Scavenger Hunt

by Erika McGann

  Don’t get close or make me mad

  A girl with long socks carries me

  I am her pet, but no monkey.

  ‘It’s a dog!’ I cried, loud enough for the sneaky team to hear.

  ‘That was quick,’ said Nicholas. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Four legs good, two legs bad. It’s got four legs and you don’t want to make it mad. It’s one of Mr McCall’s growly dogs.’ I faked looking around. ‘But where does he keep them?’

  Nicholas realised what I was doing and gave me an exaggerated frown. ‘I’ve no idea. Maybe the kennels are down by the big trees.’

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alanna whisper something urgently to Dev. Then he smiled and the whole team took off.

  They knew where Mr McCall’s kennels were (so did I – they were on the opposite side of the house), but a dog wasn’t the answer.

  ‘Pippi,’ I said, smiling.

  ‘Huh?’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Pippi is the clue.’

  ‘Your little sister, Pippi?’ said Lex, looking very confused. ‘How would she know where the dogs are? She’s only two.’

  ‘My mum named Pippi after Pippi Longstocking,’ I explained, ‘from the books.’

  ‘A girl with long socks,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Exactly! Pippi Longstocking had two pets – a horse and a monkey.’

  Nicholas nodded. ‘And she was really strong and carried the horse around.’

  ‘So the answer’s a horse!’

  ‘But you said the answer was a dog,’ said Lex.

  ‘Keep up, Lex,’ I said. ‘That was to get Alanna’s team off our tails.’

  ‘So, where’s the horse?’ asked Nicholas.

  I thought there must be one in the gardens – a statue or something – but I couldn’t see one anywhere.

  ‘Maybe it’s in the house,’ I said, not sure of myself. ‘In a painting or a photo or something.’

  Nicholas shook his head. ‘That seems like a long shot. We could be searching the house for hours – it’s massive.’

  He was right. I closed my eyes and recited the rhyme to myself over and over.

  ‘Don’t get close or make me mad,’ I said, opening my eyes. ‘Maybe that’s exactly what they mean. Don’t get close to the real horse.’

  ‘The one in the field!’ cried Nicholas. ‘How did we forget that?’

  Scrabbling through the big conifer trees at the end of the garden, we pushed our way to the fence. Swishing its tail in the middle of the field was the horse. From a distance, Lex took a photo.

  ‘Brilliant,’ she said.

  The rules of the scavenger hunt meant we could solve the clues in any order we wanted – we had been doing them in the order on the list, but lots of teams were doing that and it made it easier for them to follow us. I decided to change it up and go for the second last one instead.

  But that clue had me stumped.

  Atop of all That live below

  i’m full of Things they can’t let go

  with rumours there’s a ghost In me

  i wish the world Could let me be

  ‘Someone’s really bad at typing,’ I said, as we stood by the pond. ‘All those small i’s where there should be big ones. Mr Freebs would scribble all over that with his red pen.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Nicholas. ‘What’s the answer?’

  ‘Hmm.’ I thought really hard. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What are we up to?’ a voice whispered on the other side of the hedge.

  ‘This is number four,’ said another one. ‘Come on, come on, it’s down here.’

  That was Bianca’s voice. And there was her team; racing out from behind the hedge maze and heading towards the greenhouse.

  ‘They’ve got four,’ Nicholas said. ‘They’re ahead of us. We need to get this one, Cass. Think, think.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ I said, racking my brains. ‘Atop of all That live below. It’s something high up.’

  I looked around. The conifer trees were really tall, but I couldn’t see anything at the top of them except leaves. Since the answer was ‘full of Things’, it couldn’t be leaves. A couple of the stone statues were tall – and maybe one of them ‘had a ghost’ in it – but none of them could be ‘full of Things’ either. There was a crow-shaped weather vane on top of the shed, an old-fashioned lamp hanging from the top of a tall pole and a birdhouse stuck high up on the back wall of the house, but none of these sounded right. What was it?

