Another flash and crash filled the sky. The rain pounded against the skylight on the roof outside his room and sounded like someone spilling bags of pebbles on the glass over and over again. It was so loud!
Derek sat up in bed, too nervous to go back to sleep. He climbed down the bunk bed ladder and crept along the dark hallway toward his parents’ bedroom. Usually, the creaks and groans of the house’s old wood floorboards would have alerted them of his arrival, but the rain and the storm were so loud that Derek couldn’t even hear his own footsteps.
He inched forward, feeling the wall for guidance towards his parents’ doorway. His foot bumped something hard and he lost his balance. Lightning flashed and he watched himself awkwardly tumble down into a laundry basket filled with folded underwear and socks. Thud!
Derek lay in the basket. If it had been daytime, he would have been embarrassed to be lying in the pile of underwear, but he was still half asleep. It was actually kind of cozy. Maybe he would just stay here until the storm was over. Why was he up wandering around in the middle of the night anyway? It was just a stupid storm. Sam didn’t seem to mind, and he was younger than Derek.
The thunder crashed loud again, and he instinctively reached his hands up to pull himself out of the basket and flee to his parents’ room. But when his leg stretched out of the basket, it smacked into the bottom part of the wall along the floor with a strange hollow thud.
“Oh great,” groaned Derek, thinking he had kicked a hole in the wall. The house was old, and some parts already needed fixing. He bent over and pushed on the white trim board along the floor with his hands. To his surprise, it moved in slightly. “That’s strange,” thought Derek. He pushed again, a little harder this time. The board moved forward and then swung out a few inches towards him from one side, as if on a hinge, revealing a small opening in the wall.
“Whoa,” whispered Derek, no longer thinking about the thunder and lightning. He stood up, slid the laundry basket away and reached his arm into the wall, pushing his shoulder against the floor. His hand inched forward into the opening, feeling around the floor and the wall beams. The hidden space didn’t seem very large, but it was hard for Derek to tell in the dark. He could feel a thick layer of dirt and dust on everything he touched, and he hoped that there weren’t any mice or bugs lurking in the corners.
When another flash of lightning filled the house with light, he saw something. At least he thought he did. A box was on the far side of the compartment. As quickly as he saw it, there was blackness again when the lightning faded and darkness overtook the house.
Derek stretched his arm as far as it could go into the hole. His fingertips brushed the edge of the box. He strained his arm some more, pushing his shoulder and armpit into the wall so hard that they started to sting. His fingers reached around the edge of the box and tugged it slightly toward him, moving it an inch. And then another inch. Soon he was able to put his hand around it, and he pulled the box out of the hole.
Derek pushed the board back into place in the wall and held the small wooden box in his hands. He leaned against the wall in the darkness, thinking. His heart fluttered, and his mind raced with his discovery. Why would there be a secret compartment in the wall of the house? Who in the world would have put it there? Most importantly, what was in this mystery box?
It was too dark in the hallway to see, so as quietly as he could, Derek tiptoed over to the stairs and down to the kitchen for a flashlight. He brought it over to the couch in the family room and set the box on the coffee table. As he shined his light on the box, he could see that it was old, not too large - about the size of a small shoebox - and it was covered with dust, just like the hole had been. A small metal clasp on the front held the lid shut, and on the top he could see some faint letters engraved into the wood. Derek brushed the dust off with his hand and studied the carving. “VMC,” he read. What did that mean? It seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
Derek’s fingers moved back to the clasp, which he found moved easily. His head was feeling dizzy and he realized he’d been holding his breath with excitement. He closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and slowly opened the box. When he opened his eyes, Derek saw an old piece of yellow paper folded up into a square. He picked it up and carefully unfolded it. It was a newspaper clipping from the Virginia Times. He looked for a date along the top – August 8, 1953. The headline read, “Valuable Coins Stolen from Virginia Museum.”
