The Dare Sisters

by Jess Rinker

  “Don’t encourage them, Randy,” Aunt Della says.

  Frankie and I look at each other. There really are no words. Except to thank our cousin.

  “Thank you, Peter,” Frankie says.

  “Yeah, you saved our butts,” I say. “Thank you so much!”

  “It’s fine,” he says. “We’re family. That’s what we do for each other.”

  Before I can say anything more about the key or the conversation on the beach, Mom launches into frantic full-question mode.

  “What in the world were you three doing out here anyway? You weren’t actually playing manhunt this late at night, were you?” she asks. “Jolene woke us up, said Peter was soaking wet and knocking on the door and told her there was trouble in the park. I thought someone had drowned. What were you all thinking? Were you out here all night long?”

  Frankie gets right to the point. She holds up the key. “Grandpa’s treasure is real.”

  The adults get into all-out question mode after that. And we tell them everything we know. So far. No more secrets.

  We walk home while they pass the key between them and talk like excited kids.

  “There’s something familiar about this,” Dad says, and they all examine and discuss and argue about the key. Something about Spanish gold in the 1700s and where the emeralds and rubies might be from, why Grandpa would bury something so valuable in the park, and how Throop knew about it. I know the answer, but none of us can get a word in while the grown-ups talk.

  They’ll figure it out.

  Frankie, Jolene, Peter, and I trail behind. Jolene asks us a million questions about how we finally found it. She’s wide-awake because she’s been sleeping for the last however many hours we’ve been working our butts off. But I’m so tired I can’t think straight anymore. Too many questions and too much sand. My clothes stick to my skin and it’s itchy and cold.

  I try to answer some of Jolene’s questions but my words come out in mixed-up sounds, like I can’t remember what order they’re supposed to be in.

  “Savvy, are you okay?” Frankie asks.

  I feel like I’m sinking underwater. She holds me up.

  Before we even get back to the house, I hear Frankie say, “Um, Dad?”

  She sounds very far away.

  And then I somehow end up in my dad’s arms and the last thing I remember is him tucking me into bed.

  26

  The Family That Pirates Together

  When I wake up, I feel like I’ve eaten all the sand from the beach. My mouth is swollen and stuck together and my skin is dry like the paper in Grandpa’s old books. Even my eyeballs feel dried out. Sand falls out onto my pillow when I scratch my head. Gross.

  Next to my bed is a little pitcher of water and a glass my mom must have left for me. I pour myself a drink and then another and then pull my heavy arms and legs out of bed to take a shower. The hot water feels so good washing away the salt and dirt down the drain. When I get back to my room, my mom has stripped my bed and laid out clean clothes for me. Normally I’d roll my eyes at that. I’m not a baby. But today I’m thankful for one less thing to think about.

  Downstairs, Mom and Dad are reading through one of Grandpa’s journals that I kept. When they see me, they toss the book on the table and smile.

  “Good to see you up, Savvy,” Dad says, extending an arm out for me to sit next to them on the couch. I lean into his warm side.

  “What time is it? Where’s Frankie and Jolene?”

  “It’s around two,” Mom says, looking at her watch. “And your sisters are out walking Py. They should be back soon.”

  “Two?” I ask. “Two in the afternoon? I missed breakfast and lunch?”

  Mom laughs. “Yes, but I can make you a sandwich if you’re hungry?”

  “I don’t even know yet.”

  “Well, you’re very dehydrated, so I’m going to at least get you more water.”

  I nod and Dad gives me a squeeze. Everything from last night starts popping into my head, like I’d forgotten it for a bit, and now it’s like little light bulbs brightening the room one at a time. Digging, Throop, running all over the woods, a gold key, a thunderstorm, passing out in Frankie’s arms.

  “The key?”

  “Right now, the key is safe and sound,” Dad says, gently pinching my nose.

  “What are you going to do with it?” I ask.

