The Curse on Spectacle Key, page 4
I stood outside with Mary Shelley and my parents as the exterminator and plumber went to work. Outside, the fruity smell lingered, and whenever the breeze kicked up, Mary Shelley would whine.
“Can you smell that?” I asked my mom.
Mom sniffed the air. “Just the ocean, Frankie. Is that what you mean?”
“I smell a big bill,” Papi said, narrowing his eyes at the people working on the lighthouse.
Maybe I’d imagined the strange scent. Maybe . . . I sniffed my armpits to make sure. Nope, just the same old Frank aroma. From where we stood, I couldn’t see the stone house.
“Hey, Papi,” I said, “have you been to that old house on the other end of the key yet?”
“No. It’s unsafe to visit,” Papi said. “But the views are great on that end of the key. Maybe someday—”
“Don’t get ideas, you,” Mom said, and Papi rolled his eyes at her like a moody teenager. “Technically, we own it, too, since we bought all the buildings on the key from the county. But the Realtor wouldn’t even show it to us because she was afraid of the place. Explain that to me, huh?”
“I’m tired of explaining things,” Papi said.
I thought about the message in the sand. Maybe whoever was playing a prank out there had been doing it for a long time. Long enough, at least, to scare off potential buyers.
“Well, I’m tired of everything on this island going to pot!” Mom said with a huff.
And I was tired of my parents’ bickering.
Thankfully they were interrupted by the exterminator, who had brought some catch-and-release traps for the crabs. He gave all the crabs names as he herded them into traps. “Come on, Julio. Ándale pues, Chico. Let’s go, Alfredo.” We all laughed at that and for the moment, at least, my parents seemed to forget their argument.
Eventually, the plumber emerged with a frown on his face. “You folks better find somewhere to spend the night.”
Mom groaned and immediately started to look for nearby hotels on her cell phone.
“Does this kind of thing happen often?” Papi asked.
The plumber sucked his teeth and looked off into the distance before responding. “Nope. But nothing that happens on Spectacle Key is a surprise,” he said, then off he went, back into the lighthouse, tapping a wrench against his hip.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“This dang place is cursed, is what it means,” I heard my mom say under her breath, and part of me wanted to agree with her.
But cursed? An actual curse? I wondered. Scientists didn’t believe in curses. Scientists observed, questioned, hypothesized, experimented, collected data, and came up with conclusions. When it came to living on the island, I was still very much at the beginning of the scientific method. My observation?
Something was very wrong on Spectacle Key.
Chapter 6
Gazing out the Window
We spent the night at a motel on Panther Key, one key over. The room was dingy, and Mary Shelley found a petrified fried shrimp under one of the beds that Mom pried out of her mouth. Mary Shelley exchanged the shrimp for Bernard, her new favorite toy. It thundered all night, but at least we weren’t on Spectacle Key.
Morning came soon enough. I packed Bernard up in my overnight suitcase, dumping my dirty pj’s and clothes on top of the doll. The plumber called with the all clear, and we drove back to Spectacle Key. As we pulled up the long driveway, I saw a tall woman standing next to a kid my age. He had bright red hair and was wearing a loud green T-shirt with video game characters on it. The woman held a clipboard while the kid fiddled with our mailbox, which was in the shape of a manatee. The mouth opened and closed to reveal a space for mail and he was busy making the manatee “talk.”
“Of all the gosh darn people in the ding dang Keys,” Mom muttered when she noticed them.
“Be nice, Joyce,” Papi said, and put the car in park. “Get your suitcase, Frank,” he told me.
The woman with the clipboard had her blond hair tied up in a tight ponytail. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her. The boy who was with her looked up from the manatee mailbox and waved.
“Ms. Shiverton,” Mom said, extending her hand for a shake. “What brings you around?”
The Flippy lady!
Emily Shiverton wore a badge with the initials HAUNT beneath her name. It was hot out, but she was wearing a red blazer. A line of sweat trickled down her temple. Emily Shiverton did not shake my mother’s hand.
“I understand work has been done to the historical lighthouse recently?” she asked.
