by Sarah Morell
We all chimed in that it sounded good. I went to the pole barn and selected a better shovel and a large pickax. The pickax was too heavy to carry so I dragged it back to the hole by its handle. When I got back, the three of us started digging furiously. I tried using the pickaxe, but it was too unwieldy. We were getting pretty dirty. Dad thought we looked like a bunch of dirty miners or treasure hunters digging for treasure. Ivy kept complaining that she wasn’t getting a turn with the pickax, so I finally relented.
Ivy raised it up above her head and totally missed the hole. Instead, her swing made full contact with the golden turnip, which is what I started calling it. Time again stopped. Well, it stopped for everyone, but us. We all sat there waiting for the missing minute to pass when Dad looked up in alarm and started running. The only thing I heard was the faint sound, “ABACUS!”
By the time he reached the door, the minute was up. It was too late. There was peanut butter on what looked like every surface. Abacus’s head was covered. Mom even had peanut butter in her hair. Looking in the huge peanut butter jar you could see what looked like little hand prints where fistfuls of goo had been wrenched from the jar to be flung far and wide.
It is hard to comprehend what a free two year old can do with a full can of peanut butter in the course of 60 seconds. Abacus is smart. She must have known she would only have moments of independence before the timer would reset. It would have been a race against the clock to see how much PB she could absorb.
Even the dog had patches of brown creamy peanut butter stuck to her fur. This only added to the mess. The dog was now free to move about, trying to remove the hard to reach edible tastiness. She was rolling all over the carpet in a fashion that looked better than any trick we had ever taught her.
Mom was not at all happy. In the blink of an eye, the house went from clean and tidy to this mess. The cleanup took us the rest of the afternoon. From then on, whenever we were near the object, someone had to be with Abacus. It just wasn’t safe to leave her alone.
Chapter 4 – The Big Dig
Before we were done for the evening, the object looked like a pointed, golden wizard’s hat sitting in the hole. Dad was afraid that the object might get bumped in the night, so we put a tarp over the hole. He told us several times to be careful when he wasn’t around.
We don’t usually work in the yard on Sunday, but the big dig was all any of us could think about during church that day. We raced home. I think I even saw Dad go over the speed limit a little bit. Dad, Ivy, and I ran upstairs to change out of our nice church clothes. I ran down the stairs to the kitchen to grab a quick snack before Mom had even made it out of the car with Abacus. Dad and Ivy were both too slow to win the ‘after church get into junk clothes’ race. As Dad and Ivy were rushing down the stairs trying to get past each other for second place, Mom could be heard saying, “No roughhousing on the stairs.”
“What’s for dinner?” Dad asked as he pulled on his old garden work boots and rooted through the key drawer for the tractor key. He held up the blue key in victory at finding it so quickly among all the junk keys that had accumulated in the drawer. “We’ll be outside,” he called over his shoulder as he pushed us out the back door.
Before the door even closed, Mom was poking her head out to say, “Don’t you go messing with that thing without someone to watch the baby. I don’t want another peanut butter fiasco.”
I, being the responsible one, went back into the house to help get Abacus out of her nice clothes. I don’t know why Mom and Dad still call her a baby. She can practically put on her own clothes. Although, she still wears diapers, so I guess that makes her a baby in their eyes. Maybe the youngest child at the time always gets called ‘the baby’.
Abacus and I made it outside pretty quickly, but Dad already had the tractor out. The front bucket was set to digging, pulling up big chunks of the ground around the object. Ivy was by the front side of the tractor, using some kind of air traffic controller hand signals to let him know where to dig. All she needed was flashlights and she would look more like she was directing a plane instead of the digger. Abacus was an armful. She insisted on copying Ivy’s hand motions, which made her nearly impossible to carry.
The hole just kept getting bigger and deeper. Dad was being extra careful not to accidentally bump metal into metal again. To ensure that didn’t happen he began making a ramp on one side going down into the ever increasing hole. After an hour or two of digging, Mom called us in for Sunday dinner.
Sunday dinners are, well, different. Dinner is really more like a late lunch. At normal dinner time we have Sunday supper as our last meal of the day. We don’t know why, but we still call it that every Sunday.
We scarfed our dinner, in this case meaning, we politely ate as quickly as we could without causing all of the food to land on the floor. The hole was, according to Dad’s estimate, at least 12 feet in diameter. Mom had joined us outside, camping out with a tall icy glass of lemonade for herself and a flavored icicle for the baby. Of course, it had to be green since that was the only color icicle Abacus would eat. Abacus sat bouncing on Mom’s lap and pointing to the hole in the ground, saying, “Peanut Butter!” Apparently, she had already made the connection that good things came from the device. Before the icicle was gone, Mom was wearing green drips all over the nice white t-shirt she had borrowed from Dad’s closet.
Digging with the tractor was not an exact science. Dad parked the tractor on the slope of the ramp so that we could deposit the dirt from our shovels into the bucket. We realized just how deep it was when we noticed that only the very top of the tractor was sticking out of the manmade hole.
