Storm Tide (5 page)

Ellen and I grab life jackets from the bottom of the boat and pull them on. Mine is still wet from last night, but I don't care. We pull the boat across the mudflat. When we reach the water, we slide into our usual positions, with me rowing and Ellen navigating.

Because the tide is so low, we are already far out in the bay. The rocks on the far side of the bay are covered in purple and orange sea stars. As we get close, I stop rowing and let the boat glide. All around the rocks, sea stars glisten in the sun. Ellen and I look at each other.

“Hmmm,” says Ellen.

“Yeah, hmmm,” I reply. Almost every rock is covered in sea stars. How on earth would we know which one to look at?

Ellen laughs. Her laughter sounds close to crying. “Of course, we are such idiots. We don't even know when the map was made. Sea stars don't sit on one rock forever.” She looks around. “But you know, I think we got part of it right. I mean, the line
the tide will hide what seekers seek
—that still makes sense, right?”

“Yeah,” I say slowly, “but that doesn't help us much.” I row the boat to the dock, where we can sit and talk this through.

“Let's look again.” I pull the copies of the map and the letter from my pocket and lay them out on my lap.

“It hardly looks like anything,” I say, tracing the outline of the map with my finger. “So little detail. Why would they have so little detail?”

Ellen shrugs. “I don't know. Unless they were in a hurry. Or…maybe they didn't want other people to use the map.”

“I know, it's so weird. It's like something is missing.” And then I know. That is exactly right. Something
is
missing.

“Let's start from the beginning,” I say. I'm getting excited again. “First there were the disappearing muddy footprints.”

“You didn't tell me about that.”

“Here at the dock. First they were there, and then they were gone.”

“On the dock?”

“Yeah. Then there was a disappearing tent. When we looked around, I found a tent peg AND…” I shouted, as a realization hit me, “and the painted stone. I forgot about it. When you saw Joseph out in the water, I just shoved the stone into my pocket. It must still be there.”

Ellen is looking at me like I've lost my mind. “What stone?”

I take a deep breath. “Yesterday, when we went to look for the tent, I found a little stone. I tried to show you, but you were already looking at Joseph in the water.”

“Okay, yeah, but so what?”

“So…maybe the stone gives us the clue to the map. Maybe it fits with the riddle.”

Chapter Twelve

We pull the boat onto shore and leave the oars inside so it'll be ready when we come back. At the house, I run upstairs and kick my way through the clothes on the floor until I find the pants I was wearing when we rescued Joseph. They're still soaking wet, and they cling to my fingers as I try to get my hand in the pocket. Then I feel the small round rock.

“Got it!” I holler and run downstairs.

“Wait,” says Ellen. “Let's look here, where we can spread everything out. It'll be easier to see.”

That makes sense, so I pull the copy of the map out of my pocket and lay it and the stone on the table. The stone has a pattern on one side that looks familiar. I think I should know what it is, but I can't quite get it. Is it a flower? A rose? There's a series of numbers on the other side of the stone.

Ellen leans over the table. “
Your heading from the star to make—
how can that be anything but the lighthouse? Unless it's a real star.”

“Let's hope not. How would we figure out which one? Anyway, you don't make headings from a star unless you are out at sea. And they haven't done that for, like, a hundred years anyway. We take headings with charts, compasses…wait.” I close my eyes and bring my hands up to my temples. “Ellen, think. Did I copy everything from the original map? Is there anything missing here?”

She looks over my shoulder at the map I drew. “It's hard to remember, but I don't think anything's missing. Why?”

I don't answer. Instead, I make myself walk calmly to Dad's office. I pull out one of the charts of Discovery Island and the area around it. Charts are like maps, but they are for boaters. They show water features like tides and currents. I walk back to Ellen and spread the chart out on the table. My hands are shaking with the effort to not rush.

It's hard to believe Dad's chart and the old map are of the same place. Our modern chart has squiggly blue lines marking sea depth, arrows pointing out boating lanes and colorful shapes marking lights and buoys. In the center there's a compass, so you can tell which way is north. There are even contour lines of the land.

“Look,” I say.

“I am looking. Tell me.” She leans over the map, her forehead creased in concentration.

“If we wanted to take a reading off this,” I say, pointing to the chart from Dad's office, “we'd know exactly how to position our compass, wouldn't we?”

“Yeah.”

“But how would we take a reading off this one?” I tap my hand-drawn map.

Now Ellen sees what I am getting at.

She stands upright.

“There's nothing telling us which way is north,” Ellen says.

“Exactly. And we never noticed, because we know this area so well. But if you were just arriving here, this map wouldn't mean anything.”

“And,” Ellen says, “there are no lines of latitude and longitude. Even if there were, we still wouldn't know which way was north.”

“So there must be a clue somewhere else then. Some numbers. Like…” I pick up the stone and toss it in my hand. It lands upside down. A row of numbers stare back at me:
48 25 30 123 13 30
. Carefully, slowly, I place the stone on the table next to the map. “…these ones.”

Ellen sits down heavily, and her jaw drops open. She says, “Degrees, minutes and seconds. Two sets of them, latitude and longitude. That makes it 48 degrees, 25 minutes and 30 seconds north. 123 degrees, 13 minutes and 30 seconds west.”

“Yeah.” I do a silly dance. I can't help it. I'm so excited, and I have to release the energy somehow.

But Ellen is still talking. “That's what those numbers say. At least I think they do. They could do.” She's yelling now, she's so excited. She hops up and joins me in my dance. “Let's lay the old map on top of Dad's,” she says.

