Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I make no profit from them. Ball brand canning jars make an appearance here.
Rated: K
Author's Note: Matt's back. He first appeared in 'This Far and No Further' and subsequently in 'McCormick, McCormick, McCormick and Hardcastle', 'Monsters' and 'Time Out'. And some other stories, not all of which I can remember right now. He's about six in this one.
If you want to know the back story on Mark's copy of 'Treasure Island', it's in Arianna's story 'Remembrance'.
Buried Treasure
By L. M. Lewis
It was all about pirates this month, on account of his dad was reading 'Treasure Island' to him for the past few weeks at bedtime. And now it was no surprise that on Saturday morning at Gulls Way, while his father and Grandpa Milt did boring stuff with papers in grandpa's den, Matt had pleaded his case for a shovel.
The shovel obtained, and the rules about digging—carefully, and away from the roses—set down, he'd gone to work. He had a map; he'd made it himself. He'd left the 'X' part temporarily blank on account of he hadn't quite figured out where the most likely spot would be. Now he'd decided that if he were a pirate he would pick a shady place where the ground wasn't too hard. That made sense; if he wanted to work really hard, he wouldn't go into pirating.
He tried a couple of spots under a spreading tree, only to encounter impenetrable roots. Further out from them was a shallow, sandy place and almost as soon as he stuck the spade in, it hit something solid. He frowned. It felt like another root, only bigger. He scraped some of the sand off and frowned again. It was something flatter than a root, and made of dark wood. His spirits rose. More scraping, this time with unbridled enthusiasm. The part of him which hadn't really believed he'd find a treasure chest was willingly stepping aside for his inner optimist.
As treasure chests went, though, the shape was a little odd. This one was no more than the span of his outstretched hand across, but lengthwise it went on for some ways. More digging, more scraping, and he found a sharp corner. It was another piece at right angles to the first, with the dirt much easier to dig, much sandier on the one side of what now seemed to be an L shape lying in the ground.
Further excavation turned this into a square. As mysteries went, this was almost as good as a treasure chest, bigger, too—longer on each side than he was tall. Obviously the pirates had stayed here long enough to build a house. A small house.
Light dawned, and with it, further enthusiasm. It had been a guard house, with the treasure inside. That much seemed certain. It was only a question of how deep. He went at it, a tearing pace, worried that any moment his father would call him in for something ordinary like lunch.
Chink.
A little too high-pitched. He'd been counting on a thunk, but this didn't sound like wood. He dropped to his knees and tackled the job with both hands. The loose sand gave way and caved back in in almost equal amounts. He got his knees apart and shoveled it behind him in bigger scoopfuls until he could see the smooth edge of what he'd hit.
It was glass, about the size of a peanut butter jar, but it had a metal lid and looked old. The side wasn't completely smooth, there were fancy raised letters—'B-a-l-l'. He was still frowning. He didn't know balls came in jars. He brushed some of the dirt off the lid, shook it once, heard something rattling dully inside, and tried to open it. It was a stretch to get his hand around the lid and it didn't give at all.
There was definitely something in there, though he couldn't make out exactly what it was. More frowning, and a glance over his shoulder to the house, weighing the possibility that this was going to be pronounced 'dangerous' and put somewhere out of reach as soon as the grown-ups laid eyes on it.
No chance to make up his own mind; there was his father coming around the side of the house, calling his name and beckoning to him.
"Hungry yet?"
He wasn't, surprisingly, but that was only a temporary condition caused by what his mom called 'butterflies in the stomach'. All thoughts of concealing his find disappeared. He wanted someone with bigger hands to have a try at it now.
"Look," he said excitedly. "I found it."
He handed it over and his dad took it, holding it up and studying it. Matt was slightly relieved to not immediately hear judgment passed on what it was. 'Oh, that's just a thingamajig. You should never touch those. Leave them where you find 'em.' No, for once his father seemed puzzled, too, which meant there was still hope. But he didn't make any immediate move to open it.
"From here?" He was looking down at the hole Matt had dug, and the surrounding excavation as well, then he appeared to eye the setting, and then finally reached down with his free hand and scooped up a little of what had been cast aside, letting it run through his fingers.
"It was a pirate house," Matt said with stout confidence.
"Maybe part of the time," his father replied with a smile. "I think the rest of the time it was a sandbox."
Matt was willing to sacrifice that point; he'd had some suspicions himself in that regard. "But what's in it?" he finally asked, pointing to the jar.
