Thumb and the Bad Guys (7 page)

While she talked, Big Bette and Little Liam divided the clearing into
squares with yellow yarn stretched between stakes. Ms. Weatherly said that
archeologists did that to keep track of where they dug.

Robbie and his dad had made a wooden box that looked like a drawer
with a screen where the bottom should have been. While some of us dug, others sifted
dirt through the screen, looking for artifacts.

“What will we find?” asked Big Bette, stopping for a moment to stretch
her back.

“Probably nothing,” said Ms. Weatherly. “It's only a possibility that
one of those explorers had a cannon placement here but even if he did, there may not
be anything left behind.”

“But what might we find?”

“I don't know. Coins. Broken bits of the ceramic pipes that sailors
used when they smoked. Buttons. It's doubtful that we'll find anything, but if we do,
it could be evidence of the first Europeans to ever visit this part of the
world.”

“Wow,” several kids whispered.

I was watching Little Liam and Big Bette as they started to dig. It
looked like a lot of work so I held up my hand.

“Yes, Thumb?” asked Ms. Weatherly.

“I don't think I can take a turn digging,” I said, trying to sound
disappointed.

“Why?” asked Ms. Weatherly. I glanced around and could see Liam and
Susan rolling their eyes.

“It's my thumb,” I said, holding up my real thumb, the thumb that Ms.
Weatherly thought was a fake. “Lifting a shovel full of dirt might put too much
pressure on the delicate mechanism inside my thumb and it might break. It's pretty
expensive. I'm supposed to be careful.”

I tried to look disappointed.

Big Charlie's son, Little Charlie, was the first person in our village
to pretend to have a fake thumb so that we could fool tourists. When he left the
village to work back east, I was asked to pretend I had a fake thumb because I could
keep a straight face and look innocent when I lied.

“Can you shift dirt?” asked Ms. Weatherly.

“I guess so,” I said, leaving some doubt in case shifting dirt turned
out to be a hard job.

Little Liam carried a chunk of dirt over to the drawer with a screen
bottom and dumped the dirt inside. I picked up the drawer and shook it so the sandy
dirt would rain through the bottom and anything bigger would stay inside. When the
dirt was gone all that was left on the bottom of the drawer were pebbles and rocks
and twigs. I dumped them onto the dirt pile and then kicked everything over the edge
of the cliff, down to the rocky beach below.

My classmates took turns shoveling and sifting and kicking, but we
didn't find anything that wasn't supposed to be there. It didn't feel like we were
doing school work but Ms. Weatherly did talk the entire time, explaining how
archeologists worked.

I was glad there was no stakeout that night. I was exhausted, even if
I didn't have to shovel dirt.

We did an hour of math the next morning before heading back up the
mountain, dragging shovels. We didn't walk quite as fast. We were all tired, and
searching for treasure didn't seem so exciting any more. All we were doing was
moving dirt.

In movies, when the heroes are about to be surprised, you can always
tell because the music gets faster and more tense. In life, there is no music. In
life, surprise comes suddenly, without warning.

Susan found the pewter ring right after lunch. It was simple in design
and not very well made, but clearly from another century.

With eighteen kids crowded around her, Ms. Weatherly cleaned the ring
with an old toothbrush and then slipped it onto her hand so that it wouldn't be
lost. She made her hand into a fist so it couldn't possibly slip off and then, to be
even more certain of not losing it, she held her fist up in the air.

We all stared at that raised fist with the pewter ring as we made our
way back down Linda Evers Mountain to the village below. We walked faster, and not
just because we were going downhill.

Ms. Weatherly walked right into the school and into my father's
classroom. The rest of us followed and spread out around the walls, surrounding the
surprised primary grades at their desks.

Dad looked at all of us, mystified.

Ms. Weatherly waited until we were all inside and everyone could see
and hear. Then, still holding her hand up high, she marched over to my dad, who was
sitting at his desk, and she opened her hand right in front of his face and said,
“Look!”

“Look at what?” asked Dad.

“Look at what we found up on Black Bear Hump. We found this ring.
Susan and Thumb were right.”

Dad stared at the ring and then slowly stood up.

“Excuse us, class,” he said. “Ms. Weatherly and I have to make a phone
call.”

12
CAUGHT!

IT WASN'T HARD FOR ME
OR
for Susan to escape on Friday night. We each just threw on a jacket
and walked out our front doors. Our parents were at the gym with most of the other
adults. Dad told me that they were meeting about the ring that Susan had found. A
professor of archeology from the University of British Columbia was planning to fly
up to see the site and the ring. If she said that what we had found was what we
thought, then a team of twenty students and professors would soon be digging up at
Black Bear Hump.

We didn't know where they would stay – probably on a research vessel
that would anchor in the bay. It was all pretty exciting.

Susan and I knew that one of the few adults who wasn't at the gym was
Kirk McKenna. We'd walked past his house and heard him inside, muttering. I could
hear him spit a couple of times and wondered if he spat on the floor in his own house
or if he had little containers all over the place so one was always close.

When we got to the fire truck, Susan and I crouched low inside the cab
and stayed quiet.

