by Phil Lollar
He wanted to be like the good guys in the stories he read, guys who never seemed to have any problem figuring things out or making the right decision, and who were never plagued by such thoughts. He sighed. That was the difference between stories and real life, he supposed.
There was a gentle knock at his door, and Fiona’s voice lilted from the other side. “Johnny?”
He sat up and said, “Come in, Fiona.”
The door opened to reveal her smiling face. “Everything all right, laddie?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Just relaxing a bit before supper.”
“Good first day?”
“Mostly.”
“Oh?”
He shrugged. “You know how first days are.”
“Aye, exciting and confusing and tiring all at the same time.”
“That about describes it.”
She smiled again. “Anything happen ... after school?”
His insides stiffened, but he managed to keep his outer demeanor calm. “Nothing important,” he replied casually, then added, “Why?”
“Well, you have a visitor. Emmy from across the street. She wanted to know if you were home yet.” Fiona’s emerald eyes gave his room the quick once-over. “I thought you two would’ve walked home together.”
Johnny rose. “I stayed after to talk with the school custodian.”
Fiona’s brow furrowed. “Custodian?”
“Yeah, y’know, the janitor.”
“I know what a custodian is. Did you need some cleaning supplies or something?”
Johnny chuckled. “No, he’s just a really nice man.” He walked to the door. “I’d better go see Emmy.” He smiled as he passed, leaving his stepmother looking thoroughly confused.
He bounded down the stairs. Emmy was waiting on the front porch, and he joined her there. As soon as he opened the screen door, she heaved a huge sigh of relief and said, “Oh, good! You’re—”
Johnny quickly shook his head and held a finger to his lips.
Emmy stifled herself and nodded, and they moved to the swing hanging from the tree in the front yard, out of earshot of the house. “Okay, first of all,” she said, “you know karate, I mean, for real?”
Johnny sat in the swing, pulled up his leg, and started unlacing his sneaker, his face reddening. “Well, yeah ... at least enough to break boards. It’s sort of a mind-over-matter thing.”
Emmy’s mouth widened into a smile. “That’s aces! Can you teach me?”
Johnny glanced up at her. “Is that the only reason you came over here?”
“No! I really came to make sure you’re all right.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“’Cause Mr. Huck looked so angry! And what happened to you right before he interrupted everything? What did you see?”
Johnny quickly pondered whether he should tell her about the man in the hooded cloak, then decided against it. Not yet—not until he had more information. “Oh, it was nothing ... light playing tricks on me.” He quickly changed the subject. “And you didn’t have to worry about Mr. Huck. He wasn’t really angry. He was just keeping things from going further.”
He held up her shoelace. “Here. He gave me mine back.” Emmy took her lace, and Johnny fished his out of his pocket and began threading it through his sneaker’s eyelets. “Haven’t you ever talked to him?”
“Nothing beyond saying hi as we pass each other,” Emmy replied. “He always seems so ... scary.”
“Not when you get to know him.” He finished threading, pulled the lace tight, tied the ends into a neat bow, and dropped his leg to the ground. “He’s actually really nice. And funny. And smart.” Johnny told her about what Ben had said to him, though not the part about his considering changing and giving in. “You should get to know him,” he concluded.
Emmy looked impressed. “Okay, I will! And he’s right, you know, you are a hero.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded. “Luke and a lot of others came up to me later and told me how they thought what you did was great.”
“After Wilson left, I assume?” Johnny raised an eyebrow.
Emmy smiled. “Well, yeah, I mean, they’re not dumb.”
“I just wish they’d realize they don’t have to put up with Wilson pushing them around. Poor Luke was terrified.”
“Maybe they would—if you teach us all karate,” Emmy said slyly.
Johnny grinned. “We’ll see.”
He got up, and she sat down and started swinging gently. “What do you think about the family history assignment?” she asked.
Johnny blinked. “To tell the truth, with everything else that happened today, I completely forgot about it. How about you? Do you come from an old colonial Provenance family like Wilson?”
