WhaleQuest!

by Matt Musson

  Of course this had always been part of our plan. We did not want Captain Paul to tell anyone about our whale rescue attempt. We had broken maybe a dozen federal laws just by being that close to an endangered Marine Mammal. At the very least, the Feds would take away the Captain's new Zodiac if he ran his mouth about our expedition.

  It was a long bus trip home and we stopped in every Podunk town in South Carolina before we got into Charlotte. We changed busses in the Queen City after a brief but pleasant layover.

  Our parents almost did not let us got to ‘Sailing School' because there were worried about us kids being on our own in the Charlotte Greyhound Terminal. They were afraid some unsavory characters might be hanging out there. But, we had a great time in the bus terminal. Bus stations are way more fun than airports! No one ever talks to anyone in airports. But, in bus stations people will tell you their whole life story.

  This guy I sat next to in Charlotte told me he had eaten SpaghettiOs for lunch every day for the past six years. He even had a can in his pocket that he offered to share with me.

  You won't meet people like that in an airport.

  Anyway, we made it back into Granite Falls just as the summer sun was setting. I was tired and looking forward to sleeping in my own bed. It had been a long trip.

  We got off the bus at our stop, just out front of the Granite Drug Center and made plans to meet at the primary club house the following day.

  I dragged on home and said hello to Mom, Dad, and Jenny the pest.

  The fact that I was home from the sea got Dad yelling out commands like ‘Raise the Mainsail', ‘Prepare to Come About', ‘Jibe Ho' and things like that. But, I was too tired to join in. I just handed out the souvenir sailing t-shirts that Toby bought as part of our cover story and, then I went on upstairs and crawled into my own bed.

  That night, I did not dream of whales, or drowning, or boat crashes or of dark green ocean waves.

  ************

  Chapter 3 – Me and My Secret

  Grandpa Gus says a secret is like a slimy eel. The tighter you try to grasp it, the more likely it is to squirt right out of your fingers. And, you always get bit as it wiggles free.

  I have learned the hard way that Grandpa Gus is absolutely right. Heck, even when I am successful at keeping my secret, I can still end up getting bit.

  My preschool teacher was convinced I was a junior kleptomaniac because I could find anything she misplaced. She thought I was hiding the stuff from her and told my folks I had ‘issues'. As a matter of fact, she suggested ‘medication might be in order.'

  (Geez! You try to be helpful and people want to pump you full of Ritalin. )

  So, I learned pretty young how to keep a low profile. Even when Grandpa Gus would take me around Granite Falls to practice my locating skills, we always had some sort of cover story about what we were doing: bird watching, collecting bugs for a science project, etc. And, if someone saw me unearthing a silver dollar or picking up a lost wedding band, Grandpa Gus would always say, “That’s my grandson, Jeep. He's got the sharpest eyes in the county. He can spot anything!”

  That usually satisfied any bystanders. After all, it was a lot more believable saying my grandson finds things with his sharp eyesight than saying my grandson hears gold and silver, and gemstones call out to him.

  Whenever I located something good, I learned to just casually lean over and pick it up. Sometimes, I pretended to be tying my shoe laces. So, I was rarely noticed. And, if someone did suspect something, I learned to act dumb and answer any direct question with a question of my own.

  That is how Grandpa Gus and I kept my secret from the world. And, it worked pretty well, until I was in fifth grade and went to Boy Scout Camp. Even then, I am sure I could have remained under cover and undetected, if Freddie Dunkleberger had not gone and lost his Mercury Dime.

  ************

  It was mid-July and we were finishing up a week of camping and hiking in the forested foothills of the Western Carolina. We even set a Scout Camp record for the High Rope Course, which we lorded over those twerps from Troop 6 in the next campsite over. Just because they were from the big city of Gastonia, they acted like they were hot snot. (The third time they jumped ahead of us in line at the mess hall, we started calling them ‘Troop 666’.)

  We had a great week of scouting and being boys. But Saturday finally came and we were packing up to go home, when suddenly little Freddie Dunkleberger choked on his neckerchief.

