‘Of course, we none of us believed him, not really. We wanted to, mind. I remember a few of us went digging for treasure afterwards, but we never found anything, so we soon gave up. Old Mister Barney didn’t though. You’d see him out there with his metal detector, and in all weathers too, looking for Grania O’Malley’s lost treasure. The older we got, the more we laughed at him. He found bits and pieces, a coin or two, not much. But then his hips gave up on him, poor old fellow, and so now he can hardly get about at all.’
Jessie’s father was about to interrupt again. But she wouldn’t have it. ‘I’m not saying he isn’t strange, Jimmy. I’m not saying it isn’t an unlikely story, but will you just look at all this treasure! The story fits. And it’s no good just saying he’s crazy in the head. You heard him the other night arguing to save the Big Hill. You’ve seen his place. Packed to the gunwales with history books, isn’t it? He’s no fool. He’s no idiot. The man knows more about this island than anyone else alive. I tell you, he’s a walking encyclopaedia.’
Jessie listened, spellbound. She thought that maybe this was the moment to tell the whole story as it had really happened, confess that they had lied about finding the treasure in the cave, that they too had met Grania O’Malley just as old Mister Barney had. But then she thought again. Hadn’t Grania O’Malley herself made them promise not to say a word? Hadn’t she said that no one would believe them anyway? She was right. They’d just say she was making it up; and besides, Jessie hardly believed it herself. It was all too utterly fantastical.
Her father was snorting. ‘Baloney,’ he said. ‘All a lot of baloney. I thought it was baloney before and I still do. He’s mad as a hatter – it’s a known fact. There’s some things that just aren’t possible. Ghosts is one of them.’
‘Is that so?’ said Jessie’s mother acidly. ‘Will you look at the coins on the table. Spanish doubloons, aren’t they? I’ve seen others just like them, and you have too. If they are Spanish, then like as not they’re from an Armada ship. It’s a known fact that at least one of the Armada galleons was wrecked off Clare Island. For God’s sake, don’t people come here every summer and go diving on the wreck? Hardly surprising they haven’t found much, is it? It’s all been hidden away in Piper’s Hole, for hundreds of years. You remember there was that cannon dragged up last year in the fishing nets? That was off the Armada galleon, wasn’t it? You can’t deny it. And everyone knows too, who’s got any knowledge of it, that Grania O’Malley ruled in these waters at the time of the Spanish Armada. Now tell me, who else could all this belong to, if not to her?’
They were arguing again, and Jessie wanted to stop it. ‘It doesn’t matter whose treasure it was, Mum,’ she said. ‘It’s ours now, Jack’s and mine, and we’ve already decided what we’re going to do with it, haven’t we, Jack?’ Jack smiled at her, but a little anxiously. That was when Jessie lost her nerve. Panic gripped her and her mind seemed to stall. She just couldn’t think straight. ‘You tell them, Jack,’ she said, in desperation.
For some moments Jack looked down at his hands and said nothing. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘we were in the cave, Jess and me, and we were figuring out what we’d do with all this treasure – you know, how we’d spend it. I said I’d like an old Studebaker or a Bugatti, remember, Jess? And you said you’d rather have a pair of new legs, right?’
Jessie could not believe her ears. He was brilliant.
Jack went on: ‘Just talk, just dreaming, that’s all we were doing. See, we didn’t reckon we were going to get out of there. The tide was coming up real fast, almost into the cave, and we had nowhere else to go. We thought we were going to drown. So we made ourselves a promise.’
‘What sort of a promise?’ asked Jessie’s mother.
‘Not a promise, I guess, more like a deal,’ Jack said. ‘That’s it, more a kind of deal. We said that if we got out of there alive, then we’d give all the treasure away, we wouldn’t keep it for ourselves. We’d share it with the islanders. It was Jess’s idea. She said that if everyone on the island had a fair share – and it looked like there was more than enough treasure to go round – then they wouldn’t need to cut the top off the Big Hill, because they’d have all the gold they ever wanted. It seemed like a great idea to me. So we both promised that’s what we’d do if we survived, and we did survive.’ He looked straight at Jessie’s mother, cool as a cucumber. ‘She thought you’d like that. Isn’t that right, Jess?’
