Sinbad and Me Read online

Sinbad gave her his special how-can-do-this-to-me look. She leaned down and socked him across his big shoulders and that cheered him up.

  “See you,” she said and took off. My last glimpse was of her running with that long high stride, like a deer.

  “I bet I’ll get heck from her old man for taking her out on the water on a gusty day like this,” I told Sinbad.

  For him the subject was closed. He kept chugging along like a tank, head close to the ground, pulling so hard I had to keep up with a kind of lope. He always pulls harder when he gets near the house.

  The path through our woods is narrow. It widens near my house. There was enough room for both of us, but for some reason Sinbad slackened his pace and crowded me over to the left side.

  “Come on. Cut it out,” I told him. “Stay on your own side of the road.”

  The path cuts into and runs across my street, about fifteen yards from the house. I looked but there wasn’t any car. Then Sinbad stopped short. Without warning, he suddenly whirled and banged broadside into my knees. I staggered and nearly fell, the end of his leash dropping out of my hand.

  “What’s the big idea?” I yelled crossly. My bones hurt, he hit me so hard. “They’re not home yet. You don’t see any car, do you?”

  I figured he was just celebrating a little prematurely. But his big head was down, his ears twitched back, a deep threatening growl in his throat. He stood there, stiff-legged and tense, keeping his body in front of me and blocking me off.

  Then I saw why.

  A slithering thick body with strange hourglass markings stopped and coiled. Then I noticed the coppery color above it. And the mean-looking, triangular, flat viper’s head.

  A copperhead. It was about three feet long. One of the biggest snakes I’d ever seen. And one of the most dangerous.

  I could smell it now. That bad odor like stale cucumbers. I felt I was turning green myself. One thing I was not expecting was a copperhead snake meeting me on my own front lawn. Suddenly Sinbad darted forward. The snake struck fast, but Sinbad jumped aside in time by the barest fraction. Again he feinted and the snake uncoiled like lightning. Sinbad barked happily. He loves a good fight.

  But Sinbad had never fought a snake. Still he seemed to know exactly what to do, darting in and out, trying to get in close and yet be not too close when those vicious fangs came at him. His idea was to get the snake extended and flattened out. Then he could grab him. One gripping crunch of those mighty jaws and that would be the end of that serpent in my grass.

  Just like one bite of those poison-filled fangs would be the end of Sinbad.

  I knew Sinbad was fast but I always thought he was a kind of clumsy, too. Like most big dogs. He was doing a great job here, like a terrier or a collie. Those are the kind that can really whip in and out.

  But the snake was fast, too. A copperhead is even faster than a rattler. And English bulls are short-winded. So far they’d been about evenly matched, neither one able to get in fast enough to end matters. But I know my dog. He never gives up. Not him. And already he was huffing and puffing while the snake still looked as cool and quiet and deadly as ever.

  Sinbad came in again, weaving back and forth. He feinted with his shoulders and head. The snake waited. Then struck..

  “Look out,” I screamed. Sinbad just got his big feet out of the way by about a sixteenth of an inch!

  I was getting scared now.

  Sinbad backed off, then came in again with a happy bark and a growl. The snake waited. I looked around wildly. It was one thing to defend me, but I didn’t want that dumb mutt getting killed doing it.

  I finally saw the rock I was looking so frantically for. Naturally it had to be right near the snake. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sinbad’s leash trailing.

  “Back off,” I yelled. “Back! Back!”

  He looked up and barked to let me know he’d take care of everything.

  “Look out!” I yelled. Sinbad whirled and once more the snake missed. But I nearly got him killed with my instructions.

  The snake was now facing him in a slightly different direction. I saw my chance to get the rock. It felt good and heavy. I grabbed for Sinbad’s leash, yanked with all my might and brought him up short. All I had was a split second to bring that rock down as hard as I could.

  It worked.

  I smashed its head again just to make sure. Then I got a long stick and flung it into the woods. I let out a deep rattling sigh of relief which Sinbad didn’t share. I’d spoiled all his fun.

