Otherwise Engaged by Suzanne Brockmann Read Free Book Online

flippers, kind of like ducks’ feet.”
    He brightened, quickly moving his hands to say, “Like those people we saw on the beach?”
    Molly glanced up at Pres, aware of him watching them, aware that he couldn’t understand their silent communications. “Yesterday Zander and I saw some teenagers on the beach,” she told him.“They were wearing flippers and face masks, but I don’t think they were scuba divers.”
    “Probably snorkelers,” Pres said. “Snorkeling masks have a short tube that leads up to the air. There’s no heavy tank to worry about. But you have to swim right up near the surface of the water. I like scuba diving better, myself.”
    “You know how to scuba-dive?”
    Molly glanced at her son, aware that he was getting a serious case of hero worship.
    “Yeah.” Pres smiled at the boy. “And remember that guy I was telling you about? The one who lives on a boat? Well, he gave me a call this morning, because they had a big storm a couple of nights ago, too, and that storm kicked up the sand underneath the water and unburied a shipwreck.”
    Zander leaned forward. “A
what?”
    “Shipwreck,” Pres repeated. “A ship—big sailing boat—that sank in the ocean during a storm, a long time ago. My friend thinks this one went down maybe as much as three hundred years ago.”
    Zander’s eyes lit up. “You mean, like a pirate’s ship?”
    “It might’ve been.”
    “Carrying buried treasure?”
    “I sure hope so.” Pres’s eyes were lit with that same excitement. “This friend of mine called to ask me if I wanted to help with the salvage effort.”
    “The
what?”
    Molly leaned forward, ready to explain the word to her son, sure Pres would be tired of the boy’s constant questions. But as she spelled the new word out for Zander, Pres watched her hands.
    “Salvage means to save all of the things on the ship that haven’t been destroyed by being underwater for hundreds of years,” Pres explained. “It means to pull all of the plates and spoons and pewter mugs that you find back up to the surface.”
    “Spoons?” Zander was scornful. “I’d rather find gold coins—you know,
real
treasure.”
    “But sometimes the spoons
are
the treasure,” Pres told him. “Can you imagine owning a spoon that some sailor—or pirate—used back when Shakespeare was still alive?”
    Zander didn’t look convinced.
    “Shakespeare,” Pres repeated. “Another one of those
S
words.” He mimicked one of the hand motions Molly had made, making a fist with his thumb on top of his fingers. “Is this an 5?” he asked.
    She nodded, startled that he would’ve been able to pick that up just from watching.
    “S
is one of the sounds you have trouble hearing, huh?” Pres asked, making the motion again with his hand.
    Molly started to answer, but stopped. He’d asked Zander, not her. So many people, even those with the best intentions, talked over Z’s head when asking questions about his hearing impairment. Even his new school principal, as nice as she was, had done that. But not Pres.
    Zander nodded. “Yeah.”
    “And
sh
is hard for you to hear, too, right?” Pres asked. “How do you make an
H
?”
    Zander showed him, and Pres imitated the position with his own hand.
    “This is very cool,” Pres told Zander. “You know, when you scuba-dive, when you’re underwater,
nobody
can hear. Knowing sign languagewould be a real plus. Divers who knew sign language would have a real advantage.”
    “Are you going to dive down to that ship and look for the buried treasure?” Zander asked eagerly.
    “I hope so,” Preston said. “I’m going to fly down to St. John in a couple days.”
    “Isn’t diving dangerous?” Molly couldn’t keep the question from slipping out.
    Pres glanced at her. “It has its moments of excitement,” he said, as if that were a good thing. “Diving around a wreck can be particularly … challenging.”
    Zander could barely sit still. “Will you teach me to scuba-dive?”
    Pres