The Candy Shop War
Page 35

“Keep your hands where I can see them and walk slowly to me,” the police officer instructed. Pigeon complied. It was a long walk. The spotlight stayed in his eyes the entire time.
When Pigeon reached the wall, he could see the police officer, a muscular man with short hair and chiseled cheekbones. The officer turned off the spotlight and approached Pigeon holding a bright flashlight, one hand near the gun at his waist. “You aren’t allowed to be in the cemetery after hours,” the police officer told him.
“I have special permission,” Pigeon said, the Sweet Tooth nestled under his tongue.
“Special permission?” the police officer repeated in a tone that implied it was unlikely.
The only lie Pigeon could think of sounded pretty lame, but he had to say something. “I’m doing a service project for Cub Scouts. Weeding graves.”
“Little late for weeding, isn’t it?” the policeman said.
“I have school, and my dad works odd hours,” Pigeon said. “This was the best time. The cemetery people know about it. I have to do this to get my Arrow of Light.”
The police officer stared at him. “You know, as a kid, I always wanted to be a Cub Scout,” the man said. “Never really knew how to join.”
“Please don’t report this or tell anybody,” Pigeon said. “If they hear from the police, the cemetery people might back out of sponsoring my project.”
The police officer winked. “I think we can keep this one off the record. Keep up the good work. Don’t stay out too late.”
“Thanks for being so understanding,” Pigeon said. “Might not be worth remembering this ever happened.”
“Might not.” The police officer turned, got in his car, and drove off down the road.
Feeling traumatized but relieved, Pigeon retreated to the shed. The noise of digging had already resumed. A Hawaiian girl wearing Summer’s clothes met him at the shed. “What did you tell him?” asked the Hawaiian girl in Summer’s voice.
“I said I was doing a Cub Scout project,” Pigeon said.
“He bought that?” she exclaimed.
“Pretty easily,” Pigeon said. “I was worried at first, but then he just accepted it. Now might be a good time for a victory hula.”
“Am I Hawaiian?” Summer said.
Pigeon nodded. “You should do the hula right now,” he urged.
Summer started waving her arms and shaking her hips. A moment later she quit the dance and swatted him on the arm. “I knew what you were doing and it still sort of caught me off guard,” she said. “Spit that thing out.”
“I don’t want to waste it,” he said. “I should probably keep it in.”
“You’re right,” Summer said.
“You ought to hurry back to your post,” Pigeon suggested.
“Okay,” Summer said. “Good job.” Crouching, she dashed up the slope.
Pigeon grinned.
*****
The last time Nate had tried to dig a hole had been very frustrating. The previous year, he had decided to dig a swimming pool in his grandma’s backyard. He had grabbed both of his grandpa’s shovels—the one with the square head and the one with the head more shaped for scooping—and gone to a patch of ground beyond the lawn where dry weeds were withering. It had been frustrating to discover how much force was required just to jab the head of either shovel even a little ways into the unyielding ground. He ended up driving the head of the shovel just a couple of inches into the dry earth with each thrust and scraping up only a little dirt. There were roots and rocks to slow him down, and a hot sun blazing overhead. He had given up before the pathetic hole was knee-deep.
Inhabiting the Forty-niner made digging a much more satisfying experience. With every thrust, the little shovel sank deep into the earth and came up with an impressive pile of soil. Nate soon found that since he did not feel the exertion of shoveling and never grew tired, he was free to dig as fast as he wanted.
He felt satisfaction watching the hole rapidly deepen and widen, the soil soft as pudding, light as popcorn. Whenever he struck a rock, he levered the blade of the shovel beneath it and flung it out of the way without difficulty. Trevor made suggestions on where to widen the hole and where to throw the dirt, which became increasingly useful as the hole deepened. In the three-foot-tall Forty-niner’s form, it did not take long before Nate could not see out of the hole.
When Trevor saw the police car, he jumped into the hole with the Forty-niner and whispered a breathless warning. After Pigeon sweet-talked the officer, Trevor climbed out, and Nate resumed the excavation.
The hole was about six feet deep when Nate struck something solid. Pitching dirt high over his shoulder, he uncovered the surface of the burial vault. He created some space on one side of the stone vault, then pantomimed for Trevor to toss in the pickax.
Nate found the line dividing the lid of the vault from the rest of the stone box, and began prying. Bits of stone chipped off under the pressure he exerted. Although he could not feel the strain, several times he wedged the pick into position but failed to raise the lid.
Nate dug more, working his way around the entire vault, creating space for him to chip away at the sealed lid. Finally, after relentlessly attacking the vault from all sides, Nate forced the lid up, got a wooden hand under it, and heaved it aside.
“Good job, Nate,” Trevor applauded.
Inside the stone vault lay a long box of rotten wood. Trevor shone a flashlight at it from above. Nate bashed open the wood with the pickax, tearing away splintery chunks and casting them aside. He glimpsed the remains of a decayed skeleton inside and observed a pale box beside the collapsed skull. Nate waved up at Trevor, who called to Summer in a loud whisper.
A few moments later, Nate saw a Polynesian version of Summer appear, grimacing down into the hole. “Okay, I changed my mind, you get it.” She moved out of view.
Nate retrieved the ivory box from the coffin and scrambled over to the edge of the hole. Trevor climbed partway down the least sheer side of the hole and accepted both the shovel and the rectangular box. Nate slammed the lid back onto the vault, adjusted it as snugly as he could, then used the pickax as a climbing tool to emerge from the hole. Having not exited the hole since commencing the project, he was impressed by the quantity of earth mounded around the gravesite.
“Fill it in and let’s get out of here,” Summer said. “It’s almost two-thirty.”
Nate started with the shovel, but soon he was racing around the perimeter of the hole, hurling in armfuls of soil. He would get low to the ground, spread his arms, churn his legs, and bulldoze sizable piles into the void all at once. Then he would turn around, bend over, and scoop dirt backwards between his legs, arms pawing tirelessly.