Seb shook his head slowly and picked up the wheelbarrow. “When we’re all sitting in front of the judge, I’m going to remind you that you made that joke.”
“What’s a droid?” Lulu asked.
While Benny tried to explain the plot ofStar Warsto Lulu, I walked alongside Seb while he pushed the wheelbarrow. The walk to the festival area took about fifteen minutes, which doesn’t seem long unless you’re pushing a bunch of metal tools up inclining sidewalks. So we took turns with the wheelbarrow until we began to hear sunny, 1960s Motown hits being blasted over speakers—that’s about when the crowds on the sidewalks started to thicken. Seb took over the rest of the way, and we formed a line behind him, smiling at people as we made our way to the center of downtown.
A dizzying array of food scents swirled in the air. Moms and dads pushed strollers. Kids carried cherry balloons: red balloons tied to green plastic “stems.” Street performers staged magic tricks. Artists created chalk drawings in the middle of the street.
Not a single person asked what we were doing.
Not when we passed a couple of food vendors who were rolling a commercial barbecue grill, and not even when a toddler with a cone of pink cotton candy meandered up to us and asked what we were hauling—his mother merely snatched him away and apologized.
So by the time we turned onto Main Street at the intersection with the time capsule, we were all feeling more positive than I anticipated. Especially when we saw what Seb had already scoped out earlier.
The live music stage was set up on the grassy median in the middle of the roundabout, bisecting it. The front of the stage faced the final three blocks of Main Street, and the back of the stage faced the flagpole that stood over the time capsule. A small trailer was parked between the flagpole and the back of the stage, at the edge of the roundabout—the door markedprivate, performers only—and several portable barriers with black mesh screening had been erected around it to cordon off the backstage area and block it from public view.
The time capsule spot was wedged between these black barriers and a fire truck that had been parked across the road to block it off from traffic.
“Oh my God, are we are really doing this?” Jazmine whispered upon seeing it all. And I didn’t blame her. Inside my head, I was trying to keep a panic attack at bay.
The stage basically marked one end of the festival. Three blocks toward the harbor, a roped-off beer garden marked the other end.
“No cold feet,” Seb warned. “We’re here to get what Mabel hid in ‘deep corners.’ In and out. We’re part of the festival crew, and we’re supposed to be here.”
“It’s our job, and we’re getting paid to do it,” I said, settling into my role as I tried to pump myself up, exhaling long breaths.
“If we get caught, I’ll take the fall this time,” Benny told Seb.
“Over my dead body.” Jazmine shot Benny a dark look.
“Christ, stop it with that negative talk,” Seb said. “You guys are messing with my vibe.”
The bulk of the crowd were out of sight from back here. Most festivalgoers were in the three blocks on the other side of the stage, browsing long rows of booths filled with cherry-themed art, food, and tchotchkes. Yet stragglers were continually strolling past this part of the roundabout. The fire truck helped to block the area—it sat empty and unguarded—but the time capsule wasn’t as shielded from view as I would’ve preferred. However, when I glanced around to survey the area, I spotted something that would help.
“Look! There’s a couple extra of those black barrier screens leaning against the trailer,” I said. “Jaz and Lulu, help me.”
The girls rallied to lift the barriers, and we walked them toward the time capsule while Seb turned the wheelbarrow around to lug it over the roundabout’s curb with Benny’s help. All the while, I told myself that everything would be okay—We belong here—while my pulse raced faster and faster. Somehow, we managed to set up the barriers around the time capsule, making a “V” shape around the flagpole that blocked our activities from both passersby who milled around back hereandthe backstage area.
Well,mostlyblocked. But it was the best we could do, and every second we stood on the green seemed to count.
“Everyone cool?” Seb asked, handing out shovels. “All we have to do is dig a trench around the plaque, deep enough to wrap the chain around it. Then we can hook up Big Red and pull it out.”
It seemed to make sense, and I trusted that Seb knew what hewas talking about. There weren’t enough shovels to go around, so Lulu played lookout while the four of us stuck in and got to work, digging.
When my shovel first broke ground, I had a moment of indecision because it felt as if I were destroying the town like some kind of hoodlum. A pang went through my heart. Nana would not approve of this one bit.I’m sorry, I told her inside my head as I dug. But I need to find this in order to stay in school, please forgive me...
Despite my angst, I continued digging around the time capsule’s plaque with the others, making a channel around it. When Benny’s shovel clanked against something hard, we stopped for a minute.
“Concrete,” he informed us while he and Seb squatted over the hole. “Looks like they built some kind of concrete shaft to hold the capsule. Was probably meant to be unbolted at the plaque, then you could reach into the shaft and pull out the capsule.”
We’d already considered trying to unbolt the plaque, but Seb thought it would take some industrial equipment we couldn’t get our hands on. Our only option was to dig out as much dirt around the concrete shaft as we could, so that’s what we continued doing. How deep could it be, anyway? A foot? A yard? I didn’t know, so I just dug, dug, dug, then wiped away sweat and peered through the black barrier to make sure no one was noticing us. Then back to dig, dig, digging. I just kept my head down and repeated these actions, trying not think about what would happen to us if we got caught.
Until I heard a small voice behind us.
“What are you doing?”
Chapter 20
We all stopped digging and swung around to see a small boy blinking at us. He couldn’t have been more than five or six and wore a double-cherry temporary tattoo stuck to his cheek. Curious, he peered around the barrier with big eyes.
