Suddenly the chamber was full of noise and activity as Dad, Sam and Alex bounded into the space. Dad’s face looked worried when it appeared in the light at the top of the hole.
“Derek, are you okay?” Dad called as he swung his legs over the opening and lowered himself down. “Where are you stuck?” he asked. Derek pointed to his leg.
“We couldn’t move the rocks,” Alex shouted down.
“It really hurts, Dad,” moaned Derek.
Dad looked at the rocks and assessed the situation. “Alex, come down here next to me. I think if we both lift this rock at the same time, it will move enough for Derek to slide his leg out.”
“Yes, sir,” said Alex, and he slid back down into the hole. Dad positioned himself next to Derek’s head so he could have room to lift, and Alex squatted on the other side.
“Okay, Derek, when we lift the rock, you pull out your leg. Ready?”
Derek nodded, and Dad looked up at Alex.
“Okay, one, two, THREE!” Dad and Alex both grunted and strained at the rock. It lifted a couple of inches off the pile. Derek felt the grip on his leg loosen, and he pulled it out with a shout.
“He’s clear! Set it down,” said Dad, and they dropped the big rock down with a crack.
Dad bent down and hugged Derek tight and then looked at his leg under the light. He gently put his hand on Derek’s foot and tried to move it.
“Owww!” screamed Derek. “I think it’s broken.”
“It might be,” answered Dad, “but I think you’ll be alright. We’ll have to carry you out of here.” Dad let out a big sigh, wiped his forehead and sat down on the rock next to Derek. He shined his flashlight over to the pile of coins that had spilled out from the metal box and raised his eyebrow.
“So, Son….what have you got here?”
Derek picked up the coin he’d looked at before and handed it to his dad. “Look, Dad, it’s an 1877 Indian Head cent! Can you believe it?”
“Actually, I can’t, Derek,” admitted Dad. “Sam filled me in on what you two have been up to lately. I’m glad you’re safe, but after we get you out of here, we’re going to have a talk about what kind of choices you are making when you go off on your own.”
Derek touched his sore leg and looked down at the ground sheepishly. He rolled a coin across the dirt and looked back up at his dad.
“I know. I’m sorry, Dad. Thanks for coming.”
“What are we going to do with all these coins?” yelled Sam, leaning over the hole from above. “Just look at all this treasure! Somebody call the newspaper! Call the governor! We’re rich!”
“Let’s work on getting Derek out of here before we alert the press,” answered Dad. “Come on, Son, let’s get home and then we can think about what to do with these coins.”
“Dude, you’re going to be a star!” cheered Alex as they helped Derek to his feet.
Derek smiled weakly and looked up at his dad. “A grounded star,” he mumbled, as Dad raised him up out of the hole.
TEN
The Museum
Dad carried Derek out of the cave with some help from the other boys. Alex and Henry promised not to go back to the cave or tell anyone about the coins until the police arrived. Alex explained that they lived in the neighborhood on the other side of the woods, and that they had been playing in the cave ever since they’d found it last summer. Neither had any idea that there was a treasure hidden within the giant rock. They both had heard stories about the stolen coins, but had figured, like most people around town, that it was just a legend and not really true.
When Dad and Sam got Derek back home, Mom decided that Derek’s leg was hurt more than any bandages or antiseptic could fix, so she drove him to the health clinic for an X-ray. It turned out that his ankle was fractured, and he came home later that afternoon on crutches. Normally Derek would have hated being stuck inside in the middle of summer, but it didn’t matter much because Mom and Dad grounded him for the entire month of August. Dad said even though they were glad that he was safe, there were still consequences for his poor decisions.
While Derek was at the doctor, Dad called the local police station and explained what the boys had found. The officer on the phone was suspicious that Dad was making up the story of finding the long-lost coins. He made him describe in detail exactly what they’d found and where they found it. He even had Dad tell the story all over again to the curator of the Virginia Museum before anyone wasted their time coming out for a wild goose chase through the woods. The curator found Dad’s description of the coins convincing, so he and the police arranged to come out in the morning to see things for themselves.
The next day after breakfast, Dad and Sam walked two officers and the museum curator, Dr. William Evanshade III, back to the cave. They led them through the passageways and showed them the box of coins in the chamber. Since he was grounded, Derek had to stay home, which didn’t really seem fair since he was the one who had found the treasure. Sam even tried to argue that his brother should come, but eventually agreed with Dad that it would be hard for Derek to get back to the cave on crutches. Sam told Derek later that when the museum curator looked down into the hole and saw the coins laying there spilled out on the ground, the old man nearly had a heart attack. “My golly!” he exclaimed over and over.
The police and the museum arranged for a crew to comb through the entire cave and surrounding woods to look for any more evidence of stolen artifacts, but they never did find anything else. The police told Dad that the caves in the boulder were, in fact, the remains of an old coal mine, operated by the Virginia Mining Company, or VMC, but that it had been closed down for over fifty years. They ordered the town engineers to send some men in to seal off the entrance to the cave so that no one else could risk getting hurt or trapped like Derek. Mom called it a lawsuit waiting to happen. The boys weren’t sure what that meant, but agreed that it was dangerous.
