The Treasure of Maria Mamoun (19 page)

As soon as Celeste and Mr. Ironwall had gone, Maria jumped over the wall.

“Where have you been?” she asked Paolo. “I thought you wanted to help me!”

He flinched as if he expected her to swat him. When she didn't, he relaxed. “I was grounded.”

“For what?”

“Failing. But it's okay. I got Pops to understand that I can't pass if he doesn't let me out of the house. So I can help now, as long as we go to the library, too. But look—” He held up the keys proudly.

“You really did get them!” Maria swatted his shoulder now. “You are such a pirate!”

“I just borrow things!” Paolo protested. “I always return them!”

As they headed to the Old West Shed, Maria filled Paolo in on the constellation.

“Cassy O'Pee-a sounds like an Irish girl who can't make it to the toilet in time,” Paolo said.

“I'm not sure how it's spelled,” Maria said.

“I don't know either,” Paolo said. “But I do know it's shaped like a W. One of the lines must be her legs and feet.”

“How do you know about it?” Maria asked.

“I don't know much—like I didn't know she was a queen. But it's one of the easy ones, like the Big Dipper. My dad showed me.”

Paolo stopped talking as they reached the shed. Frank was nowhere to be seen, Hattie was in the kitchen, and Celeste would be busy till evening. The coast was clear.

They had to try five keys before the padlock opened. Maria ran inside and tried to lift the smaller sail bag.

“How are we going to get them to the boat? They're so heavy,” she said.

Paolo turned the bundle over. “We need wheels.”

“Like the golf cart?” Maria said.

His eyes lit up. “Like the golf cart.”

They found the golf cart behind the old greenhouse, plugged into a recharging cord.

“And we have the key.” Paolo dangled Frank's big key ring from his finger.

“What if Frank comes back and finds the cart missing?” Maria asked. “What if he sees us driving it?”

“Onward … Onward!” Paolo said, with a grin.

“Were you eavesdropping on me and Mr. Ironwall?” Maria said. “I'm sure this isn't what he meant.”

But Paolo had already pulled the cord out and turned on the ignition switch, so Maria hopped in beside him.

Paolo hit the gas pedal and they lurched away. They bounced hard over tree roots and rocks, and Maria's head hit the roof a few times.

“Do you even know how to drive this thing?” she said.

“It's not rocket science.” He took a sharp right that nearly tipped the cart, and let off the accelerator, which brought the cart to a halt at the door of the shed. “Come on!”

Maria sprang out and grabbed one end of a sail bag and Paolo grabbed the other. They strained to lift it, and failed.

“We're going to have to roll them,” Maria said. She joined Paolo on his side, and together they managed to wrestle the unwieldy bag onto the back seat of the cart. The second, smaller bag was only slightly easier.

Once they both were loaded, Paolo drove close to the forested edge of the estate, as fast as the burdened cart would allow, while Maria steadied their stolen cargo and kept lookout from the back.

Paolo came to a stop at a footpath that led from the estate to the beach. “We can't take the cart down to the sand. I am pretty sure it will get stuck,” he said.

They wrestled the sails off the cart and drove it back to the greenhouse and plugged it in. Then they ran back to the beach.

Maria kicked the sails. “They're so heavy! I don't want to roll them all the way to the boat.”

“Yeah,” Paolo said. “And the sand will make it even harder.”

“Couldn't we use the dinghy?” Maria said. “Roll them down to the water and then row them over?”

“I guess,” Paolo said.

They worked hard for the next hour. First they rolled the boom tent to the mainsail mast. Then they got the dinghy off
The Last Privateer
. This time, Paolo insisted they rig up the davits and lower it off the stern properly, instead of just heaving it over the rail. He said it was just dumb luck the rowboat had landed right side up the day she'd tried to take it out.

They rowed the small boat to the beach by the footpath, heaved the sails aboard, and rowed back. Maria watched Paolo handle the oars. She realized she'd been facing the wrong direction when she'd tried to row herself out to the islands.

“You face backward?”