It wasn't long before we saw the beam of a flashlight coming toward us.
We ducked even lower, until we couldn't see and couldn't be seen. We heard soft
footsteps on the sand.

The person holding the flashlight marched right past us. I lifted my
head and saw the flashlight beam disappear on the other side of the boulder that hid
the path up to our pond.

Susan and I didn't even look at each other. We climbed out of the fire
truck and raced across the sand. We could see the flashlight beam twist around rocks
and we quickly followed, being as quiet as we could.

We were following much more closely this time, confident that Kirk
McKenna wouldn't suddenly turn around and find us. We knew where he was going. We
just didn't know why.

We would. Soon.

We stopped behind the last boulder before the pond and peeked around
the corner. We saw Kirk McKenna humming a Scottish tune to himself as he scooted
down to the stream. He plunged through the waterfall below the pond and, a few
seconds later, emerged on the other side. His flashlight meandered through the woods
beyond the pond and then disappeared.

Susan and I scurried down to the waterfall and then behind it to the
other side. We weaved through trees and around rocks, helped by a full moon. We
could see the meadow and shed and could heard Kirk McKenna working a key in the
padlock that held the door shut.

Kirk McKenna slid the opened padlock out of the clasp and swung the
door open with a rusty screech. He stood in the doorway shining the flashlight beam
onto shelves before pulling down a propane lantern and lighting it. Then he stepped
inside and closed the door behind him.

Susan and I dropped to the ground and started to crawl slowly toward
the shed.

Suddenly, we heard a horrible scream. It was coming from inside the
shed. Susan and I stood up, fast, but before I could decide if I was going to run
toward the shed or away from it, somebody grabbed my shirt and my arm and yelled,
“Got ya!”

I quickly looked over at Susan. Another large shape was holding her.

We'd been caught.

“March,” the voice behind me ordered. I started walking toward the
shed.

Flashlights suddenly appeared from all directions. Kirk McKenna opened
the door to the shed and stood with his hands on his hips, grinning. He leaned
outside, turned his head and spat down at the ground.

“So,” he said, “we were pretty sure you were the ones who have been
spying on me.”

I didn't say anything. Neither did Susan. I don't think either one of
us could have said anything. We were too scared.

I could see inside the shed now. I didn't see anyone tied up to a
chair. I did see a wall lined with deep shelves like you'd see in a warehouse. On
each shelf sat four or five black boxes. Each box looked like a small pirate's chest
with the lid kept in place by silver clasps.

“I guess you're wondering what I've been hiding up here?”

“Maybe… a little,” said Susan.

“Well, I'm going to show you,” said Kirk McKenna with a lopsided
sneer.

“Don't,” pleaded a voice behind me. “They may have been spying but
that doesn't mean they deserve to be tortured. Nobody deserves to be exposed to your
madness.”

Kirk McKenna didn't pay any attention. He reached back into the shed
and picked up one of the black cases. He carried it over to a large flat boulder and
set it on top. Flashlight beams shifted to focus on the case. The arms around me
tightened and pushed me closer to the boulder.

I couldn't help but remember the movies we'd seen where the bad guys
only showed the good guys their secret plans when they knew the good guys wouldn't
live to tell.

I gulped as Kirk McKenna grinned at Susan and me. He started humming
and opened the lid.

At first, all I could see was a long black barrel, like a rifle.

Then I noticed several other barrels and a cloth bag that attached the
barrels together.

“Bagpipes?” I said, more to myself than to anyone else. Almost like an
echo I heard Susan ask the same question.

“Yeah,” said Kirk McKenna proudly. “I collect bagpipes. I play them,
too, but I usually play inside the shed. The sound of the waterfall keeps anyone in
the village from hearing.”

He slowly looked around at the people behind the flashlights and
sneered.

“They won't let me play my music down in the village.”

“He's not that good,” said the man who was holding me. I recognized
his voice. It was Susan's dad. “And I don't like bagpipes even when they're played
by a professional. They do have professional bagpipe players, don't they?”

“Of course, they do,” said my dad, letting go of Susan. “But Kirk
McKenna sure isn't one of them.”

“You… you all knew about these bagpipes?” I stuttered.

“Sure,” said Dad.

“Why didn't you tell us?” asked Susan.

“We don't tell any of the kids,” said Mayor Semanov. “When kids are
young we don't want them trying to walk under the waterfall. It's too dangerous. And
when they're older we don't want them deciding that they like the sound of
bagpipes.”

“Like that's going to happen,” said my dad with a chuckle.

“Would you like to hear me play?” asked Kirk McKenna. I had never seen
him smile without sneering. He had a dimple on one cheek. It made him look a little
less fierce.

“No!” shouted Dad and Mayor Semanov and other voices hidden behind
flashlights.

“It was worth a try,” said Kirk McKenna.

Mayor Semanov patted Kirk on the shoulder.

“No,” he said. “It wasn't.”

“We knew you and Susan had been here,” said Dad. “We found your
footprints. It wasn't hard to figure out they were your prints. They match your
shoes.”

“Why didn't you tell us?” asked Susan.

Dad shrugged.