I stop dancing and take a deep breath to slow myself down. Carefully I lift the piece of paper and lay it over Dad's chart. It's not a perfect fit, but it's pretty close. The rocks off the lighthouse are in the right spot, and the bay is in the right spot too.

Ellen hops from foot to foot until she can't contain herself anymore. Then she reaches over the table and helps me adjust the charts. I take a kitchen knife and use its edge as a ruler to measure out the longitude and latitude on Dad's chart. Ellen mutters as I go: “Okay, 48 degrees, 25 minutes and 30 seconds north. 123 degrees, 13 minutes and 30 seconds west.”

When I'm done, I frown. “Well, that's no good. The spot is on land, up by the lighthouse.”

“That doesn't make sense. The riddle said it should be in the intertidal zone.” Ellen puts her finger on the riddle. “And why would it have anything to do with the tide if it's there?”

We are silent as we try to sort out the puzzle.

“No,” Ellen says. She jumps up and down and claps her hands like a little kid. “This is where the heading starts, not where it ends.”

“What do you mean, where it starts?”

“With a compass, you need a starting point to take a heading from. Usually a headland or something.”

“Oh.” A thought jumps into my head. “That's where the star comes in:
Your heading from the star to make
.”

“Yes, yes, but what's the
star
?”

The silence lengthens as we try to make sense of this.

We are about to lose hope again. I close my eyes and think about everything we know. Something in the back of my brain slides forward, something I have known all along and didn't see. I turn over the stone. It flips with a small thud. And at last I know. The star.

I hold my palm out.

“The star,” Ellen shouts. The center of the stone is painted in sixteen points: an old-fashioned compass star, not a flower. It's more elaborate than modern compasses. That's why we didn't recognize it. The lines stretching from the center are compass lines. One line is deeper and brighter than the others.

“That must be the line we take the heading along,” says Ellen, tracing the deep line. She grabs the stone from me and places it carefully on Dad's chart, on the spot the numbers showed. Then she uses the edge of the old map to draw a line, following the deep, bright line from the stone.

“Yes, let's try it.” Ellen places the stone on the same spot on the old map. She uses the edge of the other chart to draw a line out across the page.

It points past the lighthouse, past the rocks off the cliff, to a rock farther along and slightly to the left.

A rock that is only exposed at the lowest tides.

Chapter Thirteen

We don't have to talk to know that the next thing we are going to do is row as fast as we can to that rock.

Ellen grabs a compass and binoculars from the shelf. I run to the bathroom and snatch a couple of towels.

Then we're out the door and running down the path to the boat.

As we get there, Ellen shouts, “The boat's gone!”

I spin around to look, but it is nowhere to be seen.

Then I see it in the water with Joseph rowing it. “He's going toward the headland,” I shout. Ellen has obviously figured that out too, because she's running as fast as she can toward the light tower. I quickly catch up with her, and the two of us hurtle over the headland. We keep to the trees. The last thing we want is for the crazy man to see us.

We top the rise and pelt down past the lighthouse to the shore below. Without even stopping to talk about it, both of us run onto the flats and head to the rocky far side of the bay. We've lived on this island all our lives. We've played on these rocks forever. We know how to get around them better than anyone.

We stop when we reach the intertidal zone. Ellen pulls out the compass. She lines it up, then points to the spot we need to head for. We start out toward it. It's slippery and dangerous. Some of the rocks are covered in seaweed and some are still wet, so it's slow going. Ellen points out to the sea, but I've already noticed. The tide is coming in. If we don't hurry, we will be caught on the rocks.

Joseph is paddling in from the deepwater side. I keep picking my way over the rocks. Then I hear Ellen's voice from behind me, “He's seen you, Simon. He's going to try to cut you off.”

I look around wildly, searching for Ellen and Joseph. Joseph is coming right at me, but he's still pretty far away. Ellen is standing at the edge of a rock, waving madly at me. She's hit a dead end. The water is too deep for her to continue.

I look back at the shore. There's a madman after me, and the tide is coming in. I take a step back. Maybe I should just wait for Mom and Dad.

Then my eyes fall upon Joseph again. He's paddling frantically toward me. I remember what this is all about. What if there really is treasure out there? Could I save the lighthouse by finding it?

Chapter Fourteen

I turn around and leap to the next rock on the right. It is hard going. Every step has to be slow and deliberate. The seaweed lying all around hides what's underneath. I almost fall into a tide pool covered completely with sea grass. I grab at the rock and pull myself forward, searching for places to put my foot. I glance back to make sure I have an escape route. If the tide comes in too fast, or if Joseph gets there first, I want to know I have a way out.

Ahead, the rock I want is still so far away. But I know I've got the right one in my sights. I step forward again, almost losing my balance. I get down on my hands and knees and crawl. Now I'm moving faster, though the rocks are hard on my knees. After about ten crawls, I reach a spot with a low surge of water between me and the next rock. I slide into the water and gasp as my feet go instantly numb. But it isn't too deep. The water pools around my knees as the tide rushes in. I take a deep breath and launch my body forward, flinging myself onto the next rock. I haul myself up to a standing position again. I turn around and wave. Ellen gives me the thumbs-up.

There is a clear path now between me and the rock with the treasure. Once again I get down on my hands and knees and crawl so I won't slip on the seaweed. My whole body is soaked by now. I inch forward. Barnacles cut my hands, my pants are heavy, my shoes are soaked and my knees ache. I crane my neck to look for Ellen, but I can't see her anymore.

The tide is coming in faster now. I take a deep breath and move forward, knowing I have to get to the rock with the treasure before waves start breaking on it. Slowly, slowly, inch by inch, I close in on it. With a stretch, I reach the next rock and pull myself up, then sit at the top and take a deep breath.