“Yeah.” He scrunched his face. “You looked kind of crazy, trying to row facing forward that day. I wasn't going to mention it because you were already so mad.”

Paolo held the rowboat steady while they hooked up the dinghy to the falls. Then he helped Maria climb aboard, and once he'd joined her, they hauled everything up. After unloading the sail bags, they stowed the dinghy back on deck—someone would surely have noticed it if they left it dangling off the stern of the
Privateer.

Maria lay on her back beside the dinghy, exhausted but exhilarated. The sails were finally on board.

“Well, come on.” Paolo kicked her feet gently. “We're not done yet.”

Maria turned over, groaning. But she got up. Together, they spread the sails on the deck to inspect them—unrolled, the canvas filled nearly all the walking space. Maria took hold of the smallest one.

“This must be the one that goes in front,” she said.

“That's the jib. The other two are the mainsail and foresail,” Paolo explained. “I guess we don't need the topsail. We couldn't handle that much sail anyhow, just the two of us. These aren't in such bad shape. Just a couple tears and missing grommets in the cringles.”

Maria laughed. “It's like you're speaking a foreign language. Jib. Cringle.”

“The holes are the cringles and the grommets are the metal circles inside the holes. That's where the rope goes.”

“Oh. To kind of sew it to the—the—whatever that is.” Maria pointed.

“Don't worry about the names. I'll teach them to you while we rig,” Paolo said, inspecting the sails. “These old lines are all rotten. We're going to need to buy new line. Rope to you landlubbers.”

“I've got my dog-walking money. We should go buy some tomorrow.”

“We could say we're going to the library for my summer school.”

“We
should
go to the library for your summer school,” Maria said. “When's your first test?”

“You sound like my mom.” Paolo kicked at an empty sail bag.

“Oh no!” Maria looked at Paolo, horrified. “What if Frank goes in the shed?”

Paolo looked blankly at her.

“He might notice the sails are gone,” she explained. “We need to rearrange the shed before he sees.” The wind was picking up, as it always did in the evening. It was getting late.

“We should put the boom tent back on first,” Paolo said.

As they tied the tent to the rail, Maria noticed the silhouette of a motorboat at the mouth of Ironwall's cove. The glare of the sun made it hard to see details.

“Do you think they're watching us?” she asked.

“Probably just some tourist fishing.” Paolo tied a loose but convincing final knot. “Come on. We have to get back before the adults finish for the day.” He began jogging up the beach.

“Sure.” Maria trotted alongside him. “But what if it isn't just a tourist?”

“I know what you're thinking,” Paolo said. “But even if it was Taylor, there's nothing we can do about it.”

“Right.”

They both looked back, but the motorboat was gone.

 

24

A
N
O
LD
-F
ASHIONED
F
OURTH

“You found your keys!” Celeste said. She slid into the front seat of the truck, next to Frank. She looked pretty: she wore a sundress splashed with big bright flowers, and a lacy cardigan on top. She'd even put on eye makeup and lipstick.

“It was the darndest thing,” Frank said. “I swear I checked a hundred times yesterday—you know I had to call a cab to get home last night—but then I found them in my jacket pocket this morning. As if they'd been there all along!”

Paolo looked down as Maria climbed into the back seat without meeting his eye.

“The old man's not coming?” Frank asked Celeste now.

“Maria is pretty disappointed,” Celeste said. “Though I told her not to expect it.”

Maria leaned her head against the window. She
was
disappointed. Because she
had
expected Mr. Ironwall to come. He'd been getting out of bed every morning for the last three days. He'd even gotten out of bed this morning. But when the time came, he said he'd stay home with Joanne.

“You can tell Mr. DeMille that I'm not ready for my closeup,” Mr. Ironwall had said. Only Joanne seemed to understand.

“Gloria Swanson, Norma Desmond,
Sunset Boulevard
,” Joanne said, as she ushered Maria out the door.

*   *   *

Frank parked the truck on the outskirts of town and they walked along the bike path the rest of the way. Other people with the same idea crowded around—they all streamed toward the center of town like a pre-parade parade. It seemed everyone on the island was gathering on the Old Whaling Church lawn: cooking, serving, or eating the barbecue. Everyone except Mr. Ironwall.

