Finding Fortune (17 page)

“The tower!” I clapped my hands together. “I bet that's it. Did you ever try searching up there?”

Hildy winced. “I did. But to tell the truth, I barely made it off the stairs. I was afraid of giving myself a heart attack. Who knows if anyone would have ever found me.” She lifted one thin eyebrow. “Now that I think about it though, the tower might be worth another look, but”—she pointed a crooked finger at me—“I don't want Hugh climbing up there. He's too unpredictable, and for all I know, that floor could be rotted through. You probably shouldn't be snooping around up there either for that matter.”

Before I could argue, the guys came lumbering down the hall with another display case. “Bless you, Elton,” Hildy said, patting the Mayor's arm as he shuffled past us. “I'm going to have more showing-off space than I know what to do with.”

 

TWENTY-ONE

IN THE GYM
Hildy pointed me to a plot of space she had staked out under the basketball hoop near the
Little Miss
. The wooden trunk I had seen on the balcony sat next to two card tables and folding chairs. Hildy motioned for me to take one seat while she took the other. Then she unlatched the lid of the chest and flipped it back. “
This
is what I need your help with today,” she announced. “Sorting photographs.”

It was hard not to make a face. The pictures, mainly black-and-white and grainy with age, were heaped in a hopeless jumble. Hildy said some were hers, but most had been passed down by Fortune's old-timers and ended up on her doorstep somehow, just like the specimens in her shell collection.

“How do I start?” I asked.

“For now, let's put them into categories,” Hildy told me. “Then we'll pick out the best ones to feature in the display cases.” She plucked up a photo from the muddle in the trunk and turned it over. “For example, here's one of a clamming camp down by the river. So this can be the clamming camp pile.” She slapped the picture down on the corner of the card table next to me, then reached back in the trunk for another photo and began making more stacks and giving more instructions.

I forgot to listen for a second as I studied the clamming picture near my elbow. The camera had focused on a weathered-looking man in overalls who was bent over a workbench under the trees. A heap of shells and some tents filled the background behind him. “Is this your dad?” I asked when Hildy paused for breath.

“No, but my father spent a lot of his days in camps just like that one.” Hildy pointed to something in the corner of the photo. “See that big metal tank? Once the clammers hauled in a load of mussels, they'd carry them up to a shady spot on the shore, dump them in a tank of water, and start a fire underneath. That's how they steamed the shells open so they could get the meat out.”

“So is that how your father found all his pearls?”

Hildy nodded. “Pop was famous in Fortune for how fast he could work his way through a load of shells. His hands would fly, and he'd barely pause or bat an eye whenever he found a pearl. He'd just tuck it into his cheek like a wad of tobacco and keep going.”

I wrinkled my nose. “He put the pearls in his
mouth
?”

“Yep.” Hildy laughed. “It was the surest way to keep your pearls from getting snatched. There was a lot of thieving going on in those days.” Her voice dipped low. “In fact that's how Pop's treasure started. With a little thieving of his own.”

“Really?” I barely moved, afraid of doing anything that might break the spell of Hildy's storytelling.

Hildy set down the pictures she'd been holding. “Pop had worked in shelling ever since he was a little boy,” she began. “At ten years old he was already earning his keep as a carrier, running buckets of shells back and forth. He found himself mixing with all sorts of unscrupulous types—the rowdy clammers and the pearl buyers who came through town. A lot of the buyers were swindlers, known for fixing their scales and measuring tools, and trying to trick the clammers into taking a lower price. There was one buyer in particular, a man named Peacock, who was notorious for cheating people.”

Hildy stopped and listened for a minute, making sure the others were still occupied on the opposite side of the gym. “Whenever he conducted business,” she went on, “Peacock would lay out a square of black satin so he could get a better look at the pearls—their quality and color. While most freshwater pearls were white, sometimes the buyers would come across different shades—everything from rosy pink to hints of green and blue. Well, one day when Peacock came through town, he couldn't resist showing off his latest prize—a large pearl with a rare salmon color that he'd bought from a clammer up in Wisconsin earlier in the week. The Blushing Beauty he called it, and he laid it out on his black cloth for his so-called friends in the tavern to admire. When they all crowded around to see, some young fellow who had had one too many bumped the table and the pearl went flying. There was a mad scramble, and when all was said and done the pearl was gone. Peacock raged and blustered and demanded everyone turn out their pockets. The search went on for hours, but my father was long gone with the Blushing Beauty in his hot little hand.”

