Treasure Fever! (9 page)

‘
Except
for when you are reading it, you silly boy,' said Mr Shush, rolling his eyes. ‘You are not to eat or drink while reading a library book. You are not to take a library book to the beach and get sand in its spine. You are not to leave a library book at the bottom of your locker with old pieces of fruit and mouldy sandwiches. Do I make myself clear?'

‘Yes,' we said, our heads spinning with the heavy responsibilities that came with being users of Mr Shush's library.

‘All right then,' he said reluctantly. ‘You may enter.'

We all walked slowly into the library, placed
our reading folders quietly down on the tables, and then proceeded to break pretty much every rule that we'd just been reminded about, sending poor Mr Shush into a shushing frenzy.

I found a copy of
The Book of the Thousand and One Nights
. I scanned the table of contents: there were stories about fishermen and princes and barbers and birds and beasts and gold, but nothing about pirates or buried treasure.

‘Well,' said Jack, ‘does it tell us where the treasure is?'

‘No,' I said. ‘Sorry. False alarm.'

‘Can I have a look, Henry?' said Jenny.

‘Sure,' I said, sliding the book across the table to her.

‘DON'T SLIDE BOOKS ACROSS THE TABLE!' said Mr Shush, who was suddenly right behind me. ‘How many times have I told you, if you
must
pass a book, then pass it by hand.'

‘Sorry, Mr Shush,' I said.

Jack tried to stifle a laugh.

‘Shush, Jack!' bellowed Mr Shush. ‘People are trying to read.'

Jack nodded and Mr Shush moved on to find somebody else to yell at.

‘Now, this is interesting,' said Jenny.

‘What is?' I asked.

Jenny tapped the open book. ‘There's a story
here called “The Ruined Man Who Became Rich Again Through a Dream”.'

‘Yes,' said Jack, ‘and your point is?'

‘Think about the note,' said Jenny. ‘
But of your riches you will only dream!
It's a clue! A definite clue!'

‘What's the story about?' I said.

‘I don't know yet,' said Jenny, running her finger rapidly across the page. ‘Let me see . . . It says that there was a ruined man who lived in Baghdad and one night he dreamed that a man told him to go to Cairo to seek his fortune.'

‘And did he go?' said Newton.

‘Yes,' said Jenny, nodding. ‘But when he got there he was wrongly accused of being a thief and was thrown in jail.'

‘Well, that's a great help!' said Jack.

‘That's not the end of the story,' said Jenny. ‘The police chief asked the man why he'd come to Baghdad and so the man told him about the dream. The police chief laughed and said he'd had a similar dream in which a man told him to go to Cairo where there was a white house with a courtyard and a fountain under which a treasure was buried. But the police chief said he was too smart to take any notice of dreams and he advised the man to do the same. The other man, though, realised that the house in the police chief's dream was his
own
house, so when he got out of jail he
went straight home, dug under the fountain and found a huge bag of money!'

‘Good for him,' said Jack. ‘But I don't see how that helps us.'

‘I do,' I said. ‘The man went all the way to Baghdad looking for the treasure but the treasure was right in the place where he started. He never thought to look for it in his own backyard.'

‘Do you think it's possible that whoever dug the treasure up from Skull Island reburied it in the same place?' said Jenny.

‘I reckon so,' I said. ‘What better place to hide a treasure from someone than in the very place that person has already looked? It's the one place they could count on Greenbeard and his gang not looking!'

‘But that's so devious,' said Jenny.

‘We are talking about pirates,' I said.

‘
Pretend
pirates,' said Jack.

‘Pirates nevertheless,' I said, firmly.

‘If you're right, and it really is buried on Skull Island, then that narrows it down a lot,' said Gretel. ‘But there's still an awful lot of Skull Island to search. It could take months to dig it all up.'

‘Perhaps,' I said. ‘But perhaps not if we think like pirates.'

‘If I was a pirate,' said Newton, ‘I'd get a metal detector.'

‘Pirates don't have metal detectors,' I said.

‘Maybe not,' said Newton. ‘But I bet Grant Gadget does.'

‘You're a genius, Newton!' I said.

‘Do you think so?' said Newton, looking terrified.

‘No doubt about it,' I said.

‘Does that mean I'll have to leave Northwest Southeast Central School and go to Northwest Southeast Central School for the Gifted? But I don't want to leave! I like it here! I'll be lonely! I'll—'

‘Calm down, Newton,' I said. ‘I didn't mean you're
actually
a genius. It's just an expression—'

‘So what are you saying?' said Newton, looking even more alarmed. ‘That I'm stupid? That I'm going to have to go to Northwest Southeast Central School for the Non-gifted?'

‘Don't worry about it, Newton,' I said. ‘You're already at it! All I'm saying is that asking Grant Gadget for help is a good idea.'

‘Oh,' said Newton. ‘Thanks.'

‘I'm not sure it is such a good idea,' said Jack. ‘I've never seen one of Grant's dad's inventions actually work.'

‘It's worth a try, though,' said Jenny. ‘A metal detector that doesn't actually work is better than not having a metal detector at all.'

‘I'm not so sure about that either,' said Jack.

‘So,' said Jenny, ‘are you going to ask Grant about the metal detector?'

‘Shush!' said Mr Shush, coming up behind us.

‘Sorry, Mr Shush,' said Jenny.

