Spirits of the Pirate House

by Paul Ferrante

  Ronnie broke out some turkey and ham sandwiches and potato chips, and the teens sat together eating while Mike asked Goodwin about the boat; he was thinking of buying one back in LA. Then they stretched out on the forward deck, and the Junior Gonzo Ghost Chasers removed their black tee shirts to get some sun.

  T.J. and Bortnicker were semi-dozing, the boat’s gentle rocking almost lulling them to sleep, when Goodwin called everyone together on the stern where he’d laid out an odd assemblage of equipment.

  “All right, boys,” he said with mild excitement, “here’s what I have in mind. Before you are some tools you might find interesting. First, these wand-like thingies are handheld metal detectors. Wave them over anything you think looks promising, and we’ll see if you’re lucky. There will be an audible beep if you pass over metal, I assure you. Then, we have a simple ping-pong paddle which you can use to fan the sand away once you get a hit. We use these to avoid breaking any delicate items which might lie beneath. And, of course, we have for each of you a mesh ‘goody bag’ in which you can secure any small items.”

  “What do we use to dig with?” asked Bortnicker.

  “Your hands, naturally,” answered Goodwin.

  “Gotcha.”

  “Now, if there’s something that’s confusing you, or the wand goes haywire, wave me over,” said Jasper. “If not, I’ll just putter around and pick up some lobsters for my dinner tonight. I think I found some rather promising hidey holes on our first dive.”

  “Can we suit up?” asked T.J.

  “Let’s have at it.”

  The boys and LouAnne donned their still-clammy black tee shirts and geared up again, this time with less trepidation. As before, Goodwin went over the side first. “One treasure chest, coming up!” said Bortnicker with a wink at Ronnie, and then they were again falling to the wreck.

  T.J. stuck the ping pong paddle inside his BCD and started wanding. He was excited to get a couple hits, but just as deflated when his waving/digging turned up ancient handmade nails and nothing more. Bortnicker was having as little luck as his friend, finding only broken glass and pottery shards.

  But then, almost 30 minutes into the dive, T.J. got a clear ping as he passed the wand over a small bump in the sand. He quickly took the paddle and began fanning the mound, carefully scraping with the other hand. Gradually, a circular outline came into focus, then a hard edge of something at least a good foot across. He motioned Bortnicker over and pantomimed an eating motion. Had he found a pewter plate, perhaps? He glanced above to where LouAnne was looking down and realized that she was on it, whatever it was.

  Gently, T.J. started scooping handfuls of sand from the center of the circle as Bortnicker pulled sand from around the outside of the edge. T.J.’s hand went deeper. This was no dinner plate. Realizing that time was now running out on their second dive, he frantically gave Goodwin, who was back on the bottom after bringing up a few spiny lobsters, the “come here” signal. The Divemaster swam hard to the boys, his flippers fluttering. When he reached them he stopped cold, and T.J. could see his eyes widen in amazement.

  Now all three of them scooped for all they were worth, their excitement building with every palm full of sand.

  It was an inverted bell, encrusted with various types of coral and other growths, and a few shells attached to boot. Goodwin stopped and shook his head slowly, still not completely accepting what he was seeing. Then, he gave the boys a signal to wait a minute and kicked hard for the surface. They continued excavating until they felt him re-enter the water, dragging with him a metal basket attached to a rope. Once on the bottom, the three divers managed to rock the bell enough that it broke free from the sands which had covered it for centuries. Goodwin tipped the basket, and the boys managed to push/roll the bell inside. Making sure it was securely in place, he gave the rope a couple yanks and motioned the boys to move back.

  Almost immediately the rope went taut, and the basket began a slow climb to the surface. Goodwin, after exchanging slow motion high fives with the teens, tapped his watch and then gave the signal to ascend.

  “Are you kidding me, dude?” yelled Mike as they broke the water. He was helping Skeeter, who’d used a winch to retrieve the basket, to ease the bell down onto the deck. Ronnie was jumping up and down excitedly, and LouAnne was paddling hard back to the boat.

  “I got it all on film!” she cried triumphantly. “The whole thing!”

  The divers quickly shed their equipment, then sat around the basket in awe. “This is ... quite extraordinary,” said Goodwin finally.