  “It’s gone!” Freddie shouted in a panic. “There’s a hole in my pocket and it’s gone!”

  “What’s gone?” Shad snickered. “Did you lose your mind?”

  Freddie pulled the pockets of his khaki shorts inside out. He stuck his finger through the hole in right side flap.

  “My Mercury Dime is gone,” Freddie moaned and his face looked sick. “It was there last night but, now it’s disappeared.”

  Charlie Sinclair tried to calm our little friend.

  “It’s bound to be around here somewhere. Check your tent, your bedroll, and your backpack. Hopefully it dropped into one of those.”

  “Yeah, don’t worry, Freddie” Toby reassured him. “We’ll help you find it.”

  The whole troop dutifully pitched in and we carefully combed through Freddie’s stuff. But, there was no sign of the coin.

  “It’s not here,” Freddie groaned as he flopped down beside his bedroll. He leaned over and covered his little face with his hands. “It’s lost forever.”

  The poor guy looked like he was about to cry and, we all felt bad for him. But, I wondered if he was over doing it a bit.

  “What’s the big deal?” I whispered to Toby and Bogdon. “I mean it was just a dime. Okay it was a Mercury Dime, but it was still just ten cents.”

  Toby shook his head. “It was his Dad’s.”

  That’s when I felt really stupid. I knew Freddie’s dad died on 9/11. And, my stomach flip flopped as I thought how I would feel in Freddie’s place.

  “When did you last see the dime?” Bogdon asked. “Maybe we can find it if we all chip in and scour the campsite?”

  Freddie looked out from between his fingers.

  “It was in my pocket last night. I remember having it when we made the campfire.”

  “Well that’s good,” Toby encouraged. “Except for breakfast at the mess hall, we’ve been in camp the entire morning. It’s bound to be around here somewhere.”

  “Alright Troop,” Charlie ordered, naturally taking charge. “Everyone front and center. We are going to form a skirmish line and sweep the area. We are going to find that dime!”

  We all wanted to help, so we lined up, spread an arm’s length apart, and began methodically sweeping the camp like a lawn mower trimming a field of tall grass.

  On the first run through, I whipped out my buck knife and flipped open the blade. Leaning over, I dug a dirty and well worn quarter from beneath the pea gravel path. On the second sweep I pulled a couple of dimes from under the leaves bunched up beside the outhouse, but they were both Roosevelt ten cent pieces. On the last sweep, I turned over a large flat piece of shale. Out scampered a couple of beetles and some kind of nasty segmented creature with a hundred legs on each side. Brushing away old pine straw revealed a 1957 Franklin half dollar.

  I wiped away the dirt sticking to the coin and blew on it. As I held the fifty cent piece up to get a better view of old Ben, I realized the rest of the guys were staring at me.

  “Neat, huh?” I said weakly. “It’s from 1957.”

  A distrustful question followed.

  “How’d you do that?” Shad asked suspiciously.

  “Do what?” I retorted.

  “How did you find that fifty cent piece?”

  “Sharp eyesight,” I explained. “It runs in the family.”

  With that response, I tried to change the subject. “Come on guys. We aren’t done yet.”

  I dropped the coin in my pocket w
ith the others, brushed my hands off, and said, “Daylights burning and we have a dime to find.”

  But, I was the only one who moved.

  “I don’t think so,” said Toby.

  “What do you mean?” I queried.

  “I mean, I don’t think you spotted a half dollar buried in pine straw under a piece of shale.”

  “Well, how else would I have found it?” I asked trying to put him on the defensive.

  “Probably the same way you found that quarter under the gravel and the dimes in the leaf pile.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  That’s when Bogden made an observation in his definitive scientific manner. “I believe you have some sort of Meta human ability. Somehow you knew those coins were there.”

  I looked around. The guys had me penned in and they were insisting on a response. Even the pained expression on Freddie’s face was replaced by a look that was inquiring, if not downright demanding.

  “You guys are crazy,” I scoffed. “What? Am I Superman? Do you think I have x-ray vision?”

