CJ's Treasure Chase

by Jessica Brody

  In this historic site of the learned

  Lies a special stone unturned.

  The Museum of Cultural History.

  History.

  A knowing smile crossed CJ’s face.

  The museum! Duh!

  Now how do I sneak in?

  Time to plot again…

  From reading Mal’s diary, CJ learned about the heavy-duty security at the museum.

  It was much better than the security at Auradon Prep. According to Mal’s account of their thwarted effort to steal Fairy Godmother’s wand, the Museum of Cultural History had guards, alarms, security cameras, and even high-tech force fields.

  This was not going to be a simple operation. CJ needed a strategy.

  After breakfast the next day, the entire school headed outside to the field for something called tourney. As far as CJ could tell, it was some kind of competitive sport. Curious about this mysterious activity, CJ crept outside and hid under one of the bleachers to observe the action.

  But after a few minutes of watching a ball get batted around by wooden paddles and people being randomly tackled, she realized the sport made no sense to her. Then again, neither did cheerleading. She was about to leave when something caught her eye. On the other side of the field, a person was jumping up and down and cheering. But it wasn’t just a normal person.

  It was a knight. A medieval knight. With metal armor and a helmet and everything. It looked just like all the knight statues she’d seen around Auradon Prep. After all, the Fighting Knight was the school’s mascot.

  Just then, a whistle blew and the tourney players ran off the field for a short break. At that moment, the knight removed its helmet, and CJ saw who was inside the costume. It was Jane, Fairy Godmother’s daughter.

  CJ was shocked. Jane was so meek and dainty CJ never would have believed it was her jumping up and down inside all that heavy armor.

  But it gave CJ an idea.

  If CJ hadn’t been able to tell that Jane was inside the costume, then no one would be able to tell if she was inside the costume, either.

  It was the perfect disguise for sneaking into the Museum of Cultural History. According to Mal’s diary, there were knight statues all over that museum. CJ would blend right in.

  It’s a good thing the people of Auradon are so obsessed with knights in shining armor. Although, I have to admit, the costume looks a little dull.

  Plan to infiltrate museum: first this pirate’s got to become a knight!

  Does this armor make me look swashbuckling?

  ’Cause it’s a little restricting.

  It was the morning of the Neon Lights Ball.

  CJ decided that was the best time to infiltrate the museum—when everyone was distracted by preparations for the dance. CJ wasted no time in using her trusty rope again to sneak into Jane’s dorm room and locate the costume. It was, by far, the most interesting item of clothing in that room. Every other garment in Jane’s closet was covered in revolting pink bows.

  She grabbed the knight costume, practically sinking under its weight. Then, just to keep the Auradon Prep reality show interesting, CJ left a little piece of evidence on the floor—a bracelet of Mal’s that she’d swiped from her room the other night. She didn’t feel at all guilty framing Mal for stealing the costume. It served the girl right for deserting her Isle friends to run off with the doe-eyed, mad-for-plaid King Ben, son of their greatest enemy. Had Mal completely forgotten who had banished them all to the island to begin with?

  Getting her hands on the costume was simple. The problem, CJ soon discovered, was taking it with her. She couldn’t hold on to the thing while she slid down the rope. It was far too heavy. So she had no choice but to put it on.

  CJ had climbed ropes her entire life. But climbing a rope in a thirty-pound steel knight costume was something else entirely. She could barely grip the rope in her gauntlets, and she couldn’t really see where she was going through the small slit cut into the helmet. She nearly plummeted five times.

  She was thankful everyone was in the banquet hall for breakfast, because she was sure a medieval knight descending the castle wall on a rope would be quite a sight.

  When she finally collapsed inside her room, she was sweaty and out of breath. “Blimey!” she swore, tearing off the helmet and tossing it aside with a noisy clank. “This treasure better be worth it.”

  “Treasure?” someone with a velvety voice said, startling her. CJ spun around to see Freddie sitting on her bed with a book.

