“Wish he wouldn’t go do that,” Pesty said, watching her mama. Mrs. Darrow’s face was like a storm. She had heard what Mr. Small had said about the Indian maiden. She turned hard, slashing eyes on him.

“Now, Mattie,” Mr. Pluto said, “it will be all right. Let Mr. Small alone.

“She’s going to be all right,” Pluto said to Mr. Small. “You can go ahead.”

Her mama’s hands were shaking, Pesty saw. “Wish he wouldn’t tell,” she said. Thomas heard her. His papa began telling the Indian maiden tale.

“He has to tell it, Pesty,” he whispered. “The orphans’ place is real … history. The other room down there is, too. There can’t be secrets now.”

“But what about my mama?” she said in anguish.

Thomas hadn’t thought about how much the underground rooms had become Mattie Darrow’s life. He would have to think about it.

Outside in the air, Pesty took hold of her mama’s hand. “It’s all right, Mama,” she said. Mattie looked all around, patted River Lewis on his cheek. It was such a loving touch, Thomas thought. And then Pesty led her away.

“Mattie,” River Lewis called. He stood near the plank doors of Pluto’s cave. His big sons were right on his heels. Macky was the last to step outside.

“Taking her home,” Pesty called to River Lewis.

“Hello!” Mattie called to him, saying goodbye.

River Lewis stared after Pesty and Mattie. He wouldn’t leave, not now.

But Macky would, Macky walked away toward his mama and his sister. He kept his head down.

That’s that, Thomas thought. Pesty and Macky, Mrs. Darrow, they don’t care anything about treasure. He stood around at the side of Pluto’s cave. There were two cars waiting on the far side of the clearing. The foundation people and Mr. Pluto now gathered, going in one car, careful of trees. Then the newspaper folks went by themselves, following the first car. The rest of them—Darrows, Mayhew Skinner, Thomas,, and his papa—went quickly on foot toward the Drear house. It wasn’t far, and they would be only a few minutes behind the automobiles.

Mr. Small walked briskly alone. After him, Thomas walked beside Mayhew. River Lewis and his boys brought up the rear. It was sure different having Darrows around all of a sudden, Thomas thought. Before, River Lewis and his sons were the last people I’d want to see, except for Macky. Still are, too, I guess.

He didn’t like their cold, calculating silence. Didn’t like taking them onto Drear lands, taking them home. Taking them into our house.

Darrows, who early on had crept through the house to scare his family away. They had come, not like Mattie, who couldn’t help herself from wandering, but sneakily, like thieves in the night.

The final part of his papa’s plan was to take the Darrows and the others through the hidden places of the house. Show them everything. So that all would be known and seen and done at last.

21

THEY WERE SNOW-COVERED MOUNDS behind the shed. Their only movement was when they stuck out their tongues to taste the snowflakes and when their snow-filled eyelashes blinked. Pesty had brought along the blanket Mr. Small had lent Mattie and snuggled inside it.

It was Sunday. Maybe his folks and everybody would go to church, but Thomas didn’t think so. Not with all that had happened to them since Wednesday. It was the fourth day after what became known to him and his family and Pesty as THE EVENT, “in capital letters,” his mama had said. And so it, THE EVENT, still waved banner-high in Thomas’s thoughts. Because of it, they all had become “some famous,” as Great-grandmother Jeffers put it.

Thursday evening the headline in the local Springville Star had been: DREAR PROPERTY YIELDS VAST TREASURE—AN UNDERGROUND CAVERN OF SPLENDOR IS UNCOVERED. A FURNISHED NINETEENTH-CENTURY UNDERGROUND ROOM AND SLAVE ORPHANS’ SLEEPING QUARTERS UNDISTURBED FOR OVER A CENTURY. A long account of the THE EVENT followed.

Pesty was happy to be famous but sad that everything had changed so. She worried about what her mama might do when she discovered her underground sitting room was going to be crawling with people of the foundation. And what would Mr. Pluto do without the great cavern? Do is already done, she thought, do, done, and gone. She moved, shedding snow. “If this keeps up, it’s going to pack good when it turns colder,” she said.

“Then, tomorrow, we’ll make some snowpeople,” Thomas told her.

To their amazement, they were in the Thursday evening paper on the third page, where the account ended. On the front page was a picture of Pluto, Mattie, and River Lewis, with the cavern to their backs. River Lewis looked furious and stunned both at the same time. The photograph appeared more than once in forty-eight hours and in more than one paper. The photo on the third page showed Martha and Walter Small and Great-grandmother Jeffers. Great-grandmother was holding a slave ledger up for everyone to see. In the foreground of the picture knelt Thomas and Pesty. They were smiling. Held between them was a cast-iron pot full of gold. Mr. Pluto had rummaged around until he found something to put the gold in that would show it off. “Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow,” the paper said.

Thomas got his picture taken two more times. In one of them he was sitting on an orphan’s bed, with the whole cave room viewed behind him, lit by flashbulbs. In the other he held up one of the gold triangles from the box of them.

The identity of each person was given under every picture and separate from the news story. The articles all said that Mr. Pluto and Mattie Darrow were the discoverers.

“Still more secrets, though,” Thomas said out loud. He had meant to keep it to himself. But it didn’t matter that it slipped out.

Pesty looked at him hard. “Oh, you mean …”

“Yeah,” he said. “About your mama and Mr. Pluto and their discovery.”

“How it’s not true,” she said.

“The real secret is that we’ve known about the cavern for a long time and kept it from your father and the foundation.”

“And Mr. Pluto knew the longest,” she said. “I sure hated keeping it from Daddy.”

“Do you know why your mama kept the underground rooms from him?” he asked.

“My daddy has a way of taking over things,” she said.

“Well, your mama sure didn’t keep the great cavern from your daddy,” Thomas said.

“No, she didn’t ever know about that,” Pesty said. “Mr. Pluto told me never to tell anyone about that, so I didn’t.”

“Ump, ump, ump,” Thomas murmured. “You were just such a little girl when you first knew about the cavern. I guess maybe that’s why you could keep it in. Some little kids are like that. You kept it this long; you should be proud. It’s all sure something!”

“Yeah, and my brothers are mad they didn’t get their pictures taken.”

“Macky, too?”

“Macky the most,” she said. “He acts like he thinks you and me planned to get famous. He’s been asking me when I’m going to see you. Like he wants me to ask him to come along.” She waited for Thomas to say something.

He’d almost given up on Macky, but down deep he still had a little hope left. A little place saved for friendship.

It was said that Drear treasure was worth millions. They were even on cable television. There was Thomas’s papa on the six o’clock news, shown in his office in the college and, next, explaining about the treasure from inside the cavern. The history of everything. There were shots of the house of Dies Drear, Thomas’s own home. Thomas couldn’t believe it. Television trucks and people all over the place. And the whole town and everybody for miles seeing them, too.

“That’s really me!” Thomas had said.

It had been reported that there would be a reward for Mrs. Darrow and Mr. Skinner but that the foundation wouldn’t say how much. River Lewis got to talk about his family and how they knew there had to be treasure.