Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
1. The next ten or twelve pages were filled with a curious series of entries. There was a date at one end of the line and at the other a sum of money, as in common account-books, but instead of explanatory writing, only a varying number of crosses between the two.
2. On the 12th of June, 1745, for instance, a sum of seventy pounds had plainly become due to someone, and there was nothing but six crosses to explain the cause. In a few cases, to be sure, the name of a place would be added, as “Offe Caraccas,” or a mere entry of latitude and longitude.
3. The record lasted over nearly twenty years, the amount of the separate entries growing larger as time went on, and at the end, a grand total had been made out after five or six wrong additions, and these words appended, “Bones, his pile.”
4. “I can’t make heads or tails of this,” said Dr. Livesey. “The thing is as clear as noonday,” cried the squire. “This is the black-hearted hound’s account-book. These crosses stand for the names of ships or towns that they sank or plundered. The sums are the scoundrel’s share, and where he feared an ambiguity, you see he added something clearer. “Offe Caraccas,” now; you see, here was some unhappy vessel boarded off that coast. God help the poor souls that manned her—coral long ago.”
5. “Right!” said the doctor. “See what it is to be a traveler. Right! And the amounts increase, you see, as he rose in rank.”
6. There was little else in the volume but a few bearings of places noted in the blank leaves towards the end and a table for reducing French, English, and Spanish money to a common value. “Thrifty, man!” cried the doctor. “He wasn’t the one to be cheated.”
7. “And now,” said the squire, “for the other.” The paper had been sealed in several places with a thimble by way of a seal, the very thimble, perhaps, that I had found in the captain’s pocket. The doctor opened the seals with great care, and there fell out the map of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names of hills and bays and inlets, and every particular that would be needed to bring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its shores. It was about nine miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat dragon standing up, and had two fine land-locked harbors, and a hill in the center part marked “The Spy- Glass.”
8. There were several additions of a later date, but above all, three crosses of red ink—two on the north part of the island, one in the southwest—and beside this last, in the same red ink, and in a small, neat hand, very different from the captain’s tottery characters, these words: “Bulk of treasure here.”
9. Over on the back, the same hand had written this further information:
Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to
the N. of N.N.E.
Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E.
Ten feet.
The bar silver is in the north cache; you can find
it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms
south of the black crag with the face on it.
The arms are easily found, in the sand-hill, N.
point of north inlet cape, bearing E. and a
quarter N.
J.F.
10. That was all, but brief as it was, and to me incomprehensible, it filled the squire and Dr. Livesey with delight. “Livesey,” said the squire, “you will give up this wretched practice at once. Tomorrow I start for Bristol. In three weeks’ time—three weeks!—two weeks—ten days—we’ll have the best ship, sir, and the choicest crew in England. Hawkins shall come as cabin-boy. You’ll make a famous cabinboy, Hawkins. You, Livesey, are ship’s doctor; I am admiral. We’ll take Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter. We’ll have favorable winds, a quick passage, and not the least difficulty in finding the spot, and money to eat, to roll in, to play duck and drake with ever after.”
11. “Trelawney,” said the doctor, “I’ll go with you, and I’ll go bail for it, so will Jim, and be a credit to the undertaking. There’s only one man I’m afraid of.” “And who’s that?” cried the squire. “Name the dog, sir!”
12. “You,” replied the doctor, “for you cannot hold your tongue. We are not the only men who know of this paper. These fellows who attacked the inn tonight—bold, desperate blades, for sure—and the rest who stayed aboard that lugger, and more, I dare say, not far off, are, one and all, through thick and thin, bound that they’ll get that money. We must none of us go alone till we get to the sea. Jim and I shall stick together in the meanwhile; you’ll take Joyce and Hunter when you ride to Bristol, and from first to last, not one of us must breathe a word of what we’ve found.”
13. “Livesey,” returned the squire, “you are always in the right of it. I’ll be as silent as the grave.”
One Place, One Day Author Unknown, Adapted by Candy Mazze.
1. This is my third middle school. I’ve been to a different middle school every year for the past two years. We moved the summer between 6th and 7th grade, during our Christmas break in 7th grade, and now we just moved again, right before I start 8th grade. I love that my Dad is in the military, but the repetitive moving is wearing on me.
2. I know my parents are doing it so we can all be together. My dad just got moved to another military base. When I was younger, we didn’t have to move as much. He was assigned to another base only once, and that was only for a few months. So I stayed at the same school, and we stayed in the same house. We all lived together except for the few months he went to another base. Even then, he came home pretty often. At least it seemed that way.
3. I don’t want to be away from my dad, so when my parents say we’re moving, I just say, “Okay.” I help pack, and I help throw things away. I don’t pout, whine, argue, or complain. My dad is everything to me, so I do what my parents want me to do, so we can be where he is.
4. My mom is everything to me, too, but she has to focus most of her attention on my little brother. He’s only 2. I’m 14. I can take care of myself and help my mom and my little brother when I’m asked to. Whenever we move, there isn’t much expected of me other than to go to school and do well. My parents know I haven’t been able to make or keep many friends these past couple of years because we keep moving.
5. That’s why they don’t expect too much of me at home – they want me to join teams if I want, go to a neighbor’s house or meet some of my classmates for homework or ice cream. My dad always asks about friends, sports or, what the other kids are up to. I think he is trying to encourage me to be the kid I should be, and not worry too much about moving or helping out at home.
6. It would be a little easier if I knew I was going to be in the same place next month and next year, with the same kids in my class. Maybe this will be the year that we end up staying in this one place.
