History in the Faking

by Andreas Oertel

  Rachel gave me the plaque and the fragment. Scared I’d lose the small chunk, I shoved it deep in my pocket.

  “And remember,” she said, “don’t go down to the waterline until you hear the signal.”

  “Piece of cake,” I said, following Eric into the bush. “I got the easy job.”

  Man, was I wrong about that.

  Eric and I battled our way through thick willows and swarms of black flies for five minutes. Then we headed west toward the bank of the Kilmeny. Walking got better when we hit the forest and the big trees. I could see the river through the branches now, so we paused to catch our breath.

  Eric cupped his hands and yelled, “RACHEL, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

  Three seconds went by, and then we heard, “LOUD AND CLEAR.”

  “Good,” Eric said, studying the other side of the river. “I can hear Rachel, and I can see the bridge and the washout from here.”

  “Okay,” I said, “I’ll stay out of sight, up top. When you tell me the coast is clear, I’ll sprint down to the river and stick the plaque in the mud.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Eric scratched his back against the trunk of a spruce tree. “And remember to keep the side with the hieroglyphics facing the dock.”

  I snuck along the upper edge of the bank for another three hundred feet until I was standing on the clearing above the washout. From up close, it looked like the river bank must have weakened from too much rain. The saturated slope then collapsed into the Kilmeny, taking tons of rock and soil along for the ride.

  But enough with the geography lesson.

  I crouched and examined the river down below. Estimating that it would take me fifty steps to get to the water, I figured I should be able to plant the tablet, and get out of sight again, in less than two minutes.

  Wishful thinking, Cody.

  I planned the route I would take in my head, and I was about to make a run for it, when I heard Eric.

  “CAR!” he cried.

  I didn’t have my watch with me, so I counted out the seconds and observed the bridge. I needed to know how much time I had to climb up the bank again before a car got to the bridge, because from there I could be seen down by the washout.

  “One thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three . . . ”

  Rats!

  I got to “one thousand and thirty-five” when a minivan crossed the river. Thirty-five seconds didn’t leave me much time to scramble back up the steep bank and out of sight.

  “CAR!” Eric shouted.

  I began my count, but this time only twenty-eight seconds passed until a telephone company truck appeared on the bridge.

  “CLEAR,” Eric screamed. And then again, “ALL CLEAR.”

  I leapt from the bank and scrambled down the washout, half sliding and half running. I slipped once on an exposed root and nearly lost my balance, but I managed to recover, narrowly avoiding smashing the plaque against a rock. When I got to the bottom, running became easier, and I made excellent time. I was twenty feet from the water’s edge when I froze.

  The river bed near the washout was covered with damp silt and sand. Now, normally I would have worried that I was staring at a pit of quicksand. I mean, if you’ve ever seen the stuff in movies, that’s exactly what it looked like. But I pushed the thought out of my mind and focused on the real problem: there was no way I could get close to the water line without leaving footprints everywhere. That would be the most obvious sign of a hoax. And I hadn’t come this far to make such a stupid mistake.

  “CAR! CAR! CAR!” Eric bellowed from his perch upriver.

  I spun around and bolted back up the bank. Counting off the seconds in my head, I scrambled like a maniac in the crumbling earth. I made it up and over the ledge just as a semi lumbered across the Kilmeny.

  Whew.

  I collapsed in the grass, sweat dripping from every pore in my body. That was way too close.

  “CAR!” Eric screamed.

  Thank goodness. I didn’t even bother timing the vehicle as I lay panting in the sun. I considered my options. Only there weren’t any. I had to approach the washout from the river.

  “ALL CLEAR!” Eric cried.

  What, already? I rolled over the lip and ambled down the bank again, careful not to drop the—

  Oh, no! I had forgotten the plaque. How could I have forgotten the plaque? I spun around and groped my way back to the top. Snatching up the tablet, I listened for Eric’s voice.

  Nothing.

