Treasured

Short Fiction | Elizabeth Spencer Spragins

Marty had excavated a two-foot hole in the backyard before his grandmother stepped onto the porch.

“Young man, what have you gotten into?”

The six-year-old flashed a gap-toothed grin and waved to her with a muddy trowel. “I found a treasure map hidden in Grandpa’s old desk.”

Eleanor Winston marched toward the mangled section of lawn and paused to pick up a rumpled paper weighted down with a rock. She patted his tousled hair and grimaced. “If I help you, I think we can get this hole filled in before Grandpa sees the damage. That’s a map of his pet cemetery.”