“Take your cell phone this time,” I told him. “See if you can get some pictures.”
He reappeared a few minutes later, and we all gathered around. There wasn’t much to see in his photos, mostly just the dim outline of rocks on the ground and roots sticking out overhead.
“There,” said Lucas, pointing. “There’s the hole.”
It was difficult to make it out, but he was right. There was a hole in the ground.
I peered at a faint glimmer of light in the corner. “What’s that?”
Lucas shrugged. “I’m not sure. I held my cell phone out over the edge, but I was afraid I might drop it, and I didn’t want to lean over very far myself in case I fell in. I think maybe there’s water down at the bottom, though. I could hear sloshing.”
“I’m going in,” I told my friends.
“You won’t fit,” warned Calhoun.
“Truly gigantic,” Scooter added again helpfully.
I gave him a look. “I’ve got to try, at least. If you guys hold really tight to the rope, maybe I can lean down over the edge and get a better view. I’m a lot taller than Lucas.” I looked over at Scooter. “Just don’t.”
He didn’t. But he grinned.
“Okay, then,” said Calhoun briskly. He transferred the bike helmet from Lucas’s head to mine and fastened the rope securely around my waist. “One tug means yes, two means no. Three tugs from you means you’re ready for us to pull you out.”
Crouching down, I sucked in my breath—and the rest of me—and somehow managed to squeeze myself through the narrow gap beside the boulder. Lucas was right, the passage smelled like wet leaves and dirt. I winced as I scraped my head against the low roof.
“See anything?” called Cha Cha.
“Not yet.”
“The hole sneaks up on you!” Lucas warned. “Be careful!”
Inching cautiously forward, I soon reached the edge of the hole. I knelt down on all fours, turning my head slowly as I shined the headlamp around its circumference. It was larger than I thought, probably at least as wide as I was tall. If I was expecting to see a big sign that said THIS WAY TO PIRATE TREASURE! though, I was disappointed.
There wasn’t much to see anywhere else, either. Just dirt and roots and rocks. Nothing to indicate that this was anything but an ordinary cave.
“Doing okay in there?” I heard Calhoun’s muffled voice in the distance and gave the rope one sharp tug in reply. Flattening myself onto my stomach, I crawled forward and peeked over the edge of the hole.
It was deep. Very deep. Lucas had been right about the sloshing sound—I could hear it too. I groped around for a rock and dropped it in. It seemed a long time before I heard a plunk as it hit the water below. I inched forward again until my entire head and shoulders were extended out over the edge, then aimed the headlamp directly downward. I peered into the darkness. Light from my headlamp reflected on the water, but I could also see light reflecting up through the water. It had to be coming from outside! There was another entrance to the cave!
I tugged on the rope three times and my friends started to haul me back.
“Ouch,” I called in protest as my chest scraped against a sharp rock. I heard my T-shirt tear. “Slowly!” Flinging out an arm to steady myself, I grabbed on to what I thought was a root. It pulled away from the dirt, and I was still clutching it when I emerged into the sunlight.
“There’s another entrance,” I panted, dropping the root and swiping at my dirt-encrusted clothes. “I could see daylight in the water down at the bottom of the hole. The underwater opening must be somewhere along the shore.”
“Which direction?” Calhoun asked.
I looked around, disoriented. “I have no idea.”
“What’s that?” Cha Cha pointed at the ground.
“A root.” I prodded it with my toe.
She bent down and picked it up. “I don’t think so, Truly.”
We all leaned in to examine it more closely.
“I looks kind of familiar,” said Jasmine. “I think it’s a piece of rope, like the kind we saw at the pirate museum on Cape Cod.”
My friends and I stared at each other in awe.
“She’s right!” I whispered. “I think we found Dandy Dan’s cave!”
CHAPTER 31
We hid the opening to the cave as best we could, piling up branches and leaves until it was nearly invisible again. Covering our tracks back to the main path was almost impossible, though. We’d broken a lot of branches in our initial rush to get to Scooter. We could only hope that if anyone else came out to the island they wouldn’t notice.
I really, really wanted to hunt for the underwater entrance, but it was getting late, and I was due back at the bookstore for Amanda Appleton’s signing. “We can come back again tomorrow, maybe,” I told my friends, tucking the length of tarred rope safely into my backpack.
Cha Cha looked Lucas and me up and down, smiling. “You guys had better wash off before we go back.”
I glanced over at Lucas. If I looked anything like he did, she was right. He was streaked with dirt, there were wet leaves tangled in his hair, and as for his clothes—well, he was going to have a hard time explaining them to his mother.
I waded out into the water and dove in. Lucas followed, and so did the rest of our friends. We swam around for a few minutes, splashing each other and whooping with excitement over our discovery.
After we paddled back to the camp and returned the war canoe to Artie Olsen, we got on our bikes and headed for home. We were halfway to Pumpkin Falls when a red sports car with a kayak strapped to its roof passed us going in the opposite direction.
Cha Cha’s head swiveled around. “Hey!” she called over her
