by M. D. Lee
“But I’m just an innocent girl.” Sara says. “The person you really want is Fisher Shoemaker. He’s evil.” Without warning she shoves me into the shrub. Both Sara and Jo laugh like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. It is kind of funny and I laugh too as I untangle myself from the shrub.
Jo reaches out to me. “Take my hand, stud.” There’s that sly smile again.
As I grab for Jo’s hand, I catch Sara also noticing Jo’s sly smile. She looks like she’s about to say something, but doesn’t. Quickly, I say, “Follow me. Let’s go this way.” I don’t think either one hears me as I start down the path because now both are eying each other up like something’s going on. Suddenly there’s tension in the air between the three of us, but no words have been spoken. I keep walking a little faster.
In the thick fog, even following the path back to the Old Man is becoming challenging. The shrubs and rocks don’t look the same, but it’s the only path. There’s a slight breeze from the north that carries the damp air that gives me a sense of direction. As I step over a rock I realize Sara is walking by my side. I’m not sure why, but I pick up the pace a little.
“Don’t try and walk away from me, Fisher Shoemaker.”
I look at her and shrug my shoulders. “What do you mean? I’m just trying to find our way back to the treasure.”
“Something’s going on. And I bet I’m not going to like it,” she says as she points to me then Jo who’s far enough back she can’t hear us.
“Going on? I’ll tell you what’s going on. That cousin of yours has been doing nothing this whole trip but giving me a hard time. Doesn’t matter what I do, she’ll find something to make fun of me.”
“That’s not it. There’s something else going on; a girl can sense these things.” Sara stops walking, crosses her arms and turns back to Jo. “What’s going on with you and Fisher?” she demands.
That same sly smile breaks out across Jo’s face. “Nothin’. I was just curious why y’all are going out. So I had to see if the Yankee’s a good kisser.”
“So you kissed him!” Sara erupts. She spins around and stares at me with cold eyes. “And you let her!”
Jo interrupts, “He’s not too bad, but he could use a little work. I’d be happy to help you with that.”
Suddenly, out of Sara’s’ mouth, comes a yell like a volcano exploding, and in an instant she charges at Jo. The two hit the ground with arms and legs flying at each other, both entangled, as they roll back and forth across the path. In an instant I’m standing over them trying to grab one or the other, but they’re rolling around too much.
At the top of my lungs, I yell, “Stop it! Stop it right now!” It’s no use, and I think that only encouraged them to go at each other harder.
Suddenly there’s a break in the action and I’m able to grab Sara around her waist pulling her off of Jo. Luckily she’s small enough I can lift her. For a split second we are standing there face to face, Sara’s hair frees of her ponytail, flying everywhere, then she squints at me like Clint Eastwood. “And you…” Before I realize it, with both hands she pops me hard in the chest knocking me to the ground. Lying on the ground I’m stunned as I look up at Sara’s angry face. She’s not done with me; not by a long shot. Quickly before I even know what’s going on she’s on top of me, her knees pressed into my chest. I can’t react; I don’t want to react.
“You like kissing her so much, are her lips something like this!” Into my open mouth she jams a fist full of dirt. With the back of my hand I wipe some of the dirt off my face. Surprisingly, that’s how I always imagined dirt to taste. She climbs off, standing above me arms crossed. Slowly, I stand up too. The three of us stand in a circle, just looking at each other. No words are spoken. Sara marches off down toward the water, well off the path, and sits on a rock with her back to us.
“Nice going, Jo,” I say shaking my head and then turn away from her. I find a large rock closer to the water away from Sara and also sit down.
What just happened? Everything was going so well, we have just found the Old Man and we’re gonna be rich, but now all this happens. Why is Jo doing this to us? I pick up a rock and fling it into the water scaring two seagulls who disappear into the gray mist. Why’d Sara have to go and invite her cousin, anyway?
