“Whoa!” Simon said.
“It’s beautiful!” Gabby added.
“It really is!” Chelsea added on top of that.
“It was built in the 1830s with money from Congress,” Cooper said.
“Just six thousand bucks,” Mr. C. interjected. “Isn’t that right?”
Cooper nodded. “Right.”
“You couldn’t even buy a new car for that today,” Mr. C. said.
“Yeah, but you can’t drive around in a lighthouse,” Cooper told him. Before Mr. C. had a chance to reply to this wisecrack—and he was about to—Cooper continued quickly with, “It’s 169 feet tall, which makes it about as high as a fifteen-story building. Its lamp was first lit in 1857, which means—”
“That was before the Civil War!” Simon blurted.
Cooper smiled. “That’s right. It’s been here that long.”
“And how long, according to legend, has the Jersey Devil been around?” Chelsea asked.
“Since at least the early 1700s,” Simon answered. “Which means….”
“He would have known about the lighthouse from the day it was built,” Jamal said. “It would be a familiar place to him.”
Cooper was nodding. And for once he appeared to be very serious. “Right, so we need to check it out very carefully.”
