The Treasure of Maria Mamoun (14 page)

“You must be the company,” he said in a gruff voice. “Ma said you'd be here.” He shuffled out toward the light and cheerful noise of the main room.

Maria crept through two more rooms, filled with fascinating things but empty of people, until she came to the last bedroom. There, a steep staircase with no railings led to a loft. She went to the bottom of the stairs and peered up.

“Hello?”

No one answered. She climbed up the steep stairs and found herself in a loft room similar to her attic loft. It ran nearly the length of the house, but there were a couple of dividing walls. She could see a bed behind a half-open door, and tile on the floor of another—the bathroom. The rest was covered with drawings, paintings, and colorful works of art in various stages of completion. A drafting table took up one corner, and an easel another. Through the skylights she could see the garden and beehives out back. After inspecting all the pictures, she decided to check out the bedroom.

She took one step in, then stopped.

Paolo stood in the corner with his back to her, rummaging through the drawers of a wardrobe. He looked much the same as he had before, except perhaps a bit dirtier. She wondered if he'd even washed his hands after that dog-slobbery ball.

“I'm not going to tell on you, so you don't have to keep staring holes in me like that,” Paolo said without turning. How did he even know she was looking at him?

“I'm not staring at you,” she said. “I just came up to use the bathroom.”

“Go ahead.”

She passed behind him and closed the door. Now she stood at the sink, wondering what to do. She didn't want to go—and she couldn't with him out there, possibly listening. She pretended to wash her hands—running the water, rattling the soap dish around. She listened to him walking around the bedroom, rummaging through drawers.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks and the bridge of her nose were pink from the sun, and her normally boring brown hair had streaks of red highlights. She polished her glasses and put them back on. She wondered how she would look without them, but when she took them off she couldn't see her own reflection.

When she came out he was still there, as if he'd been waiting for her. They looked at each other. Maria couldn't help but remember him saying, quite accurately, that she had no friends, and then admitting that he didn't either.

“These are beautiful,” Maria finally said of a series of pictures that hung from a wire strung along the wall. They were of the same forest path, but the colors had been printed differently in each version. “Did you make them?”

“They're Frank's,” Paolo said. “This is his bedroom and that's his studio in the other room. Those woodcuts are the nature preserve. It's not far from here.”

“I didn't know he was an artist,” Maria said.

“He's not. He's a gardener,” Paolo said. “He just likes to make art, too.” He held a strange blue plastic stick out to her. “Here—I found this for you.”

“What is that?”

“It's so you don't have to touch the gross dog ball. You scoop the ball up in the cup end when he drops it.” He demonstrated scooping an imaginary ball from the floor and flicking the stick over his head.

“Is it Frank's?”

“He said I could give it to you.” He held it out to her again. “Take it.”

Maria took it. “Thanks.”

“Why were you stealing that rowboat anyhow?” Paolo asked.

“I wasn't stealing it, I was borrowing it.”

He shrugged. “Same difference. But why?”

“I needed to get somewhere.”

“Why didn't you just ask Frank to take you? You obviously don't know the first thing about rowing, and he could've borrowed Harry's lobster boat.”

“I can't tell adults about it.” She fixed him with her fiercest gaze. “So don't you say anything, okay?”

“Okay,” Paolo said. “I already said I wouldn't tell.”

“You better not.” She started down the stairs, careful to stay in the exact middle of the steps. Paolo bounded past her. Four steps from the bottom, he jumped off the side and landed in the last bedroom with a thump.

“Paolo, if you break anything I will kill you!” Hattie shouted from the kitchen.

“Nothing broke!” he yelled back. He turned to Maria. “You know, I can get you a boat if you want. If you still need to go somewhere. A sailboat.”

“I don't sail.” She started through the string of rooms back to the kitchen.

“I do.” He bobbed along behind her.

“Yeah, right.”

“My dad used to take me sailing on his boat all the time,” he said.

“You have a sailboat?” Her curiosity made her pause.

“Ma sold it after he died.”

