Treasure Fever! (8 page)

We fell and fell and fell.

We fell for what felt like a long time, but I now realise it was probably only about one second before we landed, all three of us, headfirst in the garden bed.

I was the first to pull my head out of the soft dirt.

The fact that all three of us had landed upside down in the garden bed did not escape the gardener's attention.

‘GET OUT OF MY GARDEN!' yelled Mr Spade from the other side of the sports field.

He was running towards us with a pitchfork in his hand.

I pulled Gretel up out of the dirt.

‘Quick, Gretel,' I said. ‘We have to go. Give me a hand with Mr Brainfright!'

Mr Brainfright's head was still firmly planted in the soil.

We pulled him out.

Mr Brainfright shook the dirt from his head. He looked a little dazed, but all right.

Mr Spade was close.

‘Run!' said Gretel.

Nobody was laughing now.

Hanging upside down from a second-storey window may have had its funny side, but there was nothing funny about the sight of Mr Spade's pitchfork.

Luckily, we were the faster runners.

We made it around the building and back up the steps into the corridor before he could catch us.

We entered the classroom to a huge cheer from the rest of the class.

‘I can't believe you're still alive!' said Jenny, throwing her arms around me.

‘Me neither!' I said.

Suddenly there was yelling in the corridor.

The door burst open.

This time it wasn't Mrs Cross.

It was worse.

It was Mr Spade!

‘What do you mean by destroying my flowerbed?' he yelled.

‘We couldn't help it,' said Mr Brainfright. ‘We fell out the window and, well, there was nowhere else to land.'

‘You fell out the window?' growled Mr Spade, shaking his head. ‘How in the blazes do three people fall out a classroom window?'

‘It was a historical re-enactment,' I started to explain. ‘You see—'

‘What is the meaning of all this shouting?' said Mrs Cross, who had just come into the room. ‘I'm trying to teach a class!'

‘Oh, hello, Mrs Cross,' said Mr Brainfright. ‘We had a little accident.'

‘They fell out the window!' said Mr Spade. ‘Right into my freshly planted flowerbed.'

‘Didn't you fall out the window yesterday?' said Mrs Cross.

‘Yes,' said Mr Brainfright. ‘As I said, just a little accident. Could have happened to anybody.'

‘ONCE is an accident,' said Mrs Cross. ‘TWICE is pure stupidity! In all my time at Northwest Southeast Central School I have never heard such a noisy, disruptive class as this one. Never!'

Mr Brainfright had a big smile on his face.

‘Did you hear that, 5C?' he said. ‘We just made history—again!'

‘You'll be history, young man, if you can't keep your class quiet,' said Mrs Cross. ‘You mark my words.'

And with that, she left the room, banging the door shut behind her.

Mr Brainfright turned and winked at us. ‘I think she likes me!' he said.

‘Well, I don't think she does,' said Mr Spade, pointing his pitchfork at Mr Brainfright, and then at us. ‘And I don't like you either. Keep out of my flowerbeds. Or else.'

We all nodded.

Mr Spade stomped off down the corridor.

‘Well, Jack,' said Mr Brainfright, ‘history's not quite as boring as you thought, is it?'

‘No, sir!' said Jack, grinning.

History is not quite as boring as you might think.

I enjoyed that lesson.

I enjoyed that lesson a lot.

Despite the fact that I had almost died, I enjoyed that lesson more than I'd enjoyed any lesson ever.

Mr Brainfright was not only a great history teacher, but a great history re-enactor as well.

But when the lunch bell rang, Jack, Gretel, Jenny, Newton and I still sprinted for the door. None of us bothered about lunch—we were all too eager to start searching for the buried treasure.

We ran down the steps, out into the yard and stood there blinking in the bright sunlight.

‘Well, Henry,' said Jack. ‘Where do we start?'

‘Excellent question, Jack,' I said.

‘What's the answer?' he said.

‘I have no idea,' I admitted.

‘We're going to have to split up,' said Gretel. ‘Henry, you search the sports field. Jenny, you take
the basketball courts. Jack can do the juniors' area, including the sandpit. Newton, you do the flowerbeds.'

‘The flowerbeds?' said Newton, horrified. ‘But what about Mr Spade?'

‘What about Mr Spade?' said Gretel.

‘He'll kill me if he finds me digging in the flowerbeds!'

‘Good point,' said Gretel. ‘We'll leave the flowerbeds until last. Meanwhile, you can help me do the front of the school. We meet back here in fifteen minutes. Okay?'

We all nodded and went to search our areas.

Fifteen minutes later we were all back in the same place blinking at each other in the bright sunlight.

‘Well?' said Jack. ‘Did anybody find it?'

I shook my head. Jenny shook her head. Gretel and Newton shook their heads.

‘Me neither,' said Jack. ‘What now?'

‘The flowerbeds?' suggested Jenny.

‘No,' said Newton. ‘Too scary.'

