“Calling my boat a tub is a great way to get dunked,” Ben said with a smile, only half kidding. “First we have to take the boat out where it’s deep enough to start off.”
“You mean, walk?”
“Unless you can fly.”
“But . . . my feet’ll get wet.”
“Sailing a small boat and being wet are pretty much the same thing,” said Ben. “You get used to it.”
“Sounds great.”
It was low tide, so even after pushing the boat about forty feet from shore, the water was only two feet deep. The breeze was running mostly northward along the beach, so there wasn’t much surf to deal with. Ben fastened the rudder in place.
“Okay, now!” They both hopped in, and he pushed the centerboard down into its slot. He pointed and said, “Sit down there on the floor, and watch your head.” He tapped the aluminum pole along the bottom of the sail. “This is the boom, and it swings from side to side a lot. I’ll give you a warning when it’s coming overhead, but keep a sharp eye on it.”
“Aye, aye, cap’n,” Jill said.
She was mocking him, but Ben didn’t care. He’d never been called captain before. And it was true. Here he was, at the helm of his very own boat—Captain Benjamin Pratt!
He gave the tiller a few quick shoves to angle the hull more across the wind. He paid out the sheet a little, and the breeze puffed the sail tight and smooth. The dinghy leaped forward across the waves, and in no time they were a hundred yards out into Barclay Bay.
“Wow!” Jill said. “This thing really flies!”
She wasn’t mocking now. With salt water rushing past and the air tossing sharp spray into her face, the raw power of the wind and the waves impressed her—the ocean did that to everybody. In his few years as a solo sailor, Ben had learned to be humble out on the water. And never to get comfortable. So many things could go wrong—like what had happened to Robert Gerritt during last weekend’s sailing race.
Sure, the guy had been taking risks, pushing his boat way too hard in rough conditions. Still, you don’t expect to drown during a junior Optimist race. And if it hadn’t been for Ben, Robert would have.
But he couldn’t think about that now. He had a boat to steer. Down to the south there was a regatta—big fixed-keel yachts. It was a broad course, plus there was a lot of spectator traffic. Best to stay well away from the action.
“Want to sail up past the school?”
“Sure,” said Jill. “This is really amazing, to go this fast with just the wind? Very cool!”
Ben wanted to tell her about real sailing—this was barely moving. Because an Optimist could handle some pretty wild air. He wanted to explain why they should be constantly shifting their weight around to keep the boat planing on its best surfaces, and then show her the difference between a beam reach and a broad reach, and maybe how to steer close to the wind.
He kept his mouth shut. For now, he’d let her enjoy the ride. If she liked it, there’d be time for sailing school another day. Still, she had to know a few things for safety.
“Okay, I’m going to come about in a few seconds, which means I’m going to turn the boat so the wind’ll be pushing on the other side of the sail. That lets us sail in a different direction, which is called tacking. And this boom’s gonna swing across the hull. So when I yell, ‘Ready about,’ you switch to this side of the boat, and I’ll move to that side. And be ready to duck, okay?”
She nodded, and Ben barked, “Ready about!”
He jammed the tiller to starboard, which swung the bow to port as the boom flew across the hull. Jill ducked and scrambled to the other side, and Ben sat up on the opposite gunwale, tucking his feet under the toe straps.
Now the bow was aimed straight toward the school.
“The town’s beautiful,” Jill said. “I’ve never seen it from out here.”
“Really?” Ben said. “You haven’t been on the bay before? Ever?”
“Nope. We go north for vacations. My family has a cabin on Lake Winnipesaukee. We water-ski and canoe and stuff, but we don’t have a sailboat. It’s a big lake, but nothing like this.”
Ben couldn’t imagine living beside the ocean and not getting out onto it. If his parents hadn’t had the Tempus Fugit, he’d have found something—a rowboat, a kayak, even a blow-up raft with a paddle—anything to get onto the water.
As they came in toward land, Jill said, “If you’d had your phone on, I could have told you some good news this morning.”
