The Dare Sisters

by Jess Rinker

  “Nothing,” I say, and get back to work.

  After a few minutes, and only a couple of mistakes, I finally have it.

  I read it out loud to my sisters:

  North, South, East, and West

  Around the island awaits a quest.

  Hidden tools and clues are found,

  Pirate treasure throughout your town.

  Riddles and puzzles you’ve always known;

  Stories I’ve told you as you’ve grown.

  Start with the map and trust your youth,

  Sometimes the obvious is the truth.

  And remember what I’ve said of thee:

  Strength together, a cord of three.

  When in doubt, please remember:

  I’m with you always and forever.

  We’re quiet for a few minutes looking at Grandpa’s loopy coded letters, the words he left for us. Frankie sighs. Jolene sniffles a little bit.

  “I told you,” I whisper. “He had some kind of plan all along.”

  “So where is it all hidden?” Frankie asks, taking the letter and flipping it over like there might be more information on the back. “That can’t be it!”

  “He wouldn’t put the answers in the poem,” I said. “He obviously meant it only for us to figure out. Just like he said, ‘Start with the map.’”

  “But why?” Frankie asks. “Why make us go to all this trouble with these frustrating clues? Why not just leave us a letter or something to tell us what we’re looking for?”

  “Maybe he was afraid someone else would find it first,” Jolene says.

  We look at each other and it’s like a light bulb pops on for each one of us at the same exact time. I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier.

  The man in the green hat.

  Throop.

  “He’s trying to get all Grandpa’s things out of the house so he can find this map and get the treasure,” I whisper.

  “How would he know about it?” Frankie asks.

  “Remember I just told you yesterday they used to work together?”

  Frankie shakes her head a little bit. “This all seems kind of strange, but let’s look.”

  We spread the map out on the floor in a corner of the room. Frankie gently places a foggy glass bottle on one side and I put a metal bowl from one of the cases on the other to hold the corners down. My favorite thing in the case is a little metal tool with a strong magnifying glass that was once used to read maps. You slide it over the paper and look down through it to read any tiny words. We have a regular magnifying glass at home, but there’s something cool about using one that was found in a real shipwreck.

  Jolene gently pages through a captain’s log while Frankie and I examine the map. The log’s written in English but the handwriting is long and scrawling and every “F” looks like an “S” so it’s pretty confusing, but she always likes to look through it. Frankie holds on to the sextant, an old-fashioned tool sailors used for navigating the sea before computers. All of these artifacts help us feel closer to Grandpa. If only they could talk and tell us the secrets he knew. We’ve looked at this map a million times in the last few days and it still looks like a regular map of Ocracoke.

  Sometimes the obvious is the truth.

  “Oh, excuse me, lassies,” a man with a deep voice says as he comes into the room. We all look up and I know exactly what I’m going to see before I see it: the green hat with the yellow anchor. My sisters and I all freeze. He’s very tall and has large, dark eyebrows that almost touch in the middle and a dark mole on his cheek. “I didn’t realize anyone else liked to study in this room. I’ll come back later.” He tips his hat at us and backs out again, but not before his eyes find the map.

  “Throop,” Frankie says without making a sound. I nod. Has to be.

  Jolene whispers, “He’s definitely the one who was talking to Uncle Randy about the hairy dance.”

  “Are you totally sure?” I ask.

  “I remember his hat.”

  “Plenty of people wear green hats. You have to be positive.” I’m pretty sure I’d remember a hat on such a big man at a funeral, especially since most people don’t wear hats at funerals. Then again, I spent most of my time looking for a way to sneak out of the church.

  “I’m positive,” Jolene says.

  “Do you think he’s following us?” I ask Frankie.

  “Could be. Or maybe he just came here for the same reason we did—to look at Grandpa’s things for clues.”

