Hunter Moran Digs Deep (7 page)

Four, five, maybe six pieces of paper. A fascinating part of Newfield's history. All we have to do is put it all together, sweep up the grass seed, and we're on our way to the big bucks.

We hear someone coming.

Zack springs into action. With superhuman strength he drags the three-legged desk against the door.

I turn out the lights.

We don't even breathe as someone rattles the door. We wait to hear the key in the lock.

But no.

So it isn't Sister Ramona. It's someone else who's coming our way.

Sister Appolonia.

You can't stop Sister Appolonia. She shoves hard, so hard we jump back, before we can be trampled by the runaway desk, which falls to pieces in front of us.

Sister stands in the doorway, the hall light streaming over her shoulder. She reaches in and flips on the light. Behind her is Bradley the Bully, face red.

“Don't move, young man,” she tells him. “You've done enough damage for one day.” She mutters to herself. “Digging in the old sunflower garden, making a complete mess.”

Sunflowers. Another
S
.

But Bradley is shaking his head. “It wasn't me.”

Then who? One of the brothers?

In the next second, I've crunched the papers into my pocket. At the same time, I'm thinking about what's going to happen to us.

Next to me, Yulefski grabs my arm. This is probably the first time in her life she's been in trouble.

Zack is backed up against the wall.

“I can't believe my eyes,” Sister Appolonia roars, her
hands on her hips. She steps over a desk leg and leans against a cabinet. “Explain!”

We're silent. We don't even breathe.

Sister kicks out at a piece of sheet music on the floor. “Well?”

We talk at once. Zack sounds like Alvin the Chipmunk. “Helping Sister Ramona straighten up?”

Yulefski sounds as if she'll faint any second. “Hunter and I are seeing each other. Kind of. I came to . . .” Her voice trails off.

It might have been better if she had fainted.

I stare down at the desk.

“Ruined,” Sister Appolonia said. “Fifty years that desk has stood in the same spot.”

“I never liked that desk,” a voice says from the hallway. “It's totally ugly, and it belonged to Dr. Diglio's father, the first dentist in town. He loved to use the drill, singing his heart out while the rest of the town suffered.”

I look out the door. There stands Sister Ramona. She has somehow just saved us.

Sister Ramona sighs. “We're going to put it back together next week, after Here's to Wildlife is over.”

Sheesh.

One problem after another.

“Good idea.” Sister Appolonia clumps upstairs, Bradley the Bully following along behind.

Sister Ramona motions to us to leave the Music Room
ahead of her. We walk past, heads down, and I feel something pull at my pocket.

I stiffen, then keep going. If only I had pushed the papers farther down. But no, they were hanging out like old flags. All Sister Ramona had to do was give a little tug, and they were back in her hands.

All that, the climbing, the swinging, the grabbing, and our clues are gone. If only I'd stopped to take a look, a quick glance.

Lots of
if only
s.

We reach the outside doors and pull them open. “Good going, Hunter,” Yulefski says. “Now you've set us back”—she shoves her hair out of her eyes—“for who knows how long.”

Zack doesn't say anything. He gives me a little grin. He knows I feel terrible. He's a great guy. My best friend.

And then Yulefski surprises me. “I'm sorry,” she says. “I know you've done the best you can.”

It's up to me to say my best wasn't so hot.

I don't say it, though. Instead, Yulefski peels off toward her house, and Zack and I go home for dinner.

Supper is over. K.G. is tucked in her crib; so is Mary, gurgling to herself. I comfort myself with some green Skittles and go down the hall. Steadman's floor is covered with pieces of paper. Each one has a huge letter written in neon green.

Steadman looks up from a book on his lap. It must have about a thousand pages. “Fred keeps falling asleep on the letters,” he says. “I have to whisper them in his ear.”

If I tried that, Fred would bite my head off.

I pass William's room next and take a peek.

He's in there, walking around on his bed, dabbing spots of brown on an orange blob. He leans over to close the door before I can see the rest.

I keep going downstairs. “Looking for Zack,” I say.

“He's down in the basement,” Linny says. “Too bad he doesn't do something like cleaning up after himself.” She waves her hand at the kitchen table. “You can always see where he's been. Crumbs all over the place.”

She stares at the ceiling, whispering to herself. “Downhill skiing, chairlifts . . .”

She's losing it.

I take the stairs two at a time to see what Zack is up to.

“In the man cave,” he calls to me.

It's a good thing Pop isn't home. The birdhouse pieces are spread out on the floor. Zack sits there staring at them, a wooden bird wing in his hand.

“It's a problem,” he says. “No doubt about it.” He bites his lip. “We'll have to manage it, though, now that we're poor again.”

I bend over, searching for the other wing. All I see is the poor bird's head. I crouch down next to Zack.

“I wish someone would listen to me,” a voice says behind us.

Steadman, sneaking around. He leans in closer as I look around for pieces of the wooden bird.

“What's on the gravestone, again?” Zack asks, as he glues the head to a lump that might be the bird's body.

Steadman laughs. “Never mind those clues.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a red Skittle.

I'm too defeated to ask where he got it from.

In the meantime, Mom is calling. “Will someone go upstairs and pat K.G. a few times?”

I stand up. “I'll go.”

“I'll work on the bird,” Zack says.

“Right. No one listens to me,” Steadman says, following me upstairs.

I slide into the babies' room to sit between the two cribs.

“Say
Hun-ter,”
I tell Mary about forty times over K.G.'s screams.

Mary looks at me as if I'm crazy.

I lean over to pat K.G. “Listen, Killer.” I grin at her. “This is it.”