“Oh yeah? What?”
“We can get into the school this afternoon at three thirty. The Historical Society is moving a bunch of old tools out of there today. My mom’s on the committee, so I asked if we could come along and help carry stuff. And get this—Lyman won’t be there. Pretty great, huh?”
“Wow, yeah,” said Ben, “sounds terrific.” He paused a beat. “But I should tell you something.”
He hesitated, and Jill could tell he didn’t want to go on.
“Yes . . . ,” she said, “keep talking.”
“Well, I sneaked into the school last night, and around midnight—”
“You what?”
Jill leaned forward suddenly to look up under the sail at Ben. She lost her balance, and then grabbed for the mast. The boat tipped wildly, and a big slurp of seawater rushed over the gunwale behind Ben.
“Sit back! Sit back!” Ben yelled. She did, and the boat evened up. “Grab that bailer and scoop the water out!”
Jill was sitting in four inches of slosh, but she didn’t reach for the bailer. “You went into the school, and you didn’t tell me?”
The wind gusted, and quickly they were thirty feet from the granite seawall in front of the school, closing fast.
“Ready about!” Ben yelled. “Duck!”
Jill ducked just in time and scrambled to the other side. When the wind caught the sail, the boat heeled up and all the water rushed her way again, splashing over her knees and legs.
Ben spoke quickly. “Just listen, okay? It was late, my mom was asleep, I had Mr. Keane’s keys and I knew I could get in, so I went for it. That’s all . . . sort of the way you rushed out Wednesday night and ripped up those surveying stakes—same kind of thing. And it seemed like a good idea, to have time to look around with no interruptions.”
Jill reached for the bailer. Tossing scoop after scoop of water overboard, she scowled. “So you had to get one up on me, is that it?”
“No, that’s not it,” Ben said. “If I’d thought there was a way you could’ve gotten out last night, I’d have called you . . . except if I had, we’d have probably talked each other out of it. And I needed to do something.”
Jill splashed half a scoop of salt water into his face. “Oops—I guess I’m not very good at this sailor stuff.”
Ben blinked the water away and clenched his jaw. He set a course a few points off the wind, steering to reach a position south of the marina. He wanted to come about just once more and then run downwind, straight back to the beach. It was time for this voyage to end.
The boat skipped across the cold water, and the bow spray kept hitting Jill in the face, which was normal on a tack so close to the wind.
Ha—too bad!
But he was impressed that Jill didn’t complain . . . or accuse him of making it happen on purpose.
After several minutes, she said, “So, you might as well tell me how it went at the school. Find anything?”
Ben was dreading this part too.
“No, not really. I was . . . interrupted.”
Jill ducked low and looked up into his face. “You got caught?”
“Not actually caught. I was in the north stairwell, just getting started, and I got a text. All I can figure is, Lyman must have installed some kind of an alarm system in the last day or two. And we know he could have gotten hold of our cell phone numbers.”
“A text from Lyman?”
“Well, the name was blocked, but it had to be from him. It said, ‘Go home now. At 12:09 your momm
y wakes up.’”
“Your mommy?” Jill made a face. “That is creepy.”
“Tell me about it. Then I got a phone call, and it was the Edgeport police. Which I didn’t pick up. I sprinted home, and at exactly 12:09, my mom’s phone rang. I’d just made it into bed, lying there sweating, and all she did was yell up the stairs to make sure I was okay. I have no idea if it was Lyman who called her, or what was said—probably, ‘Sorry, wrong number,’ or something. So, he won. And proved that he’s got some skills.”
“Serious skills,” said Jill.
They were both quiet as the boat slapped along. Ben leaned forward a little and peeked at Jill’s face through the plastic window in the sail. Her lips were blue, almost purple, and she was shivering. Below the sail he saw both her hands clenched tight—then he remembered the fresh cuts on her palms from pulling out those surveying stakes. The salt water had to sting like crazy.
“Sorry you got soaked,” he said. “Not a very nice introduction to sailing. I really wanted you to like it.”