Jessie was dumbfounded. Jack was a better liar than she could ever be. Her mother was holding her hands out to her, her eyes full of tears. ‘Come here, Jess,’ she said. ‘I want to cuddle you the biggest cuddle you’ve ever been cuddled.’ Sat on her mother’s lap, Jessie was happy enough to let herself be cuddled. ‘Well,’ said her mother, sniffing back the tears. ‘What do you think of this daughter of ours, Jimmy? Isn’t that the most wonderful idea you’ve ever heard of in all your life? And you can’t argue with it, can you? It’s true enough. Jess and Jack found it, all of it, so it’s theirs by right. And if they found it, then they should decide what happens to it.’
But Jessie’s father was not looking at all enthusiastic. Whenever he was worried, he always sat with his hands together as if he was saying his prayers, thumbs under his chin, fingertips touching the tip of his nose. ‘I’m not sure,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m not sure at all.’
‘Well, of course you’re not,’ Jessie’s mother said, her voice rising at once. ‘That’s because like the rest of the idiots on this island, you’ve set your heart on that stupid, iniquitous gold mine.’
‘That’s not fair and it’s not true,’ Jessie’s father replied.
‘Well, what then?’
‘Look, it’s just that I think we all need to think about this. It’s not that simple. I mean, for a start, just because you find something, it doesn’t mean it’s yours. There’s laws about these things. And even if it is yours, to share it out fairly you’d have to sell it and divide the money. How else are you going to share it all out? I mean, we don’t know how much these things are worth, do we? You’ll need an expert in treasure trove. Who’s to say what that ewer, for example, is worth compared to that necklace or that beaker?’ No one answered him, not for some time.
‘Old Mister Barney,’ Jessie’s mother said suddenly, her eyes lighting up. ‘You remember when those divers found that cannon last year? It was Mister Barney they fetched down to the beach, wasn’t it? He dated it for them, and he told them all about it. Well, we’ll do the same thing. We’ll get Mister Barney down here, have him look at it all and tell us how much each piece is worth. He’ll tell us what’s what.’
Jessie’s father took his hands from his mouth and nodded slowly. ‘You’re putting an awful lot of faith in that old man. But all right, I’ll go tomorrow and bring Mister Barney back here, if he’ll come. I don’t know if he will though. He doesn’t come out much these days, only when he has to.’
‘You’ll tell him what we’ve got here, Jimmy,’ Jessie’s mother said. ‘And I’m telling you, he’ll come, lickety-spit. No problem.’
At that moment, there was a loud and insistent knocking on the front door and Panda was barking his head off.
‘Only me, Mrs Parsons!’ It was Mrs Burke. Never had the kitchen been cleared so quickly. With Panda careering round their legs, they scoured the kitchen for the last necklace or plate or beaker, slammed the chest shut, dragged it into the pantry and closed the door. ‘Is anyone at home?’ Mrs Burke was knocking again, louder this time. Jack was wiggling his earlobe at her frantically. Jessie took a moment or two to realise she was still wearing her earrings. She snatched them off and slipped them into her dressing-gown pocket. They were ready for Mrs Burke.
By the time Jessie’s mother brought her into the kitchen, they were all sitting round the table and Jack was dealing a pack of cards. Panda was whining at the door of the larder and scrabbling at it. Jessie hauled her away. ‘Always at the food, he is,’ she said, by way of explanation.
‘Well,’ Mrs Burke b
eamed about her, ‘aren’t we the famous ones! Helicopters, lifeboats, whatever next? I’ve been over on the mainland all day – head teachers’ conference, you know – and I missed all the excitement. Everyone’s talking about it. It was on the radio. I just had to come and see for myself how you were.’ Jessie was outraged. How could she be so sickly sweet and concerned in front of her parents, and such an old dragon back at school?
