Three Bird Summer (19 page)

“OK, Grandma,” I said.

I was outside swinging on the hammock when Alice appeared, carrying a small stack of papers.

“You’re not sleeping, are you?” she asked.

“Are you kidding?” I swung my feet off the hammock, ready to start our search.

“I have the map,” Alice said when she was close enough to talk quietly. “And I also did a little research while I was home.”

“Research?” I asked.

“I figured we probably don’t know as much as G and your grandma did about animals and their tracks. So I got some good information.”

“Smart,” I said.

“It’s actually really interesting,” she said. “So you start with their step length — which some people call their stride. Apparently you measure it from the back of one foot to the back of the next.” She demonstrated with her own stride.

“OK. That makes sense,” I said.

“But there are all these crazy variables. Are they walking or bounding or galloping? There’s this huge range in step lengths to cover all the different ways the animal might move.”

I frowned. “So what numbers do we use?”

“I’m guessing we can just go with averages. I mean, G was probably estimating when he made the map . . . assuming he was even using animal paces in the first place.”

“Well, it’s worth a try,” I said, trying to regain some of my earlier optimism.

We started at the back corner of the cabin again and used measuring tape that Alice had brought to count off paces. Our first direction was to take fifty steps on Mouse Main Street. When we’d done this before, we’d ended up well into the woods, but now we barely got out of the shadow of the cabin. We followed Chipmunk Chute and Beaver Boulevard, and when we angled toward the lake on Mink Meander, we didn’t even come close to getting our feet wet in the lake.

“It feels more right, doesn’t it?” Alice said, her voice scarcely containing her excitement.

“It’s definitely drier!”

Two hundred paces on Deer Drive took us up well past the cabin again — a deer’s walking stride turned out to be pretty close to our own. But by the time we finished all the other parts of our walk, we weren’t very deep in the woods at all. Instead, we were just beyond the grassy clearing where my mom had pitched her tent as a kid. There were lots of trees — birches and pines and spruces and oaks — surrounded by bushes that grew so thick they could have concealed a good-size piano. In summers past, my cousins and I had lost tons of baseballs in these woods, even after we thought we’d seen where they had fallen. If the treasure was in here somewhere, it was going to take an excellent system or good luck to find it. Probably both.

“Let’s try to cover this whole area,” I said to Alice, gesturing in a wide circle around us. “Remember, we were estimating those animal paces. We haven’t pinpointed anything yet.”

“Right-o,” Alice said. “I’ll start with these shrubby things and work my way over to there,” she said, pointing off in the direction of her property.

“And I’ll start with that big pine tree,” I said, pointing to the tallest one in sight. I walked over slowly, keeping my eyes focused on the ground so I wouldn’t miss a single clue. I had to believe that G would have made it fairly obvious if he’d buried the treasure. Maybe he would have piled up rocks to make a cairn on top of it. Or drawn that target symbol. Once I reached the tree, I circled its trunk, then looked up into the canopy for something stowed up high. I even pulled myself up into the lower branches in case G was a climber, but all I got for my effort was a lot of sap on my hands.

Alice peeked behind a section of peeled birch bark. “Maybe he wrote her a message on birch bark,” she called.

“Or carved their initials,” I suggested.

Several minutes later, Alice gave a little shout of discovery.

“What?” I asked, jogging over. “Did you find something?”

Alice was leaning into a dense patch of blueberries. “Ta-da!” she said, pulling out a white plastic Frisbee now covered with grass stains and dirt.

“Ha!” I said. “I think that used to belong to my cousins.”

“Let me guess,” Alice said. “They were playing lake Frisbee?”

“Actually, I think they were trying to knock a beehive out of a tree,” I said.

“Such smart boys,” Alice said, shaking her head. “Come on — let’s get back to work.”

