The Box and the Bone

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  After they’d hugged each other Aurora told her all about the beautiful mountains and lakes and chipmunks she’d seen at the Nicelys’ cabin, and then she helped Athena go to bed. But it was hard to go to sleep because there was so much to think about. Athena thought about Aurora being back home and about the beautiful chipmunks. And then she thought about how hard it had rained that day and all the things she had seen and done while she was waiting in the church. It was a long time before she went to sleep.

  But when she woke up the next morning everything was back to normal. Aurora and Ari had breakfast cereal and went to school, and Athena had French toast. And then she went back to play at Dragoland. She was on her way there, pulling her doll family in the wagon when she found Laura Grant’s ballet slippers.

  Laura Grant, who lived next door to the Pappases, was one of Athena’s favorite people—even though she was a teenager. Aurora and her friend Kate Nicely hated teenagers. At least Kate said they did.

  So Athena hated teenagers too. At least most of them. All except the ones who were ballet dancers and who belonged to a nice dog like Jinsky. And who were thin and beautiful with lots of long dark hair and a soft friendly smile. Athena especially liked the friendly smile. Kate said that some people at Castle Court thought that Laura Grant was unfriendly. Aurora said that was only because she was shy.

  But Laura Grant wasn’t ever shy or unfriendly to Athena, so when Athena found the ballet slippers in the wet grass she wanted to do something to help.

  The slippers were near the sidewalk, where Laura must have dropped them when she was on her way to school that morning. Maybe while she’d been running to catch the bus.

  Athena looked up at the sky. It was gray and rainy looking again, and she was sure that being rained on wouldn’t be good for ballet slippers. She sat down on the sidewalk and looked at the slippers and wondered what to do. She knew it wouldn’t help to knock on the Grants’ door, because both of Laura’s parents went away to work every day.

  While she was still wondering Jinsky came around from behind the house. When he saw Athena he bounced over to say hello and while Athena was patting him and shaking his paw he noticed the slippers too. At first he only sniffed them and wagged his tail, but then he picked them up in his mouth and trotted off. When he got to the Grants’ front porch he lay down and began to chew. Just in time, Athena dashed up the steps and grabbed the slippers away.

  She was still standing on the Grants’ front porch when suddenly she knew just what to do. She went back to her wagon, unwrapped the old tin box, and opened the lid. Sure enough, just like she thought, it was the perfect size to hold two pink ballet slippers. She put the slippers inside and closed the lid. Then she put the box right by the sidewalk so Laura would be sure to see it when she came home. She went on to Dragoland then, feeling very good because Laura’s ballet slippers were safe and sound. Of course she didn’t have a tea table anymore, but that was all right. A nice big brick would be almost as good.

  That same Monday morning at recess, when Susie Garcia came out of the third-grade classroom at Beaumont School, Muffy Brockhurst was waiting for her. “Come here,” she said. “Hurry. I’m supposed to be playing soccer.”

  Muffy was telling the truth—for once. Susie could see Muffy’s fourth-grade class out on the soccer field. “Why aren’t you?” she asked. “Playing soccer, I mean?”

  “Because we have to talk,” Muffy said. She wrinkled her pug nose. “Besides, I hate soccer.” Then she frowned and leaned closer. “Did you follow Carlos yesterday, like I told you to? You know, after they left the Pit and went away somewhere?”

  “No,” Susie said. “I didn’t.” She pointed to her bandaged knee. “I skinned my knee really bad when Lump pulled me down in the Pit. I had to go home and get it doctored. And after my mom got it bandaged …” She shrugged. “They’d disappeared. I looked in the Pit and everywhere, but they weren’t there.” She was telling the truth. After her knee quit hurting she’d gone to the Pit, and then she’d called the Wongs and the Brockhursts. And nobody seemed to know where the three guys had gone.

  Muffy put her hands on her hips and glared at Susie. “So,” she said, wagging her head from side to side, “you hurt your poor little knee and you had to run home to Mommy. And you let those guys get away and they didn’t come back for a long time. Not till after it stopped raining. And when they did get back they were all sopping wet and covered with mud. Like maybe they’d been digging somewhere. Get it! Digging! And we don’t know where because you let them get away.”