  “Ya think?” answered LouAnne.

  “The ship’s bell,” Weinstein marveled. “What are the odds?”

  “Astronomical,” said Jasper. “I simply cannot believe we found this. Boys, I’m ... flabbergasted.”

  “Are there any markings?” asked Ronnie, hosing some sand off the bell’s outer surface.

  “Well, there’s moderate encrustation,” answered her father, “which is to be expected. But if we can chip some of this lighter stuff away, I think we can get to the brass fairly easily. This must’ve spent a lot of time totally buried.”

  Skeeter, who had momentarily disappeared, suddenly produced a hammer and chisel-like instrument.

  “Oh, I don’t know about this,” said Goodwin doubtfully. “Wouldn’t want to cause any damage. I’m a diver, hardly an archaeologist—”

  “Oh Daddy, please!” exhorted Ronnie. “You’re not going to leave the discovery to someone else, are you?”

  The captain looked at all the hopeful faces, frowned, then sighed. “It appears I’m outnumbered,” he observed with a slight grin. “Miss Darcy, you might want to grab that camera again. Skeeter, hand me those things and let’s have a go. But I warn you now, if it doesn’t work fairly easily I’m going to stop before I ruin the surface. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” the team said in unison.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Mr. Goodwin,” piped LouAnne, clicking on RECORD.

  And so, very gingerly, Jasper Goodwin began chipping away at the bottom third of the bell. At first, only the tiniest bits of coral flaked off, but he gradually became bolder, and after one particularly solid tap, a chunk of matter dropped off. “Oops,” he said quietly.

  “Keep going, Daddy! I see something!” urged Ronnie.

  Another tap; another flying piece of crust. Then another.

  “Stop!” cried T.J. suddenly. “Look!”

  There, inside a band which most certainly circled the base of the bell, were etched the letters DFA. All of them were breathing heavily now.

  “One more letter,” said Goodwin, and gave the chisel another rap. Winking in the Bermuda sunlight were the letters ST. They’d found the Steadfast.

  “Incredible,” said Goodwin, by now drenched in sweat, as the others danced around in glee. Weinstein was so overcome he roared a loud “Woohoo!” and cannonballed off the Reef Seeker II into the crystal blue water.

  T.J. stood, frozen in amazement, until his cousin put down the camcorder and gave him a bear hug. “Proud of you,” she whispered amid the joyous din.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled, unable to hug her back.

  After a few minutes of whooping and hollering, Jasper Goodwin assembled his crew, including a dripping Mike Weinstein, on the stern. “Right,” he said evenly. “It appears we’ve surpassed our wildest expectations here, and that’s all well and good. The question is, what next?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Mike, toweling off.

  “Well, the fact of the matter is that you’ve only just begun your investigation,” he answered, picking a snail shell off the bell. “You still have to visit Hibiscus House, and I reckon another dive this week is in order, now that we know it’s actually the Steadfast. If we go ahead and announce our find, it will be front page news on this island, and none of us will have a moment’s peace.”

  “So we keep it quiet?” asked Bortnicker.

  “For the time being. It will give me some time to really work on the bell and fo
r you to continue your activities. Agreed?”

  “Mum’s the word,” said Skeeter, the first thing he’d uttered all day. The group burst into laughter.

  “So we’re agreed,” said Jasper. “Good. But though we’re keeping this amongst us, I think a celebration is in order, don’t you? I fetched us a few good-sized lobsters while you archaeologists were at work, and I wouldn’t be averse to cooking them up for a proper feast. Your thoughts?”

  “Sounds great,” said T.J.

  “If it’s not too much trouble,” added LouAnne.

  “No trouble at all. Veronique, ring up your mum on the cell and tell her to meet us at the Blue Lagoon in an hour or so with all we’ll need to whip up a serious lobster boil.”

  “I’ll call T.J.’s dad and tell him to take the scooter over and join us after I call Chappy to pick us up later than planned,” said Weinstein. “Jasper, should I tell Tom to bring anything?”