  “Well, we want to find the right expert to evaluate it. Although your mom and I do believe it’s from the 1700s, our knowledge is limited. We’d need to comb through all of Grandpa’s records to see if he has anything about its origin. It’s going to take time. And there’s the little issue of the government.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s tricky,” Dad says, “because you and your sisters were digging on state land, so therefore it technically belongs to the state.”

  “But it already belonged to Grandpa. He put it there for us to find,” I say. To unlock an even bigger treasure, I think, but don’t say out loud to my dad.

  “Can’t prove to anyone that it belonged to him, Savvy. It would be different if you found it in our yard, or if you had a permit to treasure hunt like your grandpa used to have. And no matter what, the state can claim a certain amount of any artifacts found by a private treasure hunter—that’s something your grandfather always had to work with, too.

  “So, for right now, we’re going to keep it safe and try to find out as much as we can,” he says. “And then we can make a better decision on what to do with it.”

  Mom comes back with a glass of water and some cinnamon toast for me. She kisses the top of my head. “What are you grinning at?” she asks.

  “I never knew my parents were such good pirates.”

  “Let’s not go too far,” Mom says, smiling.

  “But you believe us now, that Blackbeard’s treasure is out there?” I ask them.

  “That’s still up for debate,” Dad says. “Hear me out, before you argue.”

  “Okay.”

  “I believe that Grandpa believed it was out there. I believe he set up this wonderful hunt for you girls before he died because he loved stuff like this, and knew you would, too. But he wasn’t thinking clearly the last several years, Savvy. If he had been, he’d never have risked you digging on state land like this. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I think so,” I say. “Grandpa wouldn’t want us doing anything dangerous. Or illegal.”

  Dad rubs my back. “Exactly.”

  “Are you going to make us stop?”

  Dad takes a long, deep breath. “I’m not. Because the other part of this is the fact that this key is not a toy. It’s the real deal and I can’t believe my father’s judgment was so bad he’d bury something like this in the park.” He shuts his eyes and rubs his temples. “Anyway, I want you to let Mom and I know where you are at all times. If you think you have an idea where something else might be, you let us know. And especially if Dunmore Throop shows up again.” Dad grits his teeth at Throop’s name.

  “Okay.” I can deal with that. Even pirates had a code, like Frankie said.

  My sisters come in the front door and Py breaks free from Jolene’s hand, runs up to me, and jumps up on my knees. I give her a good scratch. Jolene comes over and hugs me. “I thought you might never wake up,” she says. I hug her.

  “We stopped by Peter’s house,” Frankie says. “He and Uncle Randy went to the park to get Will’s backhoe and fill the hole in so no one gets hurt.”

  “Oh, good,” Mom says. “Della told me they were going to do that. Glad they took care of it.”

  Now there was no trace of what we’d done.

  I guess Uncle Randy and Peter might make good pirates too. The vote’s still out on that.

  “All right, Savannah, your orders are to rest for the next couple of days,” Mom says. “You’re lucky you’re not grounded for a month for skipping school.”

  “Frankie told you.”

  “Sorry, Sav,” Frankie say
s. “Mom made me walk the plank.”

  “Yes, Frankie told me. She had little choice when you passed out. You scared us. But she told me what all was going on this week and it was obvious that you needed a lot of rest and water. So that’s what you’re getting.”

  “Okay.”

  “And your first order of business is this.” She hands me a stack of Grandpa’s books.

  “You want me to see what I can find out about the key?”

  She pinches my nose just like Dad. “Smart as a whip.”

  What could be better? This is like the opposite of getting grounded. I get to lie on the couch and go through Grandpa’s things to try to figure out where the key fits and where it came from!

  “Don’t get too cozy,” she says. “You’re going back on Monday.”

  Surprisingly, I’m not actually sad about it. Mom and Dad both agree that we’re not sending all of Grandpa’s things away after all, because we have to find out what else Grandpa hid in town and we need his research. So the key is safe and sound. Things are mostly good.