I continued searching my area, trying to be as thorough as possible. I peered into shrubs, fingered every tree trunk, and kicked away the leaves and sticks on the forest floor in case they covered a hole or a marker. When I’d finally finished, I looked over at Alice. She was on her hands and knees, crawling through the grasses and ferns like a crazed badger snuffling out its next meal. “You almost done?” I asked.

“I’m not even halfway!” she said. She looked up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “You went too fast.”

“I’m just really efficient,” I insisted. “I can come over there and help, if you want.”

Alice shook her head and went back to her ground search. “That’s OK,” she said. “I’ve got a system here.”

I was never going to be able to match Alice’s attention to detail, and I couldn’t very well hurry her along. So I sat down and leaned against a tree to wait. It was nice here in the woods, with the leaves and the bark and the berries. Especially now that the mosquitoes had mostly scattered. I spun the old Frisbee in my hands and inhaled the sweet air. Maybe this was treasure enough.

Meanwhile, Alice kept busy. She inspected, dug, climbed, peered, and scanned. All she needed was a magnifying glass and a clipboard, and she’d look like a professional scientist.

I stopped spinning the Frisbee and gazed for a moment at its surface. “Wait,” I said to Alice. “What if this isn’t my cousins’ Frisbee?”

“What?” Alice asked.

“It would be the perfect thing to mark G’s treasure. Look at it — it looks just like a target. See the concentric rings? Maybe he buried the treasure under this.”

“It doesn’t look that old,” Alice said, coming over for a closer look. “Besides, did they even have plastic Frisbees back then?”

“Nah, I guess not,” I said, spinning the Frisbee some more. “Not like this one, anyway.”

Alice scratched her head. “But actually, there
is
something out here with concentric rings. I mean, besides the Frisbee.”

“What?” I asked.

“Trees!” she said. “You know, round trunks, rings inside. Kind of like a target symbol!”

We gazed around us at all the tree trunks in sight. There must have been twenty, thirty trees within our view. For a moment, I could almost sense the trees laughing at us.

“Should we dig under every one?” Alice asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “But we don’t even know if we’re in the right place. I’m starting to think this whole search might be kind of crazy.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Alice said. “Crazy’s fun!”

The truth is, Alice could make anything fun. “Crazy’s fine,” I said. “But if we’re going to start excavating the entire woods, I’m going to need a snack.”

“Mom’s making cinnamon buns,” Alice said, raising her eyebrows.

“Yum,” I said.

“First one there gets two,” she taunted.

She took off running in the direction of her cabin. I leaped to my feet and raced after her at top speed. But before I’d gone ten steps, my foot caught on a raised tree root and I pitched forward, falling to the ground. Alice came jogging back, gushing apologies.

“Oh, gosh, Adam, I’m so sorry,” she said, coming to kneel beside me. “Are you OK?”

I rubbed my knees and brushed a trickle of blood from my dirt-covered hand. “I’m OK,” I said, feeling completely stupid.

“Oh, my gosh!” Alice repeated.

“It’s just a scratch,” I said, holding up my palm. “See?”

But Alice wasn’t paying attention to me at all. Instead, she was staring at an enormous tree stump beside us. “Look!” she said.

Tall grasses had grown up around most of the stump, but eventually I noticed what Alice had seen — a piece of wood that didn’t match the bark beside it. I leaned forward and parted the grasses.

Someone had placed a piece of cut wood over part of the stump. On the right side of the wood was an ancient metal thumbtack, stuck into the wood like a doorknob. We stared in stunned silence. There was only one thing this could be.

“Oh. My. God,” Alice said. “I can’t breathe.”

“This is it,” I said. “It is, isn’t it?” My voice was shaky.

Alice nodded. “Open it,” she whispered.

I reached forward and tugged on the pushpin. Nothing happened.

“Here, hand me the measuring tape,” I said to Alice.

She handed me the tape and I used the metal end to trace the seams of the door. I pulled again. This time it opened — on tiny metal hinges.

“Whoa!” Alice said.

Behind the door was a natural hollow where the wood had rotted away. It was dark and full of tree debris, but we could see the edge of a square metal box lying inside.