“Sailing?” she snapped. “Who says I don’t like sailing? I just don’t like you taking off on your own and being stupid.”
“Oh, so yanking out a hundred stakes, that makes you a genius, right?”
She smirked. “At least when I did something dumb, I didn’t get caught.”
“Coming about!” he barked. “Duck!”
They scrambled to switch sides. The breeze had quartered toward the west, so Ben steered straight downwind at the beach north of the marina.
“Duck again.”
He let the sheet out. The boom passed above Jill’s head, and then he held it almost perpendicular to the hull. Now there was no sail blocking his view of her. She looked like a soggy puppy.
“Are you going to name your boat?” she asked. “I think you should call it Brainless.”
He grinned across at her. “No, I’m gonna name it after you—Grumpy Guts.”
“Very mature, Benjamin.”
She acted annoyed, but he’d seen the tiny smile.
They were still about fifty yards from shore, and the water was already getting shallow. The breeze freshened, and the dinghy shot ahead.
“Look,” he said, “we’re coming in pretty fast, and I’m going to have to come about into the wind just before we hop out.” Tapping with his free hand, he said, “This is the centerboard, and when I yell, ‘Coming about,’ pull it straight up, okay? And don’t forget to duck.”
Jill nodded meekly. The swell was running about two feet now, and the surf had kicked up. Again, the ocean demanded her respect.
It was easy to mess up a beach landing, and Ben didn’t want to look like a total idiot . . . again. He scanned the next set of waves and spotted a lull, but he didn’t really know this beach, so he had to guess about the depth.
Ten more yards, then, “Ready about!”
He hauled in the sheet, jammed the tiller to starboard, and the boat did a full one-eighty. Jill lifted the centerboard, and Ben hopped out into the water—right up to his waist. The sail flapped, and it took all his strength to keep the bow aimed into the wind. He backed toward the beach. As the first big wave hit the front of the boat, he lost his footing and his grip, and glugged all the way under.
Spluttering up, he grabbed the stern again, then pulled the rudder free of its pins and set it down in the well. Then he worked his way forward along the gunwale. Once he had hold of the bow, he backed the boat in toward the shore. Ben lowered the sprit, then said, “Help me lift it onto the sand, okay?”
“Sure,” Jill said. She stepped into the water, and together they eased the boat up just beyond the waves.
While Ben got the sail down, Jill stood there shivering on the hard-pack, looking at one of the large yachts out past the piers. She cleared her throat loudly, and it seemed like she was forcing herself to speak. “It really was amazing to be out there . . . so thanks. And I’m sorry you think I’m such a . . . grump.”
“No,” he said quickly, “I deserved all that stuff you said. Listen, I can do everything else here, so you should go out to my dad’s boat and get dried off—you look frozen.”
“Actually, the sun feels warm now. I’ll help.”
“Great.”
By the time they had the rigging off the boat, Ben’s dad had come to the beach. He helped lift the hull up onto the dolly. The boat was only about eighty pounds, but it took all three of them to pull the dolly across the soft sand to the storage shed.
When the boat was stowed, his dad went to see Kevin at the security shed. Ben and Jill walked to the pier and climbed onto the planks.
She took off the borrowed waterproofs and hat and handed everything to Ben. Her lips weren’t blue anymore, but she still looked like a wet puppy.
“So, if you can get over to the school by three thirty, I’ll meet you at the back door by the loading dock. Okay?”
Ben nodded. “Sounds good . . . and thanks again for coming out with me.”
“Thanks for asking. Maybe I’ll get better at it.”
“You did great for your first time—no kidding.”
She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Right. I’ll see you later.”
“Yup, see you.”
Her sneakers squished as she walked away. Ben chuckled to himself. Then he turned and headed out the pier toward the Tempus Fugit.
He took a quick inventory: a maiden voyage in his new sailboat, a rip-roaring argument at sea, a near capsize, plus an almost mutiny. And in an hour or so he’d meet up with Jill for more exploring at the school.
