Chapter one - Who is Not Sally?
My name is Nancy, not Sally, Nancy, Nancy Johnson. You may winder why I have to specify that I am Not Sally. Last summer, Dad and I went on adventure involving a nefarious organization called the Agents of DUCK. DUCK is just an acronym for Dudes Undercover Chasing Kevin. You ask, who is Kevin, well let’s just say someone really wanted it to spell DUCK and leave it at that. Anyways, my dad had amneasia and could not rmember who I was so asked me if my name was Sally and I told him it was most definitely Not Sally and form there on he bagan calling me Not Sally or NS for short. Even though he is fully recovered from amnesia, he still calls me NS.
I am a Junior at Valley High in Pleasanton California. My dad, Bob, is the IT Service Manager for Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore. My mom is Guinevere and I have a younger brother Ned. I am quite adept at solving puzzles and without tooting my dad’s horn too much; he is pretty good as well.
So, after foiling the Agents of DUCK by leaving them with only finely aged jars of little pickles that once belonged to Black Bart the infamous Poet and Stagecoach Robber. I liberated an old map of San Francisco with a red X on it from the cache prior to revealing the aforementioned jars of pickles as the treasure. Mind you, I did hear that Bay Area Hipsters were paying hundreds of dollars for jars of little pickles once canned by Black Bart himself. Personally I don’t care who caned them, I am not eating any pickles with a born on date in the 1880s.
Well enough about little pickles; my dad and I have a map with a Red X that I can only assume marks the spot. I have been busy with school and my new friend Stewart who happens to be a boy, but not my “Boy Friend” so we have not had a chance to spend time researching the map. Stewart is going on Christmas break to Wisconsin to visit his Grandparents, so I all of a sudden have time for the map we found.
“Mom, is dad out back in the shed trying to fix the old borfin that keeps schlumping?”
“You know it, remind him that Ned and I will be out shopping for Christmas presents and won’t be back until after dinner.”
“Ok mom, see you later.”
I head out to the shed to inform dad that I have all of Christmas break to research the map. Besides it was not just Stewart keeping us from working on the map, dad took a sample of it to one of his buddies and Sandia National Laboratories, SNL for short, to have it carbon dated and I think the results are due back today.
Chapter two - About that Map
Opening the shed door, it appears that the borfin is not the only thing that is schlumping. Dad seems to have fallen asleep on the futon in the shed.
Shaking him, “Dad, dad wake up!”
“What, huh, I do not think that potato looks like Steve Jobs, even when you put a little turtle neck on it.”
“Dad, you are so weird, but enough about you, did you get the results back for the carbon dating of the map?”
“Map, what map?”
“Dad, you can’t fool me, I know you have fully recovered from your amnesia and know exactly what map I am talking about.”
“Fine, but you don’t know, there could still be lingering effects from those DUCK agents drugging me.”
Impatiently, ‘The map!”
Holding an envelope with the SNL logo on it, “Oh, yes the map, I did seem to get something in the mail this afternoon, shall we open it together.”
“Yes, let’s open it and find out if there is any possibility the map might lead to buried treasure.”
“Sure, now that Stewart is out of town you can spend time with me.”
“Daaaad, open it.”
We open the envelope together and see the results:
“Nancy, it looks like almost a 70% chance the map is from between 1680 and 1700 and greater than 95% chance it is from between 1670 and 1710.”
“But that is before Black Bart even lived and I think even before San Francisco was settled?”
“That is curious, maybe he found the map mixed in with the gold he robbed from the Wells Fargo stagecoaches in the mid to late 1800s, but that still does not explain the map being older than any know settlement?”
“Do you know if the ink was tested separate from the paper?”
“Good thought and no, just the paper was tested. I only gave Doctor Ramshack a samll sample of the paper. I didn't even think of the ink until you just mentioned it. Well at least it is old and not something made up by the Agents of Duck twenty years ago. Though the ink could be from Black Bart’s time or any time after the paper was made, even twenty years ago.”
“Right, let’s do some research on the map itself. It is definitely of San Francisco, so what do you say we take a trip to the San Francisco Public Library, I bet they have all kinds of old maps of the area.”
“Let’s pack some provisions in case we end up on another adventure.”
“But no pickled herring.”