Clear water treasure, p.1
Clear Water Treasure, page 1
Dead End Kid Adventures
D.W. Powell
Clear Water Treasure: X Marks the Spot
Dead End Kid Adventures, Book IV
Copyright © 2023 Dick Powell. All rights reserved.
Published by
DP Kids Press
244 5th Ave, Suite G-200
NY, NY 10001
646-233-4366
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Permission should be addressed in writing to the publisher at publisher@DocUmeantPublishing.com
Graphics and Editing by Robin Powell
Cover by Ginger Marks
Formatted by DocUmeant Designs, www.DocUmeantDesigns.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Powell, D. W., author. | Powell, D. W. Mystery of hte box turtle
shell.
Title: Clear water treasure : X marks the spot / D.W. Powell.
Description: NY, NY : DP Kids Press, [2023] | Series: Dead end kid
adventures ; IV | Audience: Ages 7-12. | Audience: Grades 2-3. |
Summary: When a treasure box with clues lands on fifteen-year-old D.W.
Patton’s head, he sets out with his pals to follow the clues and find
the treasure.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023007703 (print) | LCCN 2023007704 (ebook) | ISBN
9781950075935 (paperback) | ISBN 9781950075935 (epub)
Subjects: CYAC: Buried treasure--Fiction. | Friendship--Fiction. | Mystery
and detective stories. | LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction. | Novels.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.P687 Cl 2023 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.P687 (ebook) |
DDC [Fic]--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023007703
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023007704
THIS BOOK IS dedicated to all that have come before me as storytellers. Those who sat in rocking chairs on the front porch, those who were at the campfires, and those who brought the reality of leaving and weaving a lasting message. Thank You!
To my grandfather, Charles Wesley Bibler, and all the uncles who always encouraged my storytelling and writing. Storytelling, to them, was a way to take our adventures in life and hold them close for others to share. Thank You!
To Robin, my wife, who has always encouraged me and helped me through the process of writing and the telling of a story—Thank You!
To all who touched a young man’s life and taught the feeling of “home” when in the woods, Thank You!
Foreword
My journey into manhood often took me into the neighboring swamp and the peat bog that was there. The water was always crystal-clear since it was fed from a spring. It and everything in it would change when the old man who owned it came with a huge dragline to dig the peat from the sides of the bog. When he was done muddying up the water, it became clear once more and the animals, songbirds, turtles, fish, and alligators would return.
This is where I first learned how to use my imagination, to leave the noise of the day behind, and search my inner-self. Trying to imagine what I wanted to become someday.
Preface
CLEAR WATER TREASURE is mostly from my imagination. The people involved are some I knew, and some I imagined.
With the help of the Gator Tribe, D.W. solves an old case to find the buried treasure.
Introduction
TRIBES
Each tribe needs leaders. Plural! They need connectors to bring outsiders in and the insiders together for a common goal. They need to share Vision, Values, Morals, Resources, and Disciplines.
D.W.P.
Strategic delegation is what pushes leaders to the top!
D.W.P.
We are and should be helpers, mentors, and guides in this world to those around us. Sometimes we will be disappointed. Our time isn’t their time, and we won’t understand when the gift is given and not accepted.
D.W.P.
Week 1
I GO BY “D.W.” and I am almost sixteen years old. Today is the first day of my summer vacation from school. They call it summer vacation. Vacation! What a joke! I won’t be going anywhere but to work! There will be no vacation for me this year.
Today is the day I start my first real paying job. I have worked delivering the local newspaper and mowing lawns in the past. This would be all new for me.
I was told to report to the jobsite at zero seven hundred, seven AM in normal people’s time. The jobsite’s address was 1911 Magnolia Ave.
The man I would be working for was a friend of my father’s. His name is Mr. Collins. Dad knew him from his time in the Army. Mr. Collins only used military time when he spoke, I had been told.
The job would entail ripping apart an old house built in the late eighteen hundreds and then rebuilding it with modern wiring and appliances and still make it look old from the outside.
As I rode my bicycle up the driveway of 1911 Magnolia Ave., there stood Mr. Collins, the man I was to report to. He met me halfway up the driveway. Holding his hand up in the stop signal, he looked me over like I was a young skinny bull in the pasture.
I could literally read his mind. He was thinking, “Could this skinny kid, with glasses, on a bike, really do the work I need to get done?”
He said, “Good Morning D.W., park your bike somewhere one of the trucks won’t run over it or haul it away as junk. Put on that new carpenter’s belt and hard hat your dad gave you and grab a hammer and pry bar from the work box. Then follow me. There is work to do.” It was right then I remembered dad telling me Mr. Collins wasn’t one for small talk.
I quickly pushed my old bike into the back yard placing it by an old oak tree. Buckling on the new carpenter’s belt, I found it was way too big and would need a new hole punched in it to make it fit and not fall down my waist.
