Secret Scouts and The Lost Leonardo

by Mr.

  Secret Scouts and The Lost Leonardo

  Watch the official

  Secret Scouts book trailer

  www.SecretScouts.com

  For B & B & K

  May your life become a fabulously beautiful adventure

  ‘a life filled with wonder is a wonderful life’

  Things you should know

  Strange facts

  The disappearance of Leonardo da Vinci

  Leonardo da Vinci is the most famous artist of all time. We know almost everything about him. We know, for example, all about his paintings and where he lived and worked during his lifetime; everything except for one thing: what happened to the 24-year-old artist between June 1476 and January 1478, or where he was. Yet most of Leonardo da Vinci’s groundbreaking ideas and theories – many way ahead of their time – were conceived after he returned from this mysterious disappearance. For example, he designed a bridge so advanced that it could only be built in the 21st century. He also envisioned a scuba diving suit long before its time, and designed a helicopter 450 years before the first helicopter took to the air.

  The invisible angel

  Today, researchers use x-rays to look for old coats of paint hidden underneath the top layers of paintings. They do this because lead shows up on x-rays, and artists once added lead to their paints to preserve their long-term quality. Which is why the x-ray images of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting The Annunciation have presented art historians with a real mystery. For some unexplained reason, Leonardo painted the angel in this masterpiece using lead-free paint. The result is that the angel, unlike everything else in the painting, does not show up on the x-ray. It is completely invisible.

  The Lost Leonardo

  Approximately 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to create the largest artwork of his life in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence’s town hall. It was said to be the most beautiful wall mural ever painted, but today another artist’s mural stands in its place. Legend has it that there is a mysterious Da Vinci masterpiece hidden behind it. This could be true, because in March 2012 professor Maurizio Seracini and a team of experts found traces of The Lost Leonardo hidden behind a double wall in the very same spot where Da Vinci’s artwork should have been. However, further investigation has been prohibited by the Italian authorities.

  The forbidden island

  The plague was a horrible disease that once caused the death of millions of people. In Italy, their solution for preventing the plague from spreading from person to person was to banish the sick – or anyone who looked sick – to a small abandoned island off the coast of Venice called Poveglia. More than 160,000 victims of the plague eventually died on the island. Hundreds of years later, between 1922 and 1968, when the island housed a mental asylum, a psychopathic doctor tortured and butchered to death many of his patients. Legend has it that the spirits of the dead continue to roam the island. It has been forbidden to step foot on Poveglia since 1968.

  Monday, June 23rd, late afternoon

  Sophie’s feet crashed down onto the ground. The fall threw her off balance and forced her to gasp. A horrible stench seeped into her nostrils. The words Wrong time, wrong place, get out of here! pounded inside her head. She just knew this was the smell of death. The hair on her arms stood on end. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around in shock.

  “Where were you?” Jack’s voice seemed to come from somewhere far away.

  Her eyes were wide with fright.

  “I’ve already been here a while,” said Jack. “I was the first one to arrive. That light... it touched me... and suddenly you guys were...” He looked her over as he spoke.

  Light? You guys? Sophie repeated the words in her head. Her eyes tried to adjust to the dark space. She looked around. You guys? she repeated to herself.

  She stared at Jack. “Were there more of us?” Her voice was hoarse.

  She tried hard to orientate herself in the dim light. The sickening, sweet, greasy smell of death lingered in the room and sucked all the oxygen from the air. She covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve, but the sinister stench still managed to overwhelm her senses. She carefully inspected her trembling hands, flexed her fingers a few times, and bent her knees. She wasn’t injured. Her gaze slowly drifted to the clothes she was wearing.

  “What is...?” she murmured, squinting her eyes to focus better. She tried to remember why she was dressed this way. What happened? She covered her face with her hands and felt tears welling up. She pinched her nose and forced back a gag. What had they done wrong?

  How it all began

  Tuesday, June 17th, early afternoon

  Ignoring the traffic, Lisa ran across Lantern Lane towards a hole in the neighbor’s broken-down fence.