I drew in a sharp breath. “Your father took it? He was there?”

“Indeed he was.” Hildy couldn't contain her crafty smile. “He had come to the tavern that afternoon to deliver a message to one of the clammers and he happened to be at the right place at the right time. He was so small and quick, only one or two people even noticed he was there. And since Peacock wasn't exactly popular in town, well, the police didn't worry themselves with a very thorough investigation.”

“Wow. So your father kept the Blushing Beauty a secret all those years?”

“He had to,” Hildy said, “if he didn't want to get caught. The story became pretty famous around here, and people would have recognized that pink pearl in an instant if he had tried to sell it.”

“Did you ever see it? The Blushing Beauty? And the other pearls?”

“Not for years. I was a teenager in high school when Pop finally told me the story and showed me the wooden box that he kept them in. By that time, things weren't going so well for my father. My mother had died and the bottom was falling out of the shelling business.”

Hildy paused long enough to give me a grave look. “That's about the time he started drinking.” She turned and nodded sadly at the
Little Miss
. “He pulled his boat out of the water for good. Tom was the one who had to make ends meet. Even though business was winding down at McNally and Sons, Tom had managed to get a job in the office there. But cash was tight, and whenever Pop would run out of drinking money, he'd sneak off and sell a pearl or two.”

“Not the Blushing Beauty.”

“Oh, no. But he probably would have if Tom hadn't stepped in before he shipped off to join the army.” Hildy shook her head ruefully. “Tom wanted to keep those pearls safe for me. But here I am still looking. My poor brother's probably rolling over in his grave.”

“Hildy,” I said, “I know you think it'd be a miracle if we found that box. But what if we did? What would you do? Would you really sell the Blushing Beauty? It sounds so beautiful.”

Hildy sighed. “You're right. If I ever find those pearls, it would break my heart to part with them again. But Tom meant them to be my nest egg”—she scanned the gym with a helpless laugh—“which would sure come in handy right about now.” Then she slapped her hands on her knees and rocked herself to her feet. “But that's all silly talk. We got to keep thinking positive, and our best bet right now is making a good impression on those folks from the society.”

Once Hildy had hurried off to see what the others were up to, I sat in a daze for a minute. After everything Hildy had told me, I was more determined than ever to sneak up to the tower and see if my instincts were right. But I knew I should bide my time until I could disappear without being noticed.

I reached in the trunk and pulled out a handful of pictures. So often I had wondered what Fortune was like in the old days, before it had turned to weeds and broken glass and crumbled stone. Now I could see. It was all there in the photographs—the clamming camps, the button factories inside and out, the bustling streets when business was booming.

I lingered over the details—the factory ladies' changing hair and dress styles and the way the swaggering young button-cutters posed with their caps cocked over one eye. When I came upon a manila envelope full of photos from former pearl button festivals, I pored over each one, searching the buildings in the background for features I might recognize. A little shiver went through me when I spotted a boy leaning out from a second-floor window of McNally and Sons, waving down at the parade passing by below.

Needless to say, I hadn't made much progress when Hugh came zipping around the corner an hour later and found me hovered over another batch of pictures. “Hey, what are you doing? Did you miss me?” he jabbered as he scooped up my stack of festival photographs. “Is this the pearl button festival? Is Hildy in any of these?”

“Not so far,” I said, trying not to sound impatient as I reached out to take the pictures back. “But I've got a lot more to go through.”

Hugh plunked himself down in the seat beside me. “Can I help?”

“I don't think so, Hugh. See, Hildy wants all the photos divided into categories.” I gestured to the dozen or so stacks I had laid out across the two card tables. “And the system we've got going is kind of tricky. Sorry.”

