Cora Flash and the Treasure of Beggar's Bluff (6 page)

"Where have you seen one before?" asked Tricia.

"In movies, tons of them. My brother watches pirate movies all the time, and this is what the treasure maps look like. Oh, I wonder what the treasure is going to be. Gold coins, probably, and maybe even some rubies or emeralds."

"Don't get carried away," I said.

"Oh," continued Shelby, not paying any attention to me, "I hope it's not booby-trapped. I've seen some of the movies where they have spears and guns that shoot you when you try to walk by! That would be horrible!"

Yes, it certainly would.

"Aarrf!" exclaimed Calvin.

I looked at my dog, who was eyeing Beggar's Bluff. He knew there was something interesting about that formation, and I could not agree with him more.

Clearly, the map indicated that formation as the spot with the X. It had to be the place with the treasure, but what was the treasure?

"Mr. Morgan," I said. "Can we stop for a bit so I can take a few pictures?"

"I can't really stop," he replied, "but I can slow down and we can stay in this area. Come on up where I am, you'll get a much better view."

I climbed up to the hull where Mr. Morgan had been steering and he was right, I could see for miles.

Although I wasn't exactly sure what I was taking pictures of, I snapped as many as I could so I could study the cliffs later at home.

A loud horn signaled from behind us, alarming everyone except Mr. Morgan who seemed to find the noise a welcome distraction.

We looked to where the sound had come from and recognized the vessel right away. Gerald Pape on his fishing boat, out for his usual day of work and passing us on the starboard side.

"Ahoy!" yelled Mr. Morgan. I had the feeling that sailor speak made him very happy.

"Ahoy Jake! Hi girls!" Gerald yelled to us, waving his arms.

We all yelled hello back  as Gerald passed us in the choppy water. Even Calvin let out a few yelps.

After Gerald's boat passed, Mr. Morgan suggested we take a little lunch break. He had thoughtfully packed a picnic lunch with an assortment of sandwiches and cut-up pieces of pineapple, my favorite! He'd even brought along some organic dog treats for Calvin. Calvin hated to be left out, particularly where food was involved.

I knew my mom would be out at the mall with Ethan when we returned home, so I asked Mr. Morgan if he would drive me home. As usual, he was happy to help.

"I hope your pictures turn out," he said as we arrived at my house.

"I'm sure they will." I had no doubt the pictures would turn out, but I was more concerned about what they would reveal when I studied them for more clues about the treasure.

"Thank you for the ride," I said as I exited the car. "I'll call you later, Tricia."

"Bye!" she said, waving from the front seat.

"Come on Calvin, let's go."

***

When I got back to my room, I immediately connected my camera to my computer and clicked "download." A small icon appeared on the screen and showed my pictures flying through the air and into a folder on my desktop. After a few minutes, the files were transferred, and I was ready to start examining them.

The first bunch showed the water and the boat, as well as a couple of goofy poses of me, Shelby, Tricia and Calvin. Mr. Morgan could be seen in the background laughing at the four of us.

When I got to the pictures of Beggar's Bluff, I double clicked on the first one to make it full screen. I did not see anything unusual about the very steep cliff face, with many jagged rocks sticking out in all directions. No wonder people got hurt trying to climb it.

I felt like I was looking for a needle in a haystack, without knowing what a needle even looked like. To me, it just looked like a cliff. I could not imagine where any treasure might be hidden.

After looking through all of my pictures, I printed off a few of them in a size small enough for me to carry around in my bag, next to the half torn treasure map. If I discovered something else later, I would have the pictures at my disposal to study.

As I replaced my bag, I saw Calvin with his nose buried under my dresser, trying to root out something. I am not supposed to eat in my room, but sometimes I sneak something in and occasionally a piece will fall off and roll under my bed or the dresser. Calvin will usually find it pretty quickly and cry until I reach under and pull it out. Knowing he would not give up until I gave in, I reached under the dresser and started feeling around for whatever it was that Calvin was after.

