Treasure Fever!

by Andy Griffiths

  ‘Yes,’ said Fiona. ‘And then you said, “But I don’t see why just breathing isn’t enough fun for you. I love breathing. The more fresh air the better!” After that, you stuck the top half of your body out the window.’

  ‘Like this?’ said Mr Brainfright, putting the whole top half of his body out the window.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fiona, ‘just like that. And then you said, “Breathe in . . . like so!” and—Mr Brainfright?’

  But Mr Brainfright didn’t respond. And there was a good reason for that. Mr Brainfright had just fallen out the window—again!

  20

  Déjà vu

  For a moment the class was silent.

  And then there was complete uproar.

  Newton squealed.

  ‘Déjà vu!’ said Jack.

  ‘You can say that again,’ I said.

  ‘Déjà vu!’ said Jack.

  ‘Stop being silly!’ said Jenny. ‘This is no joke!’

  We ran to the window.

  The toes of Mr Brainfright’s shoes were in exactly the same place as yesterday.

  I grabbed his left ankle.

  ‘Gretel!’ I yelled. ‘Grab his other leg! David, put your arms around my waist. Everybody else take your positions exactly as you were yesterday!’

  ‘I told him this would happen!’ said David.

  ‘That doesn’t change the fact that it’s happened!’ I said.

  ‘But I did warn him,’ said David.

  ‘Just give me a hand, will you?’ I yelled. ‘This is serious!’

  ‘No,’ shouted Mr Brainfright, ‘this is history!’

  I pulled on Mr Brainfright’s leg as I waited for the rest of the class to get into place.

  He felt heavier than yesterday.

  I pulled harder.

  But I was losing him.

  Instead of pulling him into the classroom, he was pulling me out the window!

  ‘Gretel!’ I said. ‘Help me!’

  ‘I’m trying!’ she said, but I could see the same thing was happening to her.

  Slowly but surely we were both being pulled out the window . . . And then suddenly we weren’t halfway out the window—we were all the way out the window!

  I was upside down, face into the wall, hanging from the window ledge by my toes.

  Gretel was beside me in exactly the same position.

  We were both still holding onto Mr Brainfright’s legs.

  And then Mr Brainfright started laughing.

  Now, I like Mr Brainfright.

  I like him a lot.

  But I was seriously starting to worry about his mental health.

  ‘Are you feeling all right, Mr Brainfright?’ I said.

  ‘Never better!’ he said.

  And then the strangest thing happened.

  Gretel and I started laughing as well.

  I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was a terrifying situation to be in, but his laughter was contagious.

  Meanwhile, above us, I could hear the class arguing about what to do.

  ‘I warned him!’ David was saying. ‘I warned them all!’

  ‘Stop being such a know-it-all,’ said Fiona.

  ‘You should talk!’ said David.

  ‘I don’t think this arguing is helping,’ said Jenny. ‘We should be working together to help them.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Jack. ‘This is the best history lesson ever!’

  ‘Hey!’ I yelled, between giggles. ‘If it’s not too much trouble, could somebody actually do something?’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ called David. ‘You’re too heavy for us to pull in.’

  ‘How about you get a video camera and film us for the funniest home video show?’ said Gretel.

  ‘No need to be sarcastic,’ said David.

  ‘I wasn’t,’ said Gretel. ‘I love the funniest home video show and I’ve always wanted to be on it.’

  ‘Get a ladder!’ I yelled. ‘Call the fire brigade! I don’t care what! Get Grant to put his flying boots on!’

  ‘They haven’t been tested yet,’ said Grant. ‘It would be too dangerous.’

  ‘No more dangerous than the situation we’re already in!’ I said.

  ‘Then why are you laughing so much?’ said Jenny.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Why are we laughing, Mr Brainfright?’

  ‘Why not laugh?’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘We might as well enjoy ourselves.’

  ‘But we could die!’ said Gretel.

  ‘All the more reason to enjoy ourselves while we still can!’ said Mr Brainfright.

  And then we fell.

  21

  Mr Spade

  We fell and fell and fell.

  We fell for what felt like a long time, but I now realise it was probably only about one second before we landed, all three of us, headfirst in the garden bed.

  I was the first to pull my head out of the soft dirt.

  The fact that all three of us had landed upside down in the garden bed did not escape the gardener’s attention.

  ‘GET OUT OF MY GARDEN!’ yelled Mr Spade from the other side of the sports field.

  He was running towards us with a pitchfork in his hand.

  I pulled Gretel up out of the dirt.

  ‘Quick, Gretel,’ I said. ‘We have to go. Give me a hand with Mr Brainfright!’

  Mr Brainfright’s head was still firmly planted in the soil.

  We pulled him out.

  Mr Brainfright shook the dirt from his head. He looked a little dazed, but all right.

  Mr Spade was close.

  ‘Run!’ said Gretel.