The device still looked like a boulder covered in dirt. We could finally see that it was angling down to what we had hoped was the bottom. Dad and I had the shovels and were probing closer to the device, trying to knock off more dirt without banging into the object itself. The top of the hole was over the top of Dad’s head, but we still had more digging to do. We could walk all the way around the inside of the hole with at least a few feet to spare between the object and the steeply carved walls that surrounded it.
It took a lot of digging with the shovel to fill up the front bucket of the tractor each time. As day turned into evening, we were absolutely worn out. It is a good thing we live out in the country with no close neighbors. They would have thought we were crazy, digging in the yard all day. I don’t think Dad expected the object to be this big. There were tall piles of dirt now scattered all over the yard where he had dumped the tractor bucket. When we closed up for the night it took three full sized tarps to cover the gigantic hole.
We were all so tired that night that we didn’t watch TV. I don’t even remember asking for dessert, which is still hard to believe. Dad told us to all stay away from the hole unless an adult was around. We had school the next day anyway, so it wasn’t like we would get outside until our schoolwork was done. Of course, we hurried through school as quickly as we could on a Monday.
Ivy and I had plenty to do outside on the new dirt mounds to care much about the hole anyway. We took our bikes to the top of the tallest dirt pile. It was at least twice as tall as me. After about 20 attempts, we made a hard, smooth path with our tires down one side of the soft dirt slope.
Abacus found a better way to descend the hill. The first time she started at the top of the hill and scooted down on her butt. I have to admit that I really wasn’t tempted, but after her third giggling trek down, I had to try it. Let me tell you, without a diaper it was not a very comfortable trip. I was about halfway down and my backside was already sore, when Abacus went rolling down beside me, giggling. Her hands and feet were out in a straight line and she looked like a rolling pin flattening the hill.
In hind sight, I should have been more responsible. At the time I was just having too much fun to realize how dirty we were all getting. I knew, as the oldest sister, I was supposed to be looking out for the baby, but I didn’t think I had to look out for the dog, as well.
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sp; Mom must have let the dog out because all the sudden there she was at the top of the hill barking at us as we rolled down. Not to be left out of the fun, she came rolling down in her best attempt at the dog version of what we had been doing. This only attracted Mom, who couldn’t get the dog back into the house.
The look on Mom’s face was anything but happy. I really thought she would start yelling at me, but instead she pulled out her camera phone and began snapping pictures.
“You have to try this, Mom!” Ivy exclaimed excitedly. “Everyone else is doing it.” Ivy repeated the words a few times for effect. We both must have heard Mom say 1000 times that we shouldn’t do something just because everyone else was doing it.
Mom sat her phone down on the white plastic chair that was still in the yard from yesterday. To our shock and amazement, she scampered up the hill and attempted a log rolling spin. In case you are wondering, I think this is one of those skills that actually does get lost with age. If I had only thought about it a moment sooner, I would have grabbed her camera. I bet it would have won first place on America’s Funniest Home Videos.
Mom tried to reassure us that she did the same log rolling when she was a kid. Instead of reaching her hands way above her head, she kept them at her side. The roll didn’t even start smoothly. Her feet stayed in place up at the peak, but her body kept going. With her arms at her side, she first thumped onto her belly and then next onto her back. This repeated itself several more times as she picked up speed. Her head was now closer to the bottom of the soft dirt hill and her feet were still near the top.
The momentum was too great. It reminded me of a circus performance where the clown balanced upside down on his hat. Only in Mom’s case, it didn’t last long enough. She flipped all the way over and landed hard onto her back with a giant thud into the soft grass. My mom is not overweight, but something in the way that she landed must have been just enough to dislodge the loose soil around the hole. The surrounding soil collapsed back in around the device, eliminating much of the previous day’s work.
Ivy rushed over to her side to make sure she was ok, while I watched Abacus. Mom was shaking. I was scared until I realized she was laughing. She sat up and looked at the collapsed big dig and just shook her head in disbelief. That put an end to our hill climbing day.
I have a very smart younger sister. Mom was going to have us all go in and get cleaned up, but Ivy suggested that we use the sprinkler to get clean instead. We must have played outside the entire time until Dad came home. I know, I know, 12 year olds shouldn’t be playing in sprinklers, but it sure was fun.
Dad pulled in the driveway looking worn out from the previous day’s digging. In truth he did most of the work. I thought he would want to dig more that night. After Mom explained everything, including the big collapse, he looked even less interested. Our work on the big dig didn’t continue until the next weekend.
Saturday didn’t get here fast enough for me. The device was still on all of our minds. What good was a boulder the size of a car if all it could do was stop time for 60 seconds for our family? We were all out there first thing in the morning, determined to get the thing fully uncovered this time. Even Mom was willing to help with the digging. I think she still felt guilty at causing the collapse.