  “Let’s hurry up.” I slide the magnifier over Grandpa’s map looking for any interesting marks or symbols. Mostly it’s street names and basic locations like Springer’s Point Preserve and the lighthouse, the old war cemetery, and Silver Lake, all places we skate past every day. Grandpa even added the Queen Mary and our school, which makes me groan just thinking about going back tomorrow. School only started a couple of weeks ago, but it was a lot of the same stuff we learned last year and is always the same kids. Thanksgiving break can’t come soon enough. I’d much rather be treasure hunting than doing fractions.

  But I can’t find anything that stands out until I sit up and accidently run the magnifier over the word “Ocracoke.”

  “Oh!”

  “What is it?” Frankie asks.

  “I don’t know yet, but I think I found something.” I turn the map and show her with the magnifier. Inside each letter of our town name is a light, swirly pattern. At first it seems like a wispy spiderweb design. But at a closer look, you can see that it’s actually teeny-tiny letters inside the letters that make up the word “Ocracoke.”

  Grandpa left us another code.

  8

  One-Eyed Wonder

  “Is it the same as the poem?” Frankie asks. I shake my head. It seems like completely random letters. But knowing Grandpa, it’s definitely not random.

  “We have to take this home,” Frankie whispers. “It’s going to take us forever to figure out what all those letters are for and we can’t risk him walking in again and seeing what we’re doing.”

  “Let’s go back Springer’s Point,” I say. “We know Grandpa was always looking for stuff there anyway. We’ll figure out what the letters say and find the treasure right away!”

  “Good plan,” Frankie says, and I can’t help but smile because she thinks I have a good idea. “You and Jolene go to the park. I’m going to run home and get us water and snacks.”

  “And shovels.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy, Sav.”

  “Just in case!”

  I gently roll up the map and put it in my backpack and we put everything else away exactly how we found it. I want to take the magnifier with us, but Frankie says she’ll bring ours instead, so I put it back in the case. We say goodbye to Mrs. Taylor and she says, “I hope you found what you were looking for!”

  “And then some!” Jolene says, grinning wildly, and we shush her and have to push her out the door. Frankie races home and Jolene and I head to the park.

  With one foot on my board, I use the other to push off the sandy street, pulling Jolene along.

  “You really need to learn how to ride that thing yourself,” I tell her.

  “Why?” she asks. “You and Frankie always pull me.”

  I don’t even bother arguing with her, even though pulling her makes me sweat like a bottle of soda pop on a hot summer night. On the way we pass Kate and LouAnn on their bikes. Up until last year that would have been me with Kate, not LouAnn. I try to get past them quickly. “Sorry about your grandpa,” one of them says. I think it’s Kate, but I can’t be sure because I pick up speed as quickly as I can to get Jolene away from them. I’m not as fast as Frankie though.

  “Thanks!” Jolene shouts back.

  “Don’t talk to them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re not friends anymore.”

  “But they were nice.”

  I don’t know what to say to that because she’s right. But they weren’t so nice last year whe
n I brought a globe to school and tried to quiz the class on different countries. They only called me weird.

  “It’s because you’re interested in things they don’t understand, Savvy,” Grandpa told me. “Instead of trying to understand, calling you weird is the easiest way for them to explain it to themselves.”

  “I’m not weird,” I said.

  “Of course you are!” He crossed his eyes at me and stuck his tongue out. “All the best people are weird.”

  “Grandpa!” I scolded him, but he made me laugh, which I guess was the point.

  “You’re in a very small school, Savvy. Give it time, let everyone grow up a little bit. It’ll get better.”

  Maybe Grandpa was right, maybe Kate felt bad now, because I sure did. But either way it was easier to stay away from most of the kids at school.

  Besides, other than Frankie and Jolene, Grandpa was the only friend I needed.

  The hiccups start and I have to stop myself and focus on skating so I don’t crash poor Jolene into a tree.

  “Are you okay?” Jolene asks me.

  “Everything’s fine.” I skate harder than ever. I think I might be almost as fast as Frankie.