  “I should think a couple bottles of champagne would be appropriate,” he replied with a broad smile.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It took a while to dock the Reef Seeker II and wash her down, but everyone was on such a high that nobody cared. By the time T.J. and the other divers had rinsed off in the Blue Lagoon’s outdoor shower stall and thrown on a change of clothes, Jasper Goodwin and his wife had transformed the back patio into a waterfront café, complete with umbrellaed picnic table and chairs.

  Upon meeting Claudette Goodwin, T.J. and Bortnicker immediately determined how Ronnie had gotten her looks. She had the same stunning eyes and smooth skin and seemed to glide as she walked. “I’m thinking Halle Berry,” whispered Bortnicker as T.J. stepped into his flip-flops.

  “With a little Beyoncé thrown in,” T.J. quipped.

  But whereas Ronnie was demonstrative and outgoing, Claudette was more like her husband—all Bermudian politeness and reserve. “So pleased to meet you,” she said with a feminine handshake. “Veronique has told me so much about you. I hope you’re enjoying your stay.”

  “It’s been great so far,” answered Bortnicker.

  “And you must be LouAnne,” said the woman, taking her hand warmly. “You’re as beautiful as my daughter described you.”

  “Thanks,” LouAnne said, coloring. “I still feel kind of sticky and salty—”

  “Nonsense. You look just fine. Would you like to help Veronique and I prepare the cassava pie?”

  “Actually, Mrs. Goodwin,” said Bortnicker, stepping forward, “that’s kind of my specialty. I’d be glad to pitch in!”

  “Well, fine then,” she smiled. Claudette put her arm in his and led him to a corner of the patio where her husband had set up a grill, which Ronnie was lighting.

  “I think he’s in heaven,” said T.J. to his cousin.

  “Oh yeah,” agreed LouAnne. “They’ve got him surrounded.”

  T.J. looked around uncertainly. “Want to go for a walk?” he offered.

  “I’d like that,” she smiled. “Get my land legs back.” They wandered off just as Tom Sr. pulled in on his moped.

  “So what happened?” he asked Jasper while handing the champagne bottles off to Mike.

  “The boys actually found the Steadfast’s bell. Come look.” He led Tom Sr. to a back room where the bell sat submerged in a tub of saltwater. The telltale letters were even more visible now, as Jasper had been chipping away at more of the encrustation.

  “Wow,” said Tom Sr. “Things like this don’t normally happen, right?”

  Goodwin shook his head. “Mr. Jackson, things like this never happen. Not to amateur divers, anyway. It was like a magnet drew them to the bell. Rather spooky, actually.”

  “What now?”

  “Well, we’ve agreed to, you might say, ‘sit on it’ for a bit while the kids conduct their investigations of the house. But I have strongly suggested another dive day on Thursday to see what else we might find.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well,” said Goodwin, “Sir William was, after all, a pirate. There could be some valuable items under that sand, or there could be nothing. I just want the kids to have the opportunity to find it first because, quite frankly, secrets don’t last long on an island as small as Bermuda. If we could keep the news of our find quiet for just another week, I’d be pleased—and amazed.”

  “Understood.” Tom Sr. reached into the tub and felt the outer shell of encrustation on the bell. “The kids must be sky-high over this,” he marveled.

  “Oh, yes. And no matter what happens from here on, when word of this discovery gets out the boys will be instant celebrities.”

  “But it’s also good for your dive shop, isn’t it?”

  Goodwin smiled. “Let’s say it won’t hurt business a bit,” he replied, clapping Jackson on the shoulder. “Let’s get outside. The lobsters should be about done.”

  While Bortnicker and the Goodwin women cooked and Tom Sr. was perusing the bell with Jasper, T.J. strolled with his cousin along the small beach of the cove. The sun was just beginning its slow descent, and the Blue Lagoon party’s laughter carried across the water.

  “Everyone’s so happy,” observed LouAnne as she looked back toward the dock.

  “Well, it was a pretty amazing day,” said T.J. “I still can’t believe we found that bell.”

  “Mr. Goodwin wants us to dive the wreck again on Thursday. If we already know the wreck is the Steadfast, what’s the point?”

  “Maybe there’s like millions of gold doubloons and stuff we could find. Who knows?”

  “Yeah, but didn’t Mr. Goodwin tell you that, by law, anything we find that’s valuable has to be turned over to the government?”

