We Hold These Truths Page 5

  “You grab the left edge and I’ll get this side. . . . Okay, now lower it to the ground.”

  They both had to lean down, because the floor was a good six feet below the platform they stood on. Ben decided the panel must be made of pine—it didn’t weigh very much.

  They straightened up and aimed their headlamps where the panel had been, and Ben knew exactly what they were looking at.

  It was a door.

  CHAPTER 11

  Indiana Pratt

  This was not a normal door. Anyone could tell that much.

  But Ben needed a closer look, and Jill was in front of him again, blocking part of his view.

  “Um, could we swap places for a second?”

  “Yeah, Jill,” Robert said. “Move aside and let Indiana Pratt come to the rescue.”

  Another wisecrack. Gerritt was pushing hard today, and it was very distracting. Ben was almost sure it was because of that business with Wally before school—he was going to have to find a way to bring that up . . .

  “No problem,” said Jill, and Ben snapped back into the moment. She stepped aside and slipped past him on the narrow walkway.

  Up close with his headlamp on full power, Ben confirmed what he’d thought: The door was covered with copper—several large, overlapping sheets. The metal had turned a mottled green. Oxidation—that’s what Mr. Collins would call it.

  Similar to the wooden hatchway Robert had opened, this door also had an iron ring lying flat, set into its surface. Ben worked the ring out far enough to get both hands around it and pulled. . . . Nothing, no give at all.

  And that’s when he saw the wire—a twisted loop of wire at the upper left-hand corner of the door frame.

  “Hey, guys!” he called. “Remember the pictures I took of that little brass coffin lid last week? The edges of this door are sealed shut exactly the same way!”

  He snapped four quick photos. The wire was embedded in pine pitch that had been pushed into the crack between the door and the granite blocks surrounding it. Putting his index finger through the twisted wire, he pulled. It ripped through the brittle resin all around the door frame, and dark chips flew off in all directions.

  Ben dropped the wire, grabbed the ring on the door, and yanked at it again. There was a little movement this time, but just a fraction of an inch. He felt footsteps behind him, and then Robert’s light was on the door, too, scanning the edges.

  “You’re pulling the wrong way, Pratt. The door doesn’t open out—or in either. It slides to the right. . . . See those scrape marks?”

  Ben pulled sideways on the ring, and the door slid smoothly, gliding into a slot built into the wall. Then he squeezed to the left and said, “You figured it out, Gerritt—you should go in first.”

  Robert grinned. “Yeah, that way I’m the one who gets an axe in the neck from the booby trap, right?”

  Robert went ahead anyway. Ben was right behind him, and Jill followed them both. All three stood still, just inside the doorway, not saying a word, their headlamp beams darting around the space as they tried to take it all in.

  The first thing Ben saw was a massive ship’s wheel—actually, a double wheel with a wide cylinder in between! It stood in the corner to the left of the doorway, held up by a stand that looked like it had been ripped right off the quarterdeck of a warship. And as he looked at that wooden stand, he noticed the beautiful red-and-blue oriental rug it rested on—the floor of the whole room was nearly covered with thick, rich carpets! The room itself was fairly large, probably twenty feet by thirty feet, and the low ceiling was held up by a dozen sturdy wooden posts.

  Jill said, “Can you believe this place? It’s like a museum!”

  Ben walked to a square table with raised edges that stood in the center of the room. “This is a chart table—and these maps? They’re probably the ones the captain actually used!”

  He aimed his phone’s camera and took a quick picture of the map on top—it was Barclay Bay, and there on the shoreline of Edgeport, he saw that the captain’s building had been circled with black ink. Ben wanted to look at every single chart, but there were too many other things to see.

  Walking to the back of the room, he found a round table with six chairs. There was a full set of sterling silver dining dishes, two candlesticks, plus six goblets and six sets of silverware, all laid out—every piece tarnished completely black, but heavy, and covered with rich engravings. It was like the captain was expecting to entertain visitors . . . and then it struck Ben.