  I got him into the house and rubbed him down and dried him. Then I went up and took a hot shower. Then I had to sit down. I was still shaking. I didn’t call Sheriff Landry.

  I’d been brought up in this section. I’d never heard of copperheads around here. I was pretty sure that kind of snake came from down South. Like near Florida. They’ve got the kind of swamps for it.

  But I couldn’t call Sheriff Landry and tell him that. I knew what he’d say in the teeth-clenched, flat-toned voice: Like, did that copperhead snake have any fingerprints on it? And did they match those of the two hard-looking men?

  Naturally I couldn’t prove anything. I reached over to pat Sinbad. He didn’t notice. He was snoring, sound asleep.

  A very relaxed animal.

  CHAPTER 16

  X Marks The Spot

  The phone woke me up an hour later.

  Her voice was as happy as ever. “Steve?” This is Minerva Landry.”

  “I know,” I said sarcastically. How many other girls do I have calling me?”

  “Did you figure it out yet?”

  “Figure what out yet?”

  “You know. Those white marks on the cave.”

  I’d forgotten all about them. “Oh, those. I thought you said they were hug and kisses.”

  “Well, I know I said it. But I don’t believe it.”

  “That makes two of us,” I said. I got the pad out of my shirt and flipped it open. I saw something else I’d written there earlier. “Don’t forget the first one on Captain Billy’s tombstone.”

  “Oh, the one about first dogwatchers following him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you figured that one out yet?”

  “Not quite,” I said. “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “That makes three of us,” I said mysteriously.

  “Three?”

  “Sinbad can’t figure it out either.”

  Then I asked her if she wanted to write them both down.

  In case something happened to me and she had to solve the mystery herself.

  “What can happen to you?”

  I thought of the big copperhead that was a stranger to Long Island lying out there in the woods with a bashed-in skull and a lot of poison in his long fangs he’d never get to use now.

  “Nothing much,” I said. “I might get run over by a truck.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Wait till I get a pencil.” I could see what was more important now. Then I read off the riddles from the tombstone and the cave.

  “Okay, I got it,” she said at last. “I’ll call you right back as soon as I solve them.”

  I told her to do that little thing.

  Then she said: “By the way. My father said if I ever go out with you again in a small boat on the bay in weather like this, I’ll be grounded for thirty days.”

  I’d more or less expected that. “Well, didn’t you tell him it was your idea, for Gosh sakes!” I yelled.

  “No,” she said.

  “Why not?” I demanded.

  “He never asked me,” she said sweetly.

  A second after she hung up I suddenly remembered that burning ship, the River Queen! How had I let that slip my mind?

  Here we’d been near Scuttle Point and in Dead Man’s Cove, the very spot where she’d torn loose from her moorings and drifted ablaze out to sea! It must have been Captain Billy’s riddle and then all that stuff at Dead Man’s cove that knocked it out of my head.

  I made a menta
l note to think about the River Queen some more. I even made a written note. On the page next to the copy of the marks painted in the cave.

  RIVER QUEEN. BURNED 1920. INVESTIGATE.

  I wrote and underlined it three times to make sure I wouldn’t forget. Then I looked at those crazy marks again. Mysterious, all right. They’d looked faded. But not enough to be almost two hundred years old.

  I turned the memo book sideways. Then groaned. Looking sideways only made another riddle. And no more sense.

  OOO OOO XO XXO

  XOO OOO OO OOX

  OOO OOX OO OOX

  XOX OOO XO XXO

  XXO XXO OO OXX

  But I could see now I’d have to try to figure it out that way too. Maybe even standing on my head.

  I was beginning to doubt that this was any ticktacktoe game. You know, three in a row, any way, wins: across, down or at an oblique angle. But here one column had two instead of spaces for three. And the first, second and fourth columns were short by one line.

  So if it wasn’t ticktacktoe, what was it? I had a feeling that if I could figure this out a lot of other things would make sense. Like Captain Billy’s riddle!