  I turned and ran for the river again. Without stopping, I went in the water up to my knees and plowed my way to the centre of the washout, where Dr. Murray’s hooks usually landed. With my heart slamming away at my chest, I repeatedly checked my position in relation to the dock behind me. It was vital that I place the plaque where it would be seen. Satisfied that I was in the right spot, I inched my way towards the waterline. As I leaned over to stick the stone tablet in the mud, the worst thing I could imagine happened.

  “CAR!” It was Eric. “CAR, CAR, CAR!”

  I thought I was going to puke. There was no way I’d make it back up to the trees in time.

  Then I had an idea.

  I backed up until the river was at my waist, took a deep breath, and sunk out of sight in the Kilmeny. When I’d counted off thirty seconds, my lungs began screaming for oxygen. And when I reached forty, I couldn’t take it any longer. I poked my head out of the water and gasped for air. The bridge was free of traffic.

  Smooth move, Cody.

  I huffed and puffed my way back to the shore, leaned over, and slid a third of the plaque into the mud. I studied it for a few seconds. Nope, it looked too square—too much like a sign. I bent over, pushed it deeper, and yanked on it until it was at a rakish angle.

  Satisfied, I sloshed my way back along the shore.

  “CAR!”

  I sighed. Not again.

  Then, two seconds later I heard, “JUST KIDDING.”

  I couldn’t see Eric, but I imagined him over in the trees laughing his face off. I shook my head and grinned.

  “WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?” Rachel surveyed my wet, bedraggled appearance with genuine concern.

  “Oh, Rachel, you should have seen him,” Eric said, reporting what I’d done when we got back to our bikes. “It was so funny. Up the hill, down the hill. In the water, out of the water. I almost peed my pants.”

  Rachel had no way of knowing what happened, so I explained how I had to get right in the water to avoid leaving footprints all over the shore. I also told her how I had to hide underwater so that I wouldn’t be seen standing in the river holding the tablet.

  “Actually,” Eric said, mounting his bike. “That was quick thinking. I never even considered the footprints. It would’ve given us away.”

  Rachel smiled at me as she climbed on her bike. “Piece of cake, right?”

  “Just like I said.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “ARE YOU GUYS sure he’s going to show up today?” Rachel asked. She was lying on her stomach and looking down at the dock from our hideout. “Maybe he’s sick?”

  It was 9:30, Wednesday morning, and we were all anxious for Dr. Murray to find the plaque. He usually showed up around 10:00, but we were too excited to stay away. Plus, we all wanted to make sure the tablet hadn’t been swept away by the river or dragged off by a bear.

  “Whew,” Rachel said. “It’s still there.”

  It was difficult to see clearly from where we were hiding, but our tablet was definitely where it was supposed to be—wedged in the mud, across from the dock.

  “He might be sick of fish,” I said, peeling the seeds away from a pine cone. “But he’s not sick. He’s a doctor.”

  “Doctors get sick,” Eric said, working on his breakfast of sunflower seeds. By the way, that was probably the least amount of food I’d ever seen him eat. “Heck, we don’t even know if he’s a doctor, doctor. He could be a P-H-D doctor.”

  “All doctors are P-H-D doctors,” I said, flicking pine cone f
lakes into the air. “Otherwise, they couldn’t call themselves doctors.”

  “No.” Eric started getting frustrated. “I mean, Dr. Murray might not even be a people doctor. He could have a PhD in stars and planets and outer space stuff. He might be a whatchamacallit—a cosmetologist.”

  Rachel chuckled. “You think he’s a make-up doctor?”

  “What?” Eric scowled at his sister.

  “You mean a meteorologist?” I said to Eric, helpfully.

  “No,” Rachel said, still squinting at either the dock, or the plaque. “That’s a doctor of weather.”

  “Entomologist?” I said.

  “Bugs.” Rachel said.

  “Astrologist?” I said.

  “Nope.” Rachel laughed. “But you’re getting warmer.”

  “I got it,” I said. “Dr. Murray’s an astronomer. Right, Eric?”

  Eric groaned. “You’re both idiots.”

  Rachel and I laughed.

  “Shhh,” Eric hissed, “I think he’s coming.”

  Eric and I flopped onto the ground on either side of Rachel, making sure we were out of sight. We lay silent and listened. I heard nothing but the chirp of birds, the drone of insects, and—

  “Yup,” I said, “that sounds like his beater.”

