The Kumquat Legacy Read online

  It is now time to say who inherits the Kumquat Legacy. My grandnephew Cyril probably thinks that it should be his, and he is probably interrupting the reading of this will to say so. Please ignore him. He’s never worked a day in his life. He spends all his time talking to his astrologers and his psychics about how to make money without lifting a finger. And now, sure enough, out of respect for my dear departed niece – his mother – he’s getting all of my land and all of my money, without lifting a finger. You would think that that would be enough, and that he wouldn’t need the Kumquat Legacy too. I’m sure he wants it, though.

  Here’s the funny thing: Cyril doesn’t even know what the Kumquat Legacy is. He just assumes that it is immeasurably valuable. It turns out that he is quite right. I won’t reveal its nature here; it must remain, for now, a secret. I will say that it is the most valuable thing I own, much too valuable for me to give away haphazardly.

  So, upon my death, Cyril cannot simply inherit the Legacy. He will have to earn it – to show that he is worthy.

  I have devised a series of challenges for him, puzzles that will finally make him use his brain. I’ve often imagined him turning off his television, sitting down at a desk, and seriously getting to work. For the first time in his life, he would have to see a job through, from beginning to end. Oh, the pleasure this picture brought me!

  All along, though, I’ve also thought about leaving the Kumquat Legacy to a total stranger. Yes, Cyril is my only relative, the son of my beloved niece. On the other hand, he’s lazy and shiftless. And besides, I myself inherited the Legacy from a total stranger. Why shouldn’t I leave it to one?

  But which stranger? I figured it out this last year while sitting in Darcy Park. A boy named Dave spends a lot of time there with his friend Brent and his sister Loni. These kids never guessed that I listened to their conversations as they passed by or as they shouted across the park. They didn’t realize that over the months, watching them do all kinds of things, hearing them say all kinds of things, I developed a strong, positive opinion of their character. You can learn a lot about someone if you watch them long enough. Young Dave reminds me of myself, many, many years ago.

  Dave should be sitting at the table right now, listening to this reading. I don’t know his last name, but I did take his picture, and I’m confident that Mr. Andrews will find him. I hereby offer Dave the chance to solve the puzzles leading to the Kumquat Legacy. If he solves them first,…

  “NO!” shouted Cyril, rising to his feet. He leaned over and once again slammed his fist down on the table, this time so hard that a round container of pencils in the center fell over, scattering pencils everywhere. He was angrier than ever. Maybe I was imagining it, but his mop of curly hair suddenly seemed to spread out in all directions, as if filled with static electricity. He flashed an angry glare at me and then at Mr. Halverson. “This is outrageous – and illegal!” he sputtered. “I demand that…”

  “WILL YOU BE QUIET!” boomed Mr. Halverson. For an old man, he shouted with surprising force. Cyril was stunned into silence.

  “Just sit down, be quiet, and listen,” Mr. Halverson said, more quietly but just as forcefully. Cyril started to say something, thought better of it, and sat down, still angry. Mr. Halverson looked at him sternly for several seconds before looking down again at the page in his hand. “Now, where was I? Ah, here we go.”

  I hereby offer Dave the chance to solve the puzzles leading to the Kumquat Legacy. If he solves them first, the Legacy is his.

  Knowing my grandnephew, I’ll bet he whined out loud or shouted in anger when he heard that last bit. Please tell him to sit down, shut up and listen.

  Before they leave the room, both Cyril and Dave will examine the contents of a small wooden box presented to them by my dear friend, Arthur Halverson. The contents will point the way to another box, and the contents of that will lead to a third box. Inside the third box is the combination to a safe in Arthur’s home. This safe contains the Kumquat Legacy.

  Both Cyril and Dave will need to travel a bit to solve the puzzles. Arrangements for travel can be made through Mr. Andrews’s office, at no cost. In solving the puzzles, Dave can get help from his friend and his sister. Cyril can also get help from friends, if he has any. I doubt he does.

  With this I end my last will and testament. Signed, Jeffrey Rudolph Morton.

  Mr. Halverson fell silent, and he looked around the table as he set down the paper. For a moment, no one spoke. Cyril, though, was beginning to shake. Soon it was clear that, once again, he couldn’t restrain himself.

  “This is OUTRAGEOUS!” he shouted, repeating himself. “I’m calling my own lawyer!” And that’s exactly what he did.

  Maybe you can guess how I was feeling right then. Part of me was incredibly curious about the Kumquat Legacy and, more immediately, about the wooden box that Mr. Halverson had placed on the table. The other part of me was bored, impatient and frustrated, all because of Cyril. Before Mr. Halverson could open the box, we had to sit there and wait for Cyril to finish with his call. That half-hour went by very slowly. There wasn’t much to do, unless you count listening to him complain into his cell phone or, a little later, watching him glare angrily around the room as Mr. Andrews, the lawyer, spoke into the phone, reading from the will. Cyril eventually took the phone back from Mr. Andrews and spoke into it again. He did not look happy.

  “Are you satisfied?” Mr. Halverson asked him. “Does your lawyer agree that the will is legal?”

  “He has to look at it,” Cyril said, fuming. “But he thinks it probably is.”

