History in the Faking Read online

  Praise for History in the Faking

  “Andreas Oertel sets a brisk but not overly rushed pace early in the novel and never lets up, placing a series of increasingly complicated obstacles and mysteries in his protagonists’path until the cinematic conclusion. Oertel has laid the foundation for a fun, engaging series for adventure and history buffs.”

  Quill & Quire

  “Kids with a soft spot for Indiana Jones–type adventure will eat up the book which brings ancient Egypt to small-town Manitoba.”

  Cindy McGlynn, Movie Entertainment

  “History in the Faking is great fun! The kids are resourceful but believably so, smart but not too smart. A good, solid, well-written adventure story that kids will really enjoy. So will their parents.”

  Mary Thomas, CM Magazine

  “The far-fetched story, intended as pure fun, succeeds as a fast-paced archaeological adventure, the first of a planned series.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  “A fun adventure filled with short chapters, mystery, and suspense. The characters are well-developed, the plot is unique, and the background research is accurate.”

  Jennifer Wardrip, Goodreads

  History in

  the Faking

  The Shenanigans Series—Book One

  ANDREAS OERTEL

  In memory of Arnold E. Webb

  For teaching me how to properly fillet a fish—

  a skill I’ve never needed (fish are gross and slimy),

  but a fond memory I’ll never forget.

  Thank you to

  Lynn Duncan, Kilmeny Jane Denny, and

  Heritage House Publishing,

  for believing young readers want to see more Shenanigans.

  CHAPTER 1

  “HEY, CODY, I think he caught another one,” Eric said. He tried to spit the remains of a sunflower seed down the riverbank. The seed caught an updraft, hung in the air, and landed near his foot.

  I sat up. I wasn’t too interested in whether or not Dr. Murray caught another fish. In fact, I didn’t care about the first two fish that were reeled in and promptly announced by my best friend, Eric Summers.

  “Maybe he snagged a tire,” I replied.

  From our hideaway in the treeline I watched the old man’s back. We weren’t really hiding from him—it was just that our observation post above the river was hard to see from down by the dock.

  Anyway, Dr. Murray—retired now from some kind of doctoring—was indeed reeling in an object. We were close enough to see his line flex under the strain of whatever he had hooked. But we were too far away to see if it was anything edible. I was surprised that there were even fish left, with him hauling them out day after day.

  “Yup, it’s another pike,” Eric announced proudly. “Maybe a two-pounder.”

  “Awesome.” I stretched out again in the shade, next to our bikes. “So that makes how many now? Five?” I closed my eyes and grinned.

  “Nope, three. I was counting—” Eric stopped mid-sentence when he realized I was teasing him. “Jerk!” He spit another seed over the bank, but an updraft spit it right back into his face.

  We were only six hours into our summer holidays and we were already bored. Actually, we were bored and broke. But the broke part wasn’t our fault. We would have loved to have summer jobs, but when you’re twelve, there’s not much anyone can hire you to do. And when you live in Sultana, Manitoba—population 463—there aren’t many people around to hire you in the first place.

  “I’m hot,” Eric whined, bored of counting fish. “Let’s go swimming.”

  “Where? The river’s pretty much gone.”

  We both craned our necks and looked toward what was left of the Kilmeny River. The spring thaw had dumped huge amounts of snow run-off into the river. But the Kilmeny couldn’t handle all the melt water and it washed out giant sections of the bank. The eroded areas looked like ugly wounds—revealing exposed roots, earth, and stone. Since April, however, there had been almost no rain, and now the river was lower than it had ever been.

  The Kilmeny emptied into the Red River around the bend, and even that river was dropping fast. In fact, it was so low you could see the skeleton-like spine of an old York Boat. Eric and I had checked it out as soon as we heard about it but lost interest when we saw it. It was no treasure-filled shipwreck.

  “We’re probably going to have to move soon,” Eric said abruptly.

  “Why? It’s not even that hot yet.”