There’s a wind shift and now the damp air is even cooler. But the wind shift makes the fog even thicker. Even though I’m not that far away from Sara I can barely see her. I look the other direction for Jo and see her shadowy figure emerge and walk back up along the path toward the north before fading into the fog. Good. Maybe she’ll swim back to the mainland. But there’s something about the way she was walking that seemed strange. I just ignore it, being glad she’s gone at least for the moment.
“I guess I really did it this time,” Jo whispers just to the right of my ear. Spinning my head around I see her standing at the water’s edge looking at me with crossed arms. I point back at the path, but no words come out of my mouth as my confused brain tries to unscramble what it just saw.
“Aren’t you going to say anything? Honestly, Fisher,” Jo says and moves closer to where Sara is sitting. Sara doesn’t look at her though, and looks in the opposite direction.
“Jo? That wasn’t you on the path?” I call out toward the two girls.
They both look at me strange, for a moment forgetting about the situation.
Chapter 16
Ghosts in the Fog
I ask again, “Jo, did you just walk up the path?” She looks at me like I’m wearing a pink tutu. But even as I say it, I know it would’ve been impossible for her to circle around and end up down at the water’s edge.
In an irritated tone, Sara says, “Now what are you talking about?”
I scramble up over the rocks onto the path. “I think I saw him.”
“Saw who?” Sara asks.
“Who do you think I’m talking about; the ghost of Blarney Bart Bonney. The face in the window.”
“Oh, please,” Sara says. “Ever since we talked to Gus Emery you think everything you see in the fog is Blarney Bart’s ghost. Gus Emery’s just an old man trying to put a scare into you; and it worked.”
“It was a figure floating down the path moving that way.” I point in the direction we were headed.
“Well, what did he look like?” Sara asks, arms crossed once again.
“I dunno. At first I thought it was Jo.”
Jo crosses her arms too. “Gee, thanks. Now you think I look like an old scraggly ghost. I don’t know why Sara puts up with you.” Sara glares at Jo like she might shove her again, but thankfully she doesn’t.
“I just saw a figure moving down the path and I thought it was Jo. I didn’t really get a good look at him. It’s too foggy. He probably knows we’re after his treasures.”
Suddenly, far off, we hear a loud clanking noise like heavy metal striking something hard. All three of us stand perfectly still not budging an inch.
“Come on,” I call to them. “I’ll prove to you I saw Blarney Bart.” Sara and Jo don’t hesitate and follow me along the path headed in the direction of the sound. After about ten minutes of jogging along the path we come to a fork which we hadn’t noticed before.
“In this fog it’s hard to say which way we came.” No sooner are the words out of my mouth when there’s a second metal striking sound coming from the left. “This way,” I say and take the left fork in the path.
Before long we are standing at the narrowest part of the island. I’m not sure, but Damariscove Island could actually be two islands at high tide. At the moment, because it isn’t high tide, we could cross easily to the northern part of the island if we want to.
“This is not where I thought we were at all,” I say. The fog is still thick and almost everything disappears within only a couple of feet in any direction. “The Old Man is back that way.” I point behind us toward the right.
“We’re here. Let’s check out the north section of this island,” Sara says.
&nbs
p; “Why are we chasing a ghost?” Jo asks.
“Because Sara doesn’t believe I saw Blarney Bart.” I lead on and work our way across the narrow rocky passage to the north side of the island. Both girls follow even though the tension between the three of us is like a dark cloud. It’s getting later in the day, and if it were clear, which it’s not, the sun would be setting soon. Instead, it feels like the gloom of fog is just getting heavier and slightly darker. Once we’re back in the scrub brush there’s barely a path that leads off to the right. We keep following it even though we haven’t heard the clanking noise in a while.
I’m about to take a step around a large rock when I see a faint glow up ahead. My heart skips. Slowly and quietly, I put my hand up to stop the others and point in the direction of a dim yellowish light. Every now and then the light flickers back and forth.