  Susie glared back. “Well, where were you? Why didn’t you follow them?”

  “Because I was hiding. Carlos must have seen something when I was peeking over the wall with the binoculars, because all of a sudden he started coming toward me. So I ran down across the Weed-patch and hid by the creek. And by the time I got back they were gone. But I didn’t worry too much because I thought you must have followed them.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “Well, didn’t you even ask Carlos where he’d been? Like, when he got back home all sopping wet.”

  “Sure,” Susie said, “I asked him.”

  “And … and … what did he say?”

  “He just laughed and went, ‘How soon do you have to know?’ That’s what he always says when I ask him something. Did you ask Bucky?”

  Muffy shrugged. “Oh sure.”

  “What did he say?”

  “The usual. Like, ‘Get lost, dog meat.’ And some other stuff your mommy probably wouldn’t want you to hear.”

  Susie glared, because she hated it when Muffy treated her like a little kid just because she was in third grade and Muffy was already in fourth. She started to walk away but Muffy grabbed her arm. “Look,” she said, “this was all your idea in the first place. You were the one who found out about the treasure and asked me to help find it.”

  “I know it. But what can we do now?”

  “I don’t know. Except we’ve got to keep following them. Because that way, sooner or later, they’re going to lead us to where they put the treasure. And then we can get it away from them. Okay?”

  Susie sighed and said okay but she wasn’t feeling too hopeful.

  Chapter 17

  “JUST TO LOOK AROUND,” Bucky was saying as the three PROs got off the bus on Castle Avenue that afternoon after school. “We won’t dig or anything. I just want to see what the rain did down there in the Pit. Like, maybe it washed away some dirt and uncovered something we missed. If you know what I mean.”

  Carlos knew what he meant. But he was hungry and what he really wanted to do was go home and get something to eat. “Well, okay,” he said. “But just to look around. No digging.”

  While they were still on the bus Carlos had noticed Laura Grant. She had been sitting near the front, and when the three PROs started around the cul-de-sac toward Dragoland, there she was again, walking right ahead of them. Carlos was watching her because he was interested in the way she walked, as if her feet hardly touched the ground. He’d thought before that Laura Grant could be a great athlete if she were just into track and field instead of ballet. He was still watching when, right in front of her own house, she stopped and picked something up. As the three of them walked on past, Bucky and Eddy were busy ignoring Laura, like they usually did with girls. But Carlos looked at her and said, “Hi.” And saw very clearly what she was holding in her hands. A few yards farther on he grabbed Bucky and Eddy and pulled them to a stop.

  “Look!” he hissed. “Look at what Grant’s got.”

  “What do you mean, what she’s got?” Bucky said.

  Eddy peered around Bucky’s shoulder. “You mean like measles or zits or something?” he asked.

  “No. In her hands. What she’s holding. I think it’s … It looks like our box.”

  They all stared.

  “Hey. You’re right,” Eddy whispered. “That’s our treasure box, all right. See those handles on the ends and all those rusty places. What’s she do
ing with our box?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out,” Bucky said. “Right this minute.” He started back down the sidewalk, and Carlos and Eddy followed.

  Laura Grant was still standing in the same place holding the box in both hands. She was turning it this way and that and opening and closing the lid. The padlock seemed to have disappeared. When she looked up and saw the PROs coming she smiled, looked again—and her smile faded. Carlos glanced at Bucky—and saw why. Bucky was doing his Rambo stare. He swaggered up to Laura Grant and said, “Okay, Grant. What are you doing with our box?”

  Laura’s too-big eyes seemed to get even bigger. “Your box? Is this your box?”

  “It sure is,” Bucky said. “What’s in it? Tell us what’s in it, okay. That’ll prove that it’s ours.”

  She looked puzzled. “My ballet slippers are in it.” She opened the box and held it out for them to look. “See. But I didn’t put them in there. They were just there when I picked it up.”