It was turning out to be quite a Saturday.
CHAPTER 5
The Weirdness Factor
“Hey—where are you guys?” The voice echoed down the long hallway.
Ben pulled Jill around the corner across from the library. “You invited him?” he whispered. “Why?”
They were on the first floor of the Oakes School. They had escaped the work party in the janitor’s room by explaining to Jill’s mom how they needed more photos for their history project.
From somewhere near the main office, Robert Gerritt called again.
“Hey, losers—Jill said we had to work on the project today, but if you’re gonna play hide-and-seek, I’m outta here.”
Jill started to answer, but Ben grabbed her arm and hissed, “Let him leave!”
She pulled free and went around the corner. “Down here, Robert—we were headed for the north stairwell. Sorry.”
Turning back to Ben, she whispered, “I wanted him here because he’s really smart, and we need him on our side.”
Ben stared at her, his mouth wide open. “You don’t mean . . .”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. We are running out of time here, Benjamin, so I say we tell him everything, and then—”
“Tell me what?”
Robert had a clipboard in one hand and a pocket video camera in the other. He aimed the camera Ben’s way. “And speak up—this thing’s got a lousy microphone.”
Ben made a face and turned his back.
Jill said, “Well, it’s kind of—”
“Ohhh,” said Robert, wheeling to aim his video camera at Jill. “This is about how you two are all lovey-dovey now, right? Well, don’t bother, okay? Besides it’s all over the school anyway.”
“What!?” Ben spun around, his face turning red. “That’s just . . . that’s stupid!”
Robert grinned, pointing his camera. “Oh, yeah . . . he’s blushing—nice! Go on, you can talk about it . . . Benjamin. I can see you want to—and I’ll try not to throw up. So come on, tell me all about it.”
Standing there with clenched fists, Ben came close to wishing he’d let Robert drown last weekend.
“You’re an idiot, Gerritt! We were talking about stuff you couldn’t even imagine!”
Robert smirked. “Yeah, as if there’s anything you could know that I didn’t figure out two years ago—including how to sail better than you ever will! I am so glad I’m getting this on
video!”
Ben stepped forward, and the two of them stood almost nose to nose.
“Okay,” Ben growled, “here’s something you didn’t figure out”—he swatted Robert’s arm away—“and shut off that stupid camera before I do it for you!”
Jill pushed her way between them. “Stop it, both of you!”
Robert clicked a button and held the camera out so Ben could see the dark screen. “There, it’s off, bigmouth. Finish what you were saying.”
Ben kept his voice low, but he practically spat the words in Robert’s face. “You think we’re doing some stupid history assignment for a few extra-credit points! Well, we’re not. There’s a war going on here, and Jill and I are fighting to keep the school from being torn down. And even though there’s a spy right here in these halls every day, we’ve already found gold and keys and secrets right under his nose, stuff that’s been hidden since the 1700s! And that’s what I didn’t want to tell you, because you’re a complete zipperhead!”
Robert looked at Ben a long moment, and glanced at Jill. Then he tipped his head back and laughed.
“Ha! You must really think I’m stupid if you think I’m gonna fall for that! Hidden gold? Secrets? Spies? Oooooh—scaaary! Is that the best you can do? Lame!”
Ben pulled out his phone and handed it to Robert. “Read this text, the one last night just after midnight—see it?”
“Yeah . . . so?”
“Follow me.”
Ben turned on his heel and walked past the library, then took a right toward the northeast exit. Robert and Jill caught up to him.
“Last night I used the keys I got from Mr. Keane and I—”
“Hold it,” Robert said, coming to a stop. “Old man Keane, the janitor? The dead guy? You’ve got his keys? Right.”
Ben reached into his backpack, pulled out the keys, and shook them in front of Robert’s face.
Ben was walking again. “Like I said, last night I opened this door, and minutes later I got that text on my phone. So right now, I need to look and see how the spy—that’s right, Gerritt—how the spy knew that I was inside the school.”
Ben pushed the door wide and began examining the outside edge.