Now Maria turned to face him. He wasn't actually scary, after all. “I'm sorry, you know, about your dad,” she said.

“It's not your fault.”

They walked through the painting room and the book room in silence. Then Paolo whispered, “But I
could
get a sailboat to take you where you want to go.”

“It's something I have to do by myself,” Maria said.

“You need help,” Paolo said.

“I don't need
your
help,” Maria answered.

“I need help!” Frank called from the main room.

Maria shushed Paolo. He glared back at her and they both walked in together.

Frank stood at the sink, shucking oysters. “Why don't you two stop arguing and start shucking?” He handed Paolo a blunt knife.

“Here.” Grandma Newcomb handed a stack of plates to Maria. “You can help me set the table. We'll be eating outside if the bugs aren't too bad—we don't all fit inside.”

As they set the places, Grandma Newcomb kept up a steady string of explanations and complaints about the food, bugs, birds, tomato rot, skunks, tourists, summer people, and anything else that came to mind. Maria couldn't get a word in edgewise. Other people kept walking in, various cousins and spouses of cousins, children of cousins and nieces and nephews, and she couldn't keep them straight. They all seemed busy: cleaning fish, slicing bread, fetching beers, bouncing babies. All those people in one place chatting and laughing: it was simultaneously confusing and wonderful. Maria wondered if it was like this every night.

It was only when the whole family sat down together at the groaning table, and Grandma's mouth was full of oyster stew, that Maria could turn her attention away from the old lady and to this strange new food. Oysters weren't all that different from clams, she decided. Maybe a bit bigger. They tasted okay once she got past their boogery texture.

Her mother said a familiar name. She was asking about Mr. Ironwall, when he was younger.

“What was he like?” Grandma Newcomb lifted her eyes to the apple tree as if remembering. “Oh, he was a wild one—loved to throw parties.”

“I used to help with the clambakes,” Pops Newcomb interrupted. “Do you remember, Ella, how we could throw a clambake for a hundred people with one day's notice?”

“Oh, Pops, no one wants to hear about that—” Grandma patted the old man on the hand.

Pops Newcomb went on as if she hadn't said anything. “He was Mr. Moneybags, that Mr. Ironwall! And he loved to spend it—practically gave it away. Not like he is now, all shut up and stingy.”

“He's been very generous to our family.” Grandma smiled apologetically at Celeste. “Hattie and Frank are well paid.”

Pops went on. “I remember one time I'd raked up all these fat, fresh oysters and he said, ‘You know what we should do, Bo? We should hide pearls in them.' I thought he was nuts, so I just shucked 'em and iced 'em, and what do you know, he came back with, honest truth, a whole box of pearls. Real ones! He had me hide them under the flesh. You know, to surprise the guests. We had to ruin the surprise though, when one lady cracked a tooth.” He chuckled to himself.

Maria looked across the table at Paolo. He didn't seem to be listening. He kept his eyes on his plate and shoveled the stew in like he was a machine built for eating.

“That party did get out of control.” Pops chuckled.

“Most did,” Grandma said.

“What were the parties for?” Maria couldn't help but ask. She couldn't imagine that pale old man throwing out-of-control parties with entire boxes of pearls.

“Oh, all sorts of reasons,” Grandma said. “Holidays, friends' weddings, movie releases.”

“He loved to throw parties when his movies were coming out,” Hattie explained. “
To Have and to Hope
—everything had to be French because the film took place in Paris. And
The Last Privateer
—all pirate things.”

“What do you know?” Pops said. “You can't have been more than a baby.”

“Yeah,” Hattie said, “but you've told that pearl story a thousand times.
Privateer
was the party with the pearls in the oysters.”

“Well, it's still a darn good story!” Pops thumped the table.

“Time for pie,” Grandma interrupted. “I had some canned apples left over from last fall.”

Celeste and Hattie stood and helped to gather the dirty dishes.

“It's a shame he never had children,” Grandma said to Celeste as they went into the house. “That whole place for nothing. He's going to die with no one to hand it off to.”