  “That’s what he said. But, I’ll tell you what. Any gold baubles, I’ll smuggle them out of the country for you.”

  “Deal,” she said, laughing. LouAnne stooped to pick up a flat stone, then skipped it across the Lagoon’s gentle waves.

  “Something wrong?” asked T.J.

  “I’m worried about your buddy,” she said.

  “Again with this? C’mon, Cuz, he’s having the time of his life. A girl—who by the way is gorgeous—is actually paying attention to him.”

  “I’m just so frightened for him,” said LouAnne. “He seems so clueless at times when it comes to girls, and Ronnie, in my humble opinion, is anything but clueless.”

  “I get you,” said T.J., who wasn’t exactly a lady-killer himself at Bridgefield High School, despite his good looks. “Jeez, when I think of some of the disasters he’s had over the past couple years—”

  “Well, last summer you told me about that one girl he asked to a dance, remember? Bought her flowers, the whole bit?”

  “Yeah, and she blew him off,” he said, shaking his head. “And then there was Madison Blitstein.”

  “Are you serious? There’s actually a girl at your school named Madison Blitstein?”

  “Well, there was, back in the seventh grade. She’s at some toney all-girls prep school now.”

  “So what happened?”

  “A typical Bortnicker train wreck. Lots of the Jewish kids in our school were having their Bar or Bat Mitzvahs that year, and this girl Madison’s parents are loaded. They threw this huge party at the most exclusive country club in Fairfield County, something like 400 people. I mean, it was a bigger production than most weddings I’ve been to with my dad.

  “Anyway, Madison—who believe me, was never gonna win any beauty contests herself—invited like every kid in the seventh grade—”

  “Except Bortnicker.”

  “Yup. Jewish kids, Catholics, Protestants ... didn’t matter. The more the merrier. As long as you weren’t Bortnicker.”

  “What a witch!”

  “Yeah. So, like always, I went to her and said, like, ‘C’mon Maddie, can’t you have just one more person? You’ve got around half the population of Connecticut coming already.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said, and I quote: ‘Bortnicker? Ew!’ Which about describes her level of i
ntelligence.”

  “Did you go?”

  “Nah. I told her if he isn’t invited, neither am I. So I personally handed her back the invitation. It felt kind of good, actually. We ended up spending the night of Blitstein’s Bat Mitzvah at his house, working on his model train layout. And he kept saying, ‘You didn’t have to do this, Big Mon,’ over and over, but I knew I did. Want to know what’s funny about the whole thing?”

  “What?”

  “On the kids buffet menu they had these buffalo chicken wings that everyone was scarfing down. Well, the country club had left them standing around too long before they got cooked, and almost everyone got food poisoning.”

  “No way!”

  “Oh yeah. The next day was a Monday, and Bortnicker and I were like the entire seventh grade!”

  LouAnne chuckled, and her eyes got filmy. “That’s why I love ya, Cuz,” she said and gave him a hug, which he didn’t mind at all.

  “So, is that all that’s bothering you?”

  “Kind of. T.J., did you ever get the feeling that something’s too good to be true?”

  “Sometimes. What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just that ... here we are in this magical place, having a great time, making this incredible find ... maybe I’m just too pessimistic.”

  “Nah,” he said, lightly resting his hand on her shoulder. “To tell you the truth, I was having the same feeling on the boat on the way back. But, hey, why shouldn’t this happen to us? We’re all good people, right?”

  He looked into her eyes, and for a moment, time seemed to stand still.

  Suddenly a piercing “Oww!” broke over the water. Bortnicker must’ve burned himself or something.

  “Guess we’d better get back,” said LouAnne.

  Reluctantly, they turned toward the Blue Lagoon.

  * * * *

  Over succulent boiled lobsters dripping in butter, the divers recounted the day’s exploits for Tom Sr. and Claudette, who seemed to have somewhat different reactions. T.J.’s dad was brimming with pride, and kept high-fiving Mike and the kids with each round of champagne. Mrs. Goodwin, however, seemed a bit more reserved. When Ronnie picked up on her reticence she simply shrugged and explained, “It’s just a bell, after all.”