in the attic, except this one was torn and brittle. She showed it to Paolo.
“So you’re saying there were two maps?” Paolo said.
Maria dug about in the sand. “Mr. Ironwall got here before us.”
“Is that why he’s so rich?” Paolo asked. “He already found the pirate treasure?”
Maria continued to pull things from the sand. She found a cocktail napkin. A toothpick with faded green cellophane decorating one end. A lady’s bobby pin. An oyster shell. Another beat-up copy of the same map.
Maria showed him the items in her hand.
“I don’t understand,” Paolo said.
“Do you remember the story Pops told about a party Mr. Ironwall threw?” Maria said.
“No.” Paolo pulled his headlamp from his head and shone it on the cave floor. Now they could see many small bits of litter. Another napkin. Another oyster shell. A peach pit. A corner of a picture. Paolo picked it up and held it to the light.
It looked like part of an old movie poster. Maria could make out:
The Treasure of Maria Mamoun Page 19