  Nobody was laughing now.

  Hanging upside down from a second-storey window may have had its funny side, but there was nothing funny about the sight of Mr Spade’s pitchfork.

  Luckily, we were the faster runners.

  We made it around the building and back up the steps into the corridor before he could catch us.

  We entered the classroom to a huge cheer from the rest of the class.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re still alive!’ said Jenny, throwing her arms around me.

  ‘Me neither!’ I said.

  Suddenly there was yelling in the corridor.

  The door burst open.

  This time it wasn’t Mrs Cross.

  It was worse.

  It was Mr Spade!

  ‘What do you mean by destroying my flowerbed?’ he yelled.

  ‘We couldn’t help it,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘We fell out the window and, well, there was nowhere else to land.’

  ‘You fell out the window?’ growled Mr Spade, shaking his head. ‘How in the blazes do three people fall out a classroom window?’

  ‘It was a historical re-enactment,’ I started to explain. ‘You see—’

  ‘What is the meaning of all this shouting?’ said Mrs Cross, who had just come into the room. ‘I’m trying to teach a class!’

  ‘Oh, hello, Mrs Cross,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘We had a little accident.’

  ‘They fell out the window!’ said Mr Spade. ‘Right into my freshly planted flowerbed.’

  ‘Didn’t you fall out the window yesterday?’ said Mrs Cross.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘As I said, just a little accident. Could have happened to anybody.’

  ‘ONCE is an accident,’ said Mrs Cross. ‘TWICE is pure stupidity! In all my time at Northwest Southeast Central School I have never heard such a noisy, disruptive class as this one. Never!’

  Mr Brainfright had a big smile on his face.

  ‘Did you hear that, 5C?’ he said. ‘We just made history—again!’

  ‘You’ll be history, young man, if you can’t keep your class quiet,’ said Mrs Cross. ‘You mark my words.’

  And with that, she left the room, banging the door shut behind her.

  Mr Brainfright turned and winked at us. ‘I think she likes me!’ he said.

  ‘Well, I don’t think she does,’ said Mr Spade, pointing his pitchfork at Mr Brainfright, and then at us.
‘And I don’t like you either. Keep out of my flowerbeds. Or else.’

  We all nodded.

  Mr Spade stomped off down the corridor.

  ‘Well, Jack,’ said Mr Brainfright, ‘history’s not quite as boring as you thought, is it?’

  ‘No, sir!’ said Jack, grinning.

  22

  Mr Brainfright’s important lesson no. 2

  History is not quite as boring as you might think.

  23

  Skull Island

  I enjoyed that lesson.

  I enjoyed that lesson a lot.

  Despite the fact that I had almost died, I enjoyed that lesson more than I’d enjoyed any lesson ever.

  Mr Brainfright was not only a great history teacher, but a great history re-enactor as well.

  But when the lunch bell rang, Jack, Gretel, Jenny, Newton and I still sprinted for the door. None of us bothered about lunch—we were all too eager to start searching for the buried treasure.

  We ran down the steps, out into the yard and stood there blinking in the bright sunlight.

  ‘Well, Henry,’ said Jack. ‘Where do we start?’

  ‘Excellent question, Jack,’ I said.

  ‘What’s the answer?’ he said.

  ‘I have no idea,’ I admitted.

  ‘We’re going to have to split up,’ said Gretel. ‘Henry, you search the sports field. Jenny, you take the basketball courts. Jack can do the juniors’ area, including the sandpit. Newton, you do the flowerbeds.’

  ‘The flowerbeds?’ said Newton, horrified. ‘But what about Mr Spade?’

  ‘What about Mr Spade?’ said Gretel.

  ‘He’ll kill me if he finds me digging in the flowerbeds!’

  ‘Good point,’ said Gretel. ‘We’ll leave the flowerbeds until last. Meanwhile, you can help me do the front of the school. We meet back here in fifteen minutes. Okay?’

  We all nodded and went to search our areas.

  Fifteen minutes later we were all back in the same place blinking at each other in the bright sunlight.

  ‘Well?’ said Jack. ‘Did anybody find it?’

  I shook my head. Jenny shook her head. Gretel and Newton shook their heads.

  ‘Me neither,’ said Jack. ‘What now?’

  ‘The flowerbeds?’ suggested Jenny.

  ‘No,’ said Newton. ‘Too scary.’

  ‘Forget the flowerbeds,’ I said. ‘If it was there Mr Spade would have found it by now. How about we go up to the top of Skull Island and look around? You can see the whole school from up there. Maybe that will give us a clue.’

  ‘Great idea, Henry,’ said Jenny. ‘Let’s go.’

  We climbed to the top of Skull Island. Not only could we see clear across the school in all directions, we could also see right into Mrs Cross’s classroom.

  She was busily writing on the board.

  ‘Doesn’t she know it’s lunchtime?’ I said.