  “Guys, guys! This whole room? It was made to look like the captain’s cabin on a ship! See the bunk over there, with the board along the side? That was to keep someone from rolling out of bed when the waves were rough. And that hanging brass lamp, and the chart table with the raised sides? Just like in a captain’s cabin! And check out the cabinet with the pistols and swords and muskets—all that stuff was kept locked up in the captain’s quarters until right before a battle!”

  Robert had just opened another glass-fronted cabinet, and he gave a low whistle. “Old Man Oakes brought his whole library down here! Here’s a huge Bible . . . and a ton of books about navigation and shipbuilding. There’s a poetry section, and folded maps . . . and all kinds of science books about plants and animals and fish. And a bunch more about astronomy . . . and Shakespeare’s plays, too! These are probably worth millions!”

  Ben lifted the lid of a brass-strapped sea chest and found more books, dozens of leather-bound volumes. He carefully opened one and saw neat, precise handwriting on every page. He was holding the ship’s log for a voyage of a ship called The Anne, which had sailed from Edgeport for London on April 3, 1762. Captain Oakes had written out the names of all the officers and crew, and he’d recorded a complete list of the cargo. Page after page, there were calculations of the ship’s position, which stars had been visible in the night sky, the daily weather reports, and the distance the ship had traveled from noon to noon, day by day—all the way from Edgeport to the docks in London on the Thames River. The voyage had taken seventy-seven days—over two and a half months!

  Ben closed the log and put it back in the chest. He was about to pull out another one, when he noticed something. There was no carpet under the sea chest, so he could see the floor. And it was covered with copper! He took three steps and lifted the edge of a rug—underneath was also copper, and unlike the greenish copper that had covered the outer door, in here all the metal was that rich, orange-brown color of an old penny. Then he aimed his light at the ceiling, and at the wall behind the dining table. The entire room had been encased with copper sheets, with every edge sealed together with melted lead! And in a flash, Ben knew exactly why: This room had been designed to stay dry!

  The copper lining had done its job perfectly. Even though this space was deep underground and only fifty feet from the ocean, the room and everything in it had been completely protected from dampness and decay for more than two hundred years. If anything, the room felt dry and dusty—more like an attic than a basement.

  “Here’s the whole Oakes family!” called Jill.

  Ben shut the sea chest and went to look. Jill was peering at six miniatures, small framed portraits arranged on the wall beside the bunk. The pictures had been painted on three-inch ovals that looked like ivory: Captain Oakes, his wife, and four children—three boys and a girl. Everyone looked stiff and formal in their fanciest clothes.

  “And look at this!” Robert said. “It’s like a cash register!”

  In a deep drawer below the gun cabinet, Ben saw several hundred gold and silver coins. “Yow!” he whispered. “That is some serious dough!”

  Two thick blocks of pine ran the full width of the drawer, and along the outer edges of both blocks, a row of holes had been bored into the wood—holes just the right diameter and depth to fit a tall stack of coins.

  Ben said, “I wonder if those—”

  But Jill interrupted. “What I wonder is this: Is anything we’ve seen in here going to make a difference when it comes t
o actually stopping the Glennley plan? The weapons and the books and stuff—it’s all amazing, and the historical importance is completely crazy, not to mention what everything’s worth. But here’s the important question: Will any of it really help?” She paused a moment, then said, “And I say no. None of this stuff is going to matter one bit. Not the documents, not the artifacts, not the place itself. Remember what happened after we found the Underground Railroad station, and we were so sure that it would be enough to make the building a national landmark? Glennley completely robbed us, and they’ll try to do the same thing here—they’ll figure out a way to blend all of this into their amusement park. I just don’t think any of this can be turned into a real weapon that we can use.”

  Robert said, “So, like, what should we do about this place—nothing? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Ben winced. Gerritt sounded like he was talking to a two-year-old—and Jill reacted.