  “No.” Eric lowered his voice. “I mean, we may be moving away from Sultana.”

  I snapped into a sitting position again. “What?”

  This might be a good time to point out that I’m a bit of a worrier. No, wait. Scratch that. I’m a big-time worrier, usually stressing about the most improbable things. In grade 4, for example, after we studied the solar system, I was terrified the sun was going to burn out and freeze everyone on earth. I mean, that is going to happen, in like a billion years. But I thought it was going to happen while I was in grade 4. And since we’re on the subject of outer space, I was also convinced a meteorite was going to smash into my house. The odds of that happening are infinitesimally small, of course, but at the time . . . Well, I thought it was a sure thing.

  Anyway, I’m trying hard to be more logical now. I only worried about getting stuck in quicksand for about a week. A book on insects assured me that the spiders under my bed couldn’t be tarantulas (a big relief). And I’m almost certain that I don’t have malaria, the plague, Lyme disease, or any of the other horrible illnesses I’ve read about.

  Eric continued, “I heard my mom talking on the phone yesterday.” He ran his fingers through his sweaty blond hair and looked away. “She said that if things don’t pick up at the restaurant, she’s going to get fired, or let go, or whatever they call it.”

  “What?” was all I could think to say. My brain began rapidly processing this shocking information.

  If Eric’s mom got fired, they would have to move because there was nowhere else to work in Sultana. We only had one gas station in town—that was where my dad worked—and one motel and restaurant, the Rivercrest. Eric’s dad had died in a car accident when we were seven, and his mom never re-married. She’s a super-talented artist, by the way, and very creative. But making a living in Sultana from selling paintings is impossible, so Mrs. Summers took all the waitress shifts she could get. The bottom line was, she had to keep her job at the Rivercrest.

  Global warming and disappearing bumble bees would have to wait. I had something important to worry about now.

  I tried to swallow, but my throat felt dry. It was just hard to imagine Sultana without Eric. Sure, we looked different—Eric had blond hair, blue eyes, and white freckly skin, whereas I had brown hair, brown eyes, and skin that always looked suntanned. And, yes, we acted different. Eric was usually bold, while I was cautious. He was often funny or silly, and I was more serious. And of course, I worried like crazy. Eric didn’t.

  But still, we were like brothers.

  “But maybe things will pick up,” I said, making a feeble attempt to sound positive. “The summer has barely started.”

  “Come on, Cody. Get real.” Eric watched with exaggerated interest as Dr. Murray unhooked his fish. “You know the only reason people come out here is for fishing, swimming, boating, and camping. And the campground’s empty. ”

  Again, there wasn’t much I could say to comfort him, because he was right. Sultana was on the dead-end stretch of a highway, and the only thing that kept it alive—if you wanna call it that—was tourism. We got the snowmobilers in the winter and the campers in the summer. But no one wanted to camp next to a muddy, stinky lake or a dried-up river.

  “If only it would rain for a week. Or something.
” Eric squinted at the cloudless sky. “Then the rivers and lakes would rise, and people would get their butts out here. ”

  I stared at Eric. “Or ‘something?’”

  “What?” Eric leaned his head against a towering jack pine.

  “You said, ‘or something’. We could make something happen.”

  “How are we supposed to make it rain?” Eric said.

  “No. Forget the rain. Why wait for the weather to change? Most cars just pass right through anyway. I’m talking about making something happen here in town that will make people want to come to Sultana.”

  “What do you mean?” Eric asked.

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath and started over. “You know how some towns have attractions that make people visit that place? Maybe Sultana needs some sort of massive statue that people would want to come and see.”

  “You mean like that huge fish in Selkirk?”

  “Yeah, that kind of thing. People are always picnicking there and taking photos of that steel catfish.”

  Eric nodded. “But a project like that takes lots of time, and probably tons of money. We need something fast—real fast.”