“Sí,” Papi answered. “We had a crab invasion that took out the plumbing.”
Ms. Shiverton smiled. “Did you pull permits for this work?”
“There was no time. It was an emergency,” my mom said. The grown-ups continued talking about permits, and city hall, and renovations, but I was distracted by the boy, who was edging closer and closer to Mary Shelley.
“What type of horse is this?” he joked. Mary Shelley was half his height.
“Great Dane,” I sighed.
“I know, just playing,” the boy said. “I’m eleven. How about you?”
“I’m eleven, too.”
The boy gently patted Mary Shelley’s head. “It’s pretty cool that you live in the lighthouse.”
“I think so. Except the place is sort of . . .” I struggled to find the words. “Broken,” I settled on saying at last.
He smooshed Mary Shelley’s cheeks, and she closed her eyes happily. The boy’s hands were covered in Mary Shelley’s drool, but he just wiped them on his shirt and kept talking. “Well, do you play Fortcraft? ’Cause I do and maybe we can play online together.”
I didn’t like video games. My fingers never seemed to cooperate. “I like books. Do you?”
The kid made a face, like I’d just offered him Brussels sprouts for dessert. “Oh,” he said. He looked to his mom, who was scribbling on a page in her clipboard and scowling. “No video games, huh?”
“Nope, sorry,” I said.
He knelt and picked up a piece of glass. There was junk all around the lighthouse, as if trash was drawn to the place like a magnet. He peered through the glass at me, then used it to draw in the sand at his feet. I watched carefully as he made loops and squiggles, and finally started to write his own name.
His handwriting was awful. Farnk, I remembered. Was this kid’s penmanship similar to the writing on the sand back at the abandoned building? Was he a terrible speller? Could he be the one who left the note?
I squinted and moved closer, but he erased his name with his foot.
“Hey, what’s your name?” he asked.
“As if you don’t already know,” I said, testing him.
“You’re weird.” He dropped the shard of glass and went back to the mailbox. “I’m Lucas, by the way.”
“I’m Frank,” I said. “I’ve seen your mom on a billboard.”
Lucas rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah, the Flippy Award. It’s a big deal to her, but it’s kind of embarrassing.”
Honestly, I’d be embarrassed, too. But just because we had that in common didn’t mean I could trust him. I wasn’t about to let some kid play tricks on me just when I’d moved to a new place. Not a chance!
“Why is it called a Flippy Award anyway?”
This time, Lucas rolled his eyes so far that I thought he might be able to see out the back of his head. “Because the award is shaped like a dolphin. It’s a bronze dolphin about this big.” He gestured with his hands, suggesting a shape the length of a ruler. “And my mom wants it more than anything in the world. Our whole family has lived in the Keys for generations. My mom says it’s about time a Shiverton wins.”
“I hope she does, then,” I said truthfully.
Lucas shrugged. “Yeah, right. My mom said that you and your family have ‘put a wrench in her plans,’ whatever that means.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. We just live here.”
Lucas answered with another shrug. It seemed to be his favorite method of communication. When I asked him what school was like, he did it again, so I abandoned the conversation. Without saying another word, I left Lucas, his mom, and my parents in the driveway to talk about whatever it was they all needed to discuss. “Come on, Mary Shelley,” I said, but when she didn’t follow me into the lighthouse, I turned around and saw that Lucas was smooshing her face again, and Mary Shelley was thumping her tail so hard into the sand that I thought she might break through to sea level.
“Traitor,” I whispered at my dog, then went inside.
Back in the lighthouse, the crabs were gone and, thankfully, the toilet was in working condition again. But when Mom tried to light the gas stove to make dinner, the pilot light wouldn’t come on.
“Dang it all!” she roared. Papi and I came running into the kitchen.
“Don’t tell me—” Papi started.
Mom just pointed at the stove in silence. Her mouth was a grim, tight line and her nostrils flared. “I hate this place. Hate.”
“Home, remember? And your father is nearby now, too,” Papi said.
My mom sighed and pushed back her hair. “Just frustrated, that’s all.”