  ‘I’m sure she does,’ said Jenny. ‘She’s writing lines for the students she’s held back.’

  Jenny was right. At the back of the classroom were five students, and they all looked miserable.

  At that moment, Fred Durkin came into the classroom and handed Mrs Cross a lunch bag. She smiled at him, put the bag on her desk and turned back to the board. Fred looked up and saw us. He poked out his tongue. Then he left the classroom.

  ‘Look at him, sucking up to his teacher,’ said Jack. ‘Bringing her lunch while she keeps those poor kids in.’

  ‘Makes you sick, doesn’t it?’ said Gretel. ‘He’s so two-faced.’

  ‘Forget about Fred,’ said Jenny. ‘Let’s get back to treasure hunting. Can anybody see a place where it might be buried?’

  ‘It would have been found by now if we could see it,’ Jack pointed out.

  ‘Did Principal Greenbeard say anything about a map?’ said Gretel.

  ‘There’s no map,’ I said. ‘Whoever dug it up and reburied it didn’t want it to be rediscovered. And Principal Greenbeard is pretty old. It must have been buried for at least seventy years . . . maybe even longer!’

  The ground was hard. I kicked it with the toe of my shoe. It hurt.

  ‘Ouch!’ I said.

  ‘So close and yet so far,’ sighed Jenny.

  ‘No wonder they couldn’t find it again,’ said Jack. ‘It’s hopeless.’

  ‘Don’t give up,’ I said. ‘Remember what Mr Brainfright said? We can make history . . . but not if we give up.’

  ‘Perhaps “giving up” is the history we’re going to make,’ said Jack. ‘Did you think of that?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘because I’m not going to give up.’

  ‘Then how are you going to find it?’ said Jack.

  ‘We need to think like pirates,’ I said. ‘Put ourselves in their shoes.’

  ‘If we were pirates, wouldn’t we be wearing boots?’ said Newton.

  ‘Yeah, good point, Newton,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Thanks, Jenny,’ said Newton, beaming at her.

  ‘All right, all right,’ I said. ‘Suppose you were a pirate and you were standing here in your boots, and you had a whole heap of treasure. Where would you bury it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t bury it in the first place,’ said Gretel. ‘I’d spend it.’

  ‘But what if you couldn’t spend it?’ I said.

  ‘I’d bury it,’ said Gretel.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Now we’re really getting somewhere. Where would you bury it?’

  ‘In my backyard,’ she said.

  ‘But you’re a pirate!’ I said. ‘You don’t have a backyard! You live on a ship.’

  ‘Then I don’t want to be a pirate,’ said Gretel. ‘I love my backyard. And I hate ships.’

  I shook my head.

  This wasn’t getting us any closer to finding the treasure. I thought about the note. Dig for one thousand nights and a night . . . for one thousand nights and a night . . . one thousand nights and a night . . . There was something about that expression that seemed very familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  ‘Are you okay, Henry?’ said Jenny.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I was just thinking about the note. It said “one thousand nights and a night”. What does that mean to you?’

  ‘A really long time,’ said Jack.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘But it’s a funny way to say it, don’t you think?’

  ‘I guess so,’ said Jenny. ‘But it rhymes.’

  And then it hit me. ‘It’s also the name of a very famous book,’ I said. ‘The Book of the Thousand and One Nights!’

  ‘So?’ said Jack.

  ‘So we need a copy of that book!’

  24

  Mr Shush

  Fortunately, the lesson after lunch was Library. Unfortunately, before we could go in we had to listen to Mr Shush’s regular lecture.

  Mr Shush was the school librarian.

  Mr Shush loved his library.

  Mr Shush loved books.

  Mr Shush loved silence.

  Mr Shush did not love students coming into his library and messing up all the books and breaking the silence with their noise.

  We knew this because he told us so at the start of every library lesson. And today was no exception.

  ‘You are here to find a book and read it,’ he said as we stood in a line outside the library. ‘You are not here to whisper. You are not here to talk. You are not here to laugh. You are not here to shout. You are not here to lean back on the chairs, draw pictures or stare out of the window. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Shush,’ we all said.

  But Mr Shush hadn’t finished yet.

  ‘You are here to READ books,’ he continued. ‘You are not here to flick through books. You are not here to FOLD the corners of their pages. You are not here to DROP books, THROW books or WRITE in books. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Shush,’ we all said.

  ‘And if you borrow a book,’ he said, ‘you are to look after that book! You are to keep it in your book bag a
t all times—’

  ‘Even when we’re reading it?’ said Jack.

  ‘Except for when you are reading it, you silly boy,’ said Mr Shush, rolling his eyes. ‘You are not to eat or drink while reading a library book. You are not to take a library book to the beach and get sand in its spine. You are not to leave a library book at the bottom of your locker with old pieces of fruit and mouldy sandwiches. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ we said, our heads spinning with the heavy responsibilities that came with