He placed the paper down on the table and looked back in the box. He pulled out a small notebook. It had a thin leather cover with the same “VMC” letters on the front that were carved into the box.
“VMC,” he thought to himself again. Where did he know that from? Then it hit him – the plaque by the boulder in the woods. VMC – Virginia Mining Company! Could that be it? But why would there be a box and book from the Virginia Mining Company hidden in the wall of the house? This was getting interesting.
Written in pencil on the inside cover of the notebook was, “R. Davis.” Richard Davis was the name of the man that Mr. Haskins said used to live in this house and was questioned by the police, thought Derek. Was this his notebook?
He flipped through more pages but it seemed to just be facts and figures about supplies, operations, and other stuff that he didn’t really understand. He was about to close the notebook when something caught his eye. Near the end was a series of drawings. They looked like rough depictions of mine passageways and caverns. But what interested him most was the drawing on the last page – a simple sketch of a coin.
Derek leaned in and looked closely at the drawing. He quickly recognized the feathered headdress of Lady Liberty on the Indian Head cent. He flipped back and studied the drawings again and realized what he was looking at. It was a map! A map of a mine tunnel and a picture of an Indian Head cent.
Derek looked back into the box. It seemed empty except for a pile of dirt in the corner. His finger pushed at the dust only to feel something move. It was hard and round. A coin? His eyes opened wide in the dark room as he blew the dust off the coin and shined his light on it. He blinked through the dust as he read the words ONE CENT across the back. He flipped it over and looked into the face of a woman wearing a feathered hat.
“No way!” thought Derek. He was holding an Indian Head cent just like Dad had described to them earlier! 1895, it read along the bottom. Not 1877, he thought, disappointed, but still pretty old. He placed the coin back in the box and read the newspaper clipping.
Yesterday, at the Virginia Museum, a prominent display of mid-nineteenth century coins was brazenly stolen from the Thomas C. Pendergass gallery. Police reported that the crime took place sometime between the hours of its 6 PM closing and the first tour the following day.
“It is a tragedy that this beautiful collection would be stolen,” said museum curator William Evanshade, Jr. “Not strictly for its monetary value, but also because of its important place in the history of American currency.”
Authorities have reportedly held several museum employees for questioning, including one Richard Davis, a security guard. Davis has a previously unknown criminal record, including charges of burglary.
The clock on the mantel suddenly chimed, and Derek jumped and looked up from the newspaper. He flashed his light toward it and saw the hands pointing to two o’clock. He realized that he was very tired and leaned back into the couch and started reading some more from the newspaper. But before long, his eyes were closed and he was sound asleep.
FIVE
The Creek
Derek pulled his hand over his face. Sunlight streamed through the window and the room glowed in the early morning light. He sat up. The rain had stopped. He looked around and realized he was in the family room. It took him a minute to remember how he’d arrived there during the storm.
He looked down and saw the old newspaper clipping lying on the floor. He folded it back up and placed it in the box. The excitement of his discovery was still a bit cloudy from his short night o
f sleep, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do next. He gathered the box and its contents and quietly walked back upstairs. He tried not to wake anyone with the creaks in the floors, which could now be clearly heard in the quiet of the morning. He wandered down the hall to his bedroom where Sam still lay comatose.
Derek leaned over the bed and stared into Sam’s sleeping face. He was so close that their eyes were just inches apart. He stood there motionless for a few moments, his head frozen above the bed like a spider lurking above its prey. Sam didn’t move a muscle. Derek gave a little tickle to Sam’s arm through the sheets, but he still didn’t move. Growing impatient, Derek decided to speed the process up a bit and gave his brother a hard poke in the ribs with his finger.
“Ahhh!” cried Sam as his whole body jumped and his eyes opened. He was surprised to see two eyeballs looking back at him. He tried to sit up but instead he conked his forehead right into his older brother’s nose.
“Ow!” cried Derek.
