“First I lost Captain Shark’s cutlass,” Charlotte groaned. “Now I’ve lost Patch Eye’s spyglass.” Her shoulders slumped like an empty sack. “I am the world’s worst pirate!”
Jacob hesitated. Should he tell her? Suddenly, getting even didn’t seem like fun anymore. He took the holed stone from his pocket.
Charlotte gasped. “What…where did you get it?”
“It fell out of your pocket,” said Jacob. “So I picked it up.”
Charlotte glared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Jacob frowned. “I wanted to get even because you lost my cutlass.”
“But I didn’t mean to,” said Charlotte. “And I found a treasure chest for you. That’s even better than the cutlass, isn’t it?”
Jacob shrugged. “I guess so.”
Charlotte crouched by the lobster trap. She put the holed stone into the bag with the sand dollars and the sea glass. “A spyglass, sea jewels, silver dollars…wait a minute. The old bottle. Let’s put it in too.”
“It’s empty,” said Jacob. “It should have something in it.”
Charlotte thought for a moment. “But what?”
“A treasure map,” said Jacob.
Charlotte sat back on her heels. “Awesome idea.” She looked around. “We need something to draw on.”
“Hawk to the rescue,” said Grandpa. He took a pencil and his sketchbook from his backpack. “Who’s going to draw the treasure map?”
“Me!” Charlotte and Jacob reached for the sketchbook at the same time. Charlotte let her hand drop.
“Captain Shark can draw the map because he’s the captain,” she said. “Besides, he can draw better than Patch Eye.”
Jacob sat in the dinghy. He wrote Captain Shark, Patch Eye and Hawk’s Treasure Map in crooked letters across the top. Then he drew Pirate Island. He drew pictures in the places they found the sand dollars, the pirate ship, the cutlass, the sea jewels, the lobster trap and the old bottle.
“Perfect,” Charlotte declared when he was finished.
Jacob tore the map out of the sketchbook. He looked at it this way and that. “It doesn’t look like a real treasure map.” Carefully, he tore around the sides of the map. Now the edges were rough and uneven. “That’s much better.”
Charlotte looked over his shoulder. “It’s too clean,” she said. “A treasure map that’s been in an old bottle would be grungy.” She stood up. “Help me find some seaweed.”
“What for?” asked Jacob.
“You’ll see,” said Charlotte.
They found a clump of dry black seaweed. Charlotte squished it and smeared it all over the map.
Now the map looked grungy and old. It looked like a real treasure map.
“That is one fine treasure map,” said Grandpa.
“It’s the best-ever treasure map,” said Charlotte.
Jacob rolled up the map and put it into the bottle. They were right. It was the best treasure map ever.