  “Good! Then let’s take a look inside the box, shall we?” Mr. Halverson pulled the box toward him. It was small, about the size of the boxes my sister’s shoes come in. It was made of a reddish wood – my Mom said it was cherry – and a small padlock hung on a latch on its front. Mr. Halverson pulled a key from his pocket and inserted it into the padlock.

  “WAIT!” shouted Cyril. “Don’t open that box!”

  Mr. Halverson, startled, looked up and let go of the key. “What’s the matter now, Mr. Morton?” he asked, his eyes squinting with impatience and suspicion.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Cyril said. His voice was calm now – suddenly, he was trying to sound reasonable. He fidgeted the fingers of his right hand though his mop of hair. “Yes, I’m sure of it. My great-uncle is pulling some kind of crazy gag here. And somehow, poor Davy here has found himself in the middle of it.” He turned to me and, scratching at his mustache, said lightly, “You don’t know this, Davy, but my great-uncle was quite a joker!” He turned back to Mr. Halverson. “I’ll bet Davy doesn’t want to go chasing around the country or the world trying to solve a bunch of stupid puzzles for something that is probably worthless! I’ll bet he’d rather have a sure thing – some cold hard cash. In fact, I’m willing to give him $5000 if he’ll stand up right now and leave the room without seeing what’s inside that box!”

  The words hit me hard, as I’m sure you can imagine. Five thousand dollars! Yes, he was calling me Davy, which was obnoxious, but he was also offering me five thousand dollars, more money than I ever dreamed of, and I didn’t have to do anything but leave the room.

  I was stunned. I didn’t know what to think, and I didn’t know what to do. I looked at my mother. She looked stunned, too.

  “What should I do?” I whispered to her.

  She started to say something but stopped herself. I looked at her face. I could tell she had an opinion, but I could also tell that she wasn’t going to voice it. She was going to let me decide this one all by myself. “It’s up to you, Dear,” was all she said.

  My mind raced. Five thousand dollars… I stalled for time with a question. “Is this allowed?” I asked, turning to face Mr. Halverson.

  Mr. Halverson looked annoyed – not with me, I think, but with Cyril. “Yes, it’s allowed,” he said slowly. “No one can make you take this challenge of
Jeffrey’s. You are free to accept Mr. Morton’s offer.” He looked at me closely. I had the impression that, like my mother, he too had some strong opinions about all this. “Tell me, my boy, what are you going to do?”

  “He’ll take the money, of course!” Cyril said quickly. “Here’s my checkbook. Okay, five thousand dollars it is…”

  “Wait!” I said without thinking. “I haven’t decided yet!”

  “Don’t be stupid!” Cyril countered. “What’s your last name again? Bancer? Banter?”

  “It’s Badger – and my first name is Dave, not Davy – but…”

  “Dave. Of course! Dave… Badger. Like the animal, right?” Cyril kept writing, and then he tore off the check and held it in my face. “Okay,” he said. “Here it is. Now take it and get out of here.”

  I looked at the check, and then I looked at Cyril. He was looking back at me with a smiling face that barely concealed an intense, ugly impatience. His hands kept thrusting the check toward me, commanding me to take it.

  Suddenly, I felt angry. I felt like I was being pushed into something I didn’t want to do, and I hate that. I’ve always hated that.

  “Take it!” Cyril said forcefully.

  “NO!” I shouted back. Before he knew what was happening, I grabbed the check out of his hands and ripped it in half.

  It was a quick decision. Maybe you think I’m crazy, that I should have taken the money. You wouldn’t have thought so, though, if you were there – if Cyril, with his big, phony smile, tried to force the money on you, acting as though you were nothing but a worthless pest, a buzzing fly that needed to be disposed of as quickly as possible. At that point I wouldn’t have done anything he demanded, even if he told me to run out of a burning building. I sat down and faced Mr. Halverson one more time. “Can we see what’s inside the box, please?” I asked.

  Mr. Halverson seemed pleased about something. “Of course!” he said. Cyril glared at me. His eyes were like daggers, so I avoided looking back at him. Mr. Halverson turned the key, removed the padlock, and opened the box.

  Chapter 3: The First Puzzle

  “You saw what in the box?” Brent asked that night, on the phone. He continued crunching on something, probably tortilla chips. He usually eats the ‘nacho flavor’ kind, which smell horrible, so I was glad we weren’t speaking in person.

  “Three coins and a pebble,” I said again. “The coins were a penny, a quarter, and one of those nickels with the buffalo on it. The pebble was small, smooth, and reddish brown.”

  “So what does it mean?” he asked.

  “It’s a puzzle!” I answered. “There was something else in the box too – a poem typed on an index card. I copied it down. Here’s how it went:

  Look what you’ve got,

  And give it some thought!

  Connect all the dots: X marks the spot!

  Nearby you will spy

  A world-famous guy.

  Go to the boss and say “Kumquat!” Just try!

  Brent gave a low whistle, accompanied by a clicking sound – I think some little pieces of tortilla chips were hitting his phone’s mouthpiece. “Wow!” he said.

  “So,” I asked, “will you help me?”

