My 20-foot Adventure, Page 2

go to school. So, I did not expect that he would spot anything worthwhile. Plus of course, he did not miss an opportunity to teach us some math. He did not miss this one. “Before we go to the beach, he said, the kids will learn how to calculate the probability of finding a treasure!”

  Ooh la la! A math lesson was coming. I succeeded in escaping it for the day. I kept to my bedroom and started reading Treasure Island. I found the book a bit difficult, but my heart was inflamed and I read well into the night, under the cover, until my flashlight died.

  However, we could not escape the lesson for long. My dad wrote a whole page of equations on the blackboard in his office. So we considered that there were a small number of treasures left to discover on the whole surface of the Georgia coast, which is one hundred miles long and we decided that the search should extend to all the islands and five miles within the coast. Indeed, this coast is mainly a big marsh, because we have the highest tides of the whole Atlantic coast. Getting over the whole surface with a metal detector could take more than a lifetime. Of course there is no way to know how many treasures are out there. But Dad pointed out that pirates who had money went out to celebrate and drink, they were not of the thrifty kind. So, maybe some pirates buried their loot and went back to sea and got killed and never came back for the loot, but how many? We estimated that maybe less than 10 did that, and made other assumptions like the surface of each treasure in the ground, and how much time it takes to sweep an acre with a metal detector. We came out with a number like 300 years to find our first treasure! I do not remember how we did it, but the probability that I would soon find a treasure was certainly less than the probability to win at the lottery.

  Mom added a problem that damped our enthusiasm even more. As she was a nurse, she was very concerned with blood contamination and terrified by beaches: she was convinced that our beaches were full of needles contaminated by drug addicts and that we would get HIV. We had to promise to wear heavy shoes and to never sit down. Mom was getting some sleep, as every Saturday morning, so we made very little noise and got out early. Backrub decided to stay home, in hopes to find Dad's slippers. We got to the beach so early that we got the whole beach to ourselves. Dad threw a few coins on the beach so that we could learn to manipulate the metal detector. It was too heavy for Kate, and she was happy with collecting shells. We walked on the beach until we got so tired that Dad let us rest. He walked back to the car alone to drive close to where we were and pick us up. I did not find any treasure, but I got quite a number of coins, an old watch that was not working, a golden ring and a piece of driftwood with a plaque and half of a name: “San Ben”. We did not see any dreadful needle. The ring had an inscription in it, so Dad said that we should post an ad in the classified of the Savannah News newspaper. And so we did. The ring said “Dana and Charlene” but we did not publish that, because anybody could claim the ring if they knew what was written. So we just published that if Dana had lost a ring on the beach, he should call our number. A woman called and her name was Charlene, so she got her ring back. She reimbursed Dad for the ad and gave me 20 dollars. She was happy and I was too. So was my dad: a righteous man!

  Kate spent the afternoon gluing her shells on a box: it was quite pretty.

  4. Aunt Bessie's Treasure

  Aunt Bessie started us on the real treasure hunt, so it is just as well that I present her first. She had been an English teacher in Japan and she had visited many European countries, so we were in awe in front of her touristic memorabilia. My young sister Kate was obsessed with Bessie's cosmetic case. Bessie called it her “train case.” It looked like an elaborate tool box in lacquered wood, with many compartments, and it held powders, concealers, brushes, sponges and hundreds of little pots with creams of all the colors of the rainbow. Me, I wanted her Malay kris, a dagger with a wavy blade that looked magic and mysterious.

  Aunt Bessie was the aunt of our father; she had been married many times. When we were kids, we believed firmly that she had been married 82 times. She was 82 years old, so one husband a year made sense to us. At 82, she was still dating, “looking for Mr. Right”, she said. To tell you the truth, we never knew how many husbands she had had, because our parents had lost count. Consequently, we called all her husbands “Uncle Bessie”. We had had Uncles Bessie as long as I can remember.