  We couldn’t see the truck from where we were hidden, but I could imagine him parking it, getting his gear out, closing the door, and walking to the dock.

  “There he is!” Rachel cupped her hands together—I could tell she really wanted to clap them—and squirmed in place.

  He appeared around the corner dressed in standard grandpa-issue clothes. It was like he was a model for Old Man Quarterly. His light blue shorts came down to his knees, where a band of white skin separated the shorts from his yanked-up socks. The socks were more or less the same colour as the shorts. His loose, untucked shirt looked like wallpaper from some house in England. And to finish off the whole look, he had a cap on his head, which I can only describe as an old man hat. It looked like a cloth baseball cap with 80 percent of the visor chopped off.

  Anyway, watching Dr. Murray turtle his way down to the dock was absolutely painful. I had no idea he moved so slow. It was almost as if he knew we were there and was deliberately torturing us.

  “Jeepers,” Eric said. “It would be faster if he just rolled himself down to the dock.”

  “Hush,” Rachel warned needlessly. There was no way he could hear us from where we were hiding.

  After what seemed like a week, he finally made it to the end of the dock and began assembling his gear. My heart sped up as he attached the lure and got ready to cast.

  “Man, I wish we had binoculars,” Eric said, trying to focus on the end of the dock.

  “You do have binoculars,” Rachel pointed out, “and you should have brought them.”

  Down by the river, Dr. Murray swung the rod behind his shoulder and flicked the lure across the river. I heard Rachel hold her breath as the hook splashed the water—six feet from the plaque.

  “Gosh, that was close,” Eric said.

  Dr. Murray reeled in his hook—nice and steady, of course—and ignored the tablet. No bites for him and no bites for us. He did the same thing three more times, and with every cast across the Kilmeny River, I prayed the old guy would see the light. I mean, the artifact.

  “Did you see that?” Rachel said. “The hook practically splashed the slate. How could he not see it?”

  “Wait!” My eyes focused so hard they began to burn.

  Dr. Murray definitely paused after the lure hit the water that time. He froze for a moment before cranking the reel. But then the unthinkable happened—he caught a fish! Forgetting about the thing that had distracted him, he reeled in his lunch, or whatever meal he would have the dead fish for.

  “I’m sure he saw it.” Rachel wriggled in frustration. “Uuuugh.”

  We watched as he hauled the fish out of the river and let it flip-flop on the dock. With his back to the bridge we could see him remove the hook, put the fish on a stringer, and place it in the pail of water.

  “It’s a jackfish,” I announced, though probably no one cared.

  “You can tell from here?” Rachel asked.

  “Oh, sure,” I said. “They have big heads and—”

  “Sounds gross,” she said.

  “Speaking of gross,” I continued, “You have to cook them thoroughly, because of worms and—”

  “Quiet, he’s casting again,” Eric scolded, trying to avoid hearing my fish parasite lecture.

  Dr. Murray realigned himself on the dock and flung the hook over the Kilmeny.

  Plop!

  This time it happened.

  “He saw it!” Rachel grabbed Eric’s arm and let go, all in less than a second. “I’m positive.”

  We watched as Dr. Murray froze and stared across the river at the plaque. And when I say he froze, I mean froze—like he was dead or something. The fishing rod stayed in his hand, and the line remained stretched out, like a long skinny finger pointing from the dock to the plaque. I’m sure he stared at our tablet for an hour.

  Okay, well, maybe not for an hour—but he stared at it for at least a minute.

  Then he moved.

  Dr. Murray reeled in the hook but kept his eyes locked on the plaque, almost like he thought it would disappear if he glanced away. Setting the fishing rod on the dock, he groped for his tackle box, and pulled something out.

  “What’s that?” Eric asked.

  “Can’t tell,” I said. “It’s small, whatever it is.”

  He had something in his palm, something black.

  “It’s a pair of binoculars,” Rachel said.

  He raised the binoculars to his eyes and began focusing on our plaque.

  “See, Eric,” Rachel said, “he brought his binoculars.”

  Eric ignored her.

