The Ghosts of Sand Island Lighthouse by Tim D. Smith

Author:Tim D. Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TouchPoint Press

Chapter 21

Dex flailed into the room, stopping with wide eyes, and closed the door behind him. The lock was open, but the little wooden case remained closed. I looked to Dex and he looked back to me, but neither of us budged.

“Well?” Dex asked. “What are you waiting for?”

I honestly didn’t know what I was waiting for. Opening the box seemed somehow wrong at the moment. My hand trembled, poised above it, as if I was about to perform the finale of a long, drawn-out magic trick.

“I don’t know if I can,” I told Dex.

“Why?”

“I just don’t know if we should.”

“What was the combination?”

How could I tell him? It was my birthday. I realized my answer was in my question, and I pulled the lid back. What was inside was a disappointment, or so I thought. One folded sheet of paper. In fact, it wasn’t even a full sheet of paper and was somewhat torn on one side as if my grandfather had needed something to write on and found a scrap lying around. Still, it had been folded once. But why was it locked in this box?

I removed and opened our discovery. The “note” was written in two short rows: 30 11 16 on the first and 88 03 02 on the second. I glanced back up to Dex’s expressionless face. For a moment we sat that way without speaking, and Dex finally broke the silence.

“It has to be important. He wouldn’t have locked it in a box if it wasn’t important.”

“But what could the numbers mean?”

Dex shook his head without speaking.

“We finally unlock the box,” I continued, “and we’re no closer than we were before at figuring out what was in it.”

“Maybe it’s the combination to a lock,” Dex said.

It made sense. Our locks at school always had a number to the left, another to the right, and a last number to the left. But why were there two rows?

“There must be another box,” I said. “And maybe a third . . .”

Fully charged, Dex’s mind was working overtime. “Or, it could be steps. If we start from somewhere and walk so many steps south, east, and then north, we’ll find where your grandfather buried something.”

I was truly amazed. But his hypothesis begged another question.

“Why would we start south?”

“It’s a big number, at least the second one is. If we started north, we’d be in the bay.”

“So, the second number is narrowed down to east or west,” I reasoned. “If we know where to start.”

“Probably at the shed,” Dex continued.

“Grandma’s going to kill us if we dig up the yard and leave big holes.”

“We’ll fill them in after we find the treasure. Come on.”

I followed Dex out of the room and toward the shed, and our day of treasure hunting began. We started at the shed, carrying granddad’s pick and shovel, and walked out the steps. Both ways. Nothing. Big holes we had to fill. We started at the water’s edge and one of the ending spots was concrete.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.