  According to the dates, Captain Billy was born in 1711 and died in 1800. In those days there were still plenty of pirates around. And men called corsairs. Or raiders. Or privateers. But they all had one thing in common. They all flew the black flag of the skull and crossbones.

  The sign of death.

  It was possible that Captain Billy was one of those. If he was, then his having a secret cave made sense. Pirates used caves to bury their treasure. And whenever they buried some treasure they made a map of the place or marked it somehow. The mark was always the same.

  The letter X

  X marks the spot!

  The writing on the cave had an awful lot of those X’s. Was it possible there was a treasure buried at every one of them?

  Okay, I decided. It’s possible. So what about those circles? What did they mean?

  I counted them up. There were eighteen X’s. There were thirty-seven circles. If X meant “Dig here,” there were over twice as many signs that said “Don’t bother.”

  If X meant treasure and I found it, it meant Mrs. Teska’s troubles were over! Five thousand dollars was chicken feed to pirates!

  I turned the memo pad straight. This was the way I’d seen it, with the vertical columns of five across. I thought, what if the X marks stood for gold and the circles for silver? Pirates usually had both. Or maybe the circles stood for jewelry.

  Then somehow I got the feeling that it wasn’t any of these. It was a message. All I had to do was figure out what it said.

  I knew secret messages could be a code or a cipher. Only, why then did Captain Billy write it all down there in the cave? When somebody was able to figure it out, where would his treasure be?

  Out of the cave and the cove! That’s for sure.

  Sinbad was still sleeping and I hated to be a dope and give up that quickly and ask him. Besides he was still a dog and I was a reasoning human being. Or supposed to be, anyway.

  The telephone rang. It was my pop from Westport, Maine, and he gave me the bad news fast. He couldn’t get on his feet. The ankle wasn’t broken but it was a bad sprain. So the question was, could I hold out for a few more days by myself? Me and Sinbad. I could always charge things at the store, or eat at friends’ or neighbors’. Sinbad had plenty of canned food, and wherever I was welcome, so was he.

  I said I could always cook up simple stuff like hamburgers if I had to, or make with the tuna fish or peanut butter, stuff I practically live on anyway.

  And I still had the invitation over at Mr. Maytag’s too. So there wasn’t any problem, really.

  I told the truth. I wasn’t worried about anything. Not yet anyway. Whenever they came home, that would be okay. Pop said, well, maybe three more days. Less than a week, for sure. I said, swell.

  Mom got on for a while and gave me a million instructions. I told her the same: not to worry. I wasn’t a child anymore.

  We said goodbye. I made Sinbad his dinner. I made mine, too. There was still enough of the stew but it was coming to an end.

  Later, the telephone rang again. “Hello,” I said, a couple of times. But there wasn’t any answer. I thought I heard somebody breathing at the other end. But how can you be sure?

  Before I hung up I yelled into the phone, “So long, you stupid moron. Whoever you are.”

  Right after that I remembered the snake and I remembered I was alone. Or practically. And they knew where I was. Exactly. Like X marked the spot.

  CHAPTER 17

  Old Silver And New Problems

  Monday morning came as a big surprise to me. I looked out the window and there it was. All over the place.

  Our window is double-hung with counterweights. The early Colonials had the upper sash fixed in place, so you could only operate the lower one. The two sashes also had an unequal number of lights. Sometimes the upper was two panes high, the lower three. Sometimes that was reserved. With the panes, or lights as they call them, running four across, you’d have twelve on top, eight below. All told, twenty panes to look out of.

  I had twelve.

  And each one told me the same good news. We were still alive.

  Nobody put any scorpions in my shoes, or a viper in my pillowcase. There weren’t any black widow spiders dangling overhead. No time bomb had been left outside wrapped in some innocent looking package. Nobody blew poisoned darts through the walnut shutters. No phony gas man in coveralls had turned out to be a black-browed killer underneath. The sun came up pale pink in the sky and the wisps of clouds purpling the horizon weren’t from atom bombs. Probably the only mushrooms around were in Mrs. Teska’s garden.