  The doctor lowered the binoculars and began surveying the area. Our heads duplicated each turn of his head. First he panned the whole east bank, from the bridge to the bend in the north. Then he turned around and examined the river bank where we were hiding. We shrank lower into the ground.

  “What’s he doing?” Rachel whispered, her breath tickling my face.

  “I’m not sure.” Our cheeks were pressed into the earth, and my nose was three inches from hers. “Maybe he’s just paranoid . . . like all old people.”

  Eric must have chanced a peek, because he said, “He’s looking at the tablet again.”

  Rachel and I propped our heads up to watch. Dr. Murray was studying the slate through his binoculars again. Then he did a logical, beautiful thing—he spent four minutes sweeping the washout. Clearly, he was putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

  “He’s looking for more artifacts already,” Eric said, pleased. “And he doesn’t even have his mitts on the first artifact.”

  “I hope he doesn’t find the little piece too soon,” Rachel said.

  “Ahh . . . yeah, about that.” I cleared my throat. “I don’t think he’ll find that piece today. You see, it’s still in my pocket.”

  “What?” Eric moaned.

  I explained how with all the confusion yesterday—with the cars and so forth—I’d forgotten about planting the little chunk we broke off.

  “It doesn’t matter, Cody,” Rachel said. “We can go back and bury that any time we want.”

  Satisfied that he wasn’t being spied on or set up by a hidden camera show, Dr. Murray gathered his equipment and walked back to the truck. Every ten paces, he turned around and looked at the tablet. I suppose, to make sure he could locate it again when he crossed the river.

  “I wonder if he’ll get to it again,” Eric mumbled, “when he’s on the other side? That bush starts off pretty thick.”

  “Sure, he’ll find it,” I said. “Remember, he’s an astronomer.”

  “That’s right,” Rachel added. “He can use the sun to find his way.”

  We remained on the grass and pine needles, and waited for Dr. Murray’s tru
ck to cross the bridge. After six minutes, I worried he wasn’t interested anymore and had gone home. Or that he had Alzheimer’s and forgot why he’d left the river with only one dead fish.

  “Maybe he’s going to leave it to the experts,” Eric said. “Maybe he’s so convinced it’s the real deal, he doesn’t want to mess with the site. You know, tamper with the evidence.”

  “Could be,” I said, hoping he was wrong. “But that would take a heck of a lot of willpower.”

  “And wouldn’t the curiosity drive him crazy?” Rachel pushed a tangle of sweaty hair from her eyes.

  “Unless,” I said, “he’s already crazy.”

  I had given up on the doctor and started to get up—I needed to stretch my legs—when Rachel yanked me back down.

  “Wait!” She tugged on my hand. “That’s him!”

  I dropped to the ground again and looked at the bridge. Sure enough, his truck was crossing the river. Only you couldn’t say he was driving across the river: it was more like a walking speed.

  Eric groaned—loud, like a bear. “Doesn’t he do anything fast? It’s bad enough that he walks like he’s pushing a piano, but does he have to drive that slow too?”

  “I bet he won’t get to the plaque for at least forty-five minutes,” Rachel said.

  Eric’s head bobbed. “I could actually go home and eat a bowl of cereal, and still be back in time to see him yank it from the mud.”

  “Yeah, go,” Rachel said. “And don’t forget the binoculars.”

  “And bring me something to eat,” I said. “Maybe a granola bar.”

  “Okay,” Eric said.

  “But not one of those hard, mouth-tearing granola bars,” I added. “Get me a chewy one.”

  “Me too,” Rachel said. “And hurry, before he sees you.”

  “And change your T-shirt,” I said. “He might see all that yellow when he gets up on the far bank.”

  Eric cursed us enthusiastically, hopped on his bike, and disappeared down the trail.

  CHAPTER 10

  AFTER ERIC LEFT, there wasn’t much to do but watch the empty washout. I forgot Rachel was next to me and I started daydreaming about the perfectness of the moment. For once, I wasn’t worrying about anything, and I had a good feeling that things would work out for us. The old doctor was about to stumble upon the archaeological find of the century, and everything was going according to . . .