‘That was kind of you, Mrs Burke,’ said Jessie’s mother, her eyes darting everywhere, looking for any stray treasure. ‘As you can see they’re fine, aren’t you, children? Jessie fell in and Jack pulled her out. Saved her life, so he did. And now he’s teaching us blackjack, aren’t you, Jack?’ She giggled at that, but nervously.
Mrs Burke clapped her hands in delight. ‘My, my, a real hero,’ she cried. And then, all at once, her face creased into a puzzled frown. She was pointing at the pantry door. Everyone turned and looked. A gold necklace was dangling from the handle, a long chain of delicate gold links interwoven with flowers of white enamel.
‘What a lovely, lovely thing,’ breathed Mrs Burke. ‘Yours?’ Jessie’s mother nodded. ‘Gold, is it?’
‘Wouldn’t that be nice now!’ laughed Jessie’s mother. ‘Of course not. I got it in Galway, last time I was over. Just a bit of tinsel, but I like it.’
At that Mrs Burke seemed immediately to lose interest and turned to Jessie’s father. ‘Mind you,’ she went on, ‘there’ll be those, I’ve no doubt, who will be wondering what the two of them were doing left all alone out on the rocks like that.’ Ah, thought Jessie, that’s more like the Mrs Burke I know and love. And she was delighted to see that both her father and mother were looking daggers at Mrs Burke.
Mrs Burke cleared her throat in the silence. ‘Well, I just thought I’d call in,’ she chimed. ‘Will I be seeing the children at school tomorrow?’
‘I expect so,’ said Jessie’s mother, hustling her to the door. ‘If they’ve recovered well enough.’
They heard the door close. Jessie’s mother came back into the room, leaned back against the kitchen door and closed her eyes. ‘I know I shouldn’t say it, seeing as she’s Jess’s teacher and all, but sometimes I could really strangle that woman, Miss Tittletattle that she is.’
Jessie was running the white enamelled necklace through her fingers. She tried it round her neck. ‘Do you think she knew?’ she said.
Jessie’s mother shook her head and laughed. ‘Course not. She’ll be in every shop in Galway looking for one just like it. Now take that gorgeous thing off before someone else walks in. Come on, Jimmy, we’d better hide this lot away, and quick. And you two can get yourselves to bed.’
Tired as she was, Jessie did not want the day to end. She took her earrings out of her dressing-gown pocket, put them on and sat in front of her mirror. She smiled at what she saw. She looked like a real woman for the first time, like her mother, like Grania O’Malley. The dramatic events of the day kept churning around in her mind, the fishing from the rocks, the tumble into the sea, the rescue, the pirates, Grania O’Malley, the treasure, the helicopter, the plan to save the Big Hill. It was as if she was inside some wild and wonderful dream. Yet at the same time, she knew for sure it was no dream, that in the room next door was the boy who really had saved her life. He had saved her life! In all the excitement she had forgotten that. She had never even thanked him.
Jessie did not want to be heard. Walking quietly was never easy for her, so she crawled along the passage and tapped lightly on Jack’s door. ‘Jack?’ she whispered. ‘Are you still awake?’
‘I guess so,’ came the reply. She reached up and opened the door. The light was still on. He was sitting up in his bed, propped against his pillows. ‘You can’t sleep either?’ he said, as she got to her feet. ‘I was just thinking about that horseshoe crab shell she had,’ he went on, ‘that maybe all those years ago she landed right on my beach on Long Island, that maybe I’ve walked on the same sand she did. That’d be amazing, wouldn’t it?’ Jessie sat down on the end of the bed. ‘I’ve got this teacher back home, Mrs Cody. She’s really up on history, you know, Christopher Columbus, the Pilgrims, the Revolution, the Civil War, all that stuff. Soon as I get back, I’m going to tell her she’s gotten it all wrong – everyone has. The first person to land in America – on Long Island, anyway – wasn’t Dutch or British at all. She was Irish, an Irish pirate called Grania O’Malley. Mrs Cody’ll be real excited – she’s Irish herself. Real excited. But then, I guess maybe she won’t believe me. She’ll just think I’m nuts.’
‘But we’re not nuts, are we?’ Jessie asked. ‘It really did happen, all of it, didn’t it?’