  It was like nobody cared about eliminating us, for whatever dopey reasons. And I felt so cheered up by this I wanted to keep it that way for a while. So I slipped into my pocket one of the old silver dollars Mrs. Teska had given me. For luck.

  Sinbad had a sneaking suspicion I was going off to school soon, by myself. When he feels that way he just sniffs and snuffles around, pretending he’s interested in the whole bright shining new world that came up during the night. And he stretches our time together all he can.

  Ordinarily that’s okay with me but I had a lot on my mind and there wasn’t going to be enough time for all of it. I tried to hustle him along, explaining he’d already checked on this or that, but he just tuned me out and took his own sweet time.

  I finally said goodbye to Old Sadface and wheeled up my hill in a hurry. If I didn’t want to be late for my first real science class, I would have to beat my fastest time to school.

  Mrs. Teska wasn’t sitting out waving her cane at me, and the blue sign behind the glass door said CLOSED.

  I didn’t have time to check.

  When I got to school Mr. Snowden was just getting there himself. One thing I like is for a teacher to be late. He walked up, nice and easy and relaxed, wearing a big grin. He even waited while I parked my fiery steed in the stall.

  “I can see I’ll have to get up earlier if I want to keep my job,” he said, in that slow fixed way he had of talking. Not leaving out any of the syllables. “Now that you’ve showed me how to use my eyes, I’m having more fun.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. I grinned back. Then I started for the door, so I could get it open. But Mr. Snowden wasn’t in any hurry this morning.

  “I’ve decided I’m going to become an expert on doorways,” he said. “What is it when the pediment is curved?”

  “Late Colonial,” I said.

  He nodded. “Sometimes there are slim twin columns on each side of the door.”

  “Those are called engaged. If the columns are flat, not rounded, they’re called pilasters.”

  “Engaged pilasters,” he said thoughtfully. “I like that. Now I’ve also seen some pediments over doors that are not completed. There’s an urn over the doorway, in the part you call the—” He hesit
ated and scratched his head. “Okay. You tell me.”

  “The entablature?”

  He grinned. “That’s the word.”

  So I explained. “Sometimes the pediment is broken. Or it’s curved. Or it has the swan’s neck, the reverse curves that end in rosettes.”

  “Georgian?” he guessed. He was catching on.

  “Almost. Late Colonial,” I told him. “1700 to 1720.”

  He frowned and shook his head. “They all seem to run together.”

  “Well, I can break it down for you, if you like,” I said. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it unless he really wanted to know.

  “I wish you would. It would take me weeks to research it out of books.”

  “Okay,” I said. “There’s Colonial and Late Colonial. There’s Early Georgian and Late Georgian. Early Georgian is 1720 to 1760, Late Georgian goes from there to 1780.”

  “What kind is yours?” he asked suddenly.

  “Late Georgian. After that comes Federal. Sometimes it’s called Georgian Climax, or Post Colonial. That’s from 1780 to 1820. After that came Thomas Jefferson’s Roman, then the Greek Revival.”

  “All right. I have the period names,” he said. “Now how can I tell them apart?” he was a science teacher all right.

  “You can tell from the doorways, the windows or the roofs,” I began. “The Colonial homes were small and low with steep pitched roofs. In Georgian, they became bigger and fancier, the doorways paneled, with a row of rectangular lights either in the door itself or in a transom over it.

  “Then the doorways became framed in pilasters, sometimes the engaged columns. They put side lights in, not yet as part of the door framing but outside the pilasters. On Later Georgian, they’re inside. The fanlight became semi-circular, then elliptical. On Federal you’ll see the fanlight extending all the way over both the doors and the side lights.”

  My dad would have gotten a big kick out of this, me telling my science teacher what he originally had told me.

  “Starting with Georgian, the doorway became centrally located. Flanked on either side by two windows or bays on the first floor. The same pattern above. Later, they accented the window over the entrance. The one you can’t miss is called Palladian, after the architect who designed it. It’s got three elements, a central arched opening, with keystone, flanked by rectangular windows. That’s very Late Georgian, practically Federal. We don’t have one on our house,” I added, “and I don’t know why.”