I found the work box on the back porch of the old house. I searched the tool tray, grabbed a sixteen-ounce claw hammer, a twenty-four-inch prybar and ran after Mr. Collins through the back door of the old house.
Wow! This would be a job to remember. It was hot already, ninety-five degrees in the shade, with a feels like temperature of ninety-nine degrees.
I was told I would be working in the attic because I was skinnier than the grown men and could navigate the old rafters easier. I looked up and knew it would be even hotter up in the rafters of the old house.
My first assignment was to climb into the attic rafters and remove the electrical wires from the porcelain knobs. I was instructed to save both the wire and the knobs.
The porcelain knobs were affixed to the loblolly pine rafters with a single steel spike in their center.
This was going to be a tougher job than what I was told. The Loblolly pine would be hard as a rock after years of heat in the attic.
Since the electricity had been disconnected from the house, it would be safe, I was told. It would feel even hotter! There would be no fans in the attic rafters, only the holes in the roof for ventilation.
I found a ladder and was handed a cloth bag for the knobs from an old guy with a shaggy beard. He had yellow teeth from chewing tobacco and a smell that lingered as he walked away.
The instructions given to me were to collect as many knobs, spikes, and wire as I could find, and then bring everything down with me. Up the ladder I went and started to work. Sweat started to soak the bandanna tied around my head under my hardhat within minutes.
After an hour and a half, the sounds of people working below me stopped. My first thought was, did they all leave, or what? Crawling from rafter to rafter back to the entry hole was a much harder than it looked to be. Lugging my sack of knobs, spikes, and a coil of wire didn’t make it any easier.
Once I got to the entry point, I couldn’t believe my eyes! Someone had removed the ladder! I yelled and banged on the ceiling with my pry bar to get the attention of the crew. They had all stopped for a mid-morning snack and water break and had forgotten all about me hot and sweating in the attic.
Mr. Collins yelled whose making all that racket? He and the whole crew were laughing as he came to my rescue. He quickly put the ladder back at the entry hole, while I sat looking down at them.
In between the crews laughing he explained that when someone was working in the attic, they were supposed to tie a red bandana on the ladder to let everyone know not to move it. I climbed down with the rest of the crew full of smiles.
“Welcome to the crew,” the old guy with the beard said. Somehow, I knew that this was to be the first of many things I would learn this summer.
I walked out to my bike and retrieved my snack of cookies and refilled my water bottle from the well in the backyard. The water was from a deep well, over one hundred fifty feet deep I was told. It was cold and had a sweet taste to it. The chocolate chip cookies I had packed were a little melted but hit the spot.
&nb
At noon, lunch was called. I climbed back down the ladder negotiating the bag of porcelain knobs, steel spikes, and another coil of wire with me. The lead carpenter said I looked like a drowned rat and smelled like one, too. He continued saying to make sure to drink lots of water with lunch. Guess I was sweatier and smellier than I felt.
Lunch was the fastest thirty minutes I had ever experienced. No rest time at all. It was back up into the attic until the end of the day was called by Mr. Collins at 5:00. Guess I missed the mid-afternoon break.
He said, “Good work guys see you in the morning at zero seven hundred.”
I was so tired I could hardly peddle my bike back to my house. My legs and back hurt from being hunched over in the rafters all day. Home was only just down the street, but it felt like it was a hundred miles.
While putting my bike in the garage, I ran into dad and he asked, “How was your first day as a working man?”
I must have looked pitiful because he just said, “Get a shower and put on some clean clothes, you’ll feel better. The days will get better as the weeks go by. Drink some water, too.”
The cold shower felt good. It did help to lower my body temperature. The clean, dry clothes felt good also. Dinner was great! I probably ate way too much and when I was done eating all I wanted to do was crash in bed.
Zero six hundred came way to fast. I dressed in pain. Putting my boots on was a struggle. I didn’t want anyone to see me or make the mistake of complaining. I ate my “Breakfast of Champions”, and it was off to the job site.
Day two went a little better since I knew what needed to be done and how to do it. Mr. Collins said it would most likely take me the rest of the week to finish removing all the knobs, spikes, and wire. He continued telling me that when I got that completed for the whole house it would be time to remove the cypress ceiling lattice strips along with the nails that held them . . . and he wanted those saved too. How did I not know that was coming?
The rest of the week flew by with work, sleep, and more work. On Friday afternoon Mr. Collins handed out the paychecks to the crew. He paid me in cash because he said he didn’t want to carry me on the books.
I took the envelope and stuck it in my back pocket and rode home. I didn’t open it until after I was showered, in clean clothes, and had eaten dinner.
In my room I opened the envelope to find Mr. Collins had paid me the same as the other men on the crew. Inside the envelope were two crisp one hundred dollar bills. $200.00! I was rich!