“Ow!” said Sam. “What are you doing?”
“It stopped raining,” answered Derek. “Let’s go outside before Mom and Dad wake up.”
Sam just moaned, rubbed his head and turned over in his bed. “What rain?” he said. “I’m tired.”
“There was a huge storm last night,” replied Derek. “Not that you’d know, since you slept through it as always.”
“Really?”
“Really. Let’s go! Get dressed. I want to get back to the creek. And you are not going to believe what I found.” He held the box out in front of Sam and explained how he’d discovered it in the night and what was inside. Sam’s jaw dropped open as Derek held up the Indian Head cent.
“No way!” Sam exclaimed. He took it from Derek and held it up carefully. “We have to show this to Dad!”
“Not yet,” said Derek. “I want to try to figure this mystery out on our own first. If we find the stolen coins, we could be heroes!”
Derek pulled his desk chair over to the closet. He lifted the old box high over his head until it slid onto the top shelf, and he threw an old sweatshirt overtop of it.
“For safe keeping,” he explained. “If it’s been hidden for all these years, a little while longer won’t hurt anything, Sam. Come on, let’s go to the creek!”
***
The two boys raced silently across the backyard and down the path to the creek. Both of their minds were too consumed with the thoughts of Derek’s discovery to talk. Their sneakers quickly became wet from the grass, as the storm had left everything soaked. Even though the sun was up, the air was still and quiet, except for the occasional cry of a red-tailed hawk that circled high above the trees.
The boys had seen the creek a few times now since moving in, but they could tell that things were different even before they reached it. The sound of rushing water called out through the otherwise quiet forest. When they arrived at the water’s edge, the boys slowly climbed up one of the fallen log bridges, putting one foot in front of another, careful not to step on the wet, slippery mosses along the edges. They maneuvered to a spot that gave them a clear view of the water.
The storm had turned the lazy flow of water into a surging stream that moved through the twists and turns of the creek bed with a newfound force. The water had risen at least two feet higher and wider onto the soft banks of sand and dirt where the boys usually stood to throw stones. Piles of leaves and branches had been pushed onto the dirt overtop of the normal walking trails. In fact, the large sticks that they had used as bridges over muddy spots on the ground had been completely washed away and were piled up with the other debris that was caught in the bends of the creek.
Sam suddenly stopped thinking about Derek’s discovery of the box and marveled at the creek. “What happened?” he asked.
“There was a lot of rain last night,” answered Derek. “I told you the storm was big even though you didn’t hear it.”
“Yeah, you weren’t kidding,” said Sam.
The boys stepped off the log and slowly found their way to the edge of the bank, following the creek farther into the woods. Sam agreed to go toward the area where he’d found the coin, as long as they didn’t go up near the boulder.
The boys had a tough time seeing along the bottom of the creek, since the water was so high and fast-moving from the storm. The stones looked blurry beneath the current, which was like the white water streaking from the jets in a hot tub.
“It seems like if there was one wheat penny in here, there might be others,” reasoned Derek as they walked up and down the creek bank peering into the water.
“Why would there be old pennies in the creek at all?” wondered Sam.
Derek looked up at Sam. “Don’t you remember what Mr. Haskins said about that museum robbery? He said that the man they tried to arrest used to live in our house, Richard Davis.”
“You believe him?” asked Sam. “I think he’s crazy. He spooks me out with all that talk of his brother falling into a hole and dying.”
“I don’t know about his brother, but the museum robbery was real. It was in the newspaper article in the box. Plus, the notebook had R. Davis written in the cover, the map of the passageways, and it had a real Indian Head cent. It all points to one thing!”
“What?” said Sam. “What does it point to?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you, Sam? The treasure, it’s out here. Somewhere by the boulder and that Virginia Mining Company sign. It has to be. And I’m going to find it!”
“Hmm,” said Sam. “How do you know it’s by the boulder? Maybe he really did steal them but then threw them here in the creek!”
