Vivian seemed to be lying low. Or at least she was avoiding Archie.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
He was also beginning to suspect the kid Oliver had spotted outside after hours was, in fact, Vivian, which meant she had some sort of plan in the works to win the bet. Of course, he wouldn’t have expected anything less. Not from her. His mind teetered from begrudging respect for her skills to annoyance at her insistence she could beat him, that he wasn’t the King of Cons. Because if he wasn’t that, what was he? That was why he had to win the bet. Not just to beat her, but to prove to her, and to himself, that he was as good at this as he had always thought himself to be. At least before Cupcake Girl came along.
“I think she’s up to something,” Archie said quietly as he and Oliver stood, pretending to ignore each other, by the lake. “You need to keep an eye on her.”
“Whatever you say, you’re the boss,” Oliver said. “But—”
“But what?”
“Nothing,” Oliver said, and kicked a rock, hard enough that it went flying into the lake and nearly took out the eye of a ten-year-old girl from the Chain Pickerel cabin. The two of them were observing the group’s swim lesson from the trees just out of sight of the dock.
They couldn’t meet in the woods anymore, not since the bee incident, because that whole area of the camp was blocked off with sawhorses and caution tape, including the archery range and their usual meeting spot.
“I just think it was more fun when we were working together, that’s all.”
“With Cupcake Girl?” Archie was incredulous. “Would you please stop trying to convince me we were better off working with her? Because that’s clearly not true.”
“She has a name, you know. Vivian. Vivian Cheng,” Oliver said. “And yeah, it was better. Come on, Arch, you know I’m right.”
Archie made a face but didn’t say anything. It was true that life at Camp Shady Brook had gone downhill dramatically since he began his feud with Cupcake Girl. Sorry, with Vivian. Parents’ Day, the bees, and Alicia, to name a few. Maybe some of those things could have been avoided if they’d stuck together instead of trying to scam each other. She was pretty smart, after all. Maybe once he won the bet they could go back to the way things were, at least a little bit.
He just had to get back on top. He was Archie Drake, after all.
“Well, it’s too late now to work together whether you want to or not,” Archie said. “We’ve got the bet to think about. And the sooner we win, the sooner all of this is over.”
So once the Bluegills and Chain Pickerels were done with their swim lessons, Archie made his big play.
“Mitchell! Hey, Mitch!” he called, and rushed to catch up with the younger boy.
Archie put on his broadest smile and acted like he was out of breath from running. It was an old ploy, a way to make himself seem vulnerable, and put kids at ease before he started weaving his tales.
“Hi, Archie,” Mitchell said, looking a little surprised. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you in the Walleyes?”
“Yeah,” Archie said, ducking his head and making a big show of catching his breath. “But they’re busy at arts and crafts right now and I kind of wanted to talk to you.”
“To me?”
“About—” Archie paused and lowered his voice, then looked around to make sure the rest of the Bluegills were farther up the path toward the mess hall and couldn’t hear their conversation. “Pirates.”
“Pirates?” Mitchell’s voice got higher and louder. “What about pirates?”
“Shh,” Archie said. “This is just between you and me. The thing is, our conversation the other day got me thinking . . . and I remembered my friend back home is into pirates too. And he sent me this letter I totally forgot about until we talked the other day. About how there used to be pirates here, in Vermont.”
“That’s impossible,” Mitchell said.
“I know, it sounds unbelievable, right?” One of Archie’s rules was always to agree with the mark. It made them trust him. “But that’s what he said. And he sent me this news article to prove it.”
Archie pulled the fake article he’d created on the computer out of his pocket. He’d creased it carefully, so it looked like something that had been sent in a letter. Those kinds of details were his specialty. The kind of thing that made even the most implausible story seem just plausible enough. At least for most kids.
Mitchell the Unconnable was, well, a different story.
Still, if Archie was going to win the bet, he had to make the play.
Mitchell examined the article. “The Vermont Tribune? Is that a newspaper?”
“I guess so,” Archie said. “Just read it.”
