a first name basis with multiple park rangers They had been debating whether or not to include Professor Griffin in their plans Remember he has a boat Carrie had added looking looking up from the map she and Maddison were poring over Will you cut it out with the boat routine Chris had said They had been scattered around the McRaes living room surrounded by maps of the Pine Lick State Park and Chris had been sitting furiously on his curiosity for the past half hour because he’d never been in Maddison’s house before It was a small two story with yellow siding and a decorative glass ball in the front yard and someone in the family liked decorating decorating in green and yellow and hanging china plates on the indoor walls Chris hoped it wasn’t Dr McRae because the plates looked nice on the walls and he was trying not to find things they had in common I’m sure we can find someone with a boat we can borrow Maddison said She was chewing 8
absent mindedly on the end of a highlighter Someone else on this island Chris shrugged It did seem silly when you put it that way Why is Professor Griffin the only person with a boat you can borrow anyway Maddison asked Because he’s almost the only adult I can think of who’s going to believe the whole story but not ground us for eternity when we tell him Chris remembered explaining Although now he was starting to worry about that claim because the Professor looked Don’t worry Professor Griffin said I’m not about to forbid you from searching for a lost treasure ship that would be hypocritical of me after I did all that looking for the spy plane that sank off the coast in the fifties And it would require me to believe that the tall tale you’re telling me is true Carrie bristled at this Chris opened his mouth to argue but the Professor with a twinkle in his eye stopped him Just teasing Chris he said I’ve known you two 9
since you were wee tykes by this point I do know what a lie sounds like in your mouth and the infinitely more stammered sound of you telling the truth Although you really do need to get better at organized public oration he went on It’s a valuable life skill that requires cultivation I made note cards Chris pointed out But before his speech he’d shuffled them out of his hands and all over the floor and then realized that he hadn’t numbered numbered them and finally given up and told the whole story off the top of his head while Carrie sorted the cards She’d interrupted a couple times to clarify usually usually when she felt that Chris was not fully explaining things but other than that she had let the story come from Chris Though she had added a few note cards of her own which couldn’t possibly end well Chris had also glossed over Dr McRae in his summary summary of their adventures He still didn’t entirely trust Dr McRae and Professor Griffin would pick up on that and Professor Griffin was terrible at hiding his feelings at faculty meetings Aunt Elsie and three or 10
four of the graduate students that she often had over for dinner to save them from Professor Griffin’s belief that one could survive on pasta and ham for eternity had emphasized that point repeatedly A meeting between Dr McRae and a suspicious Professor Griffin would end Chris was afraid in Dr McRae and Professor Griffin getting into some sort of fight the exact nature of which he couldn’t imagine Professor Griffin was just absent minded enough to be secretly hiding a black belt in some obscure martial art he had learned in his study of ocean floor geology really it could happen And Dr McRae was still far too much of an unknown He could have any number of secret agendas unexpected skills or unsavory underworld contacts and even his own daughter didn’t know what his deep dark secret was That Dr McRae was honest enough to admit to Maddison that he had a secret dark past was Chris felt only a small point in his favor He was not about to be swayed in his opinion of Dr McRae just because he was trying to help his family He definitely hadn’t 11