“If that’s a ghost, I’m outta here,” Jo says in a loud whisper as she turns to go the other way.
Sara grabs her shirt a little harder than necessary. “You’re not going anywhere. What happened to the tough Jo that’s not afraid of anything?”
“I’m not afraid of anything—especially you.” Jo pulls Sara’s hand off releasing her grip from her shirt. “But the exception is ghosts. I never mess around if there’s a ghost present.”
Normally I would agree with Jo, but I don’t want Sara to think I’m a kook who keeps thinking I’m seeing ghosts—but I am.
“Let’s move in a little closer,” I say quietly. We’re on our hands and knees crawling between low scrub bushes and large rocks. When we’re slightly closer I peer out from behind a rock as Jo and Sara do the same.
My eyes go wide. I can feel Goosebumps building on my arms. We can see the shadowy figure a little clearer. He’s wearing a red bandana over long hair, has a full scraggly beard, and black pants. He has something long in his hands, but it’s hard to tell; a sword? Scattered across the ground are all sorts of small crates. Probably more treasure that he’s burying.
In a whisper, Jo says, “I’ve never been more certain; that’s a ghost of a pirate.”
I look at Sara whose eyes are big and her mouth is wide open. She nods in agreement. “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” she says quietly. “This is all too strange.”
“This island is starting to creep me out,” I say.
“If the ghost pirate is here,” Jo says, “then we should sneak back to the Old Man, grab the treasure, and get the devil outta here.”
“I don’t know much about ghosts,” I say. “But can’t he just as easily materialize over there at the Old Man if he wants to?”
“I dunno. But we shouldn’t stay here any longer,” Jo replies.
Sara just shakes her head, takes a heavy sigh, and says, “Why don’t we just forget about the stupid money. I don’t know what we’re looking at, but whatever it is I’ve had enough of this and I’ve had about enough of you two. Let’s just get off this stupid island and sail home.”
“That’s a lot of money to just sail away from.” I look at Jo and she nods her head in agreement. “We sailed all the way out here, and we’ll go right past the Old Man on our way back to the boat, let’s just grab the treasure and go.”
“I think he’s right,” says Jo. “We can easily grab it on our way back.”
I turn around and peek back over the rock at the ghost. Through the mist it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s doing. Jo and Sara also take a second look too.
Suddenly there’s a loud clanking noise and the ghost spins around and looks right at us. “Aaahhh!” he screams. Before I even know what’ happening, I’ve jumped up and run back down the path at full speed with Jo and Sara in front of me leading the way. The ghost pirate is after us! When we reach the Narrows we never slow down and scramble across the rock as if it were solid pavement.
“The Old Man?” I call out because we are back at the fork in the path. The left trail goes to the Old Man.
“NO,” both girls say together never slowing down. Jo leads us on the path to our dingy. These two girls are quick, and I’m having a hard time keeping up. I look back over my shoulder; there’s no sign of the ghost following us. But in this fog he could be behind us, but I’d never know.
When we’re just about back to the dingy, our pace slows to a fast walk. There’s still no sign of any ghost behind us, but then again if they float, or whatever ghosts do, how’d I ever hear them?
It’s getting darker out now, and standing over the old leaky dingy shaking my head, I say, “I don’t know how many more times this thing will get us back and forth without sinking. Hopefully one more trip.”
“Sara and I will keep bailing while you row,” Jo says. “It’ll be fine.” Sara squints hard shooting an evil look at Jo. Sara’s not over the kiss thing.
With Jo and Sara pouring water over the side and me sitting in the middle rowing, we move across the water in silence. Our sailboat can’t be seen from shore in the fog, but about halfway across, it materializes out of the gray. It’s a good thing we got to the rowboat when we did because soon it’ll be too dark and we’d never have found the sailboat.
