Iva Honeysuckle Discovers the World Read online

  “No.”

  Iva gave up. Just flat out quit. She scraped her chair back and flung open the screen door, leaving two of her three corn cakes.

  Nobody cared the least little bit that Iva Honeysuckle was off to be a great discoverer. All they cared about were naked witches and country-western singers. If she found a new pyramid, her family wouldn’t even notice.

  As she walked across the porch, Iva saw something that made her want to run back inside.

  Heaven sat on the top porch step, praying. Unlike other people, Heaven prayed out loud any old time. In the market; on the playground at school; in front of the statue of the Uncertain Soldier. And now she was praying on Iva’s porch.

  “Do you have to do that here?” Iva said.

  “I’m going to be a Sunday-school teacher. You have to be good at praying.”

  Iva couldn’t believe that all Heaven aimed to be in life was a Sunday-school teacher.

  With her face lifted toward the sky, Iva’s cousin intoned, “Bless Mama and Daddy and Hunter and Howard and Arden and Lily Pearl and Aunt Sissy One and Uncle Sonny—” She paused to draw breath.

  Iva thought Heaven was going to name her next, but instead Heaven said, “And can you make Daddy foreman at the box factory?”

  Iva was a little peeved Heaven had left her off the list. “Why don’t you ask for Uncle Buddy to be made president of the box factory?” she said. “That’s a whole lot better.”

  “Daddy likes his job,” Heaven said. “He just wants to be off the night shift so he can be home with me. And the other kids, too,” she added, as if her sister and brother were nodding acquaintances.

  Iva thought this was funny, considering Heaven had just finished blessing them all over the place. Her own father was away a lot, too. He was a long-distance trucker for traveling exhibits. Last summer he drove the Declaration of Independence clear to California. Now he was on the road with the Candy Unwrapped Sweet and Sour Taste show.

  Heaven jumped up as if she’d been sitting on an anthill. “You’re right on time. Let’s go before everybody else gets Cazy Sparkle’s good stuff.”

  “How do you know I’m on time?” Iva narrowed her eyes at Heaven.

  “The sun is in the eight o’clock position in the sky.” Heaven pointed to the sun, already hazy from the heat. “See? Eight o’clock on the dot.”

  Iva felt a prickle of irritation. She should know what time it was by the sun. That was the first thing a discoverer learned, in case they dropped their watch in a tar pit.

  “Come on,” Heaven said. She put her hands on her hips in that bossy way of hers.

  Iva did not want her discovering plans messed up by Heaven. Since the day Iva was born, Heaven had bothered her like a rock in her shoe. This summer, things would be different.

  “I forgot my money,” she said. “I have to go back in.”

  “Hurry up, then.”

  Iva raced back in the house, slamming the screen door behind her.

  “Iva, how many times—” her mother began, but Iva whizzed past.

  She burst through the door of her room, startling Sweetlips. He thumped his tan-and-white tail, but Iva didn’t stop to pet him.

  She heaved the window open. As she climbed up on the sill, she thought, This is what real discoverers do! They jump off cliffs and out of jungle trees!

  Her window was only two feet off the ground, but the thrill of adventure made her feel dangerously brave.

  Without hesitation, Iva leaped. She landed in the hydrangea bush. Her mother wouldn’t be happy about that, but Iva didn’t care.

  She ran across the backyard, delighted she had outsmarted Heaven. When she reached her father’s shed, she stopped, sweating and breathless. She pulled the special something from her pocket and unfolded the creased yellow paper.

  Ludwell’s map.

  Iva tilted the paper away from the bright sun and squinted at the script. Some of the fine, loopy cursive had faded, but the handwriting matched the name inside the tire record book. Definitely Ludwell Honeycutt’s.

  Gen. Braddock. April 8 & 9, 1755. Wag__s stuck in red Virginia clay.

  Stopped at __C-E-R-T___. Filled a brass cannon $30,000 g-ld. Buried 2 feet down, 50 paces east of a stre-m, where the ro-d runs North and South.

  At the bottom of the paper was a sketchy map with arrows and squiggly lines. One of the squiggly lines was marked with a C.

  The day after she found the map, she had taken it to school. While she was supposed to be doing math, she had filled in the missing letters. Wagons. Gold. Stream. Road.

