Hesitantly she put out her hand. The nearest cow licked it with a sandpapery tongue. The warm pressure of tears began to build up behind her eyelids. ‘We’ll never find it,’ she thought again, ‘we’ll never find it.’
12. Changing History
“Ah!” said Robert, a considerable while later. “Well!” He rubbed his hands together in an offensively cheerful manner. “Shall we look some more?”
The girls stood up without a word and followed him into the field.
“Now, where were we?”
“Little further on,” Susan sighed.
“More to the right, wasn’t it?” said Victoria.
“Could’ve sworn we left off about here,” Robert said minutes later. “Anybody hear the yellow jackets?”
“No,” said Victoria. “We should be over there.”
“Isn’t this it?” said Susan a few minutes later. “What’s happened to our trails, anyway?”
The meadow appeared everywhere as unruffled as it had when they first set foot on it. They looked at each other blankly as the realization came to them at last: there was no way of telling where they had already been. During their rest under the tree the grass had sprung erect again, obliterating all traces of their passing through earlier.
That was the last turn of the screw for Susan. She threw herself weeping to the ground. Robert and Victoria patted her back and dabbed at her face with their handkerchiefs, but it did no good; a conviction of the hopelessness of the whole undertaking crushed her. For her own sake she might not have minded so much; but she had as good as promised that the Walkers would be saved, and it was unbearable to have failed them so miserably. “It’s just a wild goo-goose chase,” she sobbed, “and it’s all m-m-my fault, I wish I was dead.”
When she had no tears left, Robert said gently, “Come on, Sue, don’t give up yet. I’m not going to give up. Vic isn’t either, are you, Vic?”
“No … At least, not if Sue doesn’t.”
“But I don’t know where we are,” Susan sniffled. “It’s all just guessing. I don’t know if your house is really where the apartment will be, and I don’t know if we measured the blocks right or — or anything. I don’t know anything.” Her voice broke. She pulled her crumpled handkerchief from her pocket, and two acorns fell to the ground.
“Here,” said Victoria, picking them up. “Don’t cry any more, Sue.” She gave an encouraging little smile. “You know what they say about acorns and oaks.”
“Oaks?” Something stirred in Susan’s mind.
“ ‘Great oaks from little acorns grow,’ ” Robert said. “It’s something like Rome not being built in a day. It means don’t get discour—”
“Wait a minute,” Susan said. “Is that tree an oak?”
“Yes,” said Victoria. “But what’s that got to do with—?”
“Oh, how dumb can you get?” Susan exclaimed, smacking her forehead. “Of course it’s an oak! Here I had these acorns right in my hand, and I never made the connection!”
“What connection?” said Robert.
“Acorns and oaks! Listen, do you know what they used to call the playground? Oak Park!”
“Ah!” Victoria said. “And that’s the only oak tree for miles.”
“So maybe we weren’t so far off after all!”
“For that matter,” Robert said thoughtfully, “it’s the only real landmark for miles. You have to have a landmark when you bury something, if you want to find it again.”
“That’s right!” Victoria said. “Ninety paces due west from the old oak! Or south —”
“Or east or north — or any point between. Or any number of paces, for that matter. Thunderation! I wish we had his map instead of the new s—”
“Listen!” Susan cried, seizing them both so suddenly that they jumped. “What if you were going to bury something and you didn’t want to fool with any map?”
“Well,” Robert stammered, “you — you could write down the number of paces and the direction.”
“No, no! — too dangerous — somebody might find your note. No notes, no maps! Think!”
“You could just remember how many paces—” Victoria offered hopefully.
“No!” Susan shouted. “Why try to remember anything? You’d do the simplest thing you could think of! You’d bury it right under the tree!”
A shocked second of silence.
Robert whispered, “That must be it!”
“Come on!”
How they ran! The great yellow jacket escape was nothing compared to this sprint. “Boo!” Robert yelled at the cows. “Yah yah! Yoo hooooop!” The animals snorted and heaved themselves upright and shied away.
“Spade!” Robert panted. “Give me the spade!”
“Wait a minute,” Victoria said. “We ought to—”
Robert stabbed the spade into the ground with all his strength. “Here!” he shouted. “Something solid! No rock, either!” The crumbly leaf mould gave way as easily as sand under his attack. “There it is — it’s wood!” He rammed the corner of the spade against the dark surface. It glanced off, leaving a moist white wound.
“It’s only a root,” Victoria said. “Now be sensible, Bobbie. We’ll only wear ourselves out digging at random this way.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter where we start,” Susan said faintly as she looked about. “Under the tree” had sounded simple enough when she said it, but now she saw that the words could mean anywhere in an area of hundreds of square feet — or possibly (it was a huge tree) thousands of square feet …
“It might matter,” Victoria said. “Now, if I were burying something I wanted to find again, I’d pick some sort of mark on the trunk and dig by that.”
They circled the tree slowly, studying every foot of trunk.
“That bump is the only real mark,” Robert said.
“Except for that smooth place,” said Susan, pointing.
“That’s just where the cows rub themselves — it might not have been there when the man buried the money.”