  Fortunately it’s only a couple of turns till we get to the park, and we’re there in no time, so I can forget about all of that. I roll to the beginning of the trail and pop up my board, and we set mine and Jolene’s to the side. Silently we sit down and take off our shoes, tossing them over with our boards. Walking through the park barefoot is so much nicer than with sneakers. As we’re about to head down the sandy trail, we hear the sound of tires and a familiar voice behind us. I don’t even have to turn to know it’s Peter.

  Grandpa’s walking stick is strapped along the side of Peter’s bike and his hair is a mess as usual. “What are y’all doing out here?”

  “We’re meeting the president for lunch,” I say sarcastically. “What do you think we’re doing? We’re”—and suddenly I can’t think of anything good to make up—“going to the beach.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Nope,” Jolene says before I can even make up a good reason to say no.

  “Why are you wearing that?” he asks, pointing to Jolene’s eye patch. She crosses her arms, but doesn’t answer.

  “Whatever, one-eyed wonder,” Peter says.

  Jolene grins. Nothing ever bothers that kid. Sometimes I wish I could be like that.

  Peter looks at me for an answer and I don’t say anything either. I feel kind of bad that we always tell him no, but since that’s what we always say, he doesn’t seem to suspect anything. And I’m not sure Grandpa wanted Peter to know about the map, so it seems better this way.

  “You’re probably doing something boring anyway, like memorizing the periodic table.” He swings his bike around and shouts, “I’m going to go find Colin. He’s way more fun than you anyway!” Little does he know I already have the periodic table memorized. My dad gave me a chart from his classroom last year and it hangs over my bed.

  As Peter rides away, Frankie comes down the road on her board. She’s wearing a backpack and has two shovels propped on her shoulder as she weaves down the street. I’m pretty sure she can do anything on her board. She nods to Peter, but he ignores her. When she gets to us, she’s grinning.

  “I’m assuming you chased him away,” she says, handing me a shovel and laughing.

  “Jolene did it,” I said. “I didn’t have to say a word. Her eye patch scared him off.”

  “Nice work.” Frankie holds up a hand and Jolene gives her a high five. “Now let’s go find a shady corner to start. Preferably with no ants.”

  There are a couple of picnic tables throughout the park, so we pick one deep in the oak trees off the path a little bit so that no one will walk by and see what we’re doing. Also so we can be in the shade, because yesterday the sun fried us like fritters. The table is clean and even though a little brown lizard scurries across the top, it’s mostly ant-free, so Frankie reluctantly agrees. She’s brought back notebooks and the magnifying glass. We spread out the map and get to work.

  “You use this, Sav.” She hands me the glass. “And I’ll transcribe.”

  “What does that mean?” Jolene asks.

  “That means I’ll write down every letter Sav reads out loud.”

  “What am I going to do?” Jolene asks.

  “You’re the lookout,” I say. “The most important job on the ship. You have to alert us if any other pirates are nearby.”

  She salutes me, looks around, and decides to climb up in the tree branches above us. “I can see best from up here!”

  “Perfect,” Frankie says. “Go ahead, Sav, I’m ready when you are.”

  I use the magnifying glass to figure out every single letter written inside the word “Ocracoke.” I call them out to Frankie one letter at a time and she groups them together. Her notes look like alphabet soup.

  O: QKXXEZT

  C: EIAVLLR

  R: KROFVL

  A: DAQEFKXEO

  C: KQYLRQ

  O: FVORKL

  K: BLVICQRO

  E: YIBTQIBCL

  “Grandpa,” I say under my breath to myself.

  “What is it?” Frankie asks.

  “This is a lot more complicated than the poem.”

  I’m good at unscrambling words and solving puzzles, but there are so many letters and no patterns or punctuation.

  “What in the world do we do with these now?” Frankie asks, turning her notebook at different angles, as if that will help shake the letters into their proper place. I turn it toward myself to get a better look.

  From above, Jolene says, “What’s next?”

