Mosquitoes of Summer (10 page)

Emily sat up slowly, rubbing her face and looking very upset that she was still in the graveyard.

“C’mon, get up,” continued Hannah, dragging her sister by the hood of her sweatshirt. “I think I saw something fall out of the locket and I want to see if it’s still there. Hurry!”

“I want to go home,” whimpered Emily as she stumbled after them. “I’m scared. Let’s go Hannah. Now. Please!”

“In a minute,” said Hannah, silencing any further protest from her sister with what she thought was a most withering look. “Follow me.”

Hannah stumbled around a couple of times but finally made her way to the grave. She made sure her friends were following close behind. Pointing three flashlights downwards (Emily’s was spastically wavering around the woods) they looked at the ragged hole next to the grey stone. It was not very deep, perhaps about 25 centimeters down. Bending down for a closer look Hannah noticed a faint mark on the tombstone.

“X marked the spot!” she whispered. She pointed out the mark carved into the base of the weathered stone. “It seems he found some kind of treasure. Now look for a very small piece of paper. I think it fell out of the locket when Malone freaked out.”

“A mere locket does not make for a treasure trove,” said Jack thoughtfully as swept his flashlight over the bumpy ground around the tombstone.

“Maybe there was something inside the locket, something important,” whispered Emily. “Like a code.”

“That’s what we’re looking for now, Bozo Brain!” muttered Hannah. “Stop waving your flashlight around and start looking!”

“I think I found something,” said Jack in an excited whisper from behind the grave. “Here it is. You were right Hannah; it
was
a piece of paper. And it’s got numbers on it. LL4516. But what does it mean?”

“I … don’t know.” Disappointed, she turned to Lucy, who kept poking her in the back.

“There was something else,” added Lucy, bobbing her head excitedly. “Did anyone notice the book in his hand?”

“JOURNAL!” squeaked Hannah, slapping her forehead. Hard! “The gold lettering spelling out the word journal glinted when Malone shone his flashlight on the book he was holding. Of course.”

All four looked at each other. Finally Jack voiced what everyone was thinking.

“Black Sam’s journal! Treasure! And these numbers might be coordinates. Directions leading to his buried treasure.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ENLIGHTENING SUPPER

The traditional weekly supper in French River was always an adventure for Hannah because she never knew what to expect. Being one of the world’s most finicky eaters, mealtimes outside her home were challenging at best, and more often horrific episodes best left forgotten. This evening was no exception.

The nightmare meal consisted of the following: Appetizers of fresh crab puffs made by Wayne Simpson; main dish of mussel spaghetti made by Alice. Roger had gone out to the Island Gold Mussel factory for fresh mussels which he then cleaned at the kitchen table. Right in front of Hannah of all things! Gross, slimy mussels! And then dessert. Not chocolate cake. Not ice cream. Not even cookies. No, it had to be strawberry-
rhubarb
pie! An outrage, throwing a vegetable into a fruit pie!

Throughout the meal Hannah worked very hard picking out the food she refused to eat. As a result, the keep pile was very small while the throw away pile kept growing at an alarming rate. The only saving grace was the company of her friends. Lucy managed to convince her parents to invite Jack and he showed up armed with quarts of fresh strawberries (but when it came to fresh fruit, Hannah only ate apples).

“Do you really think Malone’s journal actually belonged to Black Sam the pirate?” asked Emily, helping herself to more fresh pasta. Unlike her sister, she was a bottomless pit when it came to eating and variety was her motto in life. “That would be quite a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Of course it’s his.” Jack insisted on the pirate angle. Anything else would be much too boring. He knew his life was meant to be filled with adventure, and so far there wasn’t much to speak of. This was his
chance
. He had to spell it out to the lesser beings seated at the table with him. “That journal was lost on his ship. The ship went down not far from here. Shipwrecks wash up here all the time –”

“All the time?” Hannah hiccupped, trying not to choke on a mussel that had escaped her inspection.

“Well, maybe not all the time, but you get my meaning. Things wash up here a lot. What’s to say this journal was not among all the other artifacts that made it onto our beach? And you told me that Mr. Simpson saw someone coming from Arrowhead the night that brought in the Yankee Gale wreck. Suppose he found the journal in the wreck?”