Emmy shook her head. “Nuts to that. Both sides emigrated from Italy when my parents were babies. I was born here, so I’m a first-generation American citizen. You?”
Johnny thought for a moment. “Well ... my father’s an American citizen, so, even though I was born in Scotland, technically I’m an American citizen, too ... I think.”
Emmy nodded. “Sounds right. You have any interesting family members?”
“You kidding? Tons of ’em.”
“Any who fought for the South in the War Between the States? That’s always a plus for the locals when you live in a small Southern town.”
Johnny’s eyes brightened. “You mean the Civil War? Yeah! I remember my grandpa and my mother talking about a great-granduncle! In fact, I think I have relatives who fought on both sides of the war!” He smiled broadly. “I’ll have to research this, and I know just where to look, too!”
Emmy rolled her eyes. “I’ve never seen anyone so happy about doing homework.”
Fiona called from the porch, “Johnny! Supper!”
“Okay!” he called back. Then to Emmy he said, “I gotta go.”
She sprang out of the swing and landed in front of him. “Yeah, me, too. Thanks for returning my sneaker lace.”
He bowed grandly. “Thank you for letting me use it.” She turned to go and he added, “And Emmy?” She looked back at him. “Thanks for standing by me today, too.”
She shrugged. “Hey, somebody had to.” She smiled and ran off. Johnny turned and headed for the house.
That evening’s dinner was pleasant. Fiona prepared a delicious baked chicken meal, Charlie behaved herself for the most part, and Harold was in a good mood. In fact, when Johnny brought up the history assignment, his father not only told him several stories about the Whittakers in America, but he also offered Johnny the use of a valuable resource.
“There’s a lot more information about your ancestors in our family Bible,” Harold said. “It’s in my study. Once you’re finished eating—”
“I’m finished now!” Johnny cut in, and immediately braced for the reproof for rudeness.
But Harold’s good mood prevailed, and he even chuckled at the interruption. “Very well then ...” He rose, and Johnny sprang from his chair and followed.
It wasn’t often that he was allowed in his father’s inner sanctum, and he felt both privileged and, for some reason, a little uneasy being there. If he had to use one word to describe the room, it would be wood. A large oak desk sat in the center of the room, a comfy-looking leather and wood executive chair behind it. Farther back sat a matching oak credenza. Above it, a large picture window, covered with wooden blinds and framed with dark blue curtains, looked out at the back property and the woods beyond. The walls on either side of the desk were lined with oak bookshelves, stuffed with books. A leather and wood guest chair sat in front of the desk.
Wood was everywhere, and as he stood there, Johnny suddenly realized why he felt uneasy: Being surrounded by all that wood made him feel as if he were suddenly inside a big coffin. And he hated coffins.
Harold strode to the credenza, fished a key from his pocket, and unlocked the large bottom drawer. He tugged it open, moved a few things around, and pulled out a huge family Bible, swol
len to almost half-again its original size due to the dozens of papers stuffed between the pages. He opened the Bible, flipped quickly through it, pulled out two of the loose pages, and put them back in the drawer. He then closed both drawer and Bible, relocking the former and crossing back with the latter, which he handed to Johnny. It must’ve weighed at least 20 pounds. “Be careful with it,” Harold cautioned. “It’s very old.”
“Oh, I will, sir,” Johnny replied, holding the tome with awe. “This is like gold!”
Harold smiled benignly, and Johnny turned and left the inner sanctum, burning with curiosity about the two pages but knowing better than to mention them.
He also didn’t mention that he had an equally old, large, and precious Bible upstairs in his trunk.
Johnny closed the door to his room, then crossed to his bed and set the Whittaker Family Bible gently on top of it. He stepped quickly to his desk, took out the old skeleton key on the gold chain from a hidden compartment in the top drawer, went to the trunk, and opened it. He hadn’t done so since they unloaded the trunk from the moving truck last week. He was instantly swathed in its familiar scent—not cedar and mothballs but an agreeable, comforting, almost-sweet fragrance.
