The Treasure Box Excerpt

Judith reading an excerpt:

CHATPER ONE EXCERPT:

His pulse quickened when more than thirty pairs of eyes turned on him as he entered the lunchroom.

Face hot, Gus stared around the gym at all the strange kids seated in rows at long, plastic folding tables. A jumble of noisy chatter engulfed him.

“Hey, over here.” A boy from his Grade 5 class signalled him to join a table with several other boys.

Gus’s hands were clammy by the time he zigzagged through the smell of bagged lunches, ripe bananas, and microwaved burritos, and pizza pops.

The fair-haired boy made room for him. “Augustus, right?” Gus winced. “It’s Gus.”

“Nah. You’re more of an Auggie. I’m Connor.” He introduced the others around the table.

Their names swirled around him as Connor rattled them off. Ethan, Jason, Matthew, Logan. Good names, not stupid Augustus. His middle name was even worse. Who’d name their kid Augustus Ludwig anyway? He was still trying to

catch all their names when a girl from Gus’s class sidled over. He thought her name was Brianna.

“Hey, August, what’re you into?” she asked, only she said his name like “a gust” with a smirk.

Before he could respond, a girl he hadn’t seen before joined them. The others greeted her as Alexis.

“So you’re ‘a gust,’” Alexis laughed. “Like the wind . . . you just blew in.” She gently flapped her arms and swayed as if she were being blown around.

A wave of snickers went down the table.

“My name is Gus,” he said, through gritted teeth.

But no one paid any attention, nor could they hear him above their laughter. He felt his face heating up again and wondered if he should move somewhere else.

Instead, he busied himself opening his lunch bag. The strong smells of fish and garlicky dill wafted out. His moth- er had packed a tuna sandwich with dill pickles. He stuffed the sandwich back into his bag, mashed the bag into a ball, and stood up quickly, almost knocking his chair over. “Gotta check on my sister,” he mumbled and edged over to the garbage can by the door to get rid of the offending lunch. More laughter followed him down the hall. Alexis and her girlfriends were fluttering their arms and whooshing like the wind, laughing hysterically.

When they were allowed to go outdoors during the lunch break, Gus drifted around the school grounds by himself, feeling like a three-headed zombie, just like he had at morning recess. He kept his chin up and stared straight ahead, though he darted a look at the other kids now and then. He wished he could join them in kicking the soccer ball or climbing the play structure. He tried to seem relaxed but found himself tensing whenever he noticed anyone staring at him. No one came near, though a group of Grade 6 kids glanced over as they shot basketballs into the hoop on the tarmac. He caught snatches of conversation as he walked past small groups scattered throughout the schoolyard.

He scanned the playground for Hannah. He hoped she wasn’t feeling the same way he was. But when he finally caught a flash of her yellow coat at the far end of the school- yard, his sister looked like she was doing fine, surrounded by a cluster of girls heading towards the swings. He tried to catch her eye, but the girls started running, and his sister turned away from him. He swallowed hard and made his way to the school doors to be first in line when the bell rang.

Back in class, Gus sat with one elbow on his desk, head in his hand, tugging at his left earlobe. His ears were hot. Red too, probably. He didn’t see how the day could get any worse. His stomach growled, and his head ached. When he focused again, Mrs. Redmar was passing a stack of papers to Brianna.

“Please hand one out to each person, Bree.” The teacher turned on the smartboard and began to draw rectangles along the top.

Gus stared at his paper in horror. At the bottom was a chart with blank boxes to fill in his family’s names. He didn’t know anything about his family. He’d never be able to do the assignment. He heard other groans around the classroom.

“Okay, class—let’s talk about your family history project.” He barely heard Mrs. Redmar outline the details.

*    *    *

Gus slouched back to his grandfather’s house after school. He couldn’t stop thinking about the assignment. He barely noticed Hannah chattering to her new friend as they walked home ahead of him. His family history was going to be lame. His grandfather was the only living relative he knew any- thing about, besides his mom and little sister. He didn’t know anything about his grandmother. She had died before he was born. Gus kicked a pebble down the sidewalk. He’d never get anything from his loser dad now that his parents were divorced. And none of his dad’s family were in touch with his mother, so he wasn’t likely to get any information from them either.

He’d just have to make do with what little he could find out about his mother’s family and hope the teacher wouldn’t dock marks for doing only one side of his family tree. May- be he could find something interesting to add—like an ancestor who was a pirate or something—but his family was probably way too boring. He kicked another pebble into the gutter. They lived here in small-city Regina now. Nothing special about that. Nothing for him to do. He hadn’t made any friends and wasn’t likely to after the fiasco at lunchtime today. He was hooped, in more ways than one.

Gus hitched his shoulders and adjusted his backpack. If only he could go back home to Calgary and hang out after school on the playground with his friends.

His shoulders slumped lower.

Gus went in the back door to the kitchen and into the living room. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Hi, Grandad.” “Why the long face, chum?” Grandad asked, patting the space next to him on the couch.

Gus didn’t like it when Grandad called him that, but at least it wasn’t “Auggie,” or “a gust,” and he didn’t flap around making whooshing sounds like the kids at school. “It’s my homework assignment.” Gus sank down and stared into space, his backpack at his feet.

“Maybe I can help,” Grandad offered.

Gus dragged his backpack onto his lap, unzipped it, pulled out the chart, and handed it over.

“Oh, I see. A family tree,” said Grandad. “Well, I can help with some of it.”

“We’re supposed to say where we got the information too, and add anything else we can find to make a story.”