“This is so intense!” Alice said, gripping my knee.

“Should I . . . ?” I asked, gesturing inside.

Alice nodded. I reached my hand inside and pulled out the box.

We stared in wonder at its top.

“For Viola. Forever,”
Alice read.

The words were written on the surface in black paint. They had lasted for more than half a century. Now all we had to do was lift the cover to find the treasure hidden inside.

“Should we take it to her right away?” Alice said.

“Before we look inside?” I asked. It hadn’t occurred to me for a moment that we wouldn’t get the first look. But I had to admit that Alice had a point. “It’s hers, really, isn’t it?”

“On the other hand,” Alice went on, thinking it through, “I guess we don’t know if whatever he gave her is still, you know, presentable.”

“Right. It could be moldy cookies, decayed flowers,” I said. “We’d better check it out. Just in case.”

Alice nodded, and I slowly lifted the lid. Lying inside was a cloth bag tied with string. I loosened the ties and stretched the opening wide, peering in.

“Oh,” I said.

“What is it? What is it?” Alice asked.

“It’s not moldy cookies,” I told her.

I reached into the bag and pulled out a small wooden loon, expertly carved. Its beak was pointing up, as if it was just finishing a gulp of water. Lines of feathers defined a simple wing.

“Look at that!” Alice exclaimed. “It’s gorgeous!”

But there was more. Next I pulled out a squat beaver. Then a deer. Then a bear.

“These are amazing!” Alice said. “And to think, no one has touched them in decades! I’m getting goose bumps!”

There were seven animals in all. Alice picked them up one by one, turning them over and rubbing their smooth sides.

“He sure had a thing for animals,” I said.

“And what an artist,” Alice said. Then she gasped. “You know . . .” An enormous grin spread across her face. “I think I just figured out who G is!” She drummed her thighs with excitement. “Do you know?”

I shook my head. “Is he some famous sculptor or something?”

“Nope,” Alice said a little smugly. “Don’t these look a little bit familiar to you somehow?” she hinted.

They did, actually, but I had no idea why. And I didn’t appreciate it when Alice burst into laughter. “Think, Adam! Think!!”

“What?” I asked, still not getting it.

“The mantel . . . Those little carved spaces. These are the same animals!”

I looked at the animals again. Of course: bear, loon, beaver, fish, squirrel, wolf, and deer. They were the same seven animals on the mantel in Grandma’s living room.

“Alice,” I said, “do you think they fit into those spaces?”

“I bet they do,” she said. “It’s like he carved the outline of the animal for the mantel, and then turned the leftover piece of wood into a three-dimensional figure.”

I saw it all now, just as Alice did. “So G is the builder’s son!”

“It sure looks like that to me,” Alice said. “Do you know his name?”

I shook my head. “Not yet,” I said. I picked up the animals again, one by one, imagining the hands that carved them into life.

“This whole thing is so amazing,” Alice said. She opened and closed the little wooden door, then examined the whole tree stump, brushing off the dirt and needles that had piled up on top. “And here’s our target,” she added, pointing out the tree rings.

I shook my head in amazement. Frustrated as we’d been in certain moments, we’d actually been working with one super tightly constructed treasure map.

I looked at the animals in my lap. “I’ve got to show these to her,” I said. “But I don’t want my mom around. She doesn’t even know about G. And she obviously knows nothing about the treasure.”

“Can you wait till she’s out of the house or something?”

I shook my head. “How? She’s in full-time planning mode about how to get Grandma packed up and out of here. And I don’t think I can invent any old errand to distract her.” I put the animals back in the bag, then settled it into the metal box.

Alice watched me, looking thoughtful. “I know what to do,” she said after a few moments. “Just leave it to me.”

WHEN ALICE AND I
got back to the cabin, Grandma was still in her room and Mom was taking a shower. We pulled one of the animals from the bag — the bear — and slid it into its space on the carved mantel. It was a perfect fit.