Susan gazed up into the branches. “Know what I’d do? I’d pick the biggest branch and dig under it. Which is the biggest — this one or that one?”
“This one,” said Victoria. “I think.”
“Look!” Robert said. “That one’s got a crook in it! That’s where I’d dig, right under the crook. You couldn’t possibly miss a mark like that.”
“Well, you couldn’t miss the bump on the trunk, either. One’s just as good as the other.”
“No it isn’t, Vic. You can dig right under the crook, but you can see the bump anywhere from here on out.”
“We’ll have to try everything,” Susan sighed. “Anything could be a mark, actually. The thing is, we’ll have to be systematic about it.”
“Around and around,” said Robert. “Bigger circles each time. Let’s start under the crook, though — just in case.”
“How about roots?” Victoria asked. “The ground will be full of them.”
“That’s all right,” said Susan. “Every time the rod hits something we’ll mark the place with an acorn. Then if we end up with a line of acorns we’ll know there’s a root underneath, and we won’t have to dig there.”
“That means we’ll have to pick up all the acorns first,” Robert said dubiously. “So we won’t mix up the markers and the other ones.”
“There must be millions of them,” Victoria murmured, scanning the ground.
At that instant Susan gave a shriek and jumped.
“It’s only a cow, Sue,” Robert said. “It won’t hurt you.”
“Well, why does it have to sneak up from behind and blow in my ear?”
“Just curious. Oh, thunderation!” he went on angrily. “Here come the rest of them. How are we going to keep track of where we’ve probed with them trampling around and lying down on top of everything? You can’t keep a cow out of the shade on a day like this. They just keep coming back as fast as you chase them.”
Susan quavered. Her legs were sha
king with the fright the cow had given her, and despair was closing in again. Under the tree, indeed! They were no better off than before. She was going to cry again …
Blindly she turned away and sank down on her former seat.
“The rock!” Victoria cried.
“What?”
“Under the rock!”
“Come on!” Robert shouted.
“But — but —” Susan stammered as they yanked her to her feet and turned her around.
“Got your fingers under?”
“Grab that edge!”
“Ready? Heave!”
“Heave!”
The rock was large and flat and heavy, but it stirred slightly. Three small grey furry things darted out from under.
“Ooh!” Victoria squeaked. She let go her grip and jumped back. The rock fell.
“They’re only mice,” Robert said disgustedly.
“I don’t like them running over my feet. If you don’t mind.”
“Did you hear how the rock fell?” Susan whispered. “It sounded hollow underneath!”
“Oh, come on, Vic!”
“Got it?”
“Heave! Heave!”
Their legs and arms trembled, their spines cracked. The rock suddenly tore away from its bed, and lifted, and toppled over. The earth underneath was crisscrossed with mouse tunnels.
“It sounded hollow,” Susan insisted. “Listen!” She stamped on the bare earth. “There! Did you hear that?” She stamped again, harder, with the point of her heel. There was a soft, punky, crushing noise. Her foot vanished. Something clinked as she pulled it out of the hole.
They dropped to their knees, plunged their hands into the hole, and brought them up heavy with slithers of coins. “Oh!” they breathed, “ah!” as they let the golden eagles sift through their fingers with a slide and a clink and a glitter …
“Let’s count them!” Robert said.
“No!” said Susan, suddenly dropping her handful and straightening up. “We must be crazy! Right out in the open, where anybody that wants to can come along and see us! Let’s cover it up, quick! We can come back and get it tonight after dark.”
Her panic was infectious. They all jumped up and looked about them. Except for themselves and the cows the world appeared empty of life; but at any moment — “Come on!” said Robert. They struggled and grunted until the stone was back in place, settled it down as naturally as they could and brushed the grass and fallen oak leaves around its edges. Then they dropped down at full length and relaxed again, letting a quiet gloating feeling take possession of them. There was a long silence. The cows drifted back into the shade, one by one, swishing their tails.
“I’m hungry!” Victoria suddenly announced. “How about you, Sue?”
“Oh, yes!” said Susan, suddenly rediscovering an appetite that she had thought was lost forever.
“Listen —” Robert began uneasily.
But Victoria had already found out. “Robert, you hog! You didn’t leave a thing! Oh, you — you Bobolink!”
“Well,” he protested, dodging out of her reach, “I kept offering you some. You wouldn’t even listen. What’s a fellow supposed to do, anyway? Waste it all? Here, you can have these. I was saving them for later on.”
So the girls had to make do with three rather battered sandwiches from his pockets.
“I wish we could’ve counted it,” Robert said, when it seemed safe to speak again.
“Good thing gold isn’t edible,” Victoria sniffed, “or there wouldn’t be any left to count.”
“All right, all right. I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Well, I am, so there … I still wish we could count it. How much does the paper say, Sue?”
“Sixty thousand.”
“Sixty thousand!” he whistled. “You know what, that’s a huge amount to leave for the twentieth century … Come to think of it, why should we leave any? Are you sure it’s that much?”
“See for yourself,” she said, giving him the front page.