  “I’m thinking,” I say, harsher than I mean to sound. I look up at my sister’s hurt expression. “Sorry, Jo. Maybe it’s an anagram.”

  “Here we go again,” Frankie says. “Remind me what that is?”

  “An anagram is just a word scramble.”

  “This has to be more than one word,” Frankie says. “And there are way too many ‘X’s’ and ‘Q’s’. It doesn’t make any sense. You can’t make words out of these letters.”

  I rest my chin in my hand. “Yeah, I know.” We’re all quiet for a little while, thinking. I try to remember the different codes Grandpa used to give me. “These are like the puzzle books Grandpa had me work on in church so I’d sit still. I think he was preparing me to solve the most important code of all.”

  “I don’t know,” Frankie says. “We should ask Dad.”

  “There’s a reason Grandpa left it to us, not Dad.”

  “We can trust Dad,” Frankie says.

  “I know. But I want to figure this out myself.”

  Frankie sighs. She hates not following rules. “It’ll be fine,” I say.

  We both look up at Jolene, who’s grinning like the Cheshire cat and says, “Sav’s going to save everything aboard the Queen Mary.”

  I really hope she’s right.

  9

  All Hands on Deck

  As I work on figuring out exactly what kind of code Grandpa left us, Frankie and Jolene offer suggestions. It makes it more confusing though, so I ask them to stop. Then they are so quiet I can’t think. Frankie’s boy friend—her friend who’s a boy, not a boyfriend—walks by with his dog and she runs over to say hi to make sure he doesn’t come over to us. She leans against a tree and twirls her hair as Ryan tells her something I can’t hear. He’d better not stick around. Jolene jumps out of the tree and joins them, and Ryan holds up a hand so she can slap him five. The three of them talk about something that must be the most hilarious thing Frankie’s ever heard.

  “I could use some help, you know,” I shout over to my sisters. Frankie gives me a look and keeps talking to Ryan. By the time she finally says goodbye, I think I’ve figured it out anyway. Jolene climbs back up into the tree to reclaim her lookout post and Frankie sits next to me on the bench.

  “Do you like him, like him?” I ask her.

  “Who?” Frankie acts as
though she has no idea what I’m talking about, but her face turns bright red.

  “You know who. Ryan.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “What were you talking about?”

  She and Jolene answer at the same time:

  “Mind your own business,” Frankie says to me.

  “They’re going surfing later!” Jolene grins.

  Frankie glares at Jolene. “Thanks.”

  “You can’t go surfing later. It’s a school night,” I say. So much for not breaking rules. I guess she thinks that only applies to me.

  “Thanks, Mom junior, I’m aware. Can we just get back to work here?” Frankie pulls the paper closer to herself and pretends to read it.

  “You’re willing to get in trouble just to hang out with Ryan?”

  “Savannah. Can you please focus?”

  “Jolene knows but you weren’t going to tell me?”

  Frankie sighs. “Savvy, I’m going surfing with Ryan. There. Are you happy now?”

  “Yes.” I give her a smug smile. “Sisters should tell each other everything.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Anyway, I think it is a word scramble,” I say. “But sort of like the poem, with letters standing for other letters. But I’m not sure how, yet.”

  “Why would Grandpa do this to us?” Frankie asks, leaning her chin into her hand. She looks totally bored now, like she’d rather be somewhere else.

  “I guess he thought no one else would bother.”

  “Well, he was right about that,” Frankie says. “No one except you, anyway.”

  “And that green-hat guy,” Jolene whispers down to us.

  “Exactly. Thank you, Jolene. Now do you want me to unscramble this mess or not?”

  “Of course I do. Sorry.” Frankie tries to be interested as I arrange and rearrange letters all over the page.

  After about three minutes Jolene whines, “I’m hungry. How long is this going to take?”

  “It’ll take as long as it takes, Jolene,” I say, but I’m wondering the same thing myself and am afraid of losing both my sisters’ help. I try different letter combinations to make different words, but nothing works. Nothing makes sense.