The Writers’ Group is  publishing our book, A Walk On Our Beach, some time in 2008.

An invitation to those who appreciate writing and those who appreciate having a group who can give you free positive critiques on our writing to join us every Tuesday, at 12 noon at the Cultural and Arts Commission (Dept of Culture) Office next to Aqua Restaurant, above the Turtle Cove Inn.

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Office 649-946-4953

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The Statue
(a Christmas tale)

The boy cleared his mask and looked around at the distant shadow that surrounded him. The Doc was already swimming off toward the wreck and another diver just had jumped in in a covering of bubbles. The boy got his bearings and swam toward the wreck but at a slight angle off to one side. He searched intently and there it was again. He looked around at the four divers in the water now who were all going straight for the site, one was waving for him and pointing toward the small suspended buoys outlining the wreck. The boy waved and pointed down to his find of a small mound.

 The others kept swimming toward the point of the survey.

 He had dreamt of it the night before, imagining buried treasure and diamonds and jewels and gold coins. He kicked and descended to the sand, pulled out his tiny excavation shovel and began digging. He felt a shadow of movement within the shadows to his left and looked up, staring at the line where the clearness of the water disappeared into a vagueness of secret. He looked around but there was nothing but the group going to their spots, starting to get their gear together to continue the grid laying of the ship’s resting place.

 He continued digging and hit something hard. He pushed the shovel in to get a feeling for it and there was a give and hardness again like crumbling wood. The boy dug around the mound and sand began to fall away from a small shell encrusted chest the size of a shoebox but rounded on its top. His eyes searched for jewels on the outside of the chest as his own chest heaved with excitement at what might be. Again, there was movement off to his left but again the shadows revealed nothing. He looked over at the surveyors who seemed oblivious to him.

 Putting his shovel under one side he levered the box up and out of its position easily a haze of sand rising with it then quickly settling again moved a slight bit by the current. It was his treasure laying there after hundreds of years; his real treasure, not a pirate movie dream but a real box from some way back time. Way before his grandfather and great grand father. The Doctor said the wreck was from the 1790s and this was 2007. That amount of years never really meant anything to him before, even when they were telling of it at class. It was just a number but this was real and from a time before they had pictures. He laughed at the thought of a time before pictures. What a strange thing to think, he thought.

 His hands found a hasp but it was corroded solidly into the box and the hinges were also solid, so he thought, should I take this up to the boat…? they might take it from him. Should he leave it and come back for it with somebody else’s boat? Somebody else might find it or the other boat guy might take it from him? He decided since almost everybody was down here he would take it up now and find out what was inside. Maybe they would let him have some of it. He hated being a kid right now. Adults always take things from you when they want to…

 He glanced at his regulator and saw that he had been using a lot of air without thinking about it and made himself relax. He decided again to take it up. The boy tightened his lips around the mouthpiece and lifted the box with both hands and pushed off the bottom to ascend toward the boat. He looked over at the shadows again but there was nothing but a small group of sergeant majors turning in unison and disappearing into a coral head.

 Breaking surface alongside the boat hands reached down to help him but he pushed the box up and the hands grabbed the box. The boy pushed up his face mask and looked at the open mouth of Mr. Jamesie Williams who was looking down at the box in his hands. Mr. Williams looked around and asked where the others were and what was this and did they see him bring it up and to get aboard and that he was going to get something to open it and they would be partners in it- all in the space of a few seconds.

 The boy took off the tank and slung it up on the platform, then he took off the mask and threw it in the boat and pulled himself up, keeping an eye of Mr. Williams who had pulled out a diving knife and was already trying to pry open the box. The boy watched as Mr. Williams pushed the knife into the closure and broke the box open. A small statue fell to the deck and the statue was gold. It shined dully but was gold. It was a small naked baby with his arms raised as though going to his mother. The boy thought of his mother and examined the statue more carefully.

 Mr. Williams picked it up and assessed the weight in one hand with a curious expression. He said it don’t weigh nothing so can’t be pure gold. He rubbed it with his forefinger but nothing was revealed. He concluded that it must be plated but is probably worth something anyway. He knew a rich guy who lived out Leeward way who could probably give them something for it and for the boy to stay quiet about it.

 The boy thought that this was wrong. He had that thought without wanting to have it but he had it anyway. He asked Mr. Williams shouldn’t they tell the Doctor, maybe it was important. Mr. Williams said that those guys were rich and they didn’t need no more money but that he and the boy needed money to buy Christmas presents with and here it was… sort of like a gift from God.

 That seemed the wrong thing to say to the boy. They were stealing it from the expedition, so how could it be a gift from God?  The expedition was done by the government and the government was the country. How could it be a gift from God if they were stealing it from the country?

 Maybe they will give us a reward for finding it? he asked Mr. Williams. Boy, Mr. Williams said, they ain’t going to give us nothing, you let me handle this and you will have enough money to get yourself a cell phone at least. The boy thought he could not see that this is right, the people were paying Mr. Williams to bring them out there and do this work, which the government thinks is important, which to the boy meant that every part of this has to be important. Maybe this baby statue has some kind of story that nobody would know if nobody saw it?

 He told Mr. Williams that he decided to tell the Doctor about the statue. Mr. Williams told him that if he did he would tell his mother and everyone in Five Cays about how stupid the boy was, losing all that money to foreigners. The boy looked at the almost happy expression of the reaching out golden boy and said that his mind was made up. It was a pretty statue and was not pure gold and everybody should see it. The boy felt really like that was the right thing to do inside his chest and felt happy, almost smiling like the statue.

 The eyes of the statue were what did it, he thought. The eyes looked back into his eyes and he reached for the reaching statue but Mr. Williams pulled it back. Mr. Williams cautioned that if he told those people about the statue he would do something bad to the boy. The boy looked into the eyes of the statue and into the eyes of Mr. Williams and put his lips together, walked over to the side of the boat, slid down and sat, watching Mr. Williams put the statue back in the box and stick it in the bait box putting a towel over it and closing the lid. Mr. Williams then took buckets of salt water and rinsed the deck of the bits of wood.

 The first diver broke surface about a half hour later and Mr. Williams was smiling his happy fool smile to the white man and talking that stuff like he was really interested in what they were doing down there. The man, who the boy recognized but did not know by name, nodded to the boy and asked if he was all right, questioning the reason for his ascent.

 The boy said he found a box and brought it to the surface and it had a golden boy in it and Mr. Williams was protecting it in the bait box. The man went over to the bait box as Mr. Williams, still smiling and saying he did not want it hurt so he put it in there. They took it out and the man’s mouth opened really wide, saying, how wonderful this will be for the country and that it was found so close to Christmas.

 He turned to the boy and asked if he knew what this was? The boy shook his head and said that whatever it was it made him happy for some reason. The man said this is a gilt image of the Saviour holding his hands up to his mother and was invaluable. The boy took invaluable to mean it was not worth any money.

 The man said there was a legend about a Christ child that was carved by a Taino wise man that brought happiness to the pure at heart. The statue was handed around from church to church by the Spanish and drawings were made of it because of its power to create a divine contentment for those who looked upon it if they were innocent. The man was sure this was the sacred Hijo de La Madonna. He said that if this is displayed here in the Turks and Caicos that everybody who looked upon it with innocence would be happy about life. And it was found just before Christmas, he beamed and said, what a chance people have to make everything good and the boy found it, which is the way it should be and always will be.

Happy Christmas
Turks & Caicos Maritime Heritage Federation
The Writers’ Group