Greybeard's Treasure
Josiah Rogers
“Walk the plank!” Bonnie glowered, waving a wooden sword. “This is a mutiny!”
Chris stood on a wooden beam haphazardly nailed to a treehouse. He looked down. It was an eight foot drop to the waves of manicured turf below. Chris could almost see gray, menacing fins gliding above the blades of grass. He needed a plan.
“I know how to find Greybeard’s treasure,” Chris said calmly. Bonnie slowly lowered her cutlass. She paused to consider this new information.
“Well, where is it?” Bonnie asked.
“I don’t know,” Chris admitted. “We need to get Jack. I’m pretty sure he knows where the treasure is. I think he’s in London.” Chris pointed in the general direction he figured would lead to London. Of course, it actually just led to a sprawling Midwestern suburbia, but neither Chris nor Bonnie made note of it.
Bonnie seemed uncertain at first. She took a minute to think. After three agonizing minutes (for Chris at least), Bonnie put away her sword and shook Chris’s hand.
“Welcome aboard... Captain,” Bonnie said.
The two pirates arrived at London. They had docked their ship near a parking meter, so Chris fished his pockets for spare change. After Chris inserted the coins they set off. Their search led them to a small restaurant near the docks. A weathered green sign above the doorway read “Ye Olde Pirate Pub.” Bonnie and Chris walked in without hesitation.
The pub was bustling with people. An overworked bartender was busy serving tea to a table full of ruffians. Chris recognized one of the ruffians as Jack, who was sitting in a dark corner, his tea untouched. The bartender seemed to resent him for it.
“Jack, mom said you have to play with me!” Susie whined. Jack and Susie were in a plastic house, surrounded by a motley crew of plushies, seemingly led by an orange tiger. The plushies were seated around a table overflowing with plastic teaware.
Susie poked Jack. He looked bemused.
“Hey Jack, you wanna help us find Greybeard’s treasure?” Chris asked.
“Sure.”
“But mom said-” Susie interjected
“Mom said I owe you thirty minutes,” Jack interrupted. “And thirty minutes ends in three, two, one... boom.” Jack showed her his watch triumphantly. Susie grumbled as Jack joined Chris and Bonnie on their adventure.
After a confrontation with an irritable bartender, the three of them headed out of the pub and back to the ship. Once aboard, they discussed their plan. Jack had a map that would lead them to a mystical island where a wise old pirate named Greybeard had buried his riches years ago. He since died in a jetskiing accident. Their plan was foolproof.
The plucky trio rushed across Jack’s lawn and scrambled up the ladder into the treehouse. Soon, they were pouring over a tattered piece of paper Jack had fished out of his coat pocket. It was yellowed with age (or Jack’s mom’s oven, depending on your point of view) and scrawled over with red crayon. To you or me it would have looked like pure nonsense, but with a bit of concentration Jack, Bonnie, and Chris were able to decipher it.
The three pirates made their way to Treasure Island. The ocean was foggy and dark. Towering, freezing waves often rose over the tops of the sails. Harsh winds battered their small sloop from all sides. In spite of all the danger, the pirates remained unfazed. The promise of untold riches was too alluring to worry about something as inconsequential as drowning. Sometimes they would even taunt the sea, to which the sea would respond, “Please be quiet, your mother’s trying to read.” The pirates chalked it up to irate sea serpents. They had heard stories of them in Pirate School.
The children arrived at the sandbox. Jack unfolded the map, pulled out a protractor and made a big show of finding a route. He started walking in circles, tracing the crayon marks with his fingers. He finally stopped in one corner of the sandbox.
“Here it is,” Jack said quietly. He pointed at a spot in the ground.
The two pirates looked on as Jack pointed at a comically huge red X on the ground. It seemed to transition perfectly between the bright red of the X and the soft, yellow sand. If this was weird, the pirates didn’t give it a second thought. A nearby palm tree cast its shadow on them, a rather welcome refuge from the rays of the Caribbean sun.
Chris pulled out a shovel and started digging. It was excruciating work; Jack kept saying that the treasure was only a few feet below where Chris had dug. Soon the hole was over twenty feet deep, there was a huge pile of sand behind them. And still no treasure. Bonnie and Jack sat by the hole and sighed blearily.
“Maybe we’re looking in the wrong direction,” Bonnie suggested.
“No, no... it can’t be,” Jack said, almost like he was trying to convince himself.