  CJ clenched her gloved fists and cursed herself for saying that aloud. Of course anything relating to money or riches would get Freddie’s attention. She was Dr. Facilier’s daughter, after all.

  Freddie closed the book and stood up. “Interesting,” she said, elongating the word so that it seemed to go on forever.

  CJ rolled her eyes, attempting to ignore her friend.

  “Although,” Freddie went on, leaning back to admire CJ’s costume, “not as interesting as that outfit.”

  “Oh, shut up,” CJ snapped.

  “Whatever it is you’re doing,” Freddie said, “I want in.”

  “No way.”

  “I’ll tell,” Freddie threatened.

  But CJ stood her ground. It was easy to do wearing thirty pounds of metal. Besides, she recognized an empty threat when she heard one. “No, you won’t.”

  Freddie scowled. “How do you know I won’t?”

  “Because if you tell everyone I’m here, you’ll have to tell them how I got here and where I’ve been hiding this whole time. And then you’ll get kicked out, too.”

  Freddie looked stumped and CJ felt a small inkling of pride. She loved winning almost more than she loved gold.

  “Freddsie,” CJ coaxed in a silky tone, although it didn’t have quite the effect she was hoping for, since she was still wearing the ridiculous knight costume. “I’m a pirate. And you’re”—she gestured ambiguously toward Freddie—“well, whatever it is you are.”

  “Shadow sorceress,” Freddie said, folding her arms.

  “Sure, whatevs.”

  CJ attempted to pull off the top half of the costume, but she could barely get the chest plate over her head. She gave up with a sigh, letting the armor clank back down around her torso. “Anyway,” she went on, trying to sound undeterred, “like I was saying, I’m a pirate. Finding treasure is what we do.”

  Freddie opened her mouth to argue, but CJ cut her off. “And no, I don’t need any help, thank you very much. Sidekicks are not really my thing.” She hobbled to the bed, making a clank, clank, clank with every step. CJ wondered how Jane was able to jump up and down in that thing when she could barely walk in it.

  Exhausted, CJ attempted to sit down. But that was a lost cause. The knees of the suit didn’t bend very well, and she ended up toppling back onto the bed with an “oomph.”

  Freddie let out an evil laugh. Frustrated, CJ tried to push herself back up, grabbing on to the bedpost for support, but her metal-gloved hand couldn’t get a grip, and all she managed to do in the end was make herself sweatier and more breathless. She sank back onto the bed with a surrendering sigh.

  “Well,” Freddie said breezily, “I’m off to meet the girls for tea. Carlos and Jay are picking us up on a flying carpet. How bad is that?”

  CJ let out a harrumph.

  “Anyhoo…” Freddie went on. Her singsongy tone was really starting to bug CJ. “I guess I’ll see ya latsies!”

  “Wait,” CJ called from the bed, trying and failing once again to pull herself to a sitting position. “Help me up, will ya?”

  Freddie clucked twice. “I thought you said you didn’t need any help,” she crooned. And with that, she disappeared into the hall.

  It’s just walking.

  How hard can it be?

  After a struggle, CJ finally managed to get herself out the window of the dorm room.

  Normally the walk to the museum would take twenty minutes. But that was when you weren’t wearing thirty pounds of armor and gett
ing stopped every few seconds by people who thought you were Jane.

  “Hi, Jane!”

  “Where are you going, Jane?”

  “Hey, Jane! Is there a tourney game tonight?”

  If I never have to wear this costume again, it’ll be too soon, CJ thought as she waddled awkwardly down the road.

  But the worst part was when Carlos’s stupid dog, Dude, spotted her and started barking furiously. As though he knew she was an imposter. She kept walking, thinking if she just ignored the dog, it would go away.

  But apparently, dogs didn’t work like that.

  The dog started to chase her.

  “Walk the plank, dog! Get lost!”