  Bucky narrowed his eyes. Reaching out, he grabbed the box out of Laura’s hand. “Sure they were,” he said sarcastically. He took out the ballet slippers and threw them on the ground. “Then what’s this? What are these things?”

  He held the box out for Laura to see. When Carlos looked, too, his stomach did a funny loop-the-loop, because in the bottom of the box were some old leather bags. Some empty old leather bags. Carlos glanced at Eddy. Eddy was making his lips into a “shhh-ing” shape. Carlos knew what he meant. Eddy meant that nobody had better mention the word coins.

  “See,” Bucky said, picking up one of the bags and shaking it in Laura’s face. “What was in these bags? Just tell me that. What was in there when you ‘found’ our box?”

  “I told you,” Laura’s voice was soft and shaky, like she might be about to cry. “I never saw that box until just a minute ago.” At that moment Nijinsky dashed out from behind the Grants’ house, ran to Laura, and jumped up to lick her face. Then he bounced around the lawn a few times before he sat down near her feet.

  Bucky stared at Nijinsky. Stared—and nodded his head slowly up and down. You could almost see a lightbulb coming on over his head. “I get it,” he said. “Now I get it.” He started shaking one of the bags in Laura’s face again. “That’s how you ‘found’ our box. Isn’t it? Your dog brought it to you. Well, he stole it. That mutt of yours dug up our box and stole it, and you’d better cough up everything that—”

  Suddenly Bucky quit yelling and looked down at Nijinsky—and at a whole lot of big white teeth.

  “Grrr,” Nijinsky said.

  Bucky backed slowly away. Laura put her hand on Nijinsky’s head. Then in one graceful motion she turned, picked up her slippers, and started down the path to her front door—floated down the path as if her feet hardly touched the ground. Nijinsky trotted along beside her, and nobody went after her or yelled at her to stop. Not even Bucky.

  After Laura disappeared inside her house Carlos and Eddy crowded around Bucky and stared at the box. It was the same one, there was no doubt about that. But what happened to all the old? … Carlos clamped his lips shut tightly and looked over at Eddy. Eddy nodded.

  Then Bucky said, “Come on. Let’s go to my house. We can talk there—about what we’re going to do to get our treasure back.”

  Eddy and Carlos said okay and they started across the cul-de-sac. All the way across, Bucky went on raving about what they were going to do. “We’ve got to work up a plan of attack. About how we’re going to get our treasure away from that Grant dude. If that sneaky female thinks she’s going to get away with stealing our gold nuggets, she’s going to find out …”

  They were passing the planter area in the middle of the cul-de-sac’s circular drive when Carlos heard something. A kind of rustling noise that seemed to be coming from under some big ferns. And out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw something too. But when he looked again it was gone. He could still hear the rustling sound. It sounded too big to be a bird or a squirrel, but Bucky was making so much noise it was hard to be sure.

  Chapter 18

  WHEN THE THREE PROS disappeared into the Brockhursts’ house there were more rustling noises in the planter area. Then a voice whispered, “Ouch. You dumb klutz. You crawled on my hand.” The voice was Muffy Brockhurst’s.

  “I couldn’t help it,” Susie Garcia whispered back. “They were going to see me. I had to move or they would have.”

  Muffy crawled out from under a fern. “Ugh,” she said. The ground in the planter area was muddy from yesterday’s rain, and now Muffy was too. She stood up and wiped her hands on Susie’s back. Susie crawled out of reach and stood up too. “They went in your house,” she said.

  “I know,” Muffy said. “Did you hear what they were saying? I heard part of it.”

  Susie nodded uncertainly. “A little. I heard just a little. Bucky was saying something about making plans. And gold nuggets. I’m sure I heard him say ‘Our gold nuggets.’”

  “Yeah, I heard ‘gold nuggets’ too. That must be what’s in the treasure chest. Come on. Let’s go to my house. Maybe we can spy on them some more there.”

  As they were crossing the drive Susie said, “Did you see them talking to Laura Grant? I wonder why they were talking to her? And then it looked like Nijinsky almost bit Bucky.”

  “Really,” Muffy sounded delighted. She stopped and stared at Susie. “Wow! I wish he had.”