  ‘The attic!’ Lex said suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A-T-T-I-C.’ Lex pointed to the clue. ‘All the capital letters in the clue spell ATTIC.’

  I was so excited I grabbed the sleeve of her jumper and shook it.

  ‘Lex, you’re a genius!’

  She grinned.

  ‘Come on,’ Nicholas said, grabbing the two of us and running. ‘We’ve gotta get ahead of Bianca’s team.’

  Arnie’s team were in front of us as we reached the front door of the mansion. When they went in we heard a sudden shout along with screaming and giggling.

  ‘I think something’s about to jump out at us,’ I said. ‘Brace yourselves.’

  We all slowed down as we walked through the door, waiting for a fright. But nothing came.

  The hall was huge, with a pale floor that looked like marble, and a great big sweeping staircase. There were paintings on the walls with fancy gold frames, lots of ornaments, more statues (but these were smaller than the garden ones and made of bronze) and a sparkly chandelier hung over it all.

  Arnie’s team had run up the stairs – we could hear them on the first floor – but otherwise the hall was empty.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘we’ve gotta get a photo of the attic.’

  ‘BEWARE!’

  Something orange leapt from behind the bannister and shrieked with its arms wide. I jumped back off the first step and screamed. And then giggled.

  It was a scarecrow with hair made of chunky orange wool wearing a worn, plaid jacket. Bits of straw stuck out from his cuffs and around his collar. His face was painted white with bright red circles for cheeks, but I could recognise Graham’s friendly grin underneath it.

  ‘Beware the ghost in the attic,’ he said, still waving his arms.

  We giggled again and slipped past him to climb the stairs, Lex holding on tight to my arm.

  ‘Beware!’ Graham wailed behind us. ‘Beware the ghost of Rowan Tree Manor!’

  We climbed the next flight of stairs to the second floor. Beneath us we heard more screaming and laughing.

  ‘Bet that’s Bianca’s team,’ said Nicholas. ‘We’d better get a move on.’

  It took a few minutes to find the stairs to the third floor, and even longer to find the entrance to the attic. We wandered through hallways covered in paintings and mirrors. There were landscapes and fields of flowers, pictures of stormy seas and eerie old paintings of people staring out from the walls.

  ‘There it is!’ said Lex.

  There was a creaky set of wooden stairs tucked into one corner at the end of the hallway.

  Nicholas nudged me in the back.

  ‘You first.’

  I stood on the first step and looked up into the dark, musty-smelling attic. It was quiet up there. But that didn’t mean it was empty.

  Chapter Six

  The steps were the kind with gaps underneath them, so when I got near the top I put my hands on the top step to make sure I could get into the attic safely. I was afraid if a ghost jumped out at me I’d lose my footing and fall down the stairs.

  But I doubted anything would pop out. Graham was the scarecrow on the ground floor; I couldn’t see Mr McCall joining in to be the ghost in the attic.

  ‘Come on up,’ I said, standing. ‘There’s no-one up here.’

  Lex and Nicholas followed me.

  There was one small window in the slanting roof, but otherwise the attic was dark. There was stuff everywhere – metal trunks stacked on the floor and lots of thing
s wrapped in cloth leaning against the walls.

  ‘Let’s get the photo and get out of here,’ said Nicholas.

  Lex held the phone up, but her hand was shaking.

  ‘Do you think there’s really a ghost?’

  ‘No,’ I said, but I had no idea.

  If there was a ghost in the mansion, this was definitely the spot it would pick to hang out.

  ‘Em …’ Lex was still holding up the phone, but she couldn’t keep it still long enough to take the photo.

  ‘Here,’ I said, taking the mobile. ‘I’ll do it.’

  I waited for the image to clear, making sure to get the window so it would be obvious it was the attic, when something moved in the corner of the screen.

  I frowned. There was a sheet hanging off an old chest of drawers on one side of the room, but it was moving. By itself.

  I gulped. ‘What is that?’

  ‘What’s what?’ said Nicholas.

  The sheet fluttered. Lex and Nicholas noticed this time.