‘Don't say sorry,' said Mr Shush, ‘just be quiet!'

Jenny nodded. ‘Okay, sorry,' she whispered.

Mr Shush rolled his eyes and then moved on to the next problem threatening the peace of his library: Clive was pushing the books on one side of the shelf so that the books on the other side were falling off onto Fiona's feet.

Typical Clive. The only thing he could think of to do with books was use them to hurt or annoy other people.

‘Well?' said Jenny, as Mr Shush got busy with Clive. ‘Are you going to ask him?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I'm just waiting until Mr Shush is distracted.'

‘He's distracted now,' said Jenny, nodding towards Mr Shush, who was making Clive pick up all the books he'd pushed off the shelf.

‘Okay, okay,' I said. ‘I'm going!'

I got up and walked over to Grant.

He was deeply involved in a book on robots. In fact, he was so deeply involved he didn't even hear me say his name.

I tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Grant!' I repeated.

He looked up, turned his head slowly, and blinked at me through his glasses. ‘What is it, Henry?' he said.

‘I wanted to ask you a favour,' I said.

‘What?'

‘I was wondering if you had a metal detector that you could lend me?'

Grant's eyebrows rose. ‘What for?' he said.

‘Oh, nothing,' I said, ‘just some, you know, metal detecting.'

Grant frowned. ‘You need to be more specific,' he said. ‘What sort of metal?'

‘I thought there was only one sort of metal,' I said.

Grant shook his head as if he were an adult and I was a poor misguided child. ‘Oh, no,' he said. ‘Metal comes in many different forms. Gold, silver, bronze, brass, platinum—'

‘I get the idea, Grant,' I said, glancing over at the magazine area where Mr Shush was dealing with Penny and Gina who, as far as I could tell, had knocked over a magazine rack while they'd been prancing about on their imaginary horses. It wasn't going to occupy him forever, though. ‘I want a detector that can detect all of them. Especially treasure.'

‘Treasure?' said Grant. ‘What sort of treasure?'

I hesitated, not sure how much to tell him. But I was running out of time.

‘Buried treasure,' I said.

Grant nodded knowingly. ‘I see,' he said. ‘Well, that changes everything.'

‘It does?' I said.

‘Yes,' said Grant. ‘It just so happens that my dad has been working on a buried-treasure detector. I don't want to bore or confuse you with the technical details, but it's basically a super-charged metal detector that can detect treasure no matter how deep it's buried.'

‘Wow!' I said. ‘That's exactly what we need!'

‘We?' said Grant.

‘I mean I,' I said.

‘You said
we
,' said Grant. ‘Who else is involved?'

‘Just me and Jenny and Jack and Newton and Gretel,' I said.

‘I see,' said Grant.

‘Will you help us?'

‘I can,' said Grant, ‘but at a price.'

‘What price?' I said.

‘An equal share of the treasure.'

‘No way,' I said.

‘Forget it then,' said Grant.

I suddenly had second thoughts. I wanted that treasure.

‘Way,' I said.

‘Deal,' said Grant. ‘I'll, er, borrow it from my dad's workshop tonight. Where's the treasure?'

‘Promise you won't tell anyone?'

‘I promise.'

‘Cross your heart, hope to die, stick a needle in your eye?'

‘Are you kidding?' said Grant. ‘The eye is one of the most complex and delicate sense organs of the body. I'm certainly not going to stick a needle in it!'

‘All right,' I said. ‘But you won't tell anybody?'

‘Of course not,' said Grant.

‘It's buried in the school grounds,' I said.

‘That's a very large area,' Grant said. ‘Can you be any more specific?'

‘I'll be more specific tomorrow, when you show me the buried-treasure detector.'

‘Okay. Meet me at my locker at lunchtime tomorrow and we'll go treasure hunting.'

‘Thanks, Grant,' I said.

I stood up, turned around, and looked straight into the eyes of Mr Shush.

‘Shush!' he said.

At exactly 12.04 the next day, we turned up at Grant's locker.

It was easy to tell Grant's locker. It had a large red sticker on the front that warned:
TOP SECRET
!

Grant was waiting for us. He looked at his watch. ‘Thirty-five seconds late,' he said. ‘What kept you?'

‘Have you got the metal detector?' Jack asked.

‘Not just a metal detector,' said Grant. ‘A supercharged treasure detector! Turn around and I'll get it out—and no trying to peek inside my locker, or the deal is off.'

Nobody had ever seen inside Grant's locker . . . though not for lack of trying.

‘No peeking,' said Jenny. ‘Come on, you heard Grant, everybody turn around.'

We turned around and closed our eyes.

As much as we would have loved to see what
stuff Grant had inside his locker, nobody wanted to risk the possibility of not finding the treasure in order to do so.

‘Okay, you can look now,' said Grant.

We turned back around and Grant was standing there holding a long silver pipe with what looked like a Frisbee attached to one end. There was a control box mounted halfway up the pipe. At the other end were two thin wires that extended up to a pair of headphones that Grant already had over his ears.

‘What's that supposed to be?' said Jack.

‘It's the buried-treasure detector, of course,' said Grant, talking very loudly. ‘We're going to use it to find the buried treasure, remember?'

‘Quiet!' I said, looking around to make sure nobody else had heard. ‘Not so loud, Grant!'

‘What?' he asked.

I lifted up one of his headphones. ‘Don't shout!'