  A few seconds later, Sophie took off after her. “Lisa, slow down, give it to me! She gave it to us both!”

  Lisa had to duck to squeeze through the hole. Following a well-trodden path, she ran through the overgrown yard on the old sawmill property. She came to an abrupt stop, however, when Sophie’s best friend Jack suddenly appeared out of nowhere and grabbed her arm. “I heard Sophie screaming inside the house. What’s going on?”

  Lisa tried to break free but couldn’t.

  “What’s that you’re carrying?” he asked. “A painting?”

  Jack was almost two years older and more than a head taller. He stretched up to his full height, trying to make himself look taller still.

  Sophie came running around the corner and made a beeline for her little sister. Lisa managed to wiggle out of Jack’s grasp and gave her sister an indignant look.

  “Give it to me.” Sophie grabbed hold of the frame.

  Lisa tried to resist, her knuckles turning white, but Sophie was too strong. Lisa kept her eyes firmly on the sketch. The frame had become slightly crooked from all their tugging. “Oh, great! You broke it. Now we’ll have to glue it back together, otherwise the sketch will fall out and it won’t be worth a cent.”

  “Hey! Would someone like to tell me what’s going on here?” Jack asked.

  “It’s just some painting crusty old Prattle gave us,” Sophie said.

  “Not true! It’s a really old sketch! You didn’t even like it. You wanted to throw it in the trash right away, that means it’s mine!” Lisa looked like she could spit fire.

  “Hmm, are you guys seriously arguing about that thing? What is it? Let me see!”

  Sophie took a few steps backwards and held it above her head as if it were a gold medal she had just won at the Olympics.

  “Come on, you’re making a fuss about nothing. What are you going to do with it? Come on, man.” Jack tried to look as disinterested as possible. “Just give that thing back to your sister. Then we can go watch a movie.” He gave Sophie a playful nudge.

  Sophie reluctantly handed the sketch back to her sister. “Here, I didn’t like it anyway.”

  Lisa grabbed the sketch with both hands and smiled triumphantly. “Thanks sis! Just wait and see. You’ll change your tune when this sketch turns out to be really old. One hundred, two hundred...” Lisa pretended to count out a big pile of cash with her fingers.

  Feeling very satisfied with herself, Lisa was walking towards the gate when she heard Tom yell. She turned around and saw him running towards her. He was a little bit smaller and more heavy-set than his brother Jack, but he could run just as fast. He wore a frayed pair of jeans and a T-shirt with a skateboard logo. His wispy, light brown hair was plastered against his forehead.

  As soon as he reached her, Lisa quickly told him about the sketch. “Sophie and I went to old Mrs. Prattle’s this afternoon, you know, the old lady who lives above Sprinkles Bakery. She’s always wavi
ng to us in that sweet way of hers. Today she waved so enthusiastically when we cycled by that we had no choice but to stop and say hello! We were only in the door when she suddenly produced this sketch and started telling us a long story about how it belonged to our house.” Lisa rolled her eyes. “Seriously, she just kept babbling on and on. We’ve already been living here for a few years, so how come she only produced it now?”

  “Maybe she’s got dementia? She’s really old you know. What did she tell you?” Tom asked, curious.

  “Well... do you have a minute?” Lisa joked. “It’s a weird story... listen: apparently a professor Kwakkelstein once lived in the farmhouse we now live in. Just before he died he gave this sketch to a neighbor called Mr. Brown, whom he made solemnly swear that when the time came he would give it to the farmhouse’s new residents.”

  “Why?” Tom asked.

  “Well, she didn’t tell us that, Mr. Nosey... but Mr. Brown passed away before anyone moved into the farmhouse and so, before he died, he gave the sketch to Mrs. Prattle. And then she also had to swear she’d give it to the new residents once they moved in. But at the time, our house was apparently so run-down that Mrs. Prattle had given up all hope of anyone ever moving in, so she hung it on her wall and then completely forgot about it! Until now. Prattle told us that she somehow suddenly remembered this incident today... and so here we are, with a homesick sketch.” Lisa grinned at her own joke.