“We never said that it was old Malone that Wayne saw that night,” Lucy reminded him.

“But it could be him,” cut in Hannah excitedly. “I just thought of something. Remember the knife we found in the sand under the wreck? The initials were W.M. Maybe the M stands for Malone. I can’t figure out the W though.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” said Jack, waving his fork around. “My cousin’s real name is William, but we call him Big Bill. He’s like 10 feet tall.”

The three girls looked at each other. No one even thought of this angle. It was almost too simple. Hannah turned to Jack. “So let me get this straight. You think this old Malone was the stranger that Wayne saw. He lost his knife while exploring the ship, found the journal in the wreck, and now is using it to find treasure.”

“Bingo!” laughed Jack. “And he needs us to stay away because he wants it all to himself. I bet he was the guy who broke into your place. He wanted to get his knife back.”

“But how did he know we had it?” asked Emily, noisily sucking in a strand of spaghetti between her lips. Before the last of the strand disappeared, it reached out and flicked her in the nose.

Jack frowned, deep in thought. Expectant faces gazed at the boy. Suddenly he smiled. “Ah, I don’t know. We’ll have to ask him.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Crazy!”

“That’s suicide!”

Meanwhile, the adults were enjoying the hearty meal. Loud laughter and the occasional guffaw could be heard coming from their table set a few feet back from the kids. Talk went from potato farming, to politics, to real estate, and the yearly migration of tourists.

“You mean mosquitoes,” sputtered Simpson, spilling some of his red wine on his neatly ironed blue shirt. It was not his best shirt. Ignoring the stain, he went on, “They swarm us in the summer, pests that they are. Always in your face, wanting to see this and that. Never giving you any peace. Buzzing round all the time thinking they own the island. Jamming up our roads with their traffic. Tiresome.”

On to the next topic….

“Speaking of fishing, last year’s cod season had a real bad effect on my memory,” recounted Simpson, a serious look crossing his grizzled face. “Don’t know what it was though. Must have been something in the air I reckon. You know how the darned powers that be slapped quotas on our cod intake. According to our government gods, no more than 15 cod per fisherman. Well, strange thing was that every time I went out on the boat, I kept forgettin’ how many cod was already sitting in my bucket. Lost count, you would say. So I had to start all over again! I even forgot when the season ended.”

Everyone laughed.

“So how many cod did you actually end up catching last year?” laughed Dad.

“Seeings as I still can’t count, I also can’t say,” Simpson grinned, winking at Roger. “However, my box freezer seems awfully full this winter. And a year later my memory ain’t quite as good as it was, if you get my meaning.”

Every once in a while Emily would drop her fork and listen in on the adults. She was a major busybody at the best of times and insisted on knowing what was up. A perfect fit with the islanders, thought Hannah morosely. It was hard to get away with a burp without the next door neighbour knowing about it. In record time it would spread throughout the island and people as far away as Souris or North Cape knew about the indigestion. And dear little Emily was like the telephone in the whole deal.

“Shhh! Listen to Wayne,” she warned, suddenly sitting bolt upright and completely ignoring the half eaten pie.

“That’s right, I got a visit from this Malone guy,” continued Simpson. “Ever since I heard about his attempt at a citizen’s arrest, he perked my interest. Strange old coot. Said he’s one of them there historians. High falutin’ word for a plain old gossip gatherer. He wanted to know about everything and everyone in this area. Badgered me for over an hour. Wanted to know about the bygone days, and who lived where.”

“He asked us some questions about the house and its history too,” said Roger. “He seemed a bit too eager but was nice enough about it.”

“Heard he grilled them Hatterly sisters too,” nodded Simpson, as if that said it all.

“Try to chew more quietly,” Emily warned Jack. “And close your mouth. I can see your toes.”

“I’m eating seafood,” mumbled Jack, moving the bread around in his mouth. Opening even wider, he pointed to his mouth and said “See, food!”

“Very funny. That joke’s real old.” Lucy rolled her eyes in frustration. “Where are your table manners? Now be quiet!”

After another gulp of wine, Simpson continued. “Funny thing was, after spending all that blasted time just spewing out the most god-awful boring questions he could think of, Malone finally said something that perked my ears. Turns out that his dear old granny Hilda lived in the area. She and my mum were great friends towards the end of Hilda’s life. Mum would go over and clean her house every so often. Hilda was a great old grump, but they kind of grew on each other. Mum would always bring her some home cooking. She knew how to handle the old bat.”

“Why was Hilda such a grump?” asked Alice.

“According to Mum, Hilda had some family secrets. Always put on airs, all hoity-toity like, if you know what I mean. Said she was descended from royalty, can you believe that? Well, that put many off her, I can tell you. Sure thought she was real superior that one. Always dressed like she was waiting for the Queen, bless her royal arse. Oops, excuse my language! Anyways, as the years went by, she grew more and more grumpy. Looked like she was sore that her prince charming never showed.

“Hilda died when she was 87. She left Mum a very old wooden jewelry box. Beautiful carvings of a castle set high in the mountains. The box had a clasp lock, but no key. Mum never had the heart to break it open and so it stayed untouched for years. When Mum passed, I got the box. First thing I did was open the darned thing. Curiosity had been killing me for years!”

Wide-eyed Emily couldn’t help herself and blurted out, “Did you find a treasure map?”

Simpson turned around in his chair to face the kids. “You mean what didn’t I find! No jewels. No money. Noooo treasure map. Just a bunch of ratty old letters written by members of Hilda’s family. And all that fancy writing was so hard to read that I gave up after the first headache. It was just an account of some sheep farm somewhere. Big whoopee. When I found out that Malone was related to this family, I thought it was only right that he got the letters. I didn’t let on about the jewel box though. That was Mum’s. But the letters were okay and no use to me.”

“Was he happy with the letters?” asked Lucy.

“Happy?” cackled Simpson. “After he read one of the letters, he had a damned conniption fit. Started doing this dance around my living room. Crazy as a coot, like I said before. Spinning around, dervish-like. Never seen anything like it in my life and hope I never will again. Bit scary if you know what I mean.”

Suddenly Meg dashed through the screen door. She was deathly afraid of thunder and lightning and no one noticed the storm that blew in during the past hour. Everyone dashed towards the living room and tried to trap the poor dog. Tail between her legs, Meg quickly hunkered down under the kitchen table, quivering from fear and daring anyone to approach. Meanwhile Roger tried to attach the screen mesh back on the door, but it was obvious that the whole thing needed replacing. From what Hannah could see, bucketfuls of rain came pouring in through a gaping hole as large as … well, a dog.

As the excitement died down the grownups cleared away the dishes. The children were excused and scurried upstairs to Lucy’s room. Settling down on cushions and bed, they dissected the latest news.

Looking around at the sea blue room Hannah noted all the new additions to Lucy’s eccentric décor. Scattered throughout the room were a varied assembly of toys and oddities. On a large white table standing under Lucy’s window was a wooden castle, protected by a large number of knights, some already engaged in a heated battle against marauding pirates. Catapults were strategically set up around the castle’s palisades, ready to launch Styrofoam rocks and crush the unwary.

In the far corner of the room, a tall bookshelf was sagging under the weight of volumes on shipwrecks, medieval times, pirates and fairies. On the floor beside the bed were over 100 toy horses, some plastic, some ceramic and some stuffed. And on the walls were all of Lucy’s works of art, from multi-coloured mosaics to realistic renderings of the PEI shoreline.

On a narrow shelf above a night table sat a genuine stuffed squirrel, its black fur glistening while its beady glass eyes stared down at the assembled guests. “Wow, this is great! Where did you get it?” enthused Hannah. She was a real connoisseur of all things dead and stuffed. After all, wasn’t she the proud owner of a stuffed and mounted skunk? Her mom got it from an old high school display. She also had some mummified bats and squirrels which her dad had found in the attic of their country place.

“Oh, that was from Wayne,” remarked Lucy. “He thought of getting into a new hobby and tried taxidermy. I think he kind of missed on this one though. The squirrel looks like it was crazy or something. Look at that crooked grin, and his eyes are definitely lop-sided. I think it was road kill and this is the best that Wayne could do.”

“Can we discuss the case, or are we here for a tea party?” chided Jack, clearly impatient to jump into the newest developments. “When Malone was at the graveyard he was holding a letter. It looked like the letter was directing him to the hiding place of the locket. I bet it’s the same letter that Wayne gave him.”