waves • jj maybank

seventeen

Pope and Kie ran over to John B hugging him tightly as JJ opened his arms for Ace smiling, she jumped into his arms hugging him as he spun her around, the five friends proceeded to run going over to the cove.

—

"time to take this off" Ace let down her hair that was now straight instead of it's usual wavy state due to the event she and Kie left.

"i don't think i've ever seen you with your hair like that" JJ smiled playing with her hair.

"hey, guys. so, like, my dad's already gonna kill me. so what's this mandatory meeting about?" Pope asked sitting next to John B.

"might as well tell him, man, before we're gaffed." JJ says.

"you ready for this?" John B asked his friends. "yeah"

"so, the gold never went down with the Royal Merchant." John B announced.

"oh, my God. here we go again with this." Pope said already annoyed.

"no. all right, wait. hear him out, all right?"

"it's been here the whole time. it's on the island."  John B replied.

"are you serious? oh, my God." Kie laughed.

"i'd like to voice my skepticism." Pope added, "and here we go" Ace said listening to Pope.

"i'm sure you would, Pope, but can i please present you with my evidence, sir?" John B asked, "proceed"

Ace watched JJ poke the fire laying her head on his shoulder listening to her friends talk about what he had found the last couple days.

"all right. so in my backpack, i have a letter from Denmark Tanny." John B grabbed a piece of paper.

"who the hell is that?" Ace asked holding her hand out for the paper which he gave to her.

"Denmark Tanny was a slave that survived the Royal Merchant wreck. check this out." John B pointed at it once Ace opened the letter, "okay, slaves weren't mentioned as crew members on the ship, but my dad, he found the complete manifest. that was his big discovery. so Tanny used the gold from the Merchant to buy his freedom." Ace whistled handing the letter to Kiara so she can look at it.

"after that, he bought his farm. drumroll, please, because that farm is.." everyone started tapping their legs smiling, "Tannyhill Plantation." the boy says.

"Tannyhill?" Kiara asked.

"yeah. so, after that, he used his money to free even more slaves, and then he sold a shit ton of rice, which pisses of all the white planters, and then they decide to lynch him. so on the day they were coming to get him, he writes a letter to his son as a farewell, and in the last line of that letter, he leaves a coded message about where to find the gold." John B smiles pointing at Kiara who was also smiling.

"where?" she whispered.

"harvest the wheat in parcel nine, near the water. except.. there's no wheat. you see, wheat is code for gold. check this out. the gold is in parcel nine, near the water." John B showed Pope on the paper. "all we need is an original survey map of the property, and we've found the gold." JJ threw the stick down and stood up walking over to John B who opened his arms.

"okay, so this might have a small chance of being actually true." Pope said.

Ace and Kiara faced each other whispering about the gold in excitement looking at the letter over and over.

"i am a genius. hey, woah!" John B held onto JJ who picked him up hugging him tightly, "hello! fire! you're near the fire. you're gonna burn."

"i'm so proud of you right now." JJ tells him.