Robert unfolded it, looked at it, turned it over, turned it over again, and said, “Wrong page, Sue.”
“It can’t be — I only had one.”
“You sure?”
“Well of course I’m sure! I just tore off one page.”
“Great Caesar! Look — it’s — it’s different!”
Susan felt her scalp tingle as she examined the page. Most of it was exactly as before. But the headline was now
MAYOR ASKS BOND ISSUE FOR WATER
In the column where the treasure story had been there was an account of a press conference at City Hall. The map now showed the whole city, with three black X’s distributed over it; and the caption said, “New Reservoir Sites Proposed By City Engineers.”
“You know what?” Victoria whispered after a while. “They never found the treasure in the twentieth century after all!”
“But they did,” Susan said. “That’s why it was in the paper.”
“But it’s not in the paper any more. It won’t be in the paper. It’s just as Bobbie said — if we find it they can’t.”
“Yes, but —” Susan began. She appealed helplessly to Robert. “What does it mean?”
“Well,” he said, rubbing his head slowly with both hands. “I guess it means that they did find it until you came up the elevator and we found it, and from then on they didn’t find it. If that makes any sense.”
“That’s it,” Victoria said in awe-stricken tones. “Do you know what we’ve done? We’ve changed history!”
“Which means we don’t have to leave any for the twentieth century after all,” Robert said. “When we come back for it tonight we can take every last penny of it.”
13. Night Alarms, Morning Thoughts
“No!” Victoria said. “It would show through the water. What we should do is bury it in the garden somewhere.”
“Trouble with that,” Robert said, “is that I’d have to do the digging. It’ll be all right in the pond, Vic — the water isn’t clear enough to show anything on the bottom.”
“But then one of us would have to get all wet pulling it out again.”
“Well, I don’t mind getting wet.”
“And besides, a lot of it could get lost in the mud. You know how deep it is.”
“Well, I guess it is pretty deep … What do you think, Sue?”
But Susan wasn’t listening. Every muscle she had ached, her eyes were gritty from lack of sleep, but she was filled with a dreamy, yearning kind of happiness.
She lay in the grass with her hands under her head and gazed up at the Milky Way. Victoria and Robert rested in the dark beside her, their backs propped against a wheelbarrow. In the wheelbarrow lay a potato sack, bulging with gold pieces. Crickets trilled and rustled about them. A nearby cow worked through the grass with a juicy crunching rhythm.
“Sue?”
“Mm?”
“Where are we going to hide the treasure when we get home?”
“I don’t care,” she murmured.
“You have to care, Sue. It’s your treasure!”
“No, it belongs to all of us. You did as much work as I did.”
“He’s right, though, Sue,” Victoria said. “If it weren’t for you we’d never —”
“Oh, be sensible! What could I do with it? I can’t take the time to spend it here, and there’s no use taking it to the twentieth century because we don’t use gold money any more — it’s illegal or something. I couldn’t carry it anyway. And why do we have to hide it? We’ll just give it to your Mama. That’s why we dug it up in the first place.”
“I don’t know how we’re ever going to thank you,” Victoria said.
“Oh, nonsense,” Susan said. “I don’t want any thanks. I just want to look at the stars for a while.”
There was a long silence.
“Sue?” Victoria said.
“Mm?”
“I’ve just been thinking … How are you going
to give it to Mama? Are you going to tell her about everything?”
“Goodness, no! All that explaining? It’s going to be hard enough just to explain to my own father where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing.”
“Well, how, then?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it. Just leave it on the doorstep, I guess. What do you think?”
“Well,” Victoria said slowly, “I don’t know if that’s the best way … It’d be a dreadful shock to Mama. I mean — sixty thousand dollars out of the clear blue sky! How are we ever going to make her believe that it’s really for her?”
“We can pretend it’s from a rich uncle in Australia,” Robert said.
“Oh, pooh! You know perfectly well we haven’t got any uncles in Australia.”
“I see your point, though,” Susan said. “Hmmm … How about giving her just a little to begin with? Anybody can believe in a hundred dollars, can’t they?”
“I know!” said Robert. “There can be a note with it that says, ‘From the Mysterious Stranger’!”
“How about ‘From a Well-Wisher’?” Susan suggested.
“That’s it!” Victoria cried. “ ‘Do not despair,’ it’ll say. ‘To dash the tear from your cheek, to make the smile appear — no, bloom — to make the smile bloom on your lips has ever been the — wish? — no, make it desire — ever been the desire of’ and then we sign it ‘One who wishes you well.’ ”
“ ‘More to follow,’ ” Robert added. “Just to prepare her for the rest. Sue’ll have to do it, though, Mama knows our handwriting. Will you, Sue?”
“Sure.”
“How romantic!” Victoria sighed. “Mama will be so mystified! She probably will think it’s from some distinguished gentleman with grey hair who’s been hopelessly in love with her ever since he saw her in the park one day when she was but a girl.”
“Oh — listen — to — that!” Robert groaned.
“You’re an unfeeling brute, that’s what you are. The only thing you can get sentimental about is food.”
There was another silence.
Time at the Top Page 10