  “No,” said Thor matter-of-factly. “It’s not x-ray vision. Because, then you would have known those coins were not Freddie’s Mercury Dime before you dug them up. You did not know what they were, until you uncovered them. But, clearly you have the ability to locate coins that cannot be observed by the naked eye.”

  “And, not just coins,” Charlie added thoughtfully. “Remember the other day on our hike? You were the guy who found those two arrow heads.”

  “They were just sitting beside the trail,” I countered.

  “Not both of them,” Toby corrected me. “I remember you reached under a clump of grass when you picked up that black one.”

  He had me there and I did not know what to do. I had let my guard down and gotten caught. Now, my tricks had failed me and I was stuck in a circle of determined faces. I was not going to talk my way out of this.

  Should I come clean I wondered? Should I admit that Grandpa Gus was a well driller who always found water? Or, that Grandpa Charlie was a legendary prospector of gold and precious gems? Would they accept that it was genetically innate for me to find things? Or, would they just think I was a freak? I was more than a little scared at how they might react to the truth. (Well, at least they weren’t carrying pitch forks and torches.)

  “What do you want me to say?” I asked.

  Little Freddie walked over and put his hand on my arm.

  “I don’t care how you do it,” he said softly. “Can you find Dad’s dime?”

  Well what was I supposed to do? Say no?

  I looked into Freddie’s pleading eyes.

  “I’ll try,” I replied.

  And the smile returned to Freddie’s face for the first time since he realized the coin was gone.

  “What can we do to help?” he asked.

  “Take these,” I said and I dropped my coins into his hand. Then I ordered, “You guys all need to stand back across the trail. You have way too silver in your pockets. That kind of interference is making it hard for me to hear something the size of a dime.”

  Someone, I think it was Charlie, questioned, “Hear a dime?”

  But, the guys did what I asked and moved to the other side of the gravel track away from the center of camp. From there they watched as once more I swept the area. But, this time I walked alone.

  The first thing I turned up was a badly tarnished silver neckerchief slide buried in an old rain trench that protected some ancient camper’s tent. Following that I found two more quarters. Then, I dug up a couple more Roosevelt ten cent pieces.

  Finally, I heard a particularly weak call from a gulley beside the woods. Searching through the wash and gravel, I dug until at last I turned over a Mercury Dime.

  “Viola!” I proclaimed victoriously. While my stunned troop mates watched on, I brushed the dirt away. “A Mercury Dime!”

  I walked over and deposited the coin into Freddie Dunkleberger’s outstretched hand.

  The guys all crossed the trail divider and slapped me on the back. With this dose of success, they no longer treated me like a leper. Once again, I was part of the gang.

  Suddenly.

  “That’s not it,” Freddie announced.

  “What! What do you mean?” I erupted. “It’s a Mercury Dime!”

  “Yes. It is a Mercury Dime. But it’s not MY mercury dime. It’s a 1942-D Mercury Dime. My Dad’s was a 1945-S. It was the last year the coin was struck. In 1946, the year after he died, President Roosevelt was put on the front. So, it’s not the one.”

  I could not believe what I was hearing. I walked over and flopped down by the fire pit.

  “Doesn’t that just beat all?” I huffed. “You wanted a Mercury Dime and I found you a Mercury Dime. Now it turns out to be the wrong damn dime. Well, Crapola!”

  I was at the end of my rope. Not only had I not saved the day, I had revealed my secret to everyone in the troop and I had no idea what to do now. I just sat and stared into the remains of last night’s farewell campfire, feeling pretty stupid. In fact, I felt like a complete failure.

  Surprisingly, it was big Shad MacReynolds who came over to console me.

  “Hey, Jeep. Look on the bright side.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “Well, you just found a 1942-D Mercury Dime. On the Discovery Channel they said its worth about $300 dollars.”

  I looked over at the big guy. “Where do you get that stuff?”

  Shad shrugged. “It’s kind of a gift I have. I remember word for word everything I have ever seen on TV.”

  “Every word?” I asked incredulously.

  “Every word since I was two.”

  “Well, why haven’t you said something before?” asked his best friend Freddie.