“I found something!” Chris huffed. “I don’t think it’s the treasure though.”
Jack and Bonnie had been too busy talking to notice that he had climbed out of the hole.
He was standing a few feet away from them, holding a small piece of paper. “What’s that?” Jack asked, a hint of concern seeping into his voice. “I’ll read it out loud,” Chris responded curtly.
“Dearest Jack,” Bonnie and Chris snickered at this, “I’ve taken your box of coins inside. Please be more careful with your toys! Love, Mom.”
Jack’s cheeks flushed as the other two children roared (or came as close to roaring as children could) with laughter.
“What could it mean?” asked Bonnie, peering down into the huge pit Chris had dug. “It’s obvious what happened.” Chris said, swishing his cutlass for dramatic effect. “Is it?” Jack asked incredulously.
“Yes, of course it is! Obviously, a wicked serpent has taken the treasure! We must defeat this serpent and recover what we rightfully stole!” Jack and Bonnie solemnly nodded their approval. Jack already knew where the serpent’s lair was. Now they just had to defeat it.
The three children gathered their plastic swords and shovels as they scrambled out of the sandbox. They followed the curved stone path that led to Jack’s house, where they steeled their nerves and readied their dollar tree cutlasses.
The serpent’s cave was huge. Cavernously huge, as it was a cave. Well, the pirates had to assume it was cavernous because they couldn’t see inside. The entrance was sealed by a gigantic round wooden door that almost resembled the door to a hobbit-hole, except for the barbed iron spikes that held it together. Perhaps it more closely resembled a wicked Viking’s shield, as it lacked the comforting hominess of a hobbit-hole door, but that’s neither here nor there.
Chris cautiously turned the cold steel doorknob. Jack jumped behind Bonnie in surprise as the lock clicked. Chris discreetly rolled his eyes before carefully pushing on the door. He was surprised by how easily it opened. Billows of vomit-green fog poured out of the entrance, dousing the pirates in the noxious fumes of essential oils and simmering elderberries.
“It smells like someone died in here.” Jack wrinkled his nose. “And they’ve just started to embalm them.” It was common knowledge that sea serpents mummified everyone they killed in devotion to a complex religion no one but the serpents themselves truly understood, despite the best efforts of pirate universities and late-night History Channel programs.
“Clearly one of the serpent’s victims,” Chris noted. “We need to find the treasure fast before it discovers us.”
The children stalked into Jack’s house on tiptoes. Of course, they weren’t nearly as discreet as they thought they were, but no one made note of their presence.
The inside of the serpent’s cave was surprisingly neat. Of course, there was the occasional whatnot, odd, end, and whatever else serpents might have need of strewn about the floor, but besides that it seemed rather tidy. Tidy, if smelly. The pirates walked on, trying as hard as possible to be as quiet as possible. They soon happened upon an entrance to a “room”, or it would be a room if caves had rooms. Inside the room they saw the serpent.
The serpent was hunched over a huge bubbling cauldron, its back to the pirates. The trio froze. The serpent, almost as if it sensed the newfound silence, turned around and stood (do serpents stand?) face to face with the pirates. The serpent chuckled good-naturedly.
“I assume you’ve come for your treasure,” The serpent said. She had a strangely comforting voice. Certainly not threatening or evil as the pirates assumed.
“Yes, we have,” Jack said, trying to sound bold. He raised his cutlass to the serpent. “Hand it over!”
The serpent chuckled again. “Dear Jack, whatever am I going to do with you?” She wondered aloud. “And who have you brought with you?”
“We are Jack’s pirate crew!” Chris asserted. “We have come to recover what we have rightfully stolen!”
The serpent looked at the pirates with a twinkle in her eye. She seemed thoughtful.
“I will return the treasure...” – the pirates had a glimmer of hope in their eyes – “If you promise me something in return.” The pirates groaned. This could not be good. It clearly spelled years of miserable indentured servitude at best - and live mummification at worst. The serpent laughed knowingly at their exasperation.
“I won’t ask a lot, I promise. Just pick up your toys – erm, pirate things once you’re done. Then I won’t bother you again.” That seemed... reasonable. The pirates figured this must be a good serpent.
“Sounds good to us!” Bonnie chirped. The serpent winked and handed over the bag of coins as the pirates prepared to leave.
Jack smiled, hugged his mother, and ran off to play with his friends.