  “Yeah, you’re right . . . ” I sighed. “It would take years to raise enough money to buy a big stupid moose, or gopher, or spruce bug, or . . . ”

  “What about a discovery?” Eric interrupted, regaining some of his enthusiasm.

  I crawled closer to the shade to escape the sun (it was definitely not going to burn out today). “What do you mean?”

  “What if something was seen around here that people might be interested in? Like a UFO?”

  “Well, I guess, but . . . but who would believe that we saw a space ship?” I paused to think. “We need something better. Something that will make people come to Sultana all summer long.”

  We sulked in silence, racking our brains for a sensible solution. Probably a quarter of an hour passed, and then Eric jumped up and paced around the small clearing. He stopped after his fifth lap and faced me again.

  “How about this?” he said. “We make some kind of a Sasquatch outfit and wait in the woods at the edge of town. Then, when we see a vehicle approach, we lumber across the highway like Big Foot. Yeah, and maybe even drag a dead rabbit. You know, for authenticity.”

  “That would definitely work,” I said. “A reporter would come to town, and it would make the papers, for sure. But do enough people believe in Big Foot that they would drive out here to look for him?”

  “I suppose not.” Eric resumed his pacing. “With my luck, that first car coming down the highway will be full of crazy hunters, and I’d get shot dead. And then I’d really be in trouble. Nope, we need something that will quickly go viral and get people to come here. And we need them to stay at the Rivercrest and buy gas from your dad.”

  “What if something was actually discovered here in Sultana?” I wondered out loud. “Something so spectacular reporters would come from all over the place to do a story about it? Wouldn’t that be cool?”

  “Very,” Eric said. “But there’s nothing to find around here.” He indicated the general area with a flick of his head and then slumped down next to me again.

  “Remember last summer when that dinosaur fossil was discovered in Morden?”

  Eric nodded.

  “Well, that story made the paper right away. Researchers and paleontologists came from all over the place to look for more bones. It was a big deal there, and we need a big deal here.”

  Eric nodded some more, then sat up a bit.

  “And remember when we found those arrowheads across the river?”

  Eric smiled at the memory. “Yeah, that was fun,” he said.

  “Well, suppose we hid some kind of artifact . . . ”

  “ . . . and then pretended to find it,” Eric said, getting excited once more. “That would create a buzz.”

  “Well, we don’t even have to find it.” I flattened a mosquito on my arm and wondered (for only a second) if it had injected me with deadly bacteria. “In fact, it would be better if we didn’t. It would be way more believable if someone respectable found the thing we wanted found.”

  A smile spread across Eric’s freckled face. “Someone like Dr. Murray?”

  I rolled over to the edge of the bank and watched Dr. Murray repack his tackle box. He collected his fish and then laboured back up the access road to his rusted, yellow half-ton truck.

  “Yes,” I said. “Someone exactly like Dr. Murray.”

  WE SPENT THE next hour trying to think of something that Dr. Murray could discover. Eric was on his back, under the pine trees, with his eyes closed. (Maybe he fell asleep?) And I was on my stomach, staring at the river for inspiration. Every ten minutes or so, a car crossed the bridge that spanned the Kilmeny River and I turned my head to watch it. The bridge was ninety metres beyond the dock, and locals considered it to be the beginning of the wilderness.

  My head started to hurt. That’s how desperately I tried to think of some way to avoid Eric having to move. I didn’t want him to go for selfish reasons mostly. For example, who would I hang out with? There were no other twelve-year-olds in Sultana. Well, except for Rachel, Eric’s twin sister. But she was a girl and didn’t really count. Though, I suppose I didn’t want her to move either.

  Eric rolled over and broke the silence. “Do you remember what Miss Kelly said about that old Pioneer spacecraft that NASA shot into space in the 1970s?”

  I tried to remember what Eric was talking about, but the sun and quiet made it difficult to think about science class. “Kind of, I guess. I think she said it was the first spacecraft to leave our solar system.”