  ‘What is that?’ Lex gripped my arm.

  A weird voice whispered across the attic. ‘The ghoooooooost.’

  The sheet billowed, getting bigger and bigger, until suddenly it sprang from behind the chest of drawers and screeched.

  I screamed and dropped the phone. Lex nearly toppled out the door of the attic – Nicholas caught her just in time. Seconds later the sheet and two other people were laughing their heads off.

  ‘Nathan!’ I yelled. ‘I’ll get you for that!’

  Sasha pulled the sheet off her head while Nathan and Jim nearly collapsed on the floor laughing.

  ‘That wasn’t funny,’ Nicholas snapped.

  ‘It was for us!’ Nathan said, wiping a tear from his eye. ‘Aw, just realised – we should’ve recorded it.’

  ‘Way ahead of you,’ said Jim, holding up the phone in his hand.

  The three Na-Sa-Jis burst out laughing again while me, Lex and Nicholas scowled.

  ‘Yeah, really original,’ I said, trying to hide that my hands were still shaking. ‘Sheet over your head for a ghost. Like that’s never been done before.’

  ‘Whatever, losers,’ Nathan said, still giggling as the three of them pushed past us and headed down the steps. ‘Enjoy losing the rest of the hunt, losers.’

  I picked up my mum’s phone, hoping it wasn’t broken.

  ‘Do you think they’re going to show that video to people?’ asked Lex. ‘I nearly fell down the stairs.’

  ‘That’s why it wasn’t funny,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Who cares if they do,’ I said, pretending I didn’t. ‘Who wouldn’t get a fright if something jumped out at them in a dark attic?’

  Nicholas sighed. ‘They’re probably ahead of us in the scavenger hunt too.’

  ‘No way,’ I said, holding up the phone and finally getting a photo of the attic. ‘But we still have to hurry. We’ve got lots of other teams to beat.’

  Find the spot in Rowan Tree

  Where you can always see the sea

  But only in the northern view

  Is the beacon in the blue

  This one had everybody stumped. We could tell because there were a bunch of teams running in and out of rooms on the second and third floors of the mansion. Most of the doors were locked, but there were a few open on each floor.

  ‘This one. No! This one.’ Arnie was leading his team down the hall. ‘Actually, do you know what? It should be on this side.’

  Carol was rolling her eyes. ‘Oh my god, Arnie, just pick a door!’

  Bella and Jack from our street came barrelling past them with Bella’s little cousin. I think they were the youngest team playing, and they were so excited they kept getting the giggles. They nearly ran us over as we climbed the stairs.

  On the third floor I stood on a tiny balcony in one room, straining my neck trying to see the sea in the distance.

  ‘Is that it?’

  I pointed to a blurry blue line between the land and the sky.

  ‘That’s cloud,’ said Nicholas. ‘I think it’s raining over there.’

  ‘Isn’t that weird?’ Lex said. ‘That it’s raining over there and we can see it, but it’s not raining over here. Weird.’

  I blew a sigh out of my nose like an angry bull.

  ‘We’re not high enough. We need to be higher.’

  ‘There is no higher,’ said Nicholas.

  I smiled. ‘Of course there is! The attic.’

  Lex’s face fell. ‘I don’t want to go up there again.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, trying to be sympathetic. ‘But you have to. I need all of us.’

  Up in the attic I kneeled down on the floor, like a table. Nicholas stood on my back and gave Lex a leg up.

  The window was high, but we’d done this before to get over the high wall of the empty house (the empty house is at the end of our street. We used to call it the empty house because nobody lived there and we thought it was haunted. Our friend, Martyn, moved in with his family though, so now it’s not haunted or empty).

  My arms were shaking as Nicholas balanced on my back, holding Lex up as high as he could.

  ‘Can you see anything?’ I said, grunting with the effort. ‘Can you see out the window?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lex replied. ‘Ooh! I can see Alanna and Dev in the garden. Aw, I think Barry’s annoyed – he’s sitting on the edge of the pond and he won’t move.’