  CJ attempted to pick up the pace, running as best she could in a suit with knees that didn’t really bend. She imagined that was what a pirate with a peg leg felt like. The dog yapped and bit at her heels, prompting CJ to attempt to run faster. Her legs were aching, and every step made her feel like she was going to fall over.

  The one good thing about being pursued by the dog was that she arrived at the museum a lot faster than she’d expected. CJ just managed to squeeze through the front doors and close them behind her before Dude could follow her inside.

  The loud noise of the door slamming startled the portly guard in a blue uniform who was sitting at a desk surrounded by security monitors. He looked up and CJ froze on the spot, keeping her body rigid under the costume. Through the tiny slit in her helmet, she could see the guard looking her way, his eyes raking her over. He was probably trying to figure out if that knight had been there just a second earlier. But, no doubt because there were so many knights decorating the halls of the place, he seemed to decide quickly that it was nothing to be alarmed about and turned back to his screens.

  CJ blew out a breath and carefully began to creep through the lobby, slowly making her way toward the museum directory that hung on the wall. But the costume was incredibly noisy, clanking with every step CJ took, and the guard repeatedly looked up to see where the sound was coming from. Every time, CJ froze in place, her costume blending in seamlessly with the museum’s decor.

  When she reached the directory, she had to tilt her head so she could read it through the small opening in her helmet. She scanned the list of exhibits—Crown of Auradon, Gallery of Heroes, Gallery of Villains—trying to figure out which one would most likely feature a stone unturned or a tulip so bold.

  She was starting to get frustrated with the offerings, until she got three-quarters of the way down the list and a zing of adrenaline shot through her.

  Plants of Enchanted Forests

  That had to be it. Where else would a tulip so bold be found?

  Fortunately, the exhibit was on the first floor. The thought of going up and down stairs in the knight getup was too much for CJ to bear.

  The Plants of Enchanted Forests exhibit was set up in a spacious greenhouse attached to the main building of the museum. As CJ tramped through it in her noisy costume, she caught sight of small illuminated placards posted next to the various plants, flowers, and shrubs, identifying each of the species and where they came from.

  She passed by a mangled knot of Maleficent’s evil thorns, a pumpkin patch said to have originated from the pumpkin used by Fairy Godmother to get Cinderella to the ball, and a small pond covered in floating lily pads that were famous for being hopped on by Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen. CJ smiled at the reminder of Freddie’s dad’s voodoo spell. He always bragged that turning those two into frogs was some of his best work.

  When CJ finally reached the small flower garden positioned in the center of the exhibit, she stopped, looking beneath her feet to see a path made of smooth paving stones.

  Stones.

  She read the small placard nearby and learned that she had entered the Golden Afternoon Flowerbed. A moment later, she located a bed of brightly colored tulips, labeled with another glowing plaque.

  LITTLE BREAD-AND-BUTTERFLIES KISS THE TULIPS.

  Kiss the tulips?

  CJ pulled the treasure map out from under her armor and read the second half of the clue again.

  Find it among the tulips so bold

  And your future will shine bright with gold.

  Tulips so bold?

  As in bold enough to kiss butterflies?

  CJ’s heart raced. She was so close she could feel it in her bones. Pirates had to have very good instincts. They had to be able to sense when they were close to a buried treasure, and CJ’s senses were on high alert.

  She reached for the paver stone closest to the tulip bed and, with one giant heave, lifted the stone and flipped it over.

  There, pressed into the dirt beneath the now-turned stone, was a golden key.

  It’s mine! All mine!

  I now hold the key to the treasure!

  (Evil laugh)

  CJ grabbed the key and held it up, flashing a wild grin. And then the obvious question crossed her mind.

  What am I supposed to do with the key?

  She glanced around the greenhouse but she couldn’t find anything that seemed to require a key. No treasure chests. No mysterious-looking locks. She peered down at the object in her metal-gloved hand. Her discovery no longer seemed like a victory. Now it was just confusing.

  “What do I do with you?” she asked quietly.