“He wouldn’t throw a valuable coin collection in the creek, Sam. That wouldn’t make any sense. Would you throw money in a creek?”
“I’ve thrown pennies in the fountain at the mall,” answered Sam. “Maybe the police were hot on his trail.”
“Just forget it,” sighed Derek in frustration. “This a stupid conversation and a waste of time. There’s nothing here and we’d never find anything with all this fast-moving water. Let’s head home.”
“Wait a minute, Derek,” said Sam. “I just want to look more downstream from where I found the penny.”
Sam walked slowly along the edge of the creek bed slope, eyes fixed down in the water. He came to a spot where the trees overhead parted in the sky, allowing the sunlight to stream down into the water. Suddenly Sam spied something glimmering in the light. He got down on his knees and bent lower to see what it was.
“Derek, look, do you see that?”
“Where?”
“Right there, next to that square-shaped rock sticking out of the water. See those spots sparkling in the sunlight? Are those coins?”
“I don’t know, they’re kind of small, it’s hard to tell,” answered Derek.
“Let me see if I can move one with a stick so we can tell if it’s a coin,” said Sam.
He picked out a long stick from the brush and leaned further over the bank, stretching his arm as far as he could toward the sparkle. The edge of the stick pushed into the wet dirt around the shiny object and then lightly touched it.
“Look at that!” yelled Sam, “something moved and it was round! I’m telling you, they’re coins – just like I found before. I have to get them! Here, hold my legs. This branch isn’t long enough, and I need to reach down there.”
Derek sat down on the ground behind him and held onto his brother’s dangling feet. “Sam, be careful. You’re not going to be able to reach them, it’s too far down. Let’s go around to the other side.”
“No, this is better,” Sam yelled up as he looked into the water. “Yep, they’re coins! I can see them. Sweet! There’s a few – one, two, three…”
As Sam said three, the stick that he was balancing on split in two with a loud SNAP! He lost his balance and went sliding forward down the edge of the bank. His fingers scratched at the dirt as he slid, but there was nothing to hold on to.
Sam’s sudden burst forward sent Derek falli
ng backward and left him holding only an empty sneaker. He watched his brother slide head-first out of his view and over the edge of the creek bank.
“Sam!”
Derek pushed himself off the ground and ran to the edge of the creek. He looked down and saw Sam’s body lying in the water on a rock as the current streamed by. His head was above water, but it was turned the other way and Derek couldn’t see his face to tell if he was okay.
“Sam!” he called out again, but there was no answer.
Derek looked for a way to get down to him without falling too. He began to panic. He looked back at Sam but his brother still hadn’t moved. He looked up the bank a few yards and saw a small sapling tree growing right up the side of the creek bank. It leaned out over the water in a curve like a backwards letter ‘C`.
Derek didn’t think any longer, he just wrapped his arm around the thin tree limb and dangled himself out over the water. He counted to three and let go. Those five feet that he fell into the creek seemed like twenty as he splashed down into the water. His feet slipped on the rounded rocks and the water came up to his waist. He ran, slipped and paddled his way towards Sam.
Derek reached out and pulled at Sam’s wet shirt. He lifted him up and slowly turned his head over. Sam’s eyes were closed and his face was splattered with mud. Derek couldn’t tell if he was breathing. His mind raced with thoughts of what to do.
“Help!” Derek screamed out. “Somebody help!”
He knew that you were supposed to do CPR or mouth-to-mouth something, but he wasn’t sure exactly how it worked. His teachers had said they were going to learn about it next year in gym class, but he needed to know now!
Derek leaned over and opened Sam’s mouth with his fingers. He pushed his lips over his brother’s mouth and started to blow. He felt Sam’s face move. Then it smiled. Derek looked up and saw a mischievous glimmer in his eyes, and then Sam started to laugh.
The Virginia Mysteries Collection: Books 1-3 Page 3