  The word printed in capitals had given her the most trouble. Was that an N or an R? What about the two blanks in front, and the three blanks at the end? Then she knew. UNCERTAIN.

  Gold. Uncertain.

  Ludwell Honeycutt had searched for buried treasure right here in town! And Great Discoverer Iva Honeysuckle was going to find it.

  Now, as she tucked the paper in her pocket, something cold and wet pushed into the backs of her knees.

  “Sweetlips!”

  The dog wriggled from head to tail, a black, tan, and white blur.

  “Okay, you can come with me. Maybe you can save me from quicksand.”

  Iva slipped into the shed. The shapes of the lawn mower and her father’s power saw squatted in the dim light. The shed smelled like cut grass and wood shavings.

  She stared at the tools leaning against the wall. The shovel was taller than her head. No good. The ax looked cool, but she couldn’t dig with it. Then she spied a small tool with one blunt end and one sharp end. A pick.

  She hefted it with both hands. Kind of heavy, but she could handle it. She swung the pick over her shoulder and set off on her mission with her trusty dog.

  “Guess what I found out?” she said as they walked down Quarry Street. Sweetlips gazed up at her in fascination.

  “Back in the olden days, this British guy General Braddock came to America with his army.”

  Sweetlips nipped a flea on his back. He scratched so furiously, his legs slid out from under him, and he fell over.

  She frowned at this untrusty-dog behavior. “General Braddock had to go to Pennsylvania to fight the French because they wouldn’t behave. He started in Virginia, but there was no road. So he chopped one through the wilderness. But he brought too much stuff and had to dump some of it.”

  Sweetlips attacked the flea again, digging until both ears flipped inside out.

  “General Braddock finally got to Pennsylvania, but he was killed in the battle.”

  When Iva had read all this in the library, Ludwell’s note became clear as glass. General Braddock had brought his war chest—gold to pay his soldiers. He buried the heavy gold in a cannon so he wouldn’t be stuck in the red Virginia clay and could go on to Pennsylvania.

  “Here’s the best part,” Iva said. “He buried the treasure right here in Uncertain, and I’m going to find it. I’ll be famous. If you’re good, you can have a gold coin.”

  They had reached Quiet Hours Avenue. Iva wished she lived on this street. There were no quiet hours in her house, or even quiet minutes.

  On the corner sat a house like one of Mrs. Priddy’s bride’s cakes. It was tall and white, with curlicues and a big porch swooping all the way around the house.

  Walser Compton was in her garden, mulching her peonies. Miz Compton believed flowers were like people. Once, she told Iva that her feathery peonies looked like ladies that had been out dancing all night.

  “Hey, Miz Compton!” Iva called.

  Walser Compton straightened up and shaded her eyes against the sun.

  “Where are you off to, Miss Iva Honeycutt?” she asked.

  Iva wished she could tell her. Miz Compton was really neat. Once, when Iva asked her how old she was, Miz Compton replied, “My age is an unlisted number.”

  Miz Compton let Iva pick bachelor’s buttons in her garden and sit by the goldfish pond. Sometimes they shared unsweetened cherry Kool-Aid and preacher cookies on the big porch. I
va considered Miz Compton her best friend.

  “Got something important to do,” she said.

  Miz Compton nodded but didn’t bore Iva with any grown-up stuff, like “Don’t get chiggers,” or “Stay away from the trash dump.”

  Instead she said, “Stop by if you want, and tell me your adventures.”

  “I will,” Iva said. Miz Compton was always interested in her discoveries. Iva would surprise her with her great discovery and give Miz Compton a gold coin, too.

  The hot sun was directly overhead. Iva felt her arms turn pink. Quiet Hours Avenue narrowed into a lane bordered with Queen Anne’s lace and blue-flowered chickory.

  She stopped at an outbuilding made of plain gray boards. A Tom’s Peanuts sign hung crookedly over the doorway. Old hubcaps leaned against one wall, and a steering wheel was draped over a low branch of a maple tree.

  A long-haired man wearing a shirt with Central Garage stitched on the pocket was shaping a piece of tinfoil over the fender of an old pickup truck.