  “You know what, Robert?” she snapped. “You’re about ninety-nine percent jerk most of the time, and I’ve learned how to deal with that. But when you go and turn yourself into a complete rump, it’s too much! I am not saying we do nothing! We take a ton of pictures, and then we close this place up again so Lyman and Wally can’t find it. And then we get prepared to use all those pictures, along with all our other last-minute stuff, like the codicil. And if we need to, we release the pictures to the media, and Twitter, and YouTube, and the newspapers, and the governor’s office, and the state historical commission, and everywhere else we can think of—and that’ll have to help to stop the wrecking crew, even if it’s only for a day or two. But now? Right now, we have to go for the big knockout punch. We need get out of here, regroup, and go find that last safeguard—and we have to hope that it’s not just another collection of antiques.”

  Jill stopped and took a breath. “So that’s my proposal. And I’m putting it to a vote, right now. All in favor of doing what I just said, raise your hand.”

  Robert said, “But . . .”

  Jill glared at him. “I said, all in favor, raise your hand.”

  The decision was unanimous.

  The next half hour was a blur. Everything they could find was photographed, and they were all half blind from the constant flashes of Robert’s good camera. There seemed to be no end to the treasures.

  Ben found two chronometers, a massive ship’s compass, and three brass telescopes. Along with the cutlasses and muskets and pistols, there were a dozen heavy boarding axes, the kind sailors swung left and right when attacking the deck of an enemy ship. And in a drawer below the bunk bed, he found a matched pair of dueling pistols in a wooden box lined with blood-red velvet.

  In one corner there was a small oak barrel, and at first Ben thought it must be wine, or maybe rum. The stopper on top was loose, and he pulled it out and took a sniff.

  “Hey!” he called. “Check it out—a keg of gunpowder!” And instantly he realized that the first reason this room had been lined with copper wasn’t to keep moisture away from the captain’s books and papers—they had stored the gunpowder from the mill in here!

  In a tall wardrobe Jill found Captain Oakes’s uniform: hat, coat, white breeches, and tall leather boots, plus a heavy blue woolen overcoat—even a wig and fine leather gloves. Ben pictured the captain on the deck of a ship during an Atlantic passage, his face into the wind as he swept the horizon with a telescope, on the lookout for an enemy sail.

  And in a drawer inside the wardrobe, Jill also found a gold pocket watch, a wedding ring, and a stunning diamond necklace—the same one the captain’s wife was wearing when her miniature portrait was painted!

  Robert snapped shot after shot.

  “Okay,” Jill announced, “we have to stop now. There’s a lot more, but we’ve got to get going.”

  Ben hated to quit—there were still drawers and little chests and cabinets that no one had even touched. But he knew Jill was right.

  Robert didn’t need convincing. “Yeah, let’s go. It’s all cool, but enough is enough.”

  They took a few minutes and made sure everything was just as they’d found it.

  Jill said, “I think that’s good. Ready?” She started for the door.

  Ben said, “Looks right to me,” but then he had an idea.

  “Hey, Robert, can you set up that camera so it’ll take a picture of the three of us, maybe here in front of the swords?”

  “Sure,” Robert said.

  He fiddled with the controls and then set the camera on the corner of the chart table. He checked the display screen.

  “You two stand there. Jill, a little to your left . . . good.”

  He pushed a button, and the camera started to beep as he hurried over and stood beside Ben.

  Ben looked at the camera. As it kept beeping, he remembered what Robert had called him earlier: Indiana Pratt.

  I wish I had one of those cool hats. . . .

  And that thought made him smile—just as the camera flashed.

  CHAPTER 12

  Up and Out and Now

  Hiding the door to the captain’s secret cabin was pretty simple, just a matter of retracing each step. The copper door was slid shut, and Jill and Ben fitted the fake granite panel back into place. Then the block that kept the water wheel from moving was slid back into its slot, and the door on the wall of the mill shed was closed and fastened with the bent nail. Ben went outside the mill and turned the paddle wheel about half a revolution, and that was all it took. Jill found a worn-out broom in a corner and used it to swish the dust around, hiding their footsteps to and from the doorway. And Robert took at least a dozen pictures, documenting the whole process.