Mr. Haskins wandered over from next door when he saw the police cars to see what all the commotion was about. He told the police all about how the museum security guard, Richard Davis, had once lived in the boys’ house.
“I always suspected that he was the culprit,” declared Mr. Haskins. “He had those beady eyes, and he stole my mail. Probably stole the coins too. He was shifty, I always said!”
The police learned that before Richard Davis had worked as a security guard at the museum, he worked security for the Virginia Mining Company.
“He would have known all about those secret caves and passageways under the boulder,” said Derek. “That explains why he had that box and notebook with VMC written on it. He must have hidden the map for safe keeping in the compartment in the wall.”
“I wonder what happened to him?” asked Sam. “Why would he have left it all in the house and the mine?”
“Electrocuted!” barked out Mr. Haskins as he turned and started walking back to his house.
“What?” asked Sam, thinking he must have heard the old man wrong.
“He was zapped!” yelled Mr. Haskins over his shoulder. “His toaster went berserk, or something like that. Or maybe it was his washing machine. Or his oven. He was shifty, I tell ya!”
“Gosh,” gulped Sam in disbelief.
***
A couple of weeks later, Dr. Evanshade called and invited the boys to a private showing of the coin collection at the museum. Despite Derek’s punishment, Dad agreed to drive both boys downtown. When they arrived at the museum, Dr. Evanshade escorted them to a back room marked Museum Staff Only, and they saw a wide metal table where the coins were being inspected and catalogued. Derek brought with him the old box and the notebook that he’d found in the secret compartment. The old curator said “My golly” a few more times and was thrilled with these newest additions to the collection. But the best part of the trip came right before they left.
“Now, gentlemen,” said Dr. Evanshade in a serious voice while looking at Derek and Sam. “There is one more item of business before you leave. Since you were
the ones who discovered these rare coins, you are subject to a Virginia Antiquities Finder’s Fee of ten percent of the recovered goods.”
Sam looked confused. “Finder’s fee? Does that mean we have to pay a fee for finding the coins?” The situation was getting worse by the minute. “We didn’t steal them, sir, we just found them.”
“No, no!” laughed Dr. Evanshade. “A finder’s fee means the money is coming to you. You get a portion.”
“We get a Porsche! Awesome! That’s my favorite car!” exclaimed Derek.
Everyone laughed. “No, I don’t have any cars for you, I’m afraid,” explained Dr. Evanshade. “A portion, young man, a portion. It’s your reward!”
Sam’s face brightened. A reward! That was almost as good as a Porsche.
“Wait a minute,” said Derek. “Ten percent of what, you never said how much all these coins were worth.”
“Well, there were over five hundred coins in that metal container that you discovered – five hundred and twenty-three to be exact. Quite an assortment of early American currency, I must say. Back in 1953, it was quite a tragedy when those coins were stolen. In fact, my father, Dr. William Evanshade, Jr., was the museum curator at the time, and as a boy I heard all about the robbery. There were quite a few rare Morgan Silver Dollars, Shield Nickels, Three Cent Nickels, Seated Liberty Dimes and Quarters, and most impressively, there were nearly two dozen uncirculated 1877 Indian Head cents, which, as I think you already know, are extremely rare. Overall, I’ve valued the collection at just over one hundred thousand dollars!”
“A hundred thousand dollars!” shouted Sam. “Wow – we’re rich!”
“Wait a minute, Sam,” counseled Dad, “that’s not our money, it’s what the coins are worth to the museum.”
“But ten percent,” said Derek, “of one hundred thousand…” he did a quick calculation in his head. “That’s ten thousand dollars?”
“That’s correct, Derek,” said Dr. Evanshade. “Ten thousand dollars. That’s quite a large amount of money for two young men your ages. Congratulations, and thank you again on behalf of the museum and the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
The boys each smiled with grins as wide as the Grand Canyon when the curator handed them white envelopes with checks inside and shook their hands. It was like they’d won the lottery! Suddenly, thought Derek, his grounding didn’t seem quite so bad.
ELEVEN
The Summer’s End
August pulled to a lazy close, with folks too weary from the humidity to celebrate much. Derek’s ankle gradually healed to the point that he didn’t need crutches anymore, just a protective boot on his foot. He’d gotten pretty good at hobbling around the house and was ready to get back outside. He sat on his bed and looked up at the wall where a big new frame hung over his desk.
A few days after the police took the coins back to the museum, a newspaper reporter for the Virginia Times had interviewed Derek and Sam about the whole discovery. The next week, their picture was on the front page. “Local Boys Discover Stolen Coins,” the headline read. Below it in smaller print it said, “Brothers Turn Summer into Real-life Treasure Hunt.” A picture of them each holding up one of the Indian Head cents filled up the bottom corner of the page.