‘Forget the flowerbeds,' I said. ‘If it was there Mr Spade would have found it by now. How about we go up to the top of Skull Island and look around? You can see the whole school from up there. Maybe that will give us a clue.'

‘Great idea, Henry,' said Jenny. ‘Let's go.'

We climbed to the top of Skull Island. Not only could we see clear across the school in all directions, we could also see right into Mrs Cross's classroom.

She was busily writing on the board.

‘Doesn't she know it's lunchtime?' I said.

‘I'm sure she does,' said Jenny. ‘She's writing lines for the students she's held back.'

Jenny was right. At the back of the classroom were five students, and they all looked miserable.

At that moment, Fred Durkin came into the classroom and handed Mrs Cross a lunch bag. She smiled at him, put the bag on her desk and turned back to the board. Fred looked up and saw us. He poked out his tongue. Then he left the classroom.

‘Look at him, sucking up to his teacher,' said Jack. ‘Bringing her lunch while she keeps those poor kids in.'

‘Makes you sick, doesn't it?' said Gretel. ‘He's so two-faced.'

‘Forget about Fred,' said Jenny. ‘Let's get back to treasure hunting. Can anybody see a place where it might be buried?'

‘It would have been found by now if we could
see
it,' Jack pointed out.

‘Did Principal Greenbeard say anything about a map?' said Gretel.

‘There's no map,' I said. ‘Whoever dug it up and reburied it didn't want it to be rediscovered. And Principal Greenbeard is pretty old. It must have been buried for at least seventy years . . . maybe even longer!'

The ground was hard. I kicked it with the toe of my shoe. It hurt.

‘Ouch!' I said.

‘So close and yet so far,' sighed Jenny.

‘No wonder they couldn't find it again,' said Jack. ‘It's hopeless.'

‘Don't give up,' I said. ‘Remember what Mr Brainfright said? We can make history . . . but not if we give up.'

‘Perhaps “giving up” is the history we're going to make,' said Jack. ‘Did you think of that?'

‘No,' I said, ‘because I'm not going to give up.'

‘Then how are you going to find it?' said Jack.

‘We need to think like pirates,' I said. ‘Put ourselves in their shoes.'

‘If we were pirates, wouldn't we be wearing boots?' said Newton.

‘Yeah, good point, Newton,' said Jenny.

‘Thanks, Jenny,' said Newton, beaming at her.

‘All right, all right,' I said. ‘Suppose you were a pirate and you were standing here in your
boots
, and you had a whole heap of treasure. Where would you bury it?'

‘I wouldn't bury it in the first place,' said Gretel. ‘I'd spend it.'

‘But what if you couldn't spend it?' I said.

‘I'd bury it,' said Gretel.

‘Okay,' I said. ‘Now we're really getting somewhere. Where would you bury it?'

‘In my backyard,' she said.

‘But you're a pirate!' I said. ‘You don't have a backyard! You live on a ship.'

‘Then I don't want to be a pirate,' said Gretel. ‘I love my backyard. And I hate ships.'

I shook my head.

This wasn't getting us any closer to finding the treasure. I thought about the note.
Dig for one thousand nights and a night . . . for one thousand nights and a night . . . one thousand nights and a night . . .
There was something about that expression that seemed very familiar, but I couldn't place it.

‘Are you okay, Henry?' said Jenny.

‘Yes, I'm fine,' I said. ‘I was just thinking about the note. It said “one thousand nights and a night”. What does that mean to you?'

‘A really long time,' said Jack.

‘Right,' I said. ‘But it's a funny way to say it, don't you think?'

‘I guess so,' said Jenny. ‘But it rhymes.'

And then it hit me. ‘It's also the name of a very
famous book,' I said. ‘
The Book of the Thousand and One Nights
!'

‘So?' said Jack.

‘So we need a copy of that book!'

Fortunately, the lesson after lunch was Library. Unfortunately, before we could go in we had to listen to Mr Shush's regular lecture.

Mr Shush was the school librarian.

Mr Shush loved his library.

Mr Shush loved books.

Mr Shush loved silence.

Mr Shush did
not
love students coming into his library and messing up all the books and breaking the silence with their noise.

We knew this because he told us so at the start of every library lesson. And today was no exception.

‘You are here to find a book and read it,' he said as we stood in a line outside the library. ‘You are not here to whisper. You are not here to talk. You are not here to laugh. You are not here to shout. You are not here to lean back on the chairs,
draw pictures or stare out of the window. Is that understood?'

‘Yes, Mr Shush,' we all said.

But Mr Shush hadn't finished yet.

‘You are here to READ books,' he continued. ‘You are not here to flick through books. You are not here to FOLD the corners of their pages. You are not here to DROP books, THROW books or WRITE in books. Is that clear?'

‘Yes, Mr Shush,' we all said.

‘And if you borrow a book,' he said, ‘you are to look after that book! You are to keep it in your book bag at all times—'

‘Even when we're reading it?' said Jack.