  ‘Never mind about that. Do you see the sea?’

  ‘Em … no. It looks like it did downstairs, but with more clouds. Maybe if it’s not cloudy at all you can see the sea from here.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘The clue says you can always see the sea from this spot. It doesn’t say you can see the sea if it’s a really clear day and you’re standing on two of your friends.’

  ‘Well,’ said Lex, ‘then maybe this isn’t the spot.’

  ‘Okay. Get off me.’

  With Lex and Nicholas off my back, I got to my feet and brushed the dust off my jeans.

  ‘You can always see the sea,’ I muttered to myself. ‘Always see the sea.’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Nicholas said. ‘It’s got to be the attic window – it’s the highest point in the house. If you’re going to see the sea from anywhere, it’s here.’

  ‘Urrgh,’ I growled, with my face in my hands. ‘That’s not right. But I don’t know what else it could be.’

  ‘We have to send a photo of something, and a guess is better than nothing. Lex, take a pic of the window and send it.’

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘It’s not right.’

  ‘Then what is it?’ said Nicholas.

  He sighed when I didn’t reply.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Send a photo of the window.’

  It was killing me as Lex took the photo. She lowered the phone and was about to click, SEND.

  ‘Wait!’ I said, holding my hands out.

  ‘Cass,’ said Nicholas, ‘we have to move on. We’re wasting time.’

  ‘It’s not the attic window,’ I said. ‘Always see the sea. I know where you can always see the sea!’

  ‘Where?’

  I grinned, turned and raced down the stairs.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Oh,’ Nicholas said as we stood in the hallway.

  In front of him was a painting of a cliff overlooking the sea.

  Lex tilted her head and squinted.

  ‘That was a bit of a confusing clue then,’ she said. ‘It didn’t say picture anywhere in it.’

  ‘It didn’t have to,’ I said, smiling. ‘Turn around.’

  On the opposite wall was another picture of the sea, but this one was stormy. The waves were crashing over a lighthouse.

  ‘Now turn to your left,’ I said.

  The painting straight ahead, at the end of the hall, was one of the sea at nighttime.

  ‘And now this way.’

  Opposite the nighttime painting, far away at the other end of the hall by the attic stairs, was a painting of a boat on the ocean.
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br />   ‘See?’ I said, turning Lex around and around. ‘No matter which way you turn, from this spot you can always see the sea.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’

  ‘Can’t believe you got that, Cass,’ said Nicholas. ‘You really are a genius.’

  I grinned. ‘I know.’

  ‘So which picture do we take a picture of?’

  I read the second half of the clue.

  ‘But only in the northern view, Is the beacon in the blue.’

  ‘How do we know which way is north?’ asked Lex.

  I grinned again, jammed my hand into my pocket and pulled out a compass.

  ‘How did you know to bring that?’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Cos in books,’ I said, ‘all the best scavenger hunters carry a compass. It’s essential equipment.’

  I held the compass still and waited for the needle to settle. It pointed right at me. I turned around to see the stormy sea painting.

  ‘The lighthouse!’ I said. ‘The lighthouse is the beacon in the blue.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Nicholas.

  Lex took the photo just as Bianca appeared in a doorway halfway down the hall with the rest of her team right behind her (they must still have been trying to see the real sea from a balcony). Lex’s arms snapped to her sides, but I saw Bianca smile. She’d seen us take a photo of the toughest answer in the scavenger hunt.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘We’ve gotta get all our pics in before they do.’

  The last few clues were no challenge for me. It was just a race against time now.

  One was really short:

  I’ve got the tools, but ask me why

  Unlike my friends, I’ll never fly

  ‘It’s the crow weather vane,’ I said. ‘Got wings but it can’t fly. It’s on top of the shed outside. We’ll get that one when we’re back in the garden. Finish the indoor ones first.’

  Looking very impressed, Nicholas read out the next clue.

  ‘I get short as I grow old–’

  ‘Mr Manning!’ yelled Lex.

  ‘What?’