I pat her four -hundred -ninety times, and at last she closes her eyes.

Steadman is lying on the floor, whispering
“Toot-toot”
to himself.

“Where did you get the Skittle?” I ask.

“I deserve it,” he says. “If someone would only pay attention to me . . .”

“I'm paying attention.”

“I knew the treasure wasn't under the school.” He reaches into his pocket again and pulls out a handful of my candy, the colors running into each other.

“Want one?” he says, and grins. “You didn't pay attention to one of the clues.”

I reach for a Skittle absently. Mary is watching us from her crib.

“Hear the sound,” Steadman says. He stands and goes to the door.

“That's the clue in the Tinwitty book,” I call after him.

“Toot-toot.”
He glances back at me, squinting a little. “Sound!” he yells. “Train station.”

My eyes widen. Could it be?

I clatter down to the man cave. “Remember the
S
on the gravestone? Remember the arrow?”

Zack nods.

“It might just be the train station.”

Zack's eyes widen.

Linny calls down. “Teacher Conference Day is tomorrow. Maybe you'll finally get to those leaves.”

How could we have forgotten?

Tomorrow isn't leaf day, though.

I whisper to Zack.
“Hear the sound.”

It must be the train station.

“We're going to be rich.”

“You know it, Hunter,” Zack says.

It's pouring rain. “Too bad,” I tell Pop, glancing at the streaming window. I shrug helplessly. “We were thinking about raking leaves today.”

Pop looks at us suspiciously.

“We'll have to get at those babies as soon as it stops,” I say to make him feel better. But from the look of things, the occasional lightning flashes, the rumble of thunder, it's not going to stop this morning. If we're lucky, it will be with us all day.

“What we can do, Pop,” Zack says, “is walk you to the train. We'll hold up the umbrella.”

“That couldn't be better.” Mom smiles. She's never suspicious.

“Good idea,” Steadman says. “I'll come, too.”

Sheesh.

But then I grin at Mary.
“Hun-ter,”
I say, dragging the word out. “Say
Hun-ter
.”

Mary puts a Cheerio in her mouth and grins back. Is she ever going to talk? I stop to blow out my cheeks at K.G., who gives me a wet smile.

Zack grabs an umbrella and pokes William as we pass. Then we wait for Pop on the back porch. I shoot open the umbrella, even though it's hardly worth it. The spokes hang out all over the place, and Fred has chewed massive holes in the rest of it.

Pop doesn't notice as we head for the station. He's too busy looking back at the leaves plastered to his lawn as we jump up and down, holding the umbrella over his head.

Halfway there, we see Bradley the Bully, leaning up against the telephone pole. And is that Becca, Linny's best friend, with him? Linny would have a fit.

No time for that. We run the last half-block, jumping over puddles and listening to the train steaming in.

“Hurry,” Pop pants. “I can't miss this one more time.”

He dives into the station, and we toss him the umbrella.

“Thanks, guys,” he calls back. He hops onto the train a millisecond before it whooshes out, the umbrella still captured in the door.

Whew. He's gone. We sink down on a wet bench, free to investigate. No leaves. No problem. We stare across the tracks at a dilapidated train car on a siding. It's been there for years, and somewhere in back of it, maybe, is a place to dig.

But how to get there? Impossible.

And here comes Fred, galloping along, with Steadman right behind him.

Fred dives onto my lap, and Steadman squeezes in
between Zack and me. They're both soaking wet and muddy. But never mind, we're soaking wet and muddy, too.

“Here we are,” Steadman says, as if we hadn't noticed.

I have to grin at him. He's a great kid after all.

Pop's train rounds a curve out of town and lets out a siren wail.

“There's the clue,” says Steadman. He points toward the siding. “The treasure's probably over there.”

I nod.
“
Don't even think we can cross the tracks to get to it.”

Steadman points. Up, not down.

“The railroad bridge . . . ?” I begin, my head back. “Wires and cables, workmen always hanging out up there.”

“Not in the rain,” Steadman says. “They're probably inside having coffee. Skittles, maybe.”

Zack and I shudder. The bridge is high over our heads. A good-sized elephant could fall through the spaces in between the bars.

“Down!” Zack almost screams at Steadman. “Two steps down.”

“Steadman's right,” a voice says in back of us. “The bridge will give us a bird's-eye view. You'll be able to see the holes under the station.”

How did she get here?

“She means us,” Zack mutters, pointing his thumb over his shoulder.

I don't bother to turn around.

“You try it,” Zack tells her.

“I'll go,” Steadman says. “Just hold on to Fred, or he'll wind up in the cemetery again.”

Zack and I look at him with horror as he barrels toward the metal rungs of the bridge.

“No!” we yell together. We're seeing him spread out across the tracks, head bashed in, feet missing. Imagine telling that to Mom.

“We'll do it,” I say, thinking of all that money buried somewhere below. Thinking of Pop's Here's to Wildlife entry. Thinking of leaving school. Thinking of sunshine in Hawaii, as the rain runs down in rivulets under my T-shirt.

“Get going,” Yulefski says.

Zack and I begin to climb, hand over hand against the sharp rungs, feet curled around each one. There must be a hundred steps. Yes, because it's a hundred miles up.

The rain pours down my face and I have to rub my nose. I have to . . .

I stop. With one hand I rub my face, as Yulefski yells from below, “Don't stop, Hunter. And don't look down.”

Steadman is arguing with her. “They have to look down. Otherwise, they'll never find . . .”

I stop listening to them. I see the town round in the distance. I see the ground far underneath me. Steadman looks smaller; so does Yulefski. I hear the sound of my breath. If we fall it will be the end of us.