It was not food that Calvin had discovered, it seemed, but some sort of card. A library card. Not a regular card, however; it had a big 'S' on it, right beside the barcode with no signature or name on it. Whoever broke into my room had left a very valuable piece of evidence behind.

"Calvin," I said. "You have just sniffed out a very important clue!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

As much as I wanted to bring him with me, I knew Calvin would not be allowed in the library, and I couldn't leave him tied up outside while I investigated.

I hopped on my bike and rode as fast as I could to the library, determined to find out who owned the card I'd found on my bedroom floor.

***

Mr. Burton, the librarian, was not at the front desk when I went in. This disappointed me, as I found him very helpful and would no doubt have looked up the name of the person who had dropped their card. The bigger disappointment was that in his place stood Marty Bass. Marty Bass happened to be the seventeen-year-old brother of Alex Bass, my classmate. Marty worked part-time in the library, but did not actually seem to do much work.

"Hi, Marty," I said. "Where's Mr. Burton?"

"Oh, hey Cora," he said, sounding half-asleep. "He's at lunch right now. He should be back in, like, ten or fifteen minutes."

"Maybe you can help me," I said, taking out the card from my pocket. "I found this and I wanted to return it to its owner. Can you tell me who it belongs to?"

He looked at the card and narrowed his eyes.

"You found this?" he said.

"Yes."

"Where?"

I began to fear Marty suspected something about the card, so I decided to lie in order to keep him from asking more questions. "I found it in the street."

"Oh," he replied. "It's just that... this is not a regular library card. You see the big 'S' on it? That stands for 'Staff'. This card belongs to a staff member."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," he said. "Look."

He rifled through his wallet and took out his own library card, which looked just like the one I had found.

"Can you tell who this card belongs to?"

"Yeah, but there are only a few people this could belong to. I know it's not mine, but could be one of the other students who work here."

He took the card and punched the number into the computer and waited a second.

"It's Mr. Burton's card. He must have dropped it."

A horrible thought passed through my head. Mr. Burton could not have been the person to break into my house, could he? Was he the person who was trying to find the other half of the map?

"Marty, do you know if Mr. Burton lost his wallet lately?"

I thought perhaps the thief had stolen Mr. Burton's wallet and dropped the card in my bedroom.

"No," replied Marty. "He never mentioned it. In fact, I noticed he had his wallet with him this morning. He took it out and started looking through it. Come to think of it, he looked like he was looking for something, probably his card."

"Thanks Marty, but do me a favor. Don't tell him I have the card. I want to give it to him myself. I want to surprise him."

"Sure, no problem."

I knew it would be a big surprise when I showed the card to Mr. Burton, so I had to make sure it was at the right moment, but first I had something else to do.

I had to find the other half of the treasure map before Mr. Burton came back from lunch.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The library office was at the back of the building, in a secluded corner. I had seen Mr. Burton go in it a hundred times, enough to notice he did not lock it.

I slowly walked to the back of the library, making sure no one was paying very much attention to me as I made my way to the office. Luckily, there were not many people in the book stacks at the far corner of the room, so I was easily able to sneak into the office without being noticed.

Marty had said Mr. Burton would be back in ten minutes, so I had to act fast.

The office was very well organized with a large desk and a small filing cabinet next to it, which seemed to suit a librarian well. Aside from that, stacks and stacks of boxes filled with books lined every wall of the office.

As I started to rifle through the desk drawer, I remembered my friend Abby and me doing the same thing in Mount Topaz—searching for clues in Preston Thurgood's office about the supposedly haunted hotel!

The top drawer had only pens, pencils and other stuff you'd need in an office. No treasure maps, however. I started to look through the drawers one by one. The first one only had food in it: Granola bars, fruit rolls and toaster pastries. It was a wonder Mr. Burton left for lunch at all; He could survive on the food in his desk for several days.

