You are about to step into the age of buried treasure,
ambitious young sailors, and pillaging pirates. The year is sometime in the 1720s. The place is a quiet little English town near
the English Channel. There in the tall weeds of a grassy hill, a
young girl with a strawberry blond ponytail was running down it, her plain pink
dress and petticoats in hand. Not far
behind her, a lad of about twelve was yelling towards her.
“You can’t escape me, Becky!”
She laughed loudly, “I’m faster than you think!”
She slowed slightly as she reached the bottom of the hill,
but that gave Jake just enough time to catch up to her, and he tackled her to
the ground.
“Ooohf!” she grunted.
He was half leaning on her, pinning her arms overhead. A large grin was on his face. “I told you.
No one can outrun me.”
She squirmed free and pushed him aside. “I would have won.” She smoothed out her hair. “I just let you win.”
“Ha! Sure you did!”
“I did.” Becky rose
to her feet and shook a dirt clod off her skirt.
Jake rolled his eyes.
“You just keep thinking that.”
They both stared out at the harbor ahead of them. The two were still on a hill, so they had a
clear view.
“There are a lot of ships out there today,” Becky observed.
“Yeah,” Jake said in a distant voice.
“I see Daddy’s ship at the docks. It’s the one with the red flag.”
“I wonder how old you’d have to be to join one of those as a
cabin boy someday.”
“You can’t be a sailor!
That means you’d leave me.”
This snapped him out of his reverie. “You’re right.
Who would be here to beat you in races?”
She frowned playfully and jabbed him in the arm.
“Oh, I nearly forgot to show you what I ‘acquired’
today.” Jake pulled a pocket watch
out. “Isn’t it a beauty?”
The watch was made out of gold and trimmed in a few tiny
diamonds with a bluebird painted on the face.
“Jake! You’re
stealing again! No one in town will
trust you if you keep this up.”
“It’s just a little trinket.”
“I don’t care.” She
crossed her arms. “I want you to return
it.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Alright, Mom.”
“You’ll thank me one of these days.”
Jake said nothing and put the watch away again. He didn’t think it mattered much, but if his
friend was so worried about it, he’d return it anonymously in the night.
“Hey, Becky, look who’s coming.”
She gasped, “It’s Nelson!”
A rather short and slightly overweight boy around their age
was puffing up the hill. He was walking
up slowly in order to avoid dirtying his store-bought clothes.
Jake grabbed Becky’s hand, and they ran down the other side
of the hill, hiding on a ledge.
“Becky! Jake! Where are you guys? I know,” he huffed, “you were here a second
ago.”
They tried to stifle their giggles as he continued
searching. Nelson was rather boring most
of the time, and he always bragged about the great things his father bought for
him. Becky and Jake found it more fun to
evade him, even though they were the only friends Nelson had.
After reaching the top of the hill and not seeing them,
Nelson gave up and turned back towards home.
Jake stood on his toes and peeked through the grass. “He’s gone.”
“You know,” Becky began as she tried jumping up the ledge,
“we should be a little nicer to him.”
“Ole Nelson will be fine.
He’ll probably show up at your house bright and early tomorrow to hang
with us.” Jake pulled Becky up, and they
walked down the hills together.
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