Tonight, on the little sailboat, being here with the other two feels very uncomfortable. Sara wants to hurt me, and who knows what’s going on with Jo. If I could be anywhere else away from those two, I would. I think they feel the same. No one’s talking, and there’s not very much eye contact. Sara heats up some dinner for us, we eat in silence, and when we are done I crawl up into the forward bunk hoping I might fall asleep.
But there’s no way I’m gonna fall asleep after today. Too many things happened. I can’t stop thinking about the face I saw in the window and then the shadowy figure we saw at the north end of the island. It’s certainly creepy, which makes me believe even more that there must be treasure buried on this island. And after my mind is done spinning around on thoughts of treasure, well, there’s what happened between Jo and me. Why did she have to go and say something to Sara. It’s like she wanted to make her mad for no good reason. I’ll never figure girls out.
*
This morning, the sun was shining brightly when I woke as if the heavy fog had never happened. We decided that because it’s such a nice day, we’d go to shore one last time to dig for the treasure. On a beautiful day like this there’s no way a ghost would be out haunting the island; it’s just too nice. I’m not sure that makes any sense whatsoever, but the girls agreed too. So here we are, heading along the path one last time again to the north toward the Old Man. This time we have a flash light and a small foldaway shovel.
At the fork in the path I stop and look at the one which leads to the second section of the island—where we saw the ghost. “What do you think if we just take a quick look around where we saw Blarney Bart last night before we head to the Old Man? I’m sure he won’t be out now.”
Jo says, “You go up there if you want, but I’ll wait for you at the Old Man.”
Sara glares at Jo, and says, “Then I’m going with Fisher.” Jo grabs the shovel and flashlight from Sara and I then turn to go left at the fork.
“Tell that ol’ ghost Blarney Bart, I said hi,” Jo calls back without looking.
“Why? Do you want to kiss him too?” Sara says in a low snarl.
In about ten minutes of fast walking we are at the Narrows and cross it easily with the tide still going out. Soon we are at the same place we were yesterday where we saw the ghost. Even though it’s sunny out, I suddenly feel Goosebumps growing on the back of my neck, and I can feel butterflies in my stomach. In a whisper, I say, “Well, here we are again.” We both get low and work our way to hide behind the rock where we were yesterday.
We look for a moment from behind the rock. “I don’t see anything, do you?”
“No. Nothing,” Sara answers. We both slowly stand up to get a better look.
“The coast is clear. There’s certainly no ghosts around here. At least not in broad daylight.”
“Let’s take a quick look around,” Sara says, �
��and then get back to the Old Man. The sooner we dig up the money the sooner we can leave.”
I walk out from behind the rock toward where the ghost was standing yesterday. I’m not sure why I want a closer look because if I were smarter we’d be back in the boat sailing away from this creepy island. But as the old saying goes and is probably true, Curiosity killed the cat.
We’re just about ready to leave when Sara says, “Hey, Fisher, what’s that over there?” She’s pointing to an odd looking rock. But as we walk closer to it I can see it’s not a rock at all, it’s an old olive green army tarp covering something large. I hadn’t noticed it at first, but now it sticks out like an elephant in a supermarket.
Both of us approach it slowly. “What do you suppose is under there?” Sara asks.
“I don’t know, but that tarp isn’t that old. It’s not like it was sitting here since 1716. Let’s take a look.”
I’ve grabbed on to a corner about to pull it back, and look at Sara. She nods. I give the tarp a hard yank pulling it back most of the way.
“What in the world?” Sara gasps.
Chapter 17
Voice from the Past
That’s not at all what I was expecting to see. I was really thinking we were going to see some old lobster traps or maybe some old rope, but not this. With the tarp pulled halfway back, in front of us, stacked to about head height, are rows of brown boxes, all labeled as stereo equipment.
“Look at this,” Sara says as she points to the side of one box. “It looks like it’s Japanese writing.”
“I bet it’s all from Japan. All the really good stereo equipment is supposedly coming from Japan these days,” I say. “My friend Tommy Goodwell says it’s even better than the stuff made in America. But I find that hard to believe.”