‘Sure it did, Jess,’ he said. ‘Kind of makes you wonder. I mean, if all of this really happened, and it did, then almost anything can happen, right? Maybe when I get back home, Dad won’t be sick any more, even without my lucky arrowhead. No use just hoping. I guess you’ve just got to believe.’ Jessie didn’t know what to say. ‘You know something else, Jess?’ he went on. ‘You’re really lucky. Your mom and dad, even when they get mad at each other, you know they’re just saying what they have to say. They don’t want to hurt each other.’
‘You think so?’ said Jessie.
He smiled broadly now. ‘And we fooled them real good, didn’t we?’
‘I don’t know about Dad,’ said Jessie. ‘I think he knows something’s going on, but he doesn’t know what. And even if we told him, he wouldn’t believe us, would he? No one would.’
‘What wouldn’t I believe?’ The door was open and her father came into the room. ‘What are you two cooking up?’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ said Jessie.
‘You still got those earrings on? Off with them, you little pirate. They belong downstairs with the rest. You’ll be going to school in them next.’ Jessie wanted to protest, to tell him the earrings were really hers and not part of the treasure at all, but she knew there was no point, not unless she told her father everything. Too many lies had already been told for that. She took them off and dropped them reluctantly into his hand.
‘Where are you going to hide the chest?’ Jessie asked.
‘You bury treasure, don’t you?’ her father said. ‘Your mum’s outside now. We’re digging a hole behind the hen-house. It’ll be safe enough there, don’t you worry. Now, to bed with you.’
Jessie was back in her room and sitting on the edge of her bed before she remembered she still hadn’t thanked Jack for saving her life. She would have to do it tomorrow.
It was a long night and she couldn’t sleep a wink. Her body wanted to drift away, but her mind simply would not let it. She could see Grania O’Malley’s face so clearly in her head that she felt quite sure she must be there with her in the room. And then there was still the cloud of doubt that hung over their plan to save the Big Hill. Her father was right, to share the treasure out fairly amongst everyone, it would have to be sold. But what if old Mister Barney said it wasn’t worth that much anyway? And worse still, what if he said it wasn’t theirs to sell? What if? What if? She said her prayers over and over again, something she hadn’t done for a long time; and it was in the middle of one of her long begging prayers, for God to make everything turn out all right, that she finally went off to sleep.
In school the next day she could not stop herself from yawning. She yawned when Mrs Burke had the two of them up in front of the whole school and thanked God for their rescue. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about not speaking to her, even Marion Murphy. When all the children gathered round them at playtime and bombarded them with endless questions about their adventure, she still had to yawn. It was good to feel popular. She wasn’t as popular as Jack, she knew that; but not a word was mentioned about the Big Hill. Everyone seemed to have forgotten all about that too.
Jessie basked in it all, but the yawns kept coming and there was nothing she could do about it. Even when the newspapers and the radio and television people turned up and asked what it had been like and told them both to sm
ile into the camera, she still had to stifle a yawn. It should all have been so exciting, but somehow it just wasn’t. All she enjoyed of the day was the secret she and Jack shared, the true story of what had really happened, the story that no one else in the world would ever know – except Grania O’Malley and her pirates.
Only on the way back home after school did she manage at last to talk to Jack alone. ‘Mrs Burke said we’ll be on telly tonight,’ she said. But Jack did not look at all happy about it.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
‘Nothing much, just something Liam said.’
‘What?’
‘The diggers. His dad told him. They’ll be over here by the weekend. We haven’t got much time.’
‘I wonder if Mister Barney’s been yet?’ said Jessie.
When they got home, Jessie’s mother was singing in the kitchen, and that was something Jessie hadn’t heard for a long time. ‘We’re going to be on the telly,’ Jessie told her.
‘I know, Jess,’ she said, hugging her tight and then taking off her coat. ‘Everyone knows. It’s all over the island. Front page in The Irish Times tomorrow. I’ve had the newspapers on the phone, photographers in and out all day.’ She kissed them both. ‘I could eat the two of you, so I could. I could eat you, I’m so proud of you,’ she said.