Blankets were spread across most of the grass, and a long line snaked from the tent where the volunteer firemen grilled burgers and hot dogs.

Frank led their group to an empty patch and spread their blanket.

All along Main Street, little children held empty buckets they hoped would soon be filled with candy thrown from the floats. Bigger kids zoomed around the traffic-free street on scooters, skateboards, and bicycles, until the police came through and told them to settle down.

Then a policeman straddling a wide motorcycle cleared everyone to the curbs, and as a brass band began playing “Stars and Stripes Forever” a cheer went up from the crowd.

Paolo looked at his mother. Hattie waved her hand. “Go ahead—we'll watch from back here.”

“Come with me.” Paolo dragged Maria by the hand to the sidewalk. “If we stand here, we might get candy.”

Maria looked back at Celeste, who waved and smiled as if she wasn't worried about the crowd that separated them at all. She waved back to her mother and sat on the curb beside Paolo.

The parade was just as wacky and fun as Maria had hoped it would be. When the giant blow-up rat from the exterminating company got caught on a tree and deflated, Paolo high-fived her, and when the campers from Camp Jabberwocky rolled by in their souped-up wheelchairs dressed like gangsters and gun molls, Maria cheered crazily with the rest of the crowd. There were stilt walkers, ballerinas on roller skates, and colonial reenactors firing muskets into the air.

A team of miniature horses sporting patriotic ribbons was trotting by, much to the delight of the smallest children, when an ugly voice broke through the music.

“Hey, if it isn't Captain Dirt!”

Maria looked up to see Taylor and his friend standing over them. It was the friend who had spoken. They were dressed nearly identically, in white polo shirts and red-and-blue madras shorts.

“Hi, we weren't introduced properly when last we met.” Taylor came closer and held his hand out to Maria to shake.

Maria did not take his hand, but he kept talking in a friendly voice, as if she had.

“I'm Taylor Bradford, and this is Josh.” He gestured to his sidekick.

“We saw you fixing up the old man's sailboat yesterday,” Josh said.

Just as Paolo said, “What sailboat?” Maria said, “Oh, that was you.”

“So you
are
fixing it up!” Josh gloated.

Paolo glared at Maria.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Maria said, too late.

“It's all right,” Taylor said. “We aren't going to tell.”

“For a cut,” Josh said.

“Let's go,” Maria said to Paolo.

“Come on, now.” Taylor stepped in front of her and smiled. “Can't we all just get along?”

Maria stopped. He looked like an actor from a TV teen drama. Boys didn't look like him where she came from. Blond and tan with straight white teeth.

“Listen,” Taylor said to Paolo now. “Josh and I did see you fixing up the old man's boat yesterday. Don't bother denying it. I'm guessing those bundles you worked so hard to bring aboard were sails. And your girlfriend just confirmed it.”

“I'm not his girlfriend,” Maria said.

Taylor ignored her. “The only reason I can figure you'd risk doing something that crazy is you think you've found a
real
treasure map.”

“Captain Murdefer's map,” Josh said.

“Think what you want. Doesn't make it true,” Paolo said.

“Come on now, buddy,” Taylor said. “Everyone on this island knows the old man has a thing for Captain Murdefer.”

“We don't know what you're talking about,” Maria said again, lamely.

“That's 'cause you're a wash-ashore.” Josh snorted dismissively. “But all Islanders know. The old guy made a movie about Murdefer! Doesn't surprise me he'd have the treasure map, too.”

“And now you've somehow found it,” Taylor said.

“Probably stole it,” Josh said.

“But I can't believe you'd steal
another boat
.” Taylor put his hand on his chin like a TV detective. “Not after the yacht club incident. You'd be sent to juvie, and we wouldn't want that.”

“I was caught 'cause you called security before I got there.”

“Why would I tell on you?” Taylor spread his hands as if their emptiness proved his innocence. “I don't want to make trouble for you, buddy. In fact, I want to offer you my services. You have a treasure map; I have a boat. We could do business together.”