"Dunno," his father said. "Maybe we should show it to Grandpa."
Matt frowned again. "Can't you—?"
"Anyway, lunch is ready."
That seemed to settle that, at least as far as his dad was concerned. Matt gave in on this point, too, getting up and letting his father knock some of the dirt off his pants. Maybe he was a little hungry, anyway, and if anyone would know about pirate raids and hidden treasure in these parts, it would be Grandpa Milt. He should have just asked him straight out and saved himself some unnecessary digging.
They walked back to the house. The local expert on pirates was now standing in the kitchen doorway, shouting, "Come on, let's eat."
The kitchen table was already set. His father said, "Wash up," and pushed him firmly toward the sink, casually hitching the stepstool over for him with one foot. Just as casually he set the jar down on the counter and added, "Matt found something outside; looked like an old sandbox."
Grandpa had been almost sitting. He seemed to stop for a moment, right where he was, but all he said was, "Mighta been. We had one out there, over by the trees, just some four by fours to sit on and sand in the middle. Thought they would've been rotted away by now."
"Pressure-treated wood, looks like."
It was turning into one of those grown-up conversations with not much hope of pirates. Matt sighed and climbed up on the stool to get at the sink.
"He found a jar out there, too."
There was something in the way his father had said it that made Matt turn from his washing. The jar had been picked up again, and now was being handed over. Nobody said 'Get that dirty thing off the table,' or even 'What the heck did you bring that inside for?' Instead, his grandpa just stared it for a moment, holding it in one hand.
Matt felt suddenly a little nervous, like he'd done something wrong, though no-one was saying so. Grandpa looked pretty serious, almost sad. He turned the jar around, as if he were studying what was inside.
"You want me to put it somewhere?" his father said. He sounded serious, too.
"Probably just . . . stuff," Grandpa Milt replied, in a quiet tone that Matt wasn't used to. "Put it in the den. I'll look at it later."
"'Kay," was his father's only response. Then he took the jar and departed.
Matt finished up. He climbed down off the stool and took his place at the table. He felt strangely shy, but a moment later his father was back, dishing up mac and cheese and everyone acting as if nothing had happened. It had been pretty strange, and all curiosity about what the pirates might have left behind was now buried under several layers of worry.
That didn't last, though. There was talk of going down to the beach after lunch, or maybe basketball. Matt quickly put the morning's adventure behind him. There was ice cream—and chocolate-chip cookies to go with it—and by the time they were finished, all thoughts of pirate booty had been pushed to the back.
"We'll clean up," his father said, the way he always did.
This time grandpa just smiled, and, "I'll be in the den." And then he was back to looking a little serious.
The plates were gathered up and the step stool put to use again. Matt liked running the garbage disposal, but that meant he had to do the scraping—a fair enough deal. After that he was stuck with the drying because his father had already pronounced him, some time back, 'the only person who's got lower standards for dish-washing than I do.'
And then, when all that was done, his dad said, "How 'bout we shoot some baskets?"
Matt nodded happily but, as he was ushered toward the back door, cast a quick glance back in the direction grandpa had departed.
His father caught the hesitance and said, quietly again, "He'll catch up with us in a bit."
They'd been out there for a while, Matt going at it steadily with the basket lowered from its customary height on a winch that his father had installed the last time they'd visited. 'We'll raise it a little at a time, as you grow. Pretty soon you'll be sinking 'em at NBA regulation height.' Grandpa Milt had said. Matt had started checking his height against a pencil mark on the kitchen doorway every morning but so far the results weren't conclusive. Still, it was more fun when the ball made it through the hoop with some regularity.
Today, though, not too many were connecting and his dad finally smiled and said, "You gotta concentrate. Think about where you want the ball to go."
He nodded, but the next one went wide, too. He chased it down and finally caught up with it, then stood there, ball clutched to his chest, staring back at the main house. His father strolled over, standing next to him.
"You worried about him?"
Matt nodded again, then finally said, "How come he got all sad? Did I do something?" He turned and looked up at his father.
"No, nothing like that." He wasn't frowning, but he looked like he was thinking about something really hard. "The sand box, it's from a long time back. There was a boy, his name was Tommy. Did I ever tell you about him?"
He thought about that for a moment. He shook his head.
"He was grandpa's son. He grew up, and he became a soldier, and he was killed in a war. That was a long time ago, before you were born."
