It was exile, she reminded herself, thinking bitterly of Payton with Uncle Alfie in Syria.
And for what? To run errands for a bunch of oceanography nerds. With the British Museum, she had dug on Roman ruins, translated hieroglyphics, and helped to present a paper at Buckingham Palace. This place was a joke by comparison, and a bad joke at that.
Eventually, though, the gofer jobs would run out, and the four would end up in the tiny village of Côte Saint-Luc, looking to keep busy. It wasn’t easy. Since Saint-Luc had no tourism, there was virtually nothing to the town itself. There was a small church with a bell tower, a butcher shop with emaciated chickens hanging upside down in the front, and a dark store with flyspecked windows that sold such strange and random items that Dante had taken to calling it Voodoo “R” Us.
There were two restaurants — a bar and grill that was much more bar than grill, and a European-style café that could have been on any street in Paris.
They preferred the bar and grill because the conch burgers were cheap, and Dante liked to sit at the outdoor tables, snapping pictures of the locals with his underwater Nikonos. When there were no passersby, he photographed his three dive mates.
Kaz, who was camera shy, commented, “One more click out of that thing, and it’s your nose ring.”
“Take me,” put in Star. “I’ve always wanted to be purple.”
Dante put down the camera with an exaggerated crash. The boredom and frustration were beginning to set them at one another’s throats.
“We’ve been here a week,” said Star, turning her attention to Adriana, “and you have never worn the same pair of shoes twice. How many shoes did you bring? How many shoes do you own?”
“Enough to wedge one where the sun doesn’t shine,” Adriana snapped back readily.
“Nice shot,” chuckled Kaz, his mouth full of fries.
“Mind your own business, rink rat,” Star warned. “What do hockey players know, besides how to put each other in the hospital?”
She wasn’t sure how, but it was clear that she’d struck a nerve with that comment, because of the deathly quiet of Kaz’s reply:
“Don’t you ever, ever say that again.”
Tempers flared like that regularly. But nothing came to punches; nobody stormed off down Rue de la Chapelle. All four knew that there was nowhere to go.
We’re stuck here, Adriana reflected, out in the back of beyond. We’re in this together.
And suddenly, she was looking straight at it. Across the narrow alley was a tiny neat cottage. The windows were open for ventilation, and in the largest one hung some kind of large wooden sculpture. She couldn’t make out exactly what it was, but she had worked at the museum long enough to recognize its age. Time had dulled the sharpness of the carving, the paint was present only in small faded chips, and the wood was weathered and bleached. She had seen pieces like this before — ornate newel posts from mansions and cathedrals that dated back hundreds of years.
She jumped up, almost knocking over her chair. “Guys, you’ve got to see this!”
They followed her across the dirt lane to the little house.
“It’s an eagle,” she explained, now that she could see the piece close up.
“What?” asked Star. “That lump hanging in the fishnet? I thought it was a big piece of driftwood.”
“See? Here’s the beak and the wings, and the talons are carved in relief against the body,” Adriana went on excitedly. “I make it at least three hundred years old, maybe more.”
“It’s busted,” commented Kaz, indicating the jagged break along the eagle’s body. “It looks like a giant snapped it off the top of a totem pole.”
“Totem poles are North American,” Adriana lectured. “I think this came from Europe.”
Star looked disgusted. “I know you’re, like, wondergirl from some snooty museum, but how could you possibly know something like that?”
“It’s oak!” Adriana exclaimed. “There’s no oak on Saint-Luc. It’s all tropical stuff here. It had to have been brought in by ship. Dante, take a picture. I can scan it at the institute and e-mail it to my uncle.”
Dante hefted the camera, grumbling, “You don’t need a Ph.D. to tell you what that is. I’ll tell you right now.” He clicked the shutter. “That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”
As Dante spoke, the occupant of the little house appeared in the window. Kaz tried desperately to clamp his hand over the photographer’s mouth, but it was too late. The man had heard everything.
It was English.
The enormous guide scowled at them, reached out his long muscular arms, and closed his hurricane shutters with a loud slam.
“Nice timing,” snickered Star.
“Oh, why did it have to be him?” Dante lamented. “Hey, what are you doing?”
Adriana was marching purposefully to the front door. She rapped smartly and called, “Mr. English, it’s us again. Could you please tell us the history of that piece in your window?”
At first, it seemed as if English intended to ignore them. But finally, he thrust open the door, glowering at Adriana.
“You Americans, you have the nerve! You call every shark in the ocean with your macho stupidité! Then you steal my octopus! Now you come and insult me in my own home! Vas-t’en! This means go away!” And he shut the door in her face.
“I’m from Canada,” called Kaz, but he kept his voice low.
Adriana reached out to knock again, but Star grabbed for her wrist. “Forget it. Who cares what he hangs in his window?”
“So long as it isn’t us,” added Dante feelingly.
But that night, over dinner at the Poseidon commissary, Adriana asked Captain Vanover about the diver’s strange window decoration.
The captain chuckled. “No wonder you couldn’t get an answer. I think he’s embarrassed about that thing.”
“How come?” asked Star.
“It’s an old family legend,” Vanover explained. “Probably a load of hooey. He’ll tell you when he’s good and ready.” He added, “Or he won’t.”
“He definitely won’t,” predicated Dante. “Not after I called it ugly.”
Adriana shook her head in amazement. “That piece must be hundreds of years old, and he just hangs it in an open window. I hope he has insurance.”
The captain brayed a laugh. “That’s a good one — stealing from English!” He noticed Tad Cutter walking to a nearby table. “Hey, Tad — over here.”
The blond, blue-eyed man set his tray down at an empty place. “Hey, Braden — guys—”
“Your sonar’s been in the water for almost a week now,” the captain said amiably. “Why don’t you have the kids give it a scrub when they’re diving with you tomorrow?”
If Cutter was caught off guard, he didn’t show it. “Yeah, it must be pretty crusty with salt by now. Thanks, guys. See you in the morning.” He walked off to join his crew.
“He’s going to blow us off,” Star predicted resentfully. “He says that every night, and he hasn’t taken us out once.”
“Oh, I know that,” the captain agreed. “But if you’re going to teach a horse tricks, it helps to be smarter than the horse. Wait till midnight and then go sleep in the boat.”
CHAPTER SIX
The R/V Ponce de León had four tiny crew cabins belowdecks. Just after midnight, the young divers split up, one to a berth, to wait for dawn and Tad Cutter.
Dante spread his bedroll over the hard bunk and went to sleep — if you could call it that. The waves lapping against the metal hull, while not loud, seemed to echo through the boat with a teeth-jarring quality. Every time he did manage a light doze, his head was pushed against the bulkhead by the motion of the boat in the water.