“And leave us all high and dry,” Hattie said. “Just you wait.”

Paolo caught Maria's eye and nodded once, as if to say he'd told her so. Then he stood and picked up his plate. Maria started to clear hers, but he took it from her and said, “You sit.”

Maria strained to hear the rest of their conversation, but the kitchen door slammed shut.

Mr. Ironwall was going to die and leave them high and dry.

It was the second time she'd heard that, and she was starting to believe it. After all, what would they do when Mr. Ironwall died? Return to the city? Return to that scary apartment building crawling with Bad Barbies? She would do anything before she would do that.

 

20

T
HE
D
READ
P
YRATE
P
AOLO

The next morning dawned bright and sunny, but Maria was too lost in thought to notice. She was trying to figure out her next treasure-hunting move. If Mr. Ironwall was going to leave them all high and dry, then she needed to find that treasure quickly, before her mother lost her job and they lost their home.

“He's going to leave you high and dry, too,” she grumbled to Brutus on their walk. She let him off his leash and he disappeared over the dune as swiftly as if he'd caught the scent of a rabbit. Maria ran after him.

As she came over the dune, she saw a small sailboat tied up to the dock behind
The Last Privateer.
It was white, about twelve feet long, and had one mast. A large number 32 was painted in red on the hull. Then she saw that Paolo was aboard, waiting for her. Maria's stomach squeezed. She wasn't sure if she was glad or scared to see him.

But Brutus was already on the dock, wagging and turning joyful circles. Paolo threw a tennis ball far into the water. Brutus bounded into the waves after it.

“You bring the ball chucker?” Paolo called out.

Maria held it up. She'd even brought her own tennis ball.

“Told you I could get you a boat,” Paolo said.

“Told you I didn't want your help,” Maria said. But she stepped onto the dock to look at the boat anyhow. “Did you steal it?”

“No.” He sounded annoyed. “I
borrowed
it from the yacht club.”

“You did steal it!”

Brutus swam to the beach, and then scrambled back to the dock and ran down the ramp to drop the ball at her feet.

“He's gotten used to the ramp and dock,” Maria said. She scooped the ball up with the tennis ball–size cup and flung it back into the ocean. Brutus dove off the end of the dock, into the chop, and paddled after it.

“Do you like it?” Paolo asked. He sounded as if he actually cared what she thought.

“Yeah, it works well.” It was much easier this way; she didn't have to pick up the disgustingly drooled-on ball. She found herself smiling at him and he smiled back.

“I meant the boat,” he said. “Climb aboard.”

He held out his hand to help her. She climbed on without taking it.

The boat was very different from
The Last Privateer
. It looked brand-new and everything was metal or plastic. No wood or glass or charm at all. It had barely any deck. Most of it was a hollowed-out hull with molded plastic benches on either side where you could sit and handle the sail and the tiller. Paolo whistled and Brutus swam to the beach, clambered onto the dock, and ran down the ramp. He pranced his forepaws on the floating dock and gazed at them sitting in the boat. After a few attempts, the boy maneuvered the dog onto the boat.

“We could get in so much trouble,” Maria said.

“No one will know. We'll bring it back in a couple of hours,” Paolo said. “It's not like anyone needs it. They've got, like, a million of them, and no one's using them right now. Sail camp doesn't start till July eleventh.”

“What if someone sees us?” she asked.

“Like who? We'll stay away from Edgartown.”

“It's not safe.”

Paolo pointed to a couple of life jackets. “Come on, Maria. Did I really go to all the trouble of stealing this for nothing?” He looked at her a long time, but she did not know how to answer.

“Besides,” he continued, “I brought us a really nice breakfast.” He held up a wax-paper bag of the sort Frank always brought her mother. “The best doughnuts ever.”

She did think they were the best doughnuts ever. And she loved Hattie's fritters, muffins, and croissants. She couldn't believe she'd spent her entire childhood eating mass-produced cardboard junk from mass-produced cardboard boxes when there was such homemade deliciousness in the world.