His mother’s picture was on top of everything. Johnny picked it up, stared into her eyes, which were so much like his own, and quickly kissed the likeness. A silly act, he thought, but one that brought him comfort every time he did it, and this time was no exception.
He admired the name carved crudely in the center panel on the underside lid of the trunk: Thomas Avery McClintock. He liked to trace his finger in the letters of the middle name they both shared, as it felt as if he were touching his great-grandfather. But this time, when he had finished tracing the y, the whole center panel moved. That had never happened before. He jiggled it with his finger and made a mental note to fix it later.
Johnny rummaged through the trunk’s contents and carefully lifted out the enormous McClintock Family Bible, also stuffed with loose papers, and set it on his bed next to the Whittaker Family Bible. He then retrieved the bound bundles of letters belonging to his grandfather and mother, set them alongside the Bibles, and eased down the trunk lid.
He contemplated the bounty on the bed. This was his family, his heritage, the essence of what made him ... him. No pirate’s plunder, crown jewels, or king’s ransom could be more valuable.
Johnny licked his lips, smiled so wide it almost hurt, rubbed his hands together, and plunged into work.
Chapter Eight
The material in the Bibles and the letters was all Johnny had hoped it would be and more—a treasure trove of information. He learned that on the Whittaker side, he had relatives going back to colonial times, just like Wilson, but in New England, not the Carolinas. He may have even had a relative on the Mayflower, though that wasn’t clear.
What was clear was that he did, indeed, have relatives from both sides of his family who fought on both sides of the War Between the States, or “The War of Northern Aggression,” as his great-granduncle and other Southerners liked to call it. On the Whittaker side was his Great-Grandfather Nathaniel Titus Whittaker, who fought for the Union with the famed 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment at Gettysburg when he was only 16 years old. He’d lied about his age to join the regiment.
As for the McClintocks, Johnny confirmed that his Great-Granduncle G.W.—short for Germanicus Wellington (No wonder he went by “G.W.”! thought Johnny)—fought on the Southern side. He had been a favorite of both Grandpa Jackson and his mother, and they and Johnny’s Great-Grandfather Thomas had kept all the letters G.W. had written, both before and after the Civil War.
G.W. had left Scotland and the McClintock family at age 16 in 1853 to find his fortune in America. He worked his way across on a merchant ship bound for Wilmington, North Carolina. He stayed on at the port, working as an apprentice shipping clerk for a few years, and then went into business for himself as a freighter, hauling goods around the state, including the Raleigh-Durham area, which included Provenance!
G.W. joined the equally famed 26th North Carolina Regiment, which was also at Gettysburg, as well as many other well-known battles. After the war, he moved to Texas, bought some land and cattle, and fought Indians, banditos, and rustlers to build a huge ranch. In time, he became a wealthy timber, mining, and cattle baron. When he died (on the same day the Titanic sank), he gave most of his land holdings to the state as a nature preserve.
Johnny wondered if he still had distant relatives out in Texas. If so, he thought, maybe one day I’ll visit them.
He had learned all this in one evening, and he had barely scratched the surface! As Emmy would say, Aces! he thought, grinning broadly. This was going to be the best family history presentation ever!
The rest of the week at Brookhaven was a lot more pleasant and peaceful for Johnny than his first day had been. Emmy was right: Luke and a lot of others who had been picked on by Wilson and Arty treated him like a hero for standing up to the bullies. And, of course, they all wanted him to teach them to break boards with their feet and hands.
When Johnny showed the other kids a few basic karate moves at lunch one day, his popularity soared. People stuck by him wherever he went, which meant that Wilson and Arty had far fewer opportunities to accost any of them. But Wilson still acted like the chief rooster in the henhouse, and he had gathered a few followers of his own besides Arty. Whenever he saw Johnny, a scowl crossed his face and he glared daggers at him. Johnny just smiled.