The other desk drawers did not turn up anything of interest. I decided to move onto the cabinet.

Working quickly, I dug through the files to see if anything caught my eye. They appeared to be invoices from different publishers and book distributors— all somehow related to the business of running a library. Not interesting.

I sat back in Mr. Burton's chair and looked up at the ceiling, preparing to admit the map was not in his office. I noticed one of the ceiling tiles pushed up slightly at one corner. On a hunch, I decided to check it out.

I quickly scrambled on top of Mr. Burton's desk and pushed the ceiling tile up. The corner of a piece of paper stuck out from the tile beside the one I was lifting.

"Ah-ha. What's this?"

I took out the piece of paper and unfolded it. The other half of the treasure map!

Mr. Burton would be back any second. I quickly jumped down from the desk and ran to the small five-in-one printer/fax machine in the corner of his office. I put the map down on the glass screen and pressed 'COPY'.

The copy machine whirred as it warmed up and began to scan, then print, a copy. It felt like it took forever, and I was convinced Mr. Burton would walk in on me.

As soon as the copier spat out my paper, I grabbed the original off the glass and folded it back up as I had found it. As quick as I had taken it, I replaced it back above the ceiling tile.

I folded up my copy and stuffed it in my jeans pocket, right beside the library card with the 'S' on it.

As I exited the office, I could see Mr. Burton enter the library from the front doors. Luckily, I was too far back in the building for him to see me, so I was able to walk up to the front without raising any suspicions.

"Cora," Mr. Burton said. "Back again? You've been quite a regular here. Did you find what you needed?"

"Yes," I replied. "I found
exactly
what I needed."

I walked out the front door and turned to look at Marty, who still stood behind the desk. After making sure Mr. Burton could not see me, I put my index finger up to my lips and winked at Marty, discretely making a "Shhh" sound that only he would notice.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

No doubt about it, the map I had found in the office was the other half of the map I had found tucked into the book.

As soon as I got home, I pulled out my half of the map and put it together with the one I'd copied from Mr. Burton's office. The picture started to make sense. The river that wound through the map curved up at the top, just like the river in town. Buildings drawn on the map were obviously the buildings that would have existed at the time the maps were drawn. The Bank, the old brick storefronts on Main Street, it was all there on the other half of the map.

The most interesting part was written at the top. Words at the left side of the map read "THE TH" and "MEN KN" underneath. When I put the new part of the map beside the half I had found, I could read the whole message.

"THE THREE WISE MEN KNOW ALL."

I read it to myself a few times, not knowing exactly what it meant. Who were the three wise men? I know of the three wise men in the bible, but what did that have to do with the treasure? Who were they and where could I find them?

My mind shifted back to Mr. Burton. I couldn't believe I'd found his library card in my room. He had the other half of the map, so it made sense that he would want to find my half, but it had been in the library the whole time! He could have found it any time he wanted... unless he hadn't known where to look.

"Bling!"

My computer announced an incoming video chat from Tricia.

"Hi Tricia," I said.

"Hi Cora. Any more luck with the treasure map? Did you figure it out?"

"Sort of, but I'm not sure of something."

I held up the two pieces of the map side by side so she could see the complete picture.

"There is a reference to the three wise men, I'm not sure what it means."

"The three wise men know all," read Tricia. "It's from the bible."

"I know that," I said, "but what does it have to do with this?"

"I'm not sure, but I know you'll figure it out. Hey, where did you find the other half of the map?"

I debated telling her what I'd done. She might not approve of my breaking into Mr. Burton's office to look for the map. If it had been Shelby, there would have been no problem at all.

"I found it," I finally said.

"Where?" she pressed.

After a few seconds, I replied with an answer that was, basically, true. "In the library."

"In another book?"

"No, I found it in Mr. Burton's office."

"Why was it in Mr. Burton's office?"

I decided to let her in on my secret, even if she judged me.

"I found something..." I began.

"Aarf!" Calvin interrupted.