I knew I needed every single penny to pay for the insurance on my future car so I wouldn’t have to peddle to and from work ever again. A couple more weeks and I would use the cash for a used car, a year’s worth of insurance money, and some spending money for the next school year. Suddenly, the manual work in the Florida summer heat didn’t seem so bad after all.
Saturday morning. I was up early to do my regular family chores of pulling weeds, trimming, and cutting the grass at our house and my Uncle Warren’s who lived next door.
Finishing both by noon, it was tomato soup with round crackers crushed up in it, a peanut butter sandwich, cold, sweet, iced tea and sit and watch Sky King and Penny on the old black and white TV set in the living room.
After Sky King, it was off to the shower to get ready to meet Robin at the theater in town.
The theater was in an old-World War II Quonset hut with worn out seats and a sticky floor. Robin’s dad would drop her off at three thirty and I still had to ride my bike downtown and try not to get too sweaty on the way. The movie was “Hang Them High” with Clint Eastwood. I wanted to see Robin and I also wanted to see the movie.
I had just gotten to the theater and locked my bicycle to the oak tree out front when Robin’s dad pulled up.
Robin jumped out and waved goodbye to her dad with him saying he would be back at six to pick her up.
Robin was carrying a brown grocery bag full of popcorn and two bottles of Nehi grape soda. We walked up to the ticket counter and I bought our tickets.
Walking into a dark, air-conditioned place was a treat. There was no air conditioning at home. The seats kind of reclined but we could have cared less. The movie started just as we walked into the theater and found two seats in the middle section.
We watched the movie, ate popcorn, and drank our sodas. The movie quickly captured our attention. It was about an innocent man surviving a lynching.
When it was over, we picked up our soda bottles so Robin could redeem them for a nickel a piece at the Winn-Dixie near her house.
The time had flown by and it was five forty-five so we sat on the green bench out front and waited for her dad to pick her up. My arm hurt from holding Robin’s hand during the movie.
At six on the nose Robin’s dad came around the corner and stopped right beside us there on the street. He asked if he could slip my bike in the trunk and give me a lift home.
After a long hard week working, I accepted the offer. He put the car in Park and helped me maneuver the bike into the trunk.
By the time we were done, Robin was sitting in the middle of the front seat with her hands neatly folded in her lap. Her dad got in the driver’s side, and I slipped into the passenger seat, doing my best to squeeze next to the door keeping as much space between Robin and myself as I could.
Robin’s’ dad asked about the movie and we both started to tell the whole story, talking over one another so much I am sure it made no sense at all. We arrived at my house and Robin’s dad helped me remove my bike as Robin stood and watched.
Robin’s dad returned to the driver’s seat and Robin told me she had had a wonderful time. She started to turn and then quickly turned back and kissed me on the cheek.
She jumped back into the passenger’s seat and they were off before I could mutter a word.
She leaned out and said, “See you at Sunday School in the morning!”
Sunday morning, I had a hard time getting up and dressed for Sunday School and church. The blisters on my hands had opened and every muscle in my body ached.
My mom yelled it was time to load up and go. So, I gingerly made my way down and out to the car. I climbed into my assigned seat in the back of the station wagon and off we went.
Other than getting to spend time with Robin at Sunday School, the morning drug on.
Church was boring and the preacher from Texas was way off-base from the way I had read the Good Book.
After services, a quick walk around the church grounds with Robin and it was time to leave.
It would be another week of work before we talked or saw each other again.
With a quick squeeze of her hand and a goodbye it was back to the station wagon for the trip home. Home to a Sunday dinner of sauerkraut, pork chops, and mashed potatoes with Uncle Warren, and Uncle Lew, and the rest of my family.
Week 2
ARRIVING AT ZERO-SEVEN-HUNDRED at the old house, I found a cup of strong black coffee waiting for me. Mr. Collins had bought the whole crew coffee to start off the week. He took time to lay out the plans for the day and the rest of the week with each of us on the crew. He told us exactly what needed to be completed and who would be doing what.
I was to finish gathering the porcelain knobs, steel spikes, and wire and then get started on the cypress slats. I worked hard and finished up the porcelain knobs, spikes, and wire by lunch. After lunch it was back up the ladder into the attic and start on the cypress slats.
Using the prybar and a hammer, I was able to remove the cypress slats and nails saving them both with not too much muscle or sweat. Removing the old nails that held them in place was a much harder and blister popping opportunity than I expected.
The true two by eight rafters were loblolly pine and had dried hard as a rock. When one of the nail heads would break off, I would have to use the claw at the other end of the hammer. Sometimes I would have to resort to lineman’s pliers and the crowbar to get them out.
It turned out to be a long hot afternoon making more blisters and pulling stubborn nails.