  “I don’t know,” Shad replied. “I guess I was afraid you guys would think I was a freak. Plus, I sure don’t want my teachers to find out. Then, they will expect me to perform above grade level on everything. You know how they are?”

  “Yeah, teachers,” we all agreed.

  Eventually Bogdon's scientific curiosity got the best of him.

  “So, were you guys born with these abilities? Or, were you struck by lightning or something?”

  I smiled.

  “I don't know about Shad, but I fell into a vat of radioactive waste… while I was being attacked by a werewolf.”

  “Is that right?” Charlie snickered.

  “Yeah,” I chuckled. “It probably would have killed me if I wasn't wearing the power ring I got from the alien saucer.”

  Charlie turned to Shad. “Did you have a supernatural experience as well?”

  “Naw, there is no big mystery to me. I was born this way. In fact, my Dad had the same ability. I remember him repeating every word the final air combat scene from TOPGUN without missing a beat.”

  “Really?” asked Bogdon. “When was that?”

  “As he was loading me into the escape rocket,” Shad grinned. “Just before my home planet was destroyed when our red sun went nova.”

  Bogdon covered his face with his hand and shook his head.

  “Nobody respects science anymore,” he grumbled.

  Freddie laughed. “Well, I for one think it's great. With Dr. Documentary and the Dime Finder Man, our troop has its own resident geeks.”

  “Speak for yourself, Mini-Me,” I shot back.

  Freddie ignored my objection. “And let's not forget the others,” he said, pointing at Bogdon, Thor and Toby. “There's Brainiac, the Thunder god and Empathy Guy. In fact, we should form our own super hero league.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Charlie complained.

  “You're right,” Freddie agreed. “We can't forget our resident Lady-killer. Or, is it Dr. Suave?”

  “LadyKiller is just fine,” Charlie nodded, happy to be included in the League.

  So, together, we sat around the pit full of yesterday's ashes and laughed
and joked and carried on.

  I don't know how, but we became a circle of friends that day. And, our friendship was so tangible I could feel the weight of it like an iron chain binding us together. We sat there bonding until it came time to leave. Our Scout trip was over – almost.

  As I got up and moved away from the fire, I became aware of a surprising silence. It was like when the wind quits blowing. You don't realize you even heard the breeze until it stops.

  Wondering if I was mistaken, I walked back to the fire pit.

  No. There it was again. It was for real.

  “Hey Bog,” I asked. “Lend me your multi-tool for a second?”

  “Sure thing,” he replied, slipping the piece of shiny Gerber steel off the belt on his khaki shorts. He tossed it over.

  I caught it in the air and flipped open the pliers. Then, I picked up a half charred pine log lying just inside the rock circle.

  As the guys watched, I dug into the ash pile and scraped a deep hole. Leaning over I blew away some of the remaining soot, and I saw a small red coal glow suddenly brighter. Just beside it, I spotted my target.

  Reaching gingerly into the warm embers, I used the pliers to remove a 1945-S Mercury Dime. It must have dropped into the fire pit the night before when Freddie was tossing in wood.

  “Thar she blows!” I proclaimed. And, with a flourish, I held up the dime clamped firmly inside the pliers. Acting out of instinct, Freddie stretched out his open palm.

  I opened the pliers and dropped the scorching hot coin onto the poor guy’s skin.

  “Yowee!” Freddie yelled, laughing as he bounced the blistering piece of metal from hand to hand like a hot potato. Toby reached over a plastic cup and Freddie dropped the dime into it.

  Freddie smiled broadly for a minute. But then his smile died and he got serious.

  “That is twice now that dime has come out of the fire.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “It was my Father’s dime,” he explained. “It was in his pocket on September 11th - at the Pentagon.”

  Sitting close to the fire pit in the middle of a hot July day, a chill ran through me. I realized that a ten cent piece might be the most important treasure I would ever find.

  ************

  Chapter 4 – Plan Two

  Our first day back from South Carolina, we all had stuff to catch up on. We mowed the lawns, cleaned our bathrooms and generally sweated through a week's worth of undone chores. The unlucky ones like me had a nice heart to heart with our evil little sisters.