  “Yeah,” Susie said. “It sure looked like it. It’s funny though. I didn’t think Nijinsky would ever bite anyone.”

  Muffy made a snorting noise. “Not anyone except my brother, I guess,” she said. “Nijinsky’s a smart dog.”

  They’d reached the entryway of the Brockhursts’ house by then and Muffy stopped to wipe her feet on the doormat. “Hey, wipe your feet,” she said. “My mom will strangle you if you mess up her white rugs.”

  As Susie wiped her feet she was thinking that Muffy was probably exaggerating again. But knowing the Brockhursts, she wasn’t too sure. As soon as she’d wiped her feet very carefully, Muffy opened the door quietly and they went on in.

  They went through the downstairs first, peeking into each room before they went in. No one was on the first floor except Muffy’s mother, who was in her office talking on the telephone. Muffy’s mom, who sold houses and subdivisions, had a little office right next to the kitchen.

  “They must have gone up to Ducky’s room,” Muffy whispered. “Come on. Be very quiet.”

  Muffy led the way up the stairs then and down the hall. When they were tiptoeing past Bucky’s room she stopped for a minute and put her ear against the door. But then she shook her head and led the way to her own room, which was right next to Ducky’s. Opening the door she jerked Susie inside.

  “Hurry up,” she said. “They’re in there, in Bucky’s room. I could hear their voices but I couldn’t tell what they were saying. Wait here a minute. I’ll be right back.”

  Muffy went out and down the hall and a minute later she was back carrying two drinking glasses.

  “Here.” She handed one to Susie. “Do like this.” Muffy went over and put the top of the glass against the wall. Then she put her ear against the bottom of the glass. She motioned to Susie. “Here. Put yours right here. This way you can hear through the wall.

  It was an interesting idea. Susie put her glass against the wall and listened—but she couldn’t hear very much at all. She kept on trying—pressing her ear to the bottom of the glass harder and harder until it began to ache. Now and then she could hear Bucky yelling something, but most of it wasn’t very clear.

  In the next room Carlos and Eddy were sitting on Bucky’s bed while Bucky paced up and down the room. “She was lying,” he yelled. He made his eyes big and round and in a high-pitched, squeaky voice that was supposed to be like Laura’s he said, “‘I never saw that box until a minute ago.’ Sure she didn’t. She probably took our gold nuggets out and buried them someplace as soon as her mutt showed up with the box. Well, we’ll show
her. Will we ever!”

  “What are you—er—what are we going to do?” Carlos asked.

  “Well.” Bucky swaggered around the room. “We’ll just do a little arm twisting. We’ll wait for her when she gets off the bus tomorrow and then we’ll grab her and—”

  “What about Nijinsky?” Carlos said.

  For a minute Bucky didn’t say anything. But after a while he started up again. “Okay. We’ll just follow her. Every time she steps out of her house, or off the bus, we’ll be there. Right behind her. Not touching her or anything. Just following along behind her. You know. Staring at her like …”

  Bucky narrowed his eyes and looked as sinister as he could, which in Bucky’s case was pretty sinister. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he slouched around the room looking up out of the tops of his eyes.

  Eddy didn’t look too impressed. “And what’s that supposed to accomplish?” he asked.

  “Oh nothing much,” Bucky sneered. “Just scare her to death, that’s all. Scare her so much that she’ll decide it isn’t worth it. So she’ll give up and hand it over.”

  Carlos couldn’t help grinning. “You mean that you think just because you go around staring at her, that she’s going to hand over all those valuable coins? Just like that?”

  It wasn’t until he caught a glimpse of Eddy’s face that he realized what he’d said.

  “Coins?” Bucky’s eyes were really narrow now. “What do you mean—coins?”

  Feeling a little bit panicky, Carlos stared at Eddy. But after a second, Eddy shrugged and grinned. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “I was already thinking that maybe we ought to tell him.”

  “Tell me what?” Bucky said.

  So they did. All about how, on that first day when they’d just found the box, and after Bucky left for his math lesson, the two of them had opened the treasure chest.

  “That padlock was old and rusted and it just fell apart,” Eddy said.