Matt considered all this and then said, "It makes grandpa sad to talk about him, huh?"
"Yeah, pretty much, but I think he still thinks about him a lot."
Matt clutched the ball tightly. "I'm sorry I went digging and found his stuff."
"Oh," his father was looking around slowly, with half-smile that was almost as sad as grandpa's had been, "not your fault. Can't help it; there's stuff buried all over the place around here."
"Really?" Matt said, despite himself.
"No," his dad looked back down at him, suddenly and in some apparent alarm. "That was a metaphor . . . a, um, figure of speech. You know what one of those is, don't you?"
Matt shook his head again.
"It means the kind of stuff that's buried around here can't be dug up with a shovel. Okay?"
Matt nodded, feeling a little disappointed. Then his attention was captured again. The front door of the main house was swinging open and grandpa appeared. Even at this distance he was obviously smiling.
"Over here," his father said.
Grandpa came across the driveway. "Though you might like these." He was holding something in his right hand and held it out to Matt, a small bag with a leather drawstring. It fit in the palm of his hand.
Matt took it, and pulled it open, curiously. Marbles, lots of them and all sorts of designs.
"You ever play Ringer?" Grandpa asked.
He'd played Chinese checkers; that had marbles in it—different solid colors, nothing like these. He picked one out that was bigger than the rest, clear glass with a slash of blue floating in the middle.
"That's a shooter," his dad said.
"We called 'em 'taws'," grandpa replied. "You played?"
"Judge, I'm from Jersey; we practically invented the game."
"Hmph."
"We played for keeps, too. Which was a good thing," he added, with a smile that was slightly piratical, "because I couldn't afford to buy my own." He was leaning over. "You've got some nice ones there. Those are aggies, tiger eyes, a couple of black purees."
Matt looked up from the booty he'd poured out into his hand. "Can we play? You and me and grandpa?"
"We need a flat place, some dirt," grandpa replied, "but we can't play for keeps; you're the only one with any marbles around here."
"That's the truth." His father grinned. "But there's no law against side bets . . . Come on." He was already heading back toward the place where the trove had been uncovered. Matt hung back a little.
"It's a good spot," his grandpa said, smiling and holding out his hand. "Maybe a little to the side of where you dug. Can't have the dirt too loose, the marbles won't roll. I'll teach you how to knuckle down like we did in Arkansas."
00000
He learned shooting, both Jersey and Arkansas style, along with some rather suspect techniques called hunching and histing, though both instructors swore sideways that they weren't employing them. The competition got fairly intense, with a lot of concentration.
Matt had certain advantages in both limberness and being naturally low to the ground, but parental guile ultimately overcame both youthful enthusiasm and ancient experience. No marbles changed hands, but his father cheerfully pocketed a twenty from grandpa. The two grownups straightened up, grandpa little more slowly and stiffly, accepting a hand from the younger man.
"You okay?" his dad asked.
"Oh, yeah, sure," grandpa said. "Haven't spent that much time down on my hands and knees in a while. Gonna feel it tomorrow, I think."
His dad laughed lightly, "Me, too."
Matt stayed behind, closely examining his treasures, one at a time, trying to decide which was his favorite as he put them back in the bag. He heard them talking where they stood, a little ways off, looking out toward the ocean. There was something about a note, and normally when the grown-ups dropped their voices, Matt listened harder, because it meant they were talking about something interesting. This time when he got up and joined them the talking stopped, replaced by smiling as the two turned toward him.
"You've got a lot of natural aptitude," Grandpa Milt said.
"Inherited," his father was beaming down at him. "We'll save some bottle caps and I'll teach you skullies, too."
Grandpa Milt was frowning quizzically. "Never heard of that one."
"That's 'cause you didn't have any paved streets back in Arkansas."
"We had a couple . . . but not too close to where I lived," grandpa admitted with a shrug.
"The trick with skullies," his father continued as they started to walk back to the house, "is a low center of gravity and as much weight as possible in your bottle cap."
"And a couple of aspirin for your back, afterwards," grandpa griped lightly.
"Probably," his dad rubbed his own back, looking thoughtful. "I haven't played it in a while."
They were both laughing and Matt didn't exactly get it but he laughed, too. He ran ahead, treasure still in hand, intending to take them out again in grandpa's den and sort them one more time, by size and speed, and figure out how to make the shooter go further, like it did when his dad had it.
Then he was going to find some bottle caps.