  Except that we still haven’t figured out how to save the Queen Mary.

  27

  For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow

  We roll through leaves on the way to school on Monday, and when we get there, kids surround our skateboards. Everyone has heard something different about what happened that night with Throop.

  “My dad says you took down a bank robber at the beach,” one boy says.

  “I heard someone was trying to break into the lighthouse,” another kid says.

  “That’s not it at all,” says a girl from Frankie’s class. “My mom said someone had been snooping around all week at the museum and Sheriff Howard caught him while they were playing manhunt in the park.”

  Frankie, Jolene, and I look at each other. “Yeah,” Frankie says. “That’s close enough.”

  But all day the questions continue. I stick to the manhunt story. At lunch a lot of kids ask to eat with me, but there’s someone I have to find.

  When I see Kate, I ask if I can sit with her and LouAnn.

  “Sure,” she says. “If you really want to.”

  “I do.”

  They both watch me sit and unpack my lunch. Neither asks me anything about the night at the park or why I’m suddenly talking to them. We eat in silence for a minute until Grandpa’s words force me to talk.

  “Kate?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Let’s call a parley.”

  “A what?”

  “A truce,” I explain. “I’m really sorry I pushed you last year.”

  “Oh, it’s okay!” She grins and sets down her turkey sandwich. “I know you were just angry. I shouldn’t have called you weird.”

  “With chicken legs,” LouAnn adds.

  “Right.” Kate stops chewing and looks at the table. “I don’t know why I said that. I’m really sorry too. Let’s not fight again.”

  “Okay.”

  I don’t tell them about moving and they don’t ask me any questions about what happened with Throop. We talk about school and friends and we trade desserts. It’s like nothing bad ever happened between us. I guess Grandpa was right, everyone needed to grow up a little bit. Saying sorry wasn’t really that hard and now everything feels back to normal.

  Every day after school I continue to read through Grandpa’s journals, but don’t find anything about the key. And then one day we come home to a FOR SALE sign in our front yard.

  At dinner that night Mom says that the real estate agent wants us to clear out the house and put everything in storage before she starts showing it to potential buyers. “She says too much clutter will discourage them.”

  “No way,” Dad says. “People are going to have to use their imaginations. The only place all of these treasures are going is a museum, and only when we are ready.”

  I think it’s the first time Dad has called Grandpa’s things “treasures.”

  “The Grandpa Museum,” Jolene says, pushing little halves of cherry tomatoes around on her plate.

  “The what?” Dad asks, chuckling over his glass of water.

  “We think Grandpa should have his own museum. With his name on a banner and everything,” I say. “He deserves it.”

  Dad’s eyes get all watery. I look down at my plate.

  He squeezes my hand. “That’s a lovely idea, Savvy. You girls always believed in him way more than I ever did.”

  He gets up and leaves the table.

  I look over at Mom. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” she says. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Then she gets up and follows Dad.

  Jolene pushes her eye patch up onto her head and taps her fork on her plate. Py walks around under the table waiting for us to drop something. She curls up at my feet when she comes up empty.

  “I guess we should be happy,” Frankie says, her chin scrunched in her hand. “Even though it’s not going to save the house, we proved Grandpa was right.”

  “Yeah, but we can’t even tell anybody,” Jolene says.

  “I know. But we know. We proved it to ourselves.” Frankie gathers our plates, scrapes all the food onto one, and piles them up. It’s obvious we’re all done eating even though we never started. I grab a small piece of chicken and hand it to Py under the table.

  “But the thing is, there’s still more to find,” I say. “And now we have to leave.”

  “Maybe every time someone comes to look at the house, we can say that it’s haunted and how horrible it is to live here,” Jolene suggests. It’s not a bad idea.

  “Maybe we’ll just get lucky and no one will even want it right away,” Frankie says. “It could buy Mom and Dad enough time to figure out the key.” But it doesn’t make me feel any better.