  She couldn’t really crawl in the mascot costume, so she rolled onto her belly and, careful not to run over the map, slithered around the flowerbed, her hands groping for a clue, something that would help her figure out where she was supposed to insert the key.

  But after slithering in a complete circle, she was still at a loss.

  That was when she noticed the paver stone she had flipped over lying on the ground next to her. She’d been so distracted by the key itself she hadn’t even noticed that there were words written on the underside of the stone.

  Curious, CJ tilted her head to read them.

  NOTHING IS CARVED IN STONE.

  She almost had to laugh at the absurdity of the sentence. Nothing was carved in stone? But those very words were carved right into the stone.

  “Nothing is carved in stone,” she said, hoping it would make more sense to her if spoken aloud. But she still couldn’t figure out the meaning.

  Then, out of the corner of her helmet opening, she saw a flicker of movement. She whipped her head to the left, causing the armor to screech. And that was when she saw it.

  The map.

  It was changing.

  There was something about those words on the stone. Saying them aloud had triggered the magic. They had unlocked something, just as CJ’s coming to Auradon had.

  Eagerly she sat up, grabbed the map, and stared at it.

  It was as though invisible hands were drawing right on the page, expanding the kingdom of Auradon before her very eyes. The ghostly artist crafted forests and rivers and mountains. It erected more buildings and more towns, traveling upward from the city of Auradon, connecting long, winding rivers with landmarks that hadn’t been there before.

  Then a single object—a lake—appeared among the scenery. The invisible artist seemed to take extra care in drawing it, as though it was more special than the rest of the locations that had been sketched.

  Once the lake was complete, CJ watched the dotted trail start to expand. More tiny dots appeared as it carved a path through the trees and valleys, around Belle and Beast’s castle, beyond Auradon Prep, and to the lake.

  And then…nothing.

  The invisible hands just stopped, as though the artist had run out of ink.

  All that time she had thought just stepping foot in Auradon would reveal the entire kingdom. The entire map. But even after turning this special stone, the page was still not entirely filled in. The map was still woefully unfinished.

  Blasted barnacles! she thought with a sudden realization. Obviously the map had been enchanted to reveal itself a section at a time. Arriving in Auradon had been the first step. Turning the stone had been the second. And now app
arently she needed to go to this mysterious lake to unlock the next part of the map.

  But what was she supposed to do once she got there?

  She held the map up close to her helmet and scanned the newly revealed trail for another clue, something that would give her more information. But unlike the clue that had led her to the stone, there was nothing to guide her. Just that long, curving series of dots leading to the unidentified body of water.

  She sighed and twisted her mouth in concentration. How was she going to find the lake if she didn’t even know what it was called? Sure, she had the dotted trail on her map, but without a compass, it would be almost impossible to find.

  What she really needed was some kind of Auradon expert. Or at the very least, someone who knew more about the lay of the land than she did.

  But who could she trust to ask?

  With a scowl, CJ suddenly remembered Freddie saying something about taking an Auradon geography class.

  She slumped in her armor.

  She really wanted to do this on her own and claim all the glory (and gold) for herself. But Freddie was enrolled as a student at Auradon Prep. She knew more about the kingdom than CJ did. She could be a valuable asset. Plus, Freddie was her best friend, even if she had started singing all the time and hanging out with the AKs.

  With a sigh, CJ dropped the map onto the ground next to her, kicking up a cloud of pollen. She closed her mouth tightly and held her breath, but it was too late: she had already inhaled. The pollen was tickling her nose. She could feel a sneeze welling up inside her like a hurricane ready to blow through a harbor.

  Just then, the doors of the greenhouse swung open and the capped head of the stocky guard appeared over the top of Maleficent’s thornbush. “Hello?” he called out. “Anyone in here?”

  CJ froze, trying to remain as still as possible, trying to lock the sneeze inside. But it was rising in her chest, making her eyes water and her fingers tingle. She couldn’t hold it back any longer. It exploded out of her in a thundering ACHOOOOOO!