  “Hey, Euple,” Iva said.

  Euple Free looked up. His broad, tanned face split into a grin, revealing a chipped front tooth that Iva had always admired.

  “Hey, yourself,” he said. “How’s the old pup?” Sweetlips flung himself on the ground so Euple could tickle his stomach.

  Iva propped the pick against the bumper of The Truck and took the packet of tinfoil from her pocket. “Brought you some gum wrappers.”

  “Great. Thanks.” He added her wrappers to a stack of foil on the roof of the pickup. “The Truck says thanks, too.”

  Iva noted Euple’s progress. He was covering his entire truck with tinfoil. So far, only the hood and one fender were silver. The rest of The Truck was patchy with rust.

  “Want to help?” he asked her. He handed her a Popsicle stick.

  “Yeah.” Iva placed the foil on the fender and rubbed the Popsicle stick over it. “You’ve been working on this forever. How come it’s taking so long?”

  “I like watching The Truck get all shiny a little at a time. I guess I like doing it better than I want to see it done.”

  Iva thought about this. If she was making something, she wanted to finish as quick as possible. Her mother claimed she had the patience of a newborn gnat.

  “Have you raced The Truck lately?” she asked.

  Euple smoothed the foil over the fender. “Nope. My truck is still the third-fastest pickup in Uncertain.”

  This was something else Iva didn’t understand. The summer before, there was a big pickup truck race on Hopewell Road. Miz Compton’s nephew Peter, editor of The Uncertain Star, came in second. Swannanoah Priddy won first prize.

  “How come you don’t race Peter Compton and Swannanoah Priddy again?” Iva asked. “I bet you could beat them this time.”

  Euple gazed up at the sky. “You know, I thought on being the second fastest, but then I’d worry about trying to be first, and that would cause me undue anxiety. I like being third. It gives me space to dream about being number one.”

  Iva stared at him. She had never heard anything so ridiculous. Who wouldn’t want to be in first place?

  Remembering her mission, she changed the subject.

  “Euple, I’m looking for a road that goes north and south by a stream. Do you know what road that is?”

  “Plank Road runs north and south,” he said. “Every day, The Truck and me drive to Central Garage. The sun comes up on the passenger side when we go through Dawn. That’s east.”

  Dawn and Central Garage, which was really just a garage, were the two towns closest to Uncertain. Calfpasture Creek ran alongside Plank Road.

  Calfpasture Creek must be the wiggly line marked C on Ludwell’s map, Iva decided. All she had to do was walk fifty paces east somewhere along the creek and wind up near the road. Easy peasy.

  “Gotta go,” she said, hefting her pick over her shoulder. “Come on, Sweetlips.”

  The dog was napping under a maple tree. Sweetlips slept twenty-three out of twenty-four hours.

  They cut across the field to Plank Road. Calfpasture Creek muttered nearby. The sun had moved a little, but Iva still didn’t know where east was.

  “Sweetlips,” she said sternly, “you’re a hunting dog. Show me where east is.”

  Sweetlips was really just a mutt, but Iva knew discoverers often had smart hunting dogs on their expeditions.

  He flopped on the ground and thumped his tail.

  Iva took that as a sign. She marched in a direct line from the dog’s tail to the creek. Then she stopped. The map didn’t tell her where to start walking.

  One place was as good as another, she thought, counting her steps away from the creek. She lost track between twenty-nine and thirty paces because she tripped over a rock and had to start over.

  When she was exactly fifty paces from the stream, she grasped the pick by the end of the handle and swung it over her head. And toppled over backward.

  She lay there, her breath knocked from her, and noted that her faithful dog was gazing longingly at a butterfly. “Thanks a lot,” she said, stumbling to her feet.

  This time she gripped the handle tighter and heaved the pick into a tuft of grass. Cement was softer! The pick bit into the ground about half an inch. She chipped away until her arms felt like rubber. Being a discoverer, she realized, was not easy peasy.

  The sun beat down mercilessly. She needed a pith helmet, but would anyone buy her one? No-o-o. Her family wouldn’t care if her brains fried.

  She staggered down to the creek to splash water on her face. As she bent over, Sweetlips bounded between her legs in hot pursuit of the butterfly. Iva fell in the mud.