“Well, I think I know my own name and date of birth. And I was there when I got married,” Grandad chuckled. “Your grandmother and I always did something special on our anniversary.”

“It would be great if I had more than that, Grandad.” Gus handed him the sheet with the instructions on it. “Some kind of official-like proof to show I’ve learned about my family history, so I get higher marks.”

Grandad nodded. “Figured so. There might be something in the desk in the attic. Why don’t you go take a look and see what you can find?”

Gus started to rise, then hesitated. “Aren’t those your private things?”

“At my age, I have no secrets.” Grandad shooed him to- wards the staircase. “Go ahead, dig around.”

“Okay,” Gus said, but he knew Mom wouldn’t like it. She had told them when they moved in that they weren’t to snoop into anything, anywhere, any time. He’d only been in the attic once before, on a long ago visit when he was small. On the second floor, Gus went straight to the small attic door next to his bedroom. The large bolt screeched when he drew it back. He swung the door open and peered up the narrow steps into a cloud of dust motes. At the top, he fumbled for a light switch before realizing it was a pull string. The bare dim bulb cast spooky shadows across the slope-ceilinged space.

Cobwebs hung from the rafters over stacked plastic bins. Gus sneezed as he crept past a dust-covered self-standing mirror and a broken captain’s chair, and he nearly tripped on the rocker of a wooden cradle. Worn sports equipment stuck out haphazardly from an open cardboard box next to the old desk in the back corner. An antique wooden trunk hulked on the other side. He’d maybe examine those later.

In the gloomy light, he studied the scarred, wooden drop- leaf desk resting along the far wall. He groaned. The bot- tom drawer sagged with the weight of whatever was inside. The second one up had a thin crack across its face. When he tried to open the desk’s scratched front panel, it didn’t budge, though the hinges squeaked. He got his fingers be- hind the top edge and tugged, hard, wincing at the resulting squeal of worn metal as the panel swung down, and did a double-take when he saw the dishevelled mounds of loose papers, letters, and other bits of junk stuffed into every pigeonhole. A waft of stale stuffiness drifted out.

What was left of two small drawers perched on either side of the felt-lined cubbyholes. One had partially fallen from its slot to reveal a stack of musty, yellowed receipts. Gran- dad obviously hadn’t used this desk for eons. Good luck finding anything useful. Still, he had to try.

After going through the heaps of old papers, he stood back with a frown. Maybe there was something of interest in the small drawer that was still intact. Apart from the cubby- holes, it was the only spot in the main part of the desk that he hadn’t yet searched.

He pulled the little knob, but the drawer was stuck. He was afraid to pull harder in case he wrecked it, but then he realized it probably didn’t matter, considering the condition of the rest of the desk. He tugged again, but it still didn’t move. Something was wedged inside.

He poked a letter opener into the crevice at the top and tried to shift the obstruction, then pulled again. No luck. He moved some papers from under the drawer and tried prying from the back where he could get his fingers in, then yanked again. The drawer and its contents fell onto the desk.

Nestled in the heap was a small wooden box carved with a design on one side.

Now, this looked promising.

He lifted the lid and almost laughed out loud. Nothing but a bunch of old junk.

A dark coat button, a weird tarnished coin, a flat brown stone, and was that a piece of bone or some fossil fragment? He poked some more. Why would someone save a bit of lace or an old bent nail with a square head? A snippet of faded blue ribbon was caught in one of the box’s hinges. As he tugged it free, Gus felt his fingertips tingle.

He gasped.

An instant later, Gus found himself stumbling through a burned-out forest, choking on smoke-filled air. Over his mouth, he held the bottom edge of the brown tunic he wore. His hands were rough and grimy. A belt cinched the waist of his itchy, baggy pants, and a small pouch hung at his side, something hard in it banging against his hip as he moved.

Even though his lungs ached, Gus somehow knew he had to keep going. As he ran, he felt the heat rising through the scorched soles of his thin leather shoes, heard his footsteps crunch on the charred ground. Onward he went, weaving between the blackened trees towards the high banks flanking the nearby river. The Simmerbach River. The name came to Gus, and he knew he’d find shelter there, that he’d at least be away from the sweeping fires started by the mercenary soldiers. For some reason he knew about them too, and what they’d done.

Beyond the thrumming in his eardrums, he could still hear sounds of the pillaging band on horseback, the bellows and the scornful laughter as they thundered towards the neighbouring farms. He knew this too, somehow. He doubted they’d return since they’d looted and destroyed everything in their path already. They must be nearing the village by now.

He shuddered. He couldn’t think of that now. He had to know if anyone in his family was left. If they had survived, where would they go first? Where should he check? In his mind he saw a flash of his older brother Jakob’s face at the barn, and of his father’s figure striding away across a pasture. Where were they now? Had his two younger sisters escaped from the neighbour’s cottage?

Moving as quickly as he dared, Gus threaded his way through the darkening woods, eyeing the stark, brittle trees. His breathing grew more laboured, and his chest tightened. As he skirted the hot spots and ash pits, he tripped on a protruding branch and stumbled. Something fell out of his pouch. He lunged to catch it.

*    *    *

Gus yelped.

Suddenly, he was back in his grandad’s attic.

Backing away from the desk, he shook his tingling hand. His breath came in quick gasps. What had just happened? How had he come to be in that burned-out forest? Was his imagination playing tricks on him? But it had seemed so real; he almost felt the warmth rising from the burned underbrush, the scratchiness of the clothing next to his skin. Trembling, he eyed the box. Did it have something to do with what had just happened? Nah, not possible.  And he wasn’t going to touch it again to find out.

But he still needed to look for those family papers.