“Look, Derek,” Sam had said, “we’re front page news!” Derek smiled just thinking about it again. It was pretty cool.
Dad had purchased a bunch of extra copies so that they could save them. He took one copy of the front page and had it framed alongside the newspaper headline from August 8, 1953 when the coins had been stolen. In-between the newspaper pages was the Indian Head cent that had been in the box from the secret compartment. Dr. Evanshade had let them keep it since it wasn’t officially part of the treasure from the cave and because the boys were so excited about it. It wasn’t one of the 1877 coins, but it was still awesome.
Derek decided to give a small part of his reward money to Henry and Alex since they had rescued him from the cave. He figured that if he’d died alone in the cave, it wouldn’t matter much how much reward money he had. Dad called that a good first step towards making better decisions. Derek suggested that they hide the reward money in the secret compartment in the wall for safekeeping, but his parents thought a better place would be at the bank in a new college savings account.
***
September meant that it was time for school to begin – the boys’ first time going to school in Virginia. Sam and Derek thought back to all that had happened in just a few short months and marveled. It seemed like just yesterday that they had first set eyes on the creek, climbed up the big boulder, and run from Alex, Henry and a “bear” in the woods.
The two brothers pulled on their backpacks and walked together down the street from their cul-de-sac to wait for the bus. Mom and Dad had agreed to watch from the driveway so that the boys could make a good first impression with their new bus mates. It was nice that the street had little traffic, with not much worry of a truck running them down. The bus, or the yellow chariot as Mom liked to call it, pulled up with a roar and the door opened.
The boys looked back to their house, and Mom and Dad waved. Sam waved back. Derek gave a slight nod, took a deep breath, and carefully hobbled up the steps. He was determined not to fall down and look stupid in front of the new kids. That would definitely not be a good first impression. Sam stepped on and looked at the driver, a woman with a friendly face, short hair, and a tie-dyed shirt. She said hello and told them to sit wherever they liked today. As they looked down the aisle at the new faces and tried to decide which seat to take, they heard someone calling their names.
“Hey Derek, Sam! Back here!” The boys looked down the aisle and saw Henry sitting in a three-seater by himself. Alex was right behind him. Derek and Sam sat down next to the familiar faces.
“Hey guys,” Alex called to some other boys sitting across from him, “these are the dudes I was telling you about who found the coins in the cave.”
“No way,” said an older boy with red hair. “I heard that you got a reward and everything. We saw it in the newspaper. That was you?” The whole bus turned and stared at Derek and Sam, everyone’s eyes fixed on them in awe.
A pretty girl with blond hair in the next seat looked over at Derek with a sparkle in her eyes. “I heard you were trapped in the cave alone. You must have been scared,” she said.
“No, not really, but it was pretty wild,” said Derek, smiling confidently. “I could have died.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Oh brother,” he moaned. He could tell that all this attention was going to go to Derek’s head.
The boys spent the rest of the bus ride recounting their adventures and how they had stumbled upon the lost coins. The kids on the bus leaned over their seats and listened to every word and asked all kinds of questions. Not a bad first impression, thought Derek.
When the bus pulled up to the school, Henry offered to help Derek with his backpack since his leg was hurt.
“What teacher do you have?” asked Henry.
“Mrs. Lincoln – muller? I think that is how you say it,” said Derek.
“No way – that’s who I have too! That’s radical. Let’s go.”
Derek was excited to have someone he knew in his class. He turned to Sam as they entered the building. “I’ll see you on the way home, Sam, good luck!”
Sam looked a bit uncertain, but then a couple kids from the bus started talking to him more about the coins and led him into the school. He looked over his shoulder and nodded to Derek and smiled as if he’d be alright.
Derek and Henry sat next to each other in their classroom and emptied their backpacks. Mrs. Lincolnmuller was a tall, thin, older woman with big dark-rimmed glasses that made her look like a librarian. She wasn’t as old as Mr. Haskins, but she was old. She stood up in front of the classroom and welcomed everyone back for the new school year.
“The first thing we’ll do in fourth grade this year, boys and girls, is talk about what we did on our summer vacation. Now I know t
hat it’s hard sometimes to think of anything exciting, but I want each of you to really try to think of your favorite time.”
Derek turned and looked at Henry and gave him a sly smile. Henry chuckled.
“Okay, now who would like to go first?” said the teacher.
Derek shot his hand up. This was going to be fun.
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Mystery on
Church Hill
BOOK TWO
By Steven K. Smith
Illustrated by Melissa Rose
Text Copyright © 2013 by Steven K. Smith
Illustrations Copyright © 2013 by Melissa Rose
MyBoys3 Press
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-9893414-4-8
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To Mary,
My partner through all of life’s mysteries
The Virginia Mysteries Collection: Books 1-3 Page 6