  Getting up to the basement level and closing off the sub-basement was the same deal—reversing every step, slowly and carefully. The hinges and the chains of the heavy trap door squeaked and groaned as they lowered it, and Ben was afraid that any second Lyman or Wally would flip on the lights and come charging down the stairs from the janitor’s workroom. But that didn’t happen, and in a few minutes the entry was concealed, and this time, it was Robert who made sure that the area around the trap door looked undisturbed.

  Ben tapped his tongue against the back of his teeth as they tiptoed toward the steps—something he did when he got nervous.

  “Now comes the hard part—” Ben whispered, “getting outside without being caught. Headlamps off. We have to be really quiet now.”

  Gerritt rolled his eyes at that, and he also mouthed something—it took a second for Ben to figure out the word his lips had formed: Duh.

  As worried as Ben was about getting out safely, Gerritt’s attitude grabbed all his attention again.

  What’s up with him?

  Because just yesterday afternoon Robert had said how these few weeks had been so great for him. It had seemed like he was being sincere, but there was no way to tell that from the way he was acting today.

  I’m just gonna have to confront him, ask what Wally said this morning—get everything out in the open . . .

  About twenty feet from the steps up to the janitor’s room, Jill grabbed his arm and all three of them stopped short.

  “What’s that?” she whispered.

  It sounded like a low rumble of thunder.

  Robert said, “Relax—it’s the trash bin rolling along the first-floor hallway.”

  At least he didn’t say “duh,” Ben thought.

  But it was still there in the tone of his voice.

  They heard the cart roll above their heads, then slow down and take a turn. Ben was pretty sure he heard the door to the janitor’s room slam closed.

  “We’d better back up a little way,” Robert whispered. “We might be here awhile.”

  When they were a safe distance from the steps, Jill said, “Anybody know when they usually leave the building?”

  “No idea,” said Robert.

  Now he sounded bored.

  Ben pulled out his cell phone to check the time, but as he did, it gave a sharp buzz in his hand.r />
  “Cool—I just got signal again! And I’ve got two messages from ghost phone number five—that’s Gabe.”

  Jill also had her phone out. “Yeah, me too—same message twice: ‘Where are you guys?’ ”

  Ben started to punch in a reply, when Jill gasped, “Stop! Don’t answer him!” And she reached over and snatched Ben’s phone.

  “Hey, give me that!”

  “Shh!” Jill said, and held it out of his reach. “Listen, I also got a text from phone number six—that’s Luke, right?”

  “So?” said Ben, still holding out his hand.

  “So, Luke’s text was sent before those two from Gabe, and it says, ‘I’m on the bus, and Gabe just told me he left his phone in the gym.’ So . . .”

  “So . . . ,” said Robert slowly, “Lyman or Wally must have found Gabe’s phone . . . and then turned it on to see who it belonged to, and then saw those texts about them, when we asked if anyone knew where the janitors were!”

  “Oh, great,” Ben said. “That means our new communication system is trashed!”

  “Wrong again, professor,” Robert said. He was grinning now. “It means that we just got a free pass right out of here. Here, let me have Pratt’s phone.”

  Jill handed it to him, and Robert said the words slowly as he typed them onto the screen.

  We’re over on the north side of the school, hiding in the library. Have to go now. Big stuff happening.

  Before Ben or Jill had fully processed what he was doing, Robert hit the send button.

  Almost instantly, the door of the janitor’s room banged open above them, and they heard heavy footsteps clomping down the hallway toward the office.

  Robert handed Ben his phone. “And that, boys and girls, is how you clear the deck for a speedy escape from the Oakes School dungeon—let’s go!”

  Gerritt led the way, and in less than a minute the three of them were up the steps, through the janitor’s room, out the loading dock door, and then over the asphalt and running across the green parkland behind the school.