He didn’t get a chance to talk with Ben again that week. Johnny got the impression Ben wanted to maintain an aura of sternness with the students, so the two of them chatting in the hallway was out. But they did develop a coded exchange whenever they passed each other. If Ben had a mop, Johnny would say, “Sally?”
Ben would either reply “Yep” or “Nope, Susan,” “Sonia,” “Sophie,” or “Sarepta.”
And Johnny would grin as he heard Ben’s soft chuckle fade behind him down the hall.
This mystified everyone who heard these exchanges except Emmy. Johnny had told her about the code. He was gratified that when she tried it one afternoon as they walked together, Ben stopped, looked at him, considered her with a stone face, gave her an almost imperceptible wink, and moved on without a word. Emmy and Johnny exchanged grins. She was in.
One afternoon as they were walking home, Deputy Miller’s patrol car pulled up and stopped next to them. “How’s the science experimentin’ coming?” he called out through the open passenger-side window.
Johnny and Emmy walked to the car and leaned in the window. “History’s taking up all my time this week,” said Johnny. “Deputy Miller, this is my friend Emmy Capello.”
“Hi,” said Emmy with a short wave.
Deputy Miller touched the brim of his hat. “Pleasure, Miss Emmy. History, eh? Well, there’s plenty of it around these parts. Like the old Granville House. Oldest house in the county.” He scratched his nose and gazed at Johnny. “You haven’t been back over there lately, have you?”
Johnny leaned in closer, eyes narrowing. “No, why?”
“We got reports of someone prowlin’ around there the past couple of nights.”
Johnny grabbed the door. “Was it the boy? The man in the hooded cloak?”
Deputy Miller held up his hands. “Don’t know. I checked it out and didn’t find anything. The reports didn’t say who it was, just that someone was prowlin’ around.”
Johnny leaned back. “And you thought it was me?”
“I have pretty good reason to, don’t I?”
Johnny frowned. “Yes, sir. But it wasn’t.”
The deputy smiled. “Good to know. Probably just a drifter. Gettin’ more and more of ’em these days, thanks to the Depression.” He put the car in gear and touched the brim of his hat again. “Well, I best be goin’. Johnny, Miss Emmy, take care now.”
They backed away from the car, and Emmy waved again as the deputy drove off. “What was that all about?” she asked
. “What boy? What man?”
Johnny took a deep breath. The time had come. He filled her in briefly on the events at the water tower and the Granville House.
Emmy’s eyes grew wide. “Wow! And you thought you saw the man in the hooded cloak on the day of the fight?”
“I didn’t think I saw him, I really did see him,” he replied curtly.
“That’s why you were so interested in the old Granville House when we first met!”
He nodded. “I can’t believe Deputy Miller thought it was me prowling around there.”
“It wasn’t you, was it?” asked Emmy suspiciously.
“Of course not!”
Emmy laughed. “Well, you do tend to get in the middle of things.”
Johnny grinned. “You sound like my stepmother. Only she calls it ‘mischief.’” They resumed walking, and he frowned again. “I’m not buying the drifter story. Something is going on over there.”
Emmy’s brow furrowed. “With a ragged boy and a man in a hooded cloak?”
“I saw what I saw,” he said firmly, and he knew then he actually would have to go prowling around the Granville House to prove it.
Evidently, that thought also crossed his face, because Emmy snorted and asked, “You’re going there again, aren’t you?”
Johnny’s face reddened, and he tried to look casual. “Well, I ... I ...”
She pointed at him. “One thing: When you go, you gotta take me with you.”
He crossed his arms. ”I thought you didn’t believe me.”
Emmy shook her head. “I never said that!”
“And you really wanna come?”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I think your mischief bug has infected me.” She grabbed his arm. “You promise?”
He chuckled. “Okay, okay, I promise.”
They walked on in silence for a few moments. Then she said, “You sure you don’t wanna be called Sherlock?”
He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Positive.”
Chapter Nine