“We can just microwave something for dinner tonight.” Papi patted her shoulder and spoke in a soft voice, nice and slow, which I think only made Mom angry again.
“Please don’t speak to me like a child,” she said.
“Hey!” I protested. Any insult to children was personal. But my parents didn’t even notice that I’d said anything. While they argued, Papi poured himself a cup of cold coffee. He slid it into the microwave, which he’d purchased back in Auburn before the move, slammed the door, punched in the time, and hit start.
Mom was leaning on the counter, her hand over her face. “When are you going to realize this was a mistake?”
Papi paced the kitchen, ruffling his own hair with both hands, which he always did when he was nervous. “Mistake? This home has potential!”
I agreed with both of them. Everything was going wrong, just like Mom said it would. The stove wouldn’t be the last problem, I knew. But Papi had a point, too. The lighthouse, when fixed, could be really awesome to live in! It was unique, and we had the island all to ourselves. Plus, it was built to last, so we didn’t have to worry about hurricanes. Even better? If it worked out, we wouldn’t have to move again.
A strange smell interrupted my thoughts. It was metallic, like that gross, pukey scent that comes out of toolboxes that have been closed for a long time. Mary Shelley, who never missed an opportunity to visit the kitchen when people were in it, hoping that one of us would drop some food by accident, whimpered and sourced the smell. Her big nose pointed right to the microwave.
Oh no, I thought as I turned to see smoke pouring out of the brand-new machine. I ran over just as Mom and Papi noticed it, too. Mom unplugged the microwave. “This place is cursed!” she shouted before storming out, leaving me, Papi, and Mary Shelley in the kitchen.
“I’ll order takeout,” Papi muttered.
“Cursed,” I said to Mary Shelley, who whimpered again. “Don’t worry, girl,” I tried to assure her as I poured kibble into her bowl. Mary Shelley chomped down on it quickly, leaving me to my thoughts.
Then I remembered—curses weren’t real. What was real were facts. And evidence. The electrical wiring in the kitchen was probably bad, which was why the stove and microwave broke. The crab invasion probably had something to do with changes in the shoreline. As for the lighthouse lamp? It was ancient. Of course it wouldn’t work after all this time! How could I show my parents that they were getting worked up over completely logical events?
I climbed the stairs to my bedroom and an idea came to mind—I’d write a proof! Ms. McCartney had taught us how to do them. A proof is an argument for a math or science problem, written down, stating facts that lead to the correct conclusion.
The lighthouse was not cursed. That was what I would set out to prove. I would show my excellently argued proof to my parents, and maybe then they’d stop fighting and start working together.
There’s nothing like a plan to make me feel a lot better, so I was practically floating up the stairs, already building the proof in my head. But when I opened my bedroom door, I stopped in my tracks. Everything was as it should be. There were no crabs crawling on the walls. My alarm clock hadn’t exploded. My bed was unmade, like it always was, and my suitcase, which I’d opened but hadn’t unpacked yet, was still stuffed with my clothes.
Except.
Bernard wasn’t under my dirty shirts and shorts.
Bernard was sitting on the windowsill, staring out over Spectacle Key.
The proof that had materialized in my head on the way up the stairs disappeared in an imaginary cloud of dust.
I sat on the other side of my room, staring at Bernard, who stared out the window. I was trying to come up with an explanation for why the doll had escaped my suitcase, but nothing stuck. Mom and Papi hadn’t come up to the third floor since we’d gotten home from Panther Key. I’d been unzipping my suitcase when I heard Mom shouting about the stove. And unless I was blanking on it, I hadn’t put a hand on Bernard.
Just then Mary Shelley came lumbering into my room. She went straight for the doll, opened her mouth, and grabbed it by the waist, then settled down to cuddle it.
I snapped my fingers. It must have been Mary Shelley!
“Hey, girl, gimme that,” I said, and Mary Shelley reluctantly opened her mouth. Bernard was covered in slobber, which I wiped off on the rug. “Gross, but not cursed,” I said to the doll, as if it could hear me. I tossed Bernard on my bed. Mary Shelley stood up, aiming to retrieve what she now considered her toy. “Stay,” I said, and she did, settling back down and giving me a resentful look.
