by Henry Givens
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After the excitement of winning the championship had died down just a tad, Arthur swung his expedition into high gear. He called Sam, Elrod, Marco, Ramón, Marci, and Taylor and reminded them that they had promised to help him find Tom's treasure. AND, he did not forget to remind Marci to bring along those pictures that her uncle had taken.
This was a perfect day to go treasure hunting. Arthur's dad had already planned on taking Tom and Fred Lee fishing that Saturday afternoon after the game. Everybody had agreed to meet at the park by 2 p.m. Of course, Arthur was there about a quarter ‘til and had already ran over to where the tree stumps might be. Anxiously, he picked up some rocks to help him mark the "hard" spots.
Sam and Elrod got there right at 2 and started walking around and looking without even saying "Hi." Marco and Ramon came up from opposite ends of the park and did the same thing. They all knew why they were there and didn't waste time in any kind of conversation. But, nobody remembered to bring a shovel. OOOOPS!
By 2:15, Marci's uncle pulled into the parking lot with Marci and Taylor. Marci proudly introduced her uncle to all of the guys and finished with Arthur. She said, "And, last but not least, this is Arthur. He is the one that is the most interested in your pictures. Arthur, this is my Uncle Preston."
Uncle Preston shook hands with Arthur just as he did the others and said, "Arthur, it is a distinct pleasure to meet you. I hope I can meet your grandfather, also, while I am here." Then as he held his hand up he continued, "And, I promise not to be obnoxious with trying to get any kind of interview with him or you. Although if you wanted to volunteer, I would listen with pen and paper in hand."
Then as he looked at his niece with a broad grin, "Of course, I have no idea what you could possibly add to what my sweet little niece has already told me about you. She has bent my ear for hours. I really need to ask you about some of those things she told me. I think she might have stretched the truth a bit."
Marci playfully slapped him on the arm as her face turned red, "Oh, Uncle Preston. You promised not to say that."
In mock surprise he replied, "Oh my goodness. Why I'm just the complete blabber mouth, aren't I?"
Marci placed both hands on her hips and suggested, "Why don't you show us the pictures, UNCLE PRESTON?"
Arthur was so engrossed in their little banter that he had almost forgotten. "Oh, yes. Please, please. Marci said that you had tons of pictures of everything that happened to the park."
"Yes," Uncle Preston answered. "I wanted to have a complete pictorial history of what was being done. Marci said you were interested in the big oaks and the hill of caves?"
"Exactly," Arthur almost shouted. "To make a long story short, there's a treasure hidden in the mouth of one of those caves that used to be across the road. The directions were 179 steps from five big oaks that pointed in that direction."
As Uncle Preston took a large manila envelope out from underneath his arm, he replied to Arthur, "Marci says that it is the helmet that your Grandpa Will wore when Elmhurst High won the championship many moons ago."
He briskly took out the top photo and showed it to Arthur and the group as he asked, "Does it look like the one this chap is holding?"
The guys stared at the photo of an eighteen-year-old young man in a football uniform standing on a football field with a trophy held high in one hand and a football helmet raised high in the other. Arthur declared, "That's him. That's my Grandpa Will. My mom's got a picture just like that at the house."
"Of course, she does," replied Uncle Preston, "I gave her that copy and copies of many other pictures of your grandfather shortly after that awful car accident."
Then his voice got softer as he continued, "Arthur. I went to school with your mother. I KNOW how much she loved her daddy. While going to school, she talked about him all of the time. Those pictures of him were worth more than all the flowers she had received after the accident." Then Uncle Preston reached out and touched the end of Arthur's nose, looked him in the eyes and said, "And, Sport, if that helmet is out there, it will be found…………TODAY."
Then he pointed down the road and said, "Look." Everyone turned their heads in the direction that Uncle Preston had pointed. Their mouths dropped wide open as their eyes focused on a bright yellow front end loader coming towards the park. It was just the right thing to dig a big hole and dig it fast.
Arthur was so excited that he grabbed Marci by the waist and swung her around. They both squealed. Arthur squealed from pure excitement. Marci squealed because she had no idea what Arthur was doing. The guys, including Uncle Preston were about to fall out laughing. Taylor just stood there with a small guys-are-such-dorks smile and shook her head.
When Arthur realized what he had done, he put Marci down and sputtered, "Oh, Marci. I am so sorry. I didn't mean to.....I was so excited.....the helmet..oh my gosh.......the helmet........today.....I mean today. Marci, I swear to you, if we find that helmet today, I'll buy you the biggest milkshake in town." Then he did his Arthur thing of running around in circles while standing in one place.
Marci raised both of her eyebrows as she said, "Arthur, dear God, get a hold of yourself."
Ramon added, "Yeah, man, the way you grabbed Marci here, I thought you were going to body slam....."
But the end of his sentence was cut off by a back hand to the midsection from Taylor. That's what he gets for standing to the right of her.
"Ooof!" Ramon choked. Then as he smiled real big he looked around at the guys, shaking his head 'yes' and said, "See that? The girl can't keep her hands off of me."
"O-o-o-o-o-o," Sam, Elrod and Marco said in unison.
Instead of getting mad, Taylor turned and faced Ramon with a big smile and said in a way too sugary sweet and sultry tone, "Oh, yeah, baby and I want to get real close to you. You might say, I can't wait to get my hands ALL OVER you." She took her finger and twisted up a piece of his shirt, and pulled him closer as she continued, "When this shin-dig is over, why don't me and you just slip over to the alley by Ed's Bakery and come to some firm understanding about our budding relationship." With her other hand she held up two fingers in front of his ever-smiling face, "You know. Two go in," she pulled one finger down, "but only one comes out."
The O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o was longer and louder this time. Everything got quiet to wait on Ramon's reply. However, Arthur interrupted, "Guys! Guys! Guys! Guys! Let's find the treasure and then you can tear each other apart. Puhleeze?"
Tensions were over......for the moment and they all gathered around Uncle Preston as he pulled out the rest of the pictures. He was an invaluable source of information about the park, the trees and the caves because he could remember almost their precise location. Uncle Preston had suggested that the reason that they couldn't find five 'hard' spots in a row was because of the very uneven ground that had to be covered. He explained, with the help of the pictures, some of the stumps would have been under almost four feet of dirt. There was no way anyone would be able to tell where they had been.
After they studied every angle and every photo, they narrowed the possibilities down to three separate spots that the line of trees could be. However, these three spots were only about fifteen feet apart. They figured that the best chance that they had of finding the approximate spot to dig was for three people to start from those three points and walk 179 steps.
Since they did not know exactly how tall Grandpa Will was, or how long his legs were, the suggestion was made that three different sized people pace off the 179 steps from the three different locations. Once they got there they would make another decision on where to dig.
Arthur was the smallest, Uncle Preston was the tallest and Ramon was somewhere in between. The way they figured it, that made three good choices. And since it was all Arthur's idea, guess who persuaded everybody that Arthur should be the first one to pace off the 179 steps. So, while the others got busy figuring where the second and third guy should start, Arthu
r started on his 179 paces.
Well, Arthur wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to where he was going. He was too busy looking down and concentrating on counting. Nobody was necessarily watching him either, because they were trying to figure out where to start from next. Marci just happened to look up in time to scream, "ARTH-U-U-U-R!" as the sound of a horn and skidding of tires were heard.