The Summer of Mucus McBain

“Muke, Walter…where are you guys?” Sam hollered.
It was just past ten o’clock, on the third Saturday night in June. School had been out for a full week, yet here was Samuel Day, recently promoted from the 5th grade, wandering through the east side of the Lagunitas Elementary School campus.
“Guys,” Sam began again, but before he could finish, from around a corner someone grabbed the back of his sweatshirt collar and he was pulled from behind, falling to the ground, causing him to scream louder than he had while looking for his friends.
“Ssshhh!” Muke ordered with his right index finger pressed against his lips and a frown on his round, pre-pubescent face.
“Sorry guys,” Sam said apologetically, “I couldn’t remember where we were supposed to meet.”
“Or when,” added Walter, who was working on his summer jawbreaker, “we were supposed to meet here at nine o’clock. Me and Muke have been waiting for over an hour. You practically live across the street from the school, and we had to ride our bikes from Woodacre to get here,” Walter finished, speaking as loudly as a whisper would allow him.
Before Sam could offer another apology, as had become his custom, for Sam was always late, another voice joined in their conversation.
“Howdy, boys,” said the voice coming from the same direction as the flashlight shining into their eyes. “In case you didn’t realize, you three completed the fifth grade a week or so ago, didn’t you?”
“Hi Gus,” Muke responded, giving Gus his friendliest smile.
“What brings you three back here at…” Gus paused to look at his watch, “at 10:08 on a Saturday night?”
Gus was the night custodian at Lagunitas Elementary. He had worked at the school for nearly 45 years. It was his first job after high school, and he never left, though at age 63, he gave it thought from time to time. The students and the staff thought Gus was the best, and the feelings were reciprocal. But that didn’t mean that Gus didn’t know how to enforce school rules when necessary.
As the self appointed leader, Muke took it upon himself to answer for the group.
“Well, numb-nuts over here,” Muke began, pointing his thumb over his left shoulder at Sam, who returned a disapproving look, “realized last week that when we were in kindergarten, and we planted a time capsule, that he put a Topps 1969 Reggie Jackson rookie card in there! It’s worth a lot of money! I had told him back then to put his 1972 Chris Floethe rookie card into the capsule. Nobody ever heard of him. But Sam didn’t know anything about baseball back then, and he really goofed!”
“So we got to dig up the time capsule,” Walter continued the story, “to get the Reggie card out of there. We brought the Floethe card to replace it, so everyone from the class would still have made a contribution.”
Gus lowered his head and rubbed his hand across the lower part of his face, including his mouth, appearing to be deep in thought about their predicament. His hand also hid the smile he had beneath it.
“Well, boys,” Gus began to say after thinking about their situation, “I can’t have you going around digging up the entire school. How do you know where the time capsule is? It’s been six years since you buried it.”
“Walter thinks he remembers that it was buried over there,” Muke pointed, “just off the service road, next to the kindergarten yard.”
“Well, it could be,” Gus agreed, “but that dirt has been walked over, run over and driven over for more than six years. It’s going to be hard digging, and that’s even if you’ve got the right location picked out.”
“We need a tractor,” said Walter, without giving too much advance thought to his statement. Everyone else looked at him.
“What?!” Muke said annoyingly.
“Why not?” Walter responded.
“A tractor,” Muke said under his breath, as he shook his head while looking at the ground.
“I think you boys better ponder a little more about this plan. Like I said, I can’t have holes dug all over the school, and even if you find the right place to dig, that time capsule must be a good three feet deep. Hard digging,” Gus thought out loud, hoping to let the boys reach their own, similar conclusion.
“Walter, how sure are you about the location?” Sam asked.
“Well, I think it’s over there. I’m almost positive,” he answered.
“Over there,” Gus pointed out, “still covers a lot of ground when it comes to digging.”
“Maybe we can get a metal detector to find it!” Walter shouted.
“Was the container made of metal?” asked Gus.
The three boys looked at each other, all three shrugged their shoulders.
“Getting pretty late,” Gus suggested, “I don’t suppose your parents realize you’re here. I’m just about to call it a night myself. Let’s load your bikes into my truck and get you home.”
Muke, Walter and Sam loaded their bikes into the back of Gus’ older model, white, Ford F-250 truck, then climbed in the cab with him. Their first summer adventure had ended in failure.
As the truck pulled out of the front school parking lot, and turned left towards Woodacre, each boy was thinking busily about what the next day would bring. Without knowing what each other was thinking, all three wore a smile the rest of the way home, for there was one common thought they shared. It was summer vacation!