Feeling a bit better, I finished unpacking my things and then started building the proof in my head again. I got out my notebook and pen and started putting the proof together.
PROOF
Proving That Both Mom and Papi Are Right About the Lighthouse and Should, Therefore, Stop Fighting
ABSTRACT
Logical thinking explains nearly every phenomenon that a person might wonder about. This proof will argue that the problems with the lighthouse are not due to a curse. The lighthouse’s age and disrepair are the causes of the problems being experienced today.
This proof will also argue that it really is hard to live in a place like this. Frustrations are normal and all feelings should be respected.
Hence, Mom and Papi are BOTH RIGHT and should STOP FIGHTING.
I was feeling really proud of what I’d come up with so far and was about to start listing my evidence when Mary Shelley barked twice. I looked up to where she was sitting, panting and pointing her nose at Bernard, who was back on the windowsill, staring out.
“Come on, girl,” I groaned. “Quit playing.” I yanked Bernard off the sill by his arm and tossed him onto the top shelf in my closet, where even Mary Shelley couldn’t reach. Mary Shelley whined, then sniffed her butt before settling back down again.
I was halfway through writing my proof when Papi called up the stairs. “I’ve got some ropa vieja with your name on it, Frank! ¡Dale!”
“Yes!” I shouted. Cuban takeout was my favorite, and we hadn’t had any since we’d moved to the lighthouse. I barreled down the steps and Mary Shelley loped behind me. Mom and Papi were sitting at the dining table, serving themselves plates of steaming deliciousness. I piled platanitos, moros, and ropa vieja onto my plate.
Mom was chewing thoughtfully and Papi was shoveling food into his mouth like it was about to disappear. Nobody said a word. Everything felt . . . tense. The faucet drip, drip, dripped while we ate, and with each drop of water, Papi’s left eye twitched. Overhead, the kitchen light made a steady hissing sound. Every once in a while, the ice maker in the refrigerator rattled. We all watched as a lizard crawled up the wall, slipping into a crack in the mortar. It got stuck halfway through, and when it finally disappeared, it left behind its tail, which fell to the floor and twitched pathetically for a while.
Surprisingly, none of us said a word about the lizard’s tail. We just kept on eating dinner. Maybe we were getting used to this crazy place. That’s when a knock on the door made Mom jump out of her seat.
“Now what?” She sighed and got up to see who was at the door. She was only gone a minute when she returned with a package in her hands. “It’s for you, Frankie. From Pop-Pop!”
The box was dinged on one side, but Pop-Pop had wrapped it in so much tape that I was sure the contents were safe. I tore it open with a grunt. A chemistry set!
Now don’t go trying to build any monsters out of spare parts, you hear? he’d written on a note fixed to the set.
Carefully I unpacked glass test tubes, flasks, and pipettes right there on the kitchen table. There was a petri dish for growing mold, litmus paper to test acids, a plastic periodic table, and a glossy pamphlet describing projects I could do with everything. At the bottom of the box was a tattered book from 1963 titled Experiments for Young Scientists, Pop-Pop’s old lab goggles, a handful of vials, and an actual Bunsen burner.
“I don’t know about all this stuff,” Mom said. “My father seems to forget you’re only eleven.”
“Let’s stick to the nonflammable experiments for now, okay?” Papi added.
I kept my mouth shut. Inside one of the test tubes was a rolled-up piece of paper, which I opened when Mom and Papi weren’t looking. On the page, Pop-Pop had written: You can do some real science with this stuff. Just make sure to wash your hands, shield your eyes, and don’t burn down the house. Also: don’t tell your folks.
Okay, Pop-Pop, I thought, trying to hold in a laugh.
“Can I be excused?” I asked. I pointed at my plate. “President of the Clean Plate Club here.”
“Go on, mister,” Mom said.
I put the pieces of the chemistry set back in the box along with the book and goggles, then climbed the stairs to my bedroom. Mary Shelley climbed up after me. I planned on working on my proof some more, then settling down to read about experiments I could do.