  We liked Aunt Bessie because she made the best cookies in the whole town of Savannah, and God knows that we all make good cookies over here. Her conversation was not as good; Aunt Bessie was only interested in herself. My sister Kate had invented a superb skit that we played quite often. I would ask: “What did you see in Japan?” and Kate would answer: “Oh! I had the most ravishing lavender shoes with a skirt by Coco Chanel.” Then I would ask: “And what did you see in Paris?” and Kate would answer: “My little red hat was quite a success, everybody was looking at me.” The skit went on like that for quite some time. It is exactly how I remember Bessie's conversation.

  I asked Aunt Bessie if we could search her house for treasures, and she sent us to the attic on the condition that we would put everything back in the boxes. Kate was delighted because she found all kinds of very old dresses, and Aunt Bessie let her have a few of them to make disguises or to keep as a souvenir. Mom said the dresses were too precious to be used and had to be preserved: she promised Kate to saw for her a copy of any dress she wanted at her dimensions. Aunt Bessie made chocolate for all of us: she made the most extraordinary dark chocolate with a tiny amount of red pepper in it. Kate got to keep an old pair of lace gloves that were just her size: they probably had belonged to Dad's great grandmother who had been a very petite woman. I did not find any treasure for myself but still; the search in the attic had been exciting.

  Then Aunt Bessie remembered something very important. “Some years ago”, she said, “I threw a boarding bag over the ditch. It had some costume jewelry in it. If you find it, you can keep the jewelry.”

  We immediately understood what she meant. Her courtyard was facing a very big marsh, so big you could see it leaping to the horizon. It was a breathtaking view; you would not believe how much tax she paid for the view, more than the residents of Bel Air! The courtyard was separated from the marsh by a deep ditch, always full of water, about 15 to 20 feet wide, too wide for a young guy to jump over it.

  Nobody ever walked in the marsh because it was soggy. It got quite a bit of saltwater at high tide, but not enough to discourage the alligators. Aunt Bessie had known one of the gators for a long time: she said he was almost her age. We called him Grandpapa. Grandpapa often came in her backyard to bask in the sun. We saw him every summer. Aunt Bessie was flattered because he came to her yard, never in the yard of the neighbors. It may have been because her yard was paved and warmer than the neighbors' that had grass. Grandpapa bellowed from time to time, and then the whole marsh seemed to bellow back. Aunt Bessie said that alligators like music in B flat. You can come at dusk in April with a tuba and make B flat notes, and all the gators will bellow B flat back to you. The note means “love” in alligator language.

  “Why would you throw a travel bag in the marsh?” asked Mom.

  “Well, I was protecting my privacy. I was still married to George, I think, No, not George, I was married to Eddie, so that was quite some time ago. Time flies! I remember it like yesterday. We had a row because he wanted to read some love letters that I kept as a souvenir. It was none of his business, but Eddie was a jealous man; you remember him?” Mom made a vague sign with her hands, like she was not sure. “Anyhoo, he ran after me to steal the letters and I fled in the yard with the travel case where I kept the letters and I threw it across the ditch.”

  Aunt Bessie had a complicated love life; I think I mentioned that before. My sister and I exchanged knowing smiles. Mom gave us the look, a look that meant “Behave-or-else.”

  Mom asked: “What was that travel case made of? If it was leather, it is probably destroyed by now, and finding the contents will be difficult.”

  “It was nylon, I th
ink, or aluminum. I don't remember, but I am sure that it was very solid.”

  Aunt Bessie went to the kitchen in search of cookies. Mom turned to me and said: “Aunt Bessie said it was some years ago, but Uncle Eddie left her over thirty years ago. I was a young girl then. I don't think you will find anything, it is probably under water by now.”

  I was excited; there was a treasure just 20 feet away from us. I knew the treasure was still there: nobody ever went in the marsh. “Mom, I got to try, it is a real treasure, and it is so close!”

  “Then, how would you deal with Grandpapa?”

  Hmm, I did not know. Big problem! Grandpapa may have had a musical ear, but he was no close friend of humans. Truth be told, he was no good friend of anything he could eat, from dogs to raccoons, squirrels, herons, turtles, crabs, anything at all. And when I observed him from Bessie’s' house, he looked back at me with a dead eye. It was not his fault: gators have a membrane over the eye to protect it in the water, and it makes them look terrible. Well, they look terrible, but it is said that they are good for the environment because they make burrows of freshwater for other animals and then