  “Yes.” Eric clapped his hands together, pleased that I had passed his science quiz. “She also said that the spacecraft had a plaque on it with symbols, in case aliens ever found it. Then they could decipher and translate the message, figure out where earth was, and—”

  “—and come here and wipe out all the dumb earthlings who invited them?” I laughed.

  Eric ignored me. “So why can’t we make a mysterious tablet, engrave it with an alien message, and then hide it?”

  “You know what?” I propped myself on my elbows and looked at Eric. “Leaving a message is a really good idea. But . . . aliens? I mean, would people really buy the outer space thing? It seems kind of far out. Heck, I’m only twelve and I wouldn’t believe it.”

  Eric closed his eyes and sighed.

  “If everyone in Sultana saw the same UFO, that would be believable,” I said, trying to cheer him up. “But I don’t think we can build a fake space ship in the next three days. We’d need at least four.”

  Eric ignored my attempt to be funny, and we sat in silence again.

  And then it hit me. “Wait!”

  Eric’s eyes popped open.

  “What if we made a plaque or tablet with a message from some ancient civilization—you know, like the Aztecs, or Mayans, or Egyptians—and then buried it? There’s never been any evidence of those guys coming up here, so people will freak out if something like that is found in Sultana.”

  “Yeah . . . that could work!” Eric jumped up and theatrically swept his arms over the valley. “They’ll turn this whole area into a massive dig site. I can see it now, Cody. People scattered all over the place, digging like crazy, and finding nothing. Nothing but the fake artifacts we bury for them.” Eric laughed like an old vampire from a black-and-white movie. “Moi, ha, haa.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh too. “So what’ll it be?” I asked when he finished giggling. “Mayan, or Aztec, or—?”

  “—Rachel’s got a book at home on ancient Egypt. It has lots of pictures of tombs, and hieroglyphics, and that sort of stuff. We could start there and get some ideas.”

  “Excellent.” I stood up and brushed the dirt off my legs. I had to admit it was a crazy idea we had—maybe even a bit too crazy to pull off—but we had to try something.

  “Let’s go. We’ve got to get this done fast to make it work.”

>   CHAPTER 2

  “HEY, RACHEL!” Eric bellowed.

  No answer.

  The screen door slammed shut behind us, and Eric yelled again. “Fivehead!”

  I cringed at the nickname he had given his sister. Rachel’s long hair was usually pulled back into a ponytail, and that made it look like her forehead was bigger than normal. It wasn’t really, of course, but one day when Eric was especially mad at her, he said her forehead was so big it was a fivehead. I know that makes no sense, but it was a nickname that stuck.

  “We’re lucky,” Eric said, “she’s not home.”

  We ran up the stairs, past Eric’s room, and down the hall into Rachel’s bedroom. Well, actually, I froze outside the doorway to her room and Eric went in and began to search for the book. It didn’t feel right for me to go in—to sneak around someone’s bedroom without their permission.

  Having never seen a girl’s bedroom, I didn’t know what I’d find, but it wasn’t this. First of all, it was a mess. Not messy with clothes or dirt, but cluttered with stuff—neat stuff. Next to her dresser was a yellow milk crate filled with rocks, fossils, and what appeared to be bleached bones.

  And the walls weren’t pink. In fact, I couldn’t tell what colour they were. Two walls were plastered with movie posters, and two were painted floor to ceiling with an amazing mural. The mural was a mountain landscape with castles, rivers, lakes, and dragons. Rachel had obviously inherited her mom’s artistic abilities.

  Next to the window was a half-painted village she was still working on. A variety of brushes sat in a glass of dirty water on the window sill. And under the window was a tub with dozens of paint tubes and bottles.

  And besides all that, her bedroom was littered with books. Dozens of them . . .

  “What are you doing?” I jumped at the sound of a voice behind me. It was Rachel. With all the noise Eric was making, I hadn’t heard her come up. She was talking to her brother, but I felt my face heat up from guilt, or embarrassment, or something else.