  Tom stared into the distance. “Interesting,” he murmured. “I always thought she was a bit strange. I mean, she has an ermine as a pet, doesn’t she?”

  “Yeah, haha, that’s true! She even told us that her ermine has been missing since this morning. Well, Mrs. Prattle’s getting on in years. She’s probably just talking nonsense, I think. I mean, really? It belongs in our home? She must be losing her marbles.” Lisa lifted a finger to her temple and made a circling motion. “But anyway... I think it’s nice she gave it to us... and hey, if she says it belongs to our house... who am I to disagree?” she winked at her friend.

  “Can I see it?” Tom asked, even more curious now.

  “Yeah, sure, here it is.” She held the sketch up triumphantly in front of his face. “Whatever gibberish Prattle told us, I’m certain it’s worth something! My father once showed me a book in his study that had a bunch of drawings that looked just like this one.”

  Tom studied the artwork carefully. The wooden frame was nothing special and didn’t look very old. The clean shiny glass looked normal, too. The sketch was held in place by a cream-colored passe-partout that was slightly larger than the sketch itself. The paper was covered in yellow-brown spots and the edges were torn. The rust-colored ink had faded and was almost invisible in some places. The spidery handwriting with its crazy curly-cues looked like some kind of secret code. There were also little drawings scattered among the text.

  “Look Lisa, these figures could be human characters... and the rest, I don’t know. Hard to make sense of it. I think Sophie was right, this is just old junk.”

  Lisa scrutinized the sketch up close. She hadn’t noticed the figures before, and she tried hard to identify the other drawings, too.

  “Maybe it’s an old treasure map... or a secret letter. Like in the movies, where it leads us to the gold,” Tom suggested enthusiastically.

  Lisa laughed at him. “Don’t be stupid. This is not going to lead us to a pile of gold. Do you think there were pirates living in Mrs. Prattle’s house before her or something? I’m sure it’s a genuine piece of art... from a long time ago... you know, really old stuff... it could be worth a lot of money!”

  Lisa and Tom were so caught up in their conversation that they hadn’t noticed Sophie and Jack walking over to them.

  “I heard everything,” Sophie said, crossing her arms and standing with her feet spread wide apart.

  “You really think that this garbage is worth something?

  “Yep, 100%,” Lisa answered confidently.

  Sophie sighed and changed her tone. “Okay, then I have an idea. We’ll stop arguing and sell the sketch... and then split the winnings.”

  The word ‘winnings’ instantly attracted Jack’s attention. “You could buy me a scooter! Pleeaasse?” He leaned back dramatically, made the sound of an accelerating scooter, and revved an imaginary throttle with his right hand.

  “That seems like a fair deal,” Tom added eagerly.

  Lisa wasn’t convinced. “Hmm, dunno... anyway, we need to find out how much it’s worth first. I’m not going to sell it to the first person I meet.”

  “Fine,” said Sophie. “Let’s find out right now. Where’s that book you mentioned?”

  “In Dad’s study,” Lisa replied. She was clearly excited by this sudden distraction from their otherwise fairly normal lives and more than happy to take the lead.

  Bursting with renewed energy, they crossed the street and headed up the long gravel driveway.

  “After you.” Lisa made a deep theatrical bow when she opened the kitchen door.

  They threw their jackets and backpacks on the table and followed Lisa into the study.

  The room resembled a library. Covering the wall from floor to ceiling was a huge bookcase with thick, dark brown wooden shelves containing thousands of books and a couple of antique knickknacks.

  The ceiling was off-white with decorative elements in the corners that had been restored to their former glory during renovation work a few years back. The room was their father’s pride and joy.

  The walls were nearly twelve feet high. To be able to reach the highest books, each wall was fitted with a narrow mobile ladder that slid along rails attached to the top shelves.