The news story—which Archie knew by heart, since he’d written it—explained how Bluebottle the Pirate had sailed up the Missisquoi River from Lake Champlain all the way to their own little Lake Joyeaux through a little-known tributary, long since run dry. And better yet, the story continued, he was rumored to have buried his famed treasure near the shore, more than one hundred years ago.
“This is amazing!” Mitchell said, and he sounded more excited than Archie could have hoped. “Where did you get this, again?”
“From my friend at home, he sent it to me, because he knows I’m here at camp,” Archie said, with more patience than he felt. “And here’s the thing—he says there’s a map.”
“A map?”
“Yeah, he knows where to get it. A map that will take us directly to the treasure. All we have to do is pay the guy who has it one hundred dollars.”
And that was it: the play. Archie smiled, hoping against hope Mitchell would take the bait.
But Mitchell’s face fell. “That’s a lot of money. I don’t have that kind of money.”
“But I’ll pay half!” Archie said quickly. “And then we can split the treasure. We’ll be rich. And famous!”
“But shouldn’t we give the map to, like, archeologists or something? We could mess up the whole site, if it’s real. It’s, like, a historic place.”
“No archeologist is going to come here! They won’t believe this. It’s just a rumor and an old map.” Archie tried to keep the frustration out of his voice. Part of what made Mitchell so unconnable was the fact that he was so darn reasonable. He didn’t see things the way the other kids did. And that was a problem. Not an unsolvable problem, but a problem all the same.
Mitchell took a deep breath. “Well, let me think about it. It would be cool, to find real pirate treasure. Like, really, really cool. Do you think your friend could send us the map? I mean, before we leave camp?”
His eyes were shining. For a brief moment, Archie felt an unusual-for-him pang of guilt. What must it be like to be someone like Mitchell? Trusting and honest and truly excited about searching for pirate treasure? Instead of convincing people it existed, simply to win a bet?
Archie just nodded. And then with great effort, he shrugged his shoulders like he didn’t care at all, even though the last thing he wanted was for a mark—especially such an irritatingly reasonable and rational one like Mitchell—to spend any serious time actually thinking about his propositions. Nothing fell apart under scrutiny like a con.
But he felt nervous, much more on edge than he usually was. There was just so much riding on this. His entire reputation, for one.
He had to keep it together. He just needed to convince Mitchell that the treasure was really there—and, more important, that he had to act fast, just like they said in TV commercials for kitchen gadgets and skin cream. If Mitchell didn’t feel a sense of urgency, Archie would never win the bet.
Archie knew better than to let on what he was really thinking, so he just took a breath and said, “Sure, sure. Take all the time you need.” Then he added, forcing himself to make it sound like an afterthought, “Just let me know as soon as possible. I’m pretty sure once word gets out about the map, tons of people will want it. I’ve already written my friend and told him to send it to me.” He paused for a second. “You know . . . I bet it’s under the dock, don’t you think? I mean, we’ll need the map to be sure. But that’s what makes the most sense. I bet that dock has been there for at least a hundred years, probably more. If it was any other place it would have probably been forced up during a storm or something.”
“You think?” Mitchell said. “Under the dock? But the map will tell us exactly, right?”
“Of course,” Archie said smoothly. Mitchell the Unconnable had taken the bait. He couldn’t wait to tell Oliver.
“This is so exciting,” Mitchell said with a broad smile. “A real-life pirate treasure for us to find. Thanks for telling me first! Really. I mean it.”
“No problem,” Archie said. “Catch you later.” And he walked off, but once he left Mitchell behind, he felt less pleased with himself than he thought he would be. Something about how sincere Mitchell had acted—how he had wondered if the treasure map should be given to archeologists, instead of immediately wanting it for himself—rattled Archie more than he wanted to admit.
It made him think about poor Julian, who had trusted Archie about the candy, and even about Alicia, and how hurt she’d been by Archie’s obvious displeasure at her arrival on Parents’ Day. He’d always been able to con people because of their faith in him. Only now was he beginning to see just how often he’d squandered that faith for his own ends.
He shook his head hard. Don’t get soft on me now, Archie Drake, he thought to himself. Time to focus. Time to win.