Hugh's face fell. He sat watching me in silence for a while, and then he whispered, “What about the pearls? I made Mine leave the library as fast as I could. Aren't we going to keep searching? You said you wanted to go back to Room 26 and look in those cabinets again.”

“I know.” I sighed loudly, pretending to be disappointed. “But I guess we're going to have to wait until after the visit from those historical society people. Did Hildy tell you about them coming tomorrow? I need to keep working so I can get these pictures organized in time.”

Hugh crossed his arms and scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the floor.

“Why don't you go check with Garrett?” I suggested. I could hear the screech of metal on wood across the gym and Hildy's scratchy voice calling out orders. “Sounds like he might need some help over there.”

“No way,” Hugh muttered. “Tucker's already helping him.”

Hugh drifted off, and a few minutes later I noticed him sitting inside the
Little Miss
with his chin in his hands. I tried to ignore the flicker of guilt rising in my chest. Hugh would love nothing better than hearing the tale of the Blushing Beauty and searching the tower with me. But now that Hildy had officially warned me, I couldn't risk taking him up there again.

When Mine came to the gym around noon and yelled that lunch was ready, I stood up slowly and stretched, peering over the boxes. Hugh was already plodding toward the door, and Tucker and Garrett were heading in the same direction. When I didn't join them, Hildy stopped by the card table to check on me.

“Time for a break,” she said. “Aren't you coming? Madeline's gotten pretty good at making grilled cheeses.”

I reached my hands toward the basketball hoop for another stretch. “No thanks,” I said. “I ate a really big breakfast. I think I'll stay here and keep working.”

“Well, be sure and come down to the kitchen if you get hungry,” Hildy said as she turned to go.

“I will,” I told her, even though I had no intention of changing my mind.

 

TWENTY-TWO

I HADN'T EXPECTED THE WIND.
The corn had barely been stirring when I rode my bike to the school that morning. But now when I stole a look over the railing, the green stalks were bent almost sideways. I glanced up at the sky. No wonder Mr. Bonnycastle had climbed to the tower for cloud-watching. There were 360 degrees of them—puffy white wisps hung over Fortune, but off toward Bellefield the sky had turned the color of bruises.

At least the wind had driven the wasps away, and from what I could tell, the floor of the tower was completely sturdy. I dropped to my knees and crawled to the far left corner to get started. If Tom had hidden the pearls in the tower, I figured he would have pried up one of the boards and hidden the box in the hollow underneath. The only way to find out, I decided, was to work my way from side to side, creeping back and forth until I had covered the four low walls under the railing's banister and all the floor space in between.

I couldn't help smiling at first. I knew I looked like a crazy person as I hunched over the boards, knocking here and there and hunting for raised edges and missing nails. But when a low round of thunder rumbled in the distance, I sat up in a panic to check my watch and the darkening sky. Luckily only ten minutes had passed since I'd left the gym and there wasn't any lightning yet. I crouched over the floorboards again.

By the time I finished searching the last corner, my knees were raw and I had two splinters lodged in the heel of my hand. “This is so stupid,” I hissed, pushing myself to my feet in frustration. Mr. Baxter was probably right. The pearls were gone and most likely it was Mr. Bonnycastle who took them.

I must have stood up too fast because a sudden wave of dizziness rippled over me. I was tottering there, waiting for the floor to turn steady again, when something swooped down in the wind and brushed against my cheek.
A wasp
. I wheeled around, batting the air, and all at once I was stumbling forward and throwing my hands out to grab the rail. As I lurched against the banister I heard a sharp crack, and Hildy's warning about rotten wood came flooding back.

I froze for a long second, staring out at Garrett's half-finished labyrinth, the spinning pathway of shells and bloodred paint. Then, slowly, I moved my gaze downward. Between my hands, just at the spot where my stomach had landed, the railing was splintered and two of the spindles below it had slipped from their sockets and hung out over the slanted roof. I could feel the wood creaking under my rib cage. If I made a sudden move or leaned too far forward, the rail might give way. I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath. Then, clenching every muscle, I shrank backward, inch by inch, until I was standing safely inside the tower again.