  “You! Dog!” she sputtered in disgust. Now her front was as dirty as her back.

  She struggled up the bank to dig some more. After a few more swings, she quit. Her palms were red. Her T-shirt and corduroy shorts were grubby, and her dirt-clogged socks scratched her ankles. For all that work, she had dug a hole only three inches deep.

  She thought about Euple Free patiently covering his truck with tinfoil. He wouldn’t have given up as fast as she did.

  “Maybe this isn’t the right spot,” she said to Sweetlips. “We’ll try again tomorrow someplace else.” She left her father’s pick lying in the weeds.

  Iva thought she would never make it home. She was sweaty and tired and thirsty. She imagined being lost in the Sahara Desert, half crazed with thirst.

  When she reached the front gate of her house, she got down on her hands and knees and started to crawl toward it. She hoped her mother would see her clawing up the sidewalk, tongue hanging out.

  She pictured the scene. Her mother would rush out. She would carry Iva into the living room and settle her on the good sofa that only company was allowed to sit on.

  She’d make Arden fetch ice water, and tell Lily Pearl to get extra pillows—

  Iva looked up.

  Heaven was perched on the top porch step, picture-perfect in crisp white shorts and a clean white T-shirt. A basket sat on her lap.

  She smiled at Iva.

  Iva stood up, brushing grit from her palms and knees.

  “You’re all dirty.” Heaven flicked a speck of lint from her spotless shorts.

  “I’ve been working. Unlike some people,” Iva said.

  Patting back a fake yawn, Heaven said, “You should have come with me to the yard sale. Want to see what I got?”

  Iva collapsed on the steps. “A basket. Big deal.”

  “It’s not the basket,” Heaven said archly. “It’s what’s in it.” The basket jiggled slightly.

  Iva sat up.

  Heaven reached in and lifted out a black, brown, and orange kitten. Half of its nose was splotched brown and the other half, orange. A patch of orange fur bristled on the kitten’s forehead as if it had been sewn on at the last minute. The kitten stared at Iva with round orange eyes. Iva had never seen a cat with orange eyes before.

  Wiggling all over with delight, Sweetlips pushed between Iva and Heaven
, and snuffled the kitten. Indignant, the kitten batted Sweetlips’s nose.

  “You bought a kitten at Cazy Sparkle’s yard sale?” Iva asked.

  “For fifty cents,” Heaven said, as if she had scored the deal of the century. “I couldn’t find any embroidered pillow slips to save my life—”

  “You bought a kitten at a yard sale?” Iva could not believe her cousin’s luck.

  Heaven kissed the kitten’s orange patch. It mewed in protest. “Isn’t she the cutest thing? I named her Yard Sale.”

  This was too much for Iva. She’d slaved in the blazing sun all day trying to find Ludwell’s treasure. All she had for her trouble were blisters. Heaven had strolled over to Cazy Sparkle’s sleazy yard sale and come home with a fluffy little kitten. It wasn’t fair.

  Iva ached to cuddle the kitten. “Can I hold her?”

  Heaven swooped Yard Sale away. “No. She’s mine.”

  “Does Aunt Sissy Two know you got her?” Iva asked, suddenly feeling mean. “She’ll make Howard sneeze.”

  Heaven’s younger brother, Howard, was allergic to everything but rocks. Even Sweetlips wasn’t allowed in Heaven’s house.

  “Mama won’t mind.” But Heaven’s confident tone was edged with doubt. “I’ll keep her in my room.”

  “Aunt Sissy Two will make you get rid of her. You’ll have to give her away.” Iva was enjoying this. For once, she got to needle Heaven, who drooped like an unwatered plant. “I’m sure Yard Sale will go to a nice home.”

  “I won’t give her back!” Heaven clutched the kitten to her chest. “And you better not tell on me!”

  Iva made her eyes big and innocent. “Me? Tell on you?”

  Heaven looked at her warily. “You’re just jealous because my kitten is cuter than your old Sweetlips.”

  There was some truth to this. Sweetlips was a good dog but kind of dull. Yard Sale was tiny and bright-eyed and playful.

  “If Aunt Sissy Two says you have to get rid of Yard Sale, I’ll take her,” Iva offered generously.