  “Yeah! Duh! Of course!” he said. We talked about the puzzle for over an hour. I told him everything I could remember about the coins: the years they were minted (1985 for the quarter, 2001 for the penny, and 2005 for the nickel), how dirty or tarnished they looked (they were all pretty clean), and whether they were lying ‘heads up’ or ‘tails up’ (the quarter was ‘heads’, and the penny and nickel were ‘tails’). Describing the pebble was harder, for there was nothing really to say about it. It had no pockmarks, no discoloration, and, most unfortunately, no tiny words painted on it.

  We talked and thought and talked some more, without success. We didn’t have a clue about how to solve the thing, at least not yet. At one point, Brent even said, “Maybe you should have taken the money after all!”

  “No way,” I said firmly. “We’ll figure it out.” But we didn’t – not that night. “We’ll tackle it again tomorrow,” I said finally. “Come by my house at nine!” I said good night and hung up the phone.

  To my surprise, it rang again almost immediately. “Hello?” I said, picking it up.

  “Is this Dave?” said an oily voice. I recognized it and winced. This was the last person I wanted to talk to.

  “This is Dave,” I said unenthusiastically.

  “It’s me, your new buddy Cyril!” said the voice, trying to sound like a buddy. “Listen – I’ve got some great ideas about how to solve the puzzle. I’ve practically solved it already!”

  My heart sank, though I wasn’t sure I believed him. “Um, okay!” I said. “So why did you call me?”

  Cyril gave a false-sounding little laugh. “Well, it’s like this,” he said. “I’m impatient. Always have been. I want this puzzle solved right now, not in a little while. I thought if we pooled our ideas together, we could solve it that much faster. When we finish, I’ll give you ten thousand dollars for your share of the Legacy!”

  Ten thousand dollars! Twice as much as before…

  “So, what have you figured out?” Cyril demanded, before I had a chance to say anything.

  “Well, I don’t know…”

  “You tell me what you figured out, and then I’ll tell you what I figured out,” Cyril pressed on, his voice even more insistent. “That’s fair, isn’t it?”

  “I tell you first?” I asked. Naturally, I was suspicious.

  “Yes, yes, of course! And then I promise to tell you what I know, and I promise to give you ten thousand dollars once the Legacy is all mine. I give you my solemn word!”

  His solemn word. Unfortunately for Cyril, he had forgotten something. He had forgotten that I’d dealt with him before and that I knew what he was like. His solemn word was worthless, and that made my decision easy. “Listen,” I said. “I can’t help you. I haven’t gotten anywhere on the puzzle myself yet. I’ll just work on it at my own pace. With any luck I’ll catch up to you soon.”

  Cyril didn’t respond right away. I grinned, for I knew what was happening. I had set something off inside him – he was growing more and more furious with each passing second. When he first called, he had concealed himself inside a jacket of friendliness, but now he was so hot with anger that he threw that jacket off. “You lying, conniving, worthless little brat!” he said finally, spitting as he yelled. “You tell me the answer! What do the coins and the rock mean? Well?!!”

  That was the Cyril I knew. “Good night, and sweet dreams!” I said pleasantly, hanging up. I looked at the phone for a few seconds, took the receiver off the hook, and left it lying on the counter.

  ****

  We figured out the puzzle the next day. Well, okay, my little sister did. As I sit here writing this down, I’m tempted to keep the answer a secret from you, the reader, for just a little while longer. I’m tempted to give you a clue instead. Here’s a big clue: Washington appears on the quarter, Lincoln appears on the penny, and a buffalo appears on the nickel. Oh yeah – and a pebble is just a rock. A little one. Go ahead! Try solving it! You don’t have to, of course, but remember this – if you don’t solve it, you’ll have to suffer like I did. You’ll have to sit through one of Loni’s dollhouse plays.

  We sat at the kitchen table that morning, Loni and I, staring at a blank piece of paper. On the paper I had placed a quarter, a penny, a buffalo nickel, and a pebble. Next to the paper sat my copy of the poem. Soon Brent would be coming by to help us stare.

  Twenty minutes into our staring session, Loni made a little noise. I looked up at her. She was still staring at the paper, but her expression had changed – instead of looking puzzled, she was looking very excited.

  “I have to check something!” she said. “Stay where you are!” She practically jumped off her chair and ran into the den, where we keep
the computer and most of our books. She slammed the door behind her. I wanted to follow her, to find out what was going on, but at that moment the doorbell rang. It had to be Brent. I got up to let him in.

  “What’s up?” he asked, as he stepped into the house. He was munching on a candy bar. “I haven’t figured out your puzzle yet. Have you?”

  “No,” I admitted, “but I think Loni is on to something.”

  “That’s not surprising,” Brent said. He knew how Loni was with puzzles.

  She soon joined us in the kitchen, her face beaming. “I got it!” she said.

  “What is it?” I asked quickly.

  Loni said nothing. Instead, she suddenly grinned to herself, as if she were about to have some fun. I had a terrible feeling that when she finally did talk, I wasn’t going to like what she had to say.

  “Well?” I said.

  “I can’t tell you!” she said slyly.

  “You can’t tell us?” I said, confused. “What are you talking about? Why not?”