  In the back of the room stood a large, ornate, dark brown desk, on top of which sat a gold-colored reading lamp with a green glass shade. A Plexiglas paperweight containing a death’s-head moth held a loosely stacked pile of papers in place.

  Sophie flipped a switch on the wall, turning on the large and impressive chandelier.

  They were almost never allowed into the study unaccompanied. It wasn’t exactly forbidden, but it was pretty clear that their father didn’t appreciate their nosing around in here. Besides, they didn’t like the room anyway. All those old books with their musty smell, the weird stuffed animals, and the strange-looking paraphernalia everywhere didn’t exactly make for a festive atmosphere.

  This afternoon, however, things were different. They had a mission. Especially Lisa, who, after placing Mrs. Prattle’s sketch on the desk, was very serious about searching the room meticulously. She wanted to prove she was right, and she immediately began studying the books carefully. She moved methodically from shelf to shelf, from top to bottom and from left to right. With her hands down by her side and head pointed upwards, she studied the spines on the highest bookshelves, looking for something recognizable. Her dark blond curls fell past her waist and, completely focused and with her lips pouting slightly, she looked even more like a doll than she usually did.

  Tom didn’t really know what to do or where to begin. He stood by helplessly with a bemused look on his face.

  Bored, Jack paced back and forth across the room until he suddenly called out to Sophie.

  “Sophie, check this out!” He pointed to the skeleton of a large bird on the second highest shelf in the bookcase behind the desk. The shelf above the bird had been removed to create more space for it. It was roughly 3 feet tall.

  Sophie came and stood next to him. “That’s a dodo,” she said. “A present for my father from his crazy friend Hans.”

  “Wow, that’s totally cool,” Jack exclaimed. “Can we take it down?”

  “Preferably not. It’s really rare. The dodo is extinct now, so if we break it we can’t buy a new one.”

  “Yeah, sure. You always assume the worst,” said Jack, brushing aside Sophie’s concern.

  “Wow, let me see that skeleton!” Tom said. “Get over here Jack and stand next to the desk. If I sit on your shoulders, I might be able to reach it.”

  So
phie sighed disapprovingly. “Don’t break anything okay, my Dad will kill us!”

  Tom nodded reassuringly and climbed up on Jack’s shoulders. Jack stepped forward and Tom stretched as far out as he could to take the Dodo down from the shelf.

  “Ow, my back!” Jack screamed in pain, trying quickly to step back to the desk. Tom teetered dangerously forward and lost his balance. He veered left in an attempt to avoid the dodo, and both he and Jack stumbled towards the far corner of the bookcase.

  Lisa looked up, startled. She saw Jack and Tom falling over next to the bookcase. Tom made a last ditch effort to grab hold of one of the ladder rails, but at that very moment the bookcase seemed to slide away from him. A loud creaking noise reverberated around the room and the bookcase shifted about 5 inches to one side.

  “The bookcase... oh no, the bookcase is ruined,” Sophie said, gasping.

  “Oooww, I think I’ve broken every bone in my body,” wailed Jack, who was sprawled on the wooden floor. From where he was lying, all he could see was Lisa staring wide-eyed at the wall behind him. For a few seconds the room was completely quiet. No one dared say anything, until Tom broke the silence.

  “Behind you, drama queen! Look!” he called to Jack, pointing to the bookcase.

  Lisa was staring breathlessly in the same direction.

  Jack pulled himself up and slowly turned his head.

  “Seriously, look!” shouted Tom. “Behind you! The bookcase... there’s a hidden room behind the bookcase!”

  Tuesday, June 17th, late afternoon

  Sophie didn’t hear a word Tom was saying. Mesmerized, she used her right hand to trace the edge of the part of the bookshelf that hadn’t moved. Her knees were trembling. “Wow,” she stammered. Her mouth had gone dry. “The edge...” She slowly ran her hand along the bookcase. “The edge of the bookcase is still intact. Nothing’s damaged,” she murmured, speaking more to herself than to the others.