  I rest my head on the table. We solved a huge piece of Grandpa’s puzzle, but we might not have enough time to solve the whole thing. And what if Dunmore Throop comes back in the meantime? No one has heard anything from him. The police said they’d keep a lookout and would bring him in for questioning if he ever comes back but they never found him that night. Mom wanted to know why they couldn’t do more.

  “Unless there’s actually a crime, they can’t charge him for yelling at kids,” Dad had told her.

  I reach down and give the dog a scratch. She has such an easy life. All she ever has to think about is food and scratches.

  Then the doorbell rings.

  Jolene runs to it and peeks out the window. “It’s Mrs. Taylor. Can I open it?”

  “Of course,” Frankie says, and we join Jolene at the door. Mrs. Taylor looks like she got caught in a wind tunnel.

  “Girls!” she says, breathless. “I have a plan!”

  “A plan for what, ma’am?” Frankie asks, and plucks a leaf out of Mrs. Taylor’s hair.

  “Your home! I did a little research. The Queen Mary qualifies for registration on the historical database. I’m sure you’d be approved to stay as caretakers. The council agreed they didn’t want just anyone to own such an important part of Ocracoke’s history, for fear they might tear it down and build something atrocious. So now all your parents have to do is take it from here!”

  She holds up a paper for us to see. It looks very formal and all, but I’m not sure if it matters anymore. “Mrs. Taylor, they already put our house up for sale.”

  She turns and looks at the sign out front. “Well, you won’t be needing that anymore!” And then Mrs. Taylor does something very unexpected.

  She rushes over to the sign and kicks it over.

  Jolene gasps. “Shiver me timbers!”

  “Mom! Dad!” Jolene yells up the stairs so loud the dog runs under the dining room table. “Mrs. Taylor says we can be carebakers and won’t have to move!”

  “Caretakers,” Frankie corrects her.

  “That’s what I said,” Jolene says.

  “Don’t be too hasty. You at least don’t have to sell yet,” Mrs. Taylor says. “I’ll explain when your parents get down here.”

  When our parents
don’t reappear immediately, Jolene yells, “Jack and Anne Dare, your presence is requested in the captain’s quarters!”

  “Jolene, what is all the commotion?” Mom says, appearing at the top of the landing. “Oh, Mrs. Taylor, hello. Is everything all right?”

  “Anne, everything is far better than all right.”

  We all sit down with Mrs. Taylor in the dining room and she explains that when a house is accepted into the registry, it puts all kinds of rules in place, but the best thing about it is that the owners can ask the town council to protect their home.

  “If the council votes to protect the building, it can’t be torn down and you can apply for money to help keep it yourselves,” she says.

  “That’s wonderful,” Mom says. “But do we even have time to ask the council?”

  “I already did. Informally.” Mrs. Taylor clasps her hands and smiles. “When Savannah told me about what was happening, I decided to look into the possibility. I knew you all had a lot on your plate so I did some digging for you. Everyone is ready to vote YES! You just have to say the word and get the paperwork rolling.”

  Mom and Dad look at each other. Dad says, “You’re going to help us keep our home?”

  “I’m certainly going to try!” Mrs. Taylor nods so hard it looks like she might knock the bun off the top of her head. She rubs her hands together. “And, we’ve decided to cover your bills for two months. This will give you time to finalize the registration and apply for a grant from the government to be stewards of the property yourselves.” She passes the papers to our parents and smiles at my sisters and me. “Meaning, you will be the right and true guardians of a very important historical property.”

  Frankie and Jolene look at me. “What did you say, Mrs. Taylor?” I ask.

  “You are ‘the right and true guardians’?” she repeats.

  I don’t know how she knows, but my sisters and I look at each other and I know they’re thinking what I’m thinking.

  When in doubt, please remember:

  I’m with you always and forever.

  It’s like Grandpa had his hands in this all along.