This time the dig went much smoother. By noon we were pretty close to where we had been previously with the depth of the hole. This time though, we took a little more care with the slope of the hole to avoid further collapse. Finally, we found what looked like the bottom. Dad hooked a chain around it and then around the back of the tractor. He was very careful to put big carpet squares around where the chain made contact with the device to avoid any damage. He pulled, but the wheels just spun on the tractor and the boulder wouldn’t move. He got off the tractor and started knocking loose dirt off the device.
In an effort to try to lighten the thing, Ivy and I helped by using long sticks to poke away the dirt. I accidentally used Ivy’s prized walking stick to clean the thing off, oops! Dad didn’t want us to use anything metal in case that is what caused the reaction. We kept finding small chunks of debris to remove, which had to be lightening the load. At some point, Dad decided to try to pull it out again.
The tractor struggled. Thick dark smoke coughed out of the exhaust. He had it throttled up to the highest level in the lowest gear. Finally, there was some movement, then a little more movement. It slid on the dirt, catching every once in a while on a rock, but the tractor kept going. It wasn’t fast, but it kept going. Dad pulled it all the way to the pole barn, leaving a long, deep groove in the ground all the way to the concrete floor of the barn.
He said it was too heavy to lift with the front end loader, so we were going to have to imitate Ancient Egyptian building techniques to move it into the pole barn. Dad lined up a bunch of old, round wooden fence posts. We got a huge farm jack under one corner of the thing, just enough to get one round log underneath the front side. From there it was just a matter of inching it slowly into the pole barn with the tractor. Every couple of inches we would put another round fence post underneath the thing. Pretty soon, we were able to use the rollers from the back of the device. We would drag them to the front while Dad waited for us, sitting on the tractor.
The two cows looked at us incredulously, in this case meaning they thought we were silly bringing a big gold topped boulder into their home. The tractor was eventually unhooked and pulled out of the way. Dad brought in the garden hose and brushes. He filled a 5 gallon bucket with soapy water. We started washing the thing down with brushes and the sprayer nozzle. To our great surprise, the dirt came off in big clumps, revealing what I can only describe as a massive gold Hershey’s Kiss.
Ok, so it wasn’t exactly in the shape of a Hershey’s Kiss, but you get the idea. It was pointy on top and slopped down until it got to a large round base that curved in a little bit right at the very bottom. Before long it was gleaming brightly in the lights of the pole barn. We didn’t even realize it had gotten dark outside. We were overcome with fatigue when we stopped for the night.
Sunday afternoon Mom, Ivy and I went back out to the pole barn to continue our investigation. Dad took a nap, which is unusual. He must have been really tired from the work the day before. The two cows now looked right at home with the device. In fact, one of them was licking it with its big, slobbery tongue when we opened the door to the pole barn. The cow backed away as we approached, looking ashamed, as if we had caught her stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. In the glinting sunlight that came through the pole barn door, I could see a sliver of a line right where the cow had been licking.
I felt down the line that my fingers could barely detect. It was more like the scratch in a glass that you can barely see, but you can feel it if you rub your fingers across it at the right angle. I could only reach so high, but I could definitely reach all the way to the bottom where the line felt like it curved softly to the left. The line disappeared after just a few inches.
Mom tried over and over again to find the line with her hands, but couldn’t quite feel it, even though she could see it in the glinting sun. She pulled a large magnifying glass out of one of the 100 year old tool boxes in the pole barn. The oversized magnifying glass had a similar diameter to a large, clear dinner plate. She said it probably came out of an old dentist office or something. Under magnification, the line was a bit easier to see. She was able to trace it up another several inches beyond my reach. At the top, it also curved softly to the left for a few inches.
In order to keep track of the line, we took an old permanent marker from one of the drawers and drew a line right over top of the crack as far as we could detect it. Out of curiosity more than anything else, we felt all over the device from top to bottom without detecting anything else that resembled a crack.
Dad came staggering into the pole barn a while later with Abacus. They must have just woken up from their naps. Abacus promptly walked over to the device and touched a little spot that we all had missed. There wa
s a soft clang, then a click, and a snap. Something slid out maybe a millimeter near where she had touched. Looking straight on, you couldn’t even tell it was there. It didn’t seem to cast the normal shadows. It was like the large, gold device just absorbed the light around it. If you looked at just the right angle you could see the button sticking out a little bit.
I felt it. It was like any other part of the device. It was almost spongy to the touch though, so I pushed in. It snapped back into place and was gone from sight. Abacus, thinking this was some kind of game, quickly walked around the device and pressed several spots, all of which popped out the same way. Before we could catch up with her, she had pressed 6 of these hidden buttons.
Each time there was the same quiet clang, then a click, and a snap. Could she see something we were missing? I asked her how she found the buttons. She just pointed to the places where she had pressed and started saying, “buttin, buttin,” over and over again.
Chapter 5 – Open Sesame
Dear reader, you must understand that telling a story isn’t always a one sided affair. In the Stolidmeyer household, there was a fair bit of arguing around who would get to tell the next part of our story. The short conversation determining the next storyteller went something like this: