The Falls (15 page)

“Timmy, what are you doing?” I demanded again.

Again he didn't answer. My mother and I both jumped to our feet and rushed after him. My mother looked as confused as I felt. What had gotten into Timmy?

When we got downstairs, Timmy was standing at the far end of the basement, in the midst of all the junk.

“What's going on?” I demanded.

“I'm checking something out,” he said.

“Checking out
what
?” my mother asked.

Timmy pointed to the picture in the scrapbook. It was my great-grandfather being pulled out of the barrel.

“Does that look familiar?” Timmy asked.

“Of course it looks familiar. I was just looking at it before you took off with the book and ran down here.”

“There was a reason I came down here. The barrel.”

“What about the barrel?” I asked.

Timmy looked up and—there it was. The barrel, the same barrel from the old picture, was standing on its end, staring back at us.

 

 

 

 

I
LOOKED FROM THE BARREL
to the picture and back to the barrel again.

“Oh my goodness,” my mother said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Timmy . . . you're right.”

“I am . . . and those are words I don't usually hear in the same sentence.”

“We have a very, very important piece of Niagara Falls history right here,” my mother said.

“It's more than that,” Timmy said.

“You're right again. It's also an important piece of
Jay's
history.”

“It's still more,” Timmy said.

We both looked at him.

“This isn't just important. It's
valuable
.”

“Of course it's valuable to us,” my mother said.

“No, no, you don't understand. I mean it's worth a lot of money. Lots and lots of money!” Timmy exclaimed.

“This?” I asked. “It's just an old barrel. It doesn't even have a lid.”

“It's an old barrel that went over the Falls. You could sell this for a whole barrelful of money.”

“Who would want to buy an old barrel?” I asked.

“Lots of people! The Daredevil Museum would, for sure! They've got a whole bunch of barrels and balls and boats that have gone over the Falls.”

“That's right,” I said. It had been so long since I'd been there that I hadn't even thought about it. Actually, nobody who lived in the Falls ever went to any of the tourist traps.

The Daredevil Museum was one of the dozens and dozens of attractions that lined the strip. Some of them— like horror houses and the Elvis Museum—had absolutely nothing to do with the Falls and were just cheap rip-offs designed to separate bored tourists from their money. A least the Daredevil Museum was real local history.

“Did you mean what you said?” Timmy asked me.

“Depends what I said.”

“Don't go and try to weasel your way out of it. Did you mean it when you said you'd give me a share if we found something worth a million dollars?”

“Timmy, there's no way this barrel is worth—”

“But if it is, will you give me a share?”

“Yeah . . . that is . . .” I turned to my mother. “It is my stuff to sell, right?”

“It's yours.”

I turned back around to face Timmy. “Whatever it's worth—if it's worth anything—I'll give you some of the money.”

“I knew you'd come through,” Timmy said as he reached out and shook my hand. “I didn't think you were one of those guys who'd get rich and forget his friends.”

“Nobody's getting rich. How do we even know this is the same barrel?” I asked.

“Just look.” Timmy took the scrapbook and held it open so the picture was right beside the barrel. It certainly did look the same—but didn't all barrels look just about the same? Besides, even if it was the same barrel, how could we convince anybody it was the real thing?

“Look at these marks,” Timmy said, pointing at the barrel.

I looked closer. They were faded letters that looked like they'd been branded into the wood.

“Those are the same as in the picture.” He tapped the photo. The markings did look the same.

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

“We go to the Daredevil Museum and talk to the owner about the barrel,” he said.

“Do we bring it with us?”

“No,” Timmy said, shaking his head. “The barrel stays safe and sound here in the basement. We're only going to move it once we know we have a deal.”

“That's good, because I don't think it'll fit into my car,” my mother said.

“Probably not. We can always borrow Davie's big brother's pick-up truck if we need to,” Timmy suggested. “We'll bring the scrapbook over and show the museum guy the pictures, and if he wants to see the real thing he can come over here.”

“You're really thinking this through,” my mother said. “I'm very impressed.”

“Me too. Impressed and surprised,” I added.

“Hey, just because I
choose
not to use my brain most of the time doesn't mean I don't have one. So let's go.”

“Not so fast,” my mother said, putting a hand on Timmy's shoulder. “First we eat, and then you go.”

“Now
that's
good thinking,” Timmy said.

“And while we're eating, I want to talk to you boys about something. A favour.”

“What sort of favour?” I asked suspiciously.

“It's nothing bad.”

“So far it's just nothing.”

“And I don't want either of you to get mad.”

“At this point I'm just annoyed. So spit it out. What do you want us to do?”

“Okay. It's easy. I think you two should go to a meeting.”

“What sort of meeting?”

“Remember when we were talking to my sponsor after that AA meeting? She told me that she talked to you a bit about those meetings where teenagers get together to talk about alcohol and how it's—”

“I don't have an alcohol problem!” I exclaimed. “I come home wasted
one night
and it's like nonstop talking about me having a drinking problem!”

“It's not about
you
drinking. It's about the problems caused for teenagers by other people's use of alcohol.”

“That isn't me either!” I snapped. “We don't need to go to those meetings!”

“Speak for yourself,” Timmy said.

“What?” I spun around to face him in shocked disbelief.

“I said, speak for yourself. I get screwed over all the time because of my father being a drunk. Tell me more about these meetings.”

“The group is called Alateen and it's for teenagers.”

“Girls as well as guys, right?” Timmy asked.

“Both, because it affects both. You meet once a week and you get the chance to sit around, have a soft drink and some treats, and talk about problems alcohol has caused for you, and how to cope with them and get on with life.”

“Man, I could meet just about every day to talk about that,” Timmy said.

“They meet on Mondays—from seven to nine. You could go to the next meeting.”

“We could go if we
wanted
to,” I said.

“I want to go,” Timmy said.

What exactly had gotten into him?

“And Jay wants to come with me,” Timmy said. “Right?”

“Yeah,
right
.”

“See, he agrees.”

“I wasn't agreeing. I was being sarcastic.”

“Even if I understood what that meant, you're still coming with me.” Timmy smiled. “Right?”

There was no point in arguing . . . at least not right now. A lot could happen between now and then. For example, Timmy could come across a couple of bottles of beer and that would be the end of the idea. Maybe I could try and locate those bottles myself.

“I'll go wherever you go,” I said.

“That's wonderful!” my mother said. “Now you two go and get washed up while I put out the chicken.”

Timmy followed me up to the main floor and then upstairs to the bathroom. I closed the door behind him.

“You gonna explain this to me?” I asked.

He turned on the tap and picked up a bar of soap. “It's really easy. You get your hands wet and then grab the soap and—”

“The meetings.”

“Equally easy. Monday nights, seven to nine. A bunch of people sitting around talking about—”

“I understand all of that! What I don't understand is why you agreed to us going to it.”

“Think about it. Soft drinks, some treats, and I'm willing to bet that more than half the people in the group will be girls. We could meet somebody.”

I laughed. “So the meeting is just a place where you can eat and maybe get lucky?”

“You have to admit, those aren't bad reasons to go anywhere,” Timmy said. “Course there's the other reason, too.”

“What other reason?”

“Come on, man. Do you honestly think that neither of us has ever had any problems caused by alcohol?”

I knew the answer to his question. I just didn't want to give it to him. I grabbed the towel and dried my hands before I pushed past him out the bathroom door.

 

 

 

 

T
HE SIDEWALK WAS CROWDED
with sightseers, all walking and gawking and trying to decide which of the dozens of cheesy attractions they were going to go into. The restaurant with the volcano on the roof and the Ripley's Museum seemed to be getting the most business. Timmy and I wove between the throngs of tourists. The lights were just starting to come on—neon lights that kept night from ever being truly dark.

“So, what would you do with a million dollars?” Timmy asked me.

“Buy a better class of friend, for starters.”

“You couldn't buy a better class of friend than me. Seriously, what would you do?”

“First off, there's no way this is worth a million dollars.”

“Just shut up and let's pretend it is. Until we get there and find out what he really will offer, I want to keep believing it's worth a million. Is that so bad?”

“I guess not.”

“So, what would you spend your money on?”

“If it's worth a million, you get two hundred thousand,” I said.

“You're kidding me, right?”

“Nope, I told you that you'd get a share. Two hundred thousand doesn't sound too shabby, does it?” I asked.

“Man, you are such a good friend.”

I smiled. It wasn't that hard to give away money you didn't have and weren't going to get. I would have offered him an extra fifty thousand if I'd known it was going to make him so happy.

“And what would you do with the rest?” Timmy asked.

“I'd give my mother the same amount I'd give you.”

“That still leaves more than a half a million bucks. So?”

“I'd buy a really, really nice car, and I'd have money to go to university and—”

“University? If you had that much money you wouldn't
need
to go to university.”

“But I'd want to. And then I'd buy myself a really nice house. Someplace for me and my mom to live.”

“You could buy a mansion with that kind of money. Would you buy right by the Falls or more uptown?” Timmy asked.

I laughed. “I'd be uptown . . . in
another
town. If I had that much money, do you think I'd stay here?”

“Why not? I like the Falls.”

“What are you talking about? You're always telling me how boring it is here.”

“It wouldn't be boring if I had two hundred grand,” Timmy said. “I'd stay right here. This is my home. This is where I belong.”

It wasn't where I belonged. If I had that much money I'd move someplace else, and fast. Someplace where there
weren't traffic jams or crowds of tourists or neon signs. I wondered if there was anyplace where it was illegal to have neon signs.

“Here we are,” Timmy said as we came to a stop in front of the Daredevil Museum. There was nobody waiting in line to get in, and some of the bulbs in the sign were burned out. “Let me do the talking.”

“Why should this be any different than usual?” I asked.

We walked up to the ticket booth. There was a little old man, sitting on a stool behind the glass. He looked to be asleep. Timmy knocked on the glass and he startled.

“Sorry to wake you up,” Timmy said.

“Wasn't sleeping . . . just resting my eyes. You want two tickets?” the man asked.

“We don't want any tickets. We want to talk to the owner.”

“Talk to him about what?” the man asked.

“We want to talk to him about this barrel,” Timmy said, holding up the scrapbook, open to the page.

The old man stood up and squinted at the picture through the window. “Put it a little closer,” he said, and Timmy obliged. The man practically pressed his face against the glass.

“No point in wasting anybody's time,” the old man said. “We got lots of artifacts in here, but we don't have that barrel.”

“I know,” Timmy said. “That's because
we
have it.”

The old man scoffed. “Sure you do. And I got the
Mona Lisa
. . . I keep it in my attic.”

“I don't know what's in your attic,” Timmy said, “but I do know what's in his basement. I also know how pissed off the owner is going to be when he finds out he had a chance to get his hands on this barrel and you turned us down, and it gets bought and displayed over at the Guinness or the Ripley Museum.” Timmy turned to walk away.

“Wait!” the old man yelled.

Timmy stopped on the spot. He was facing away from the old man and toward me, so only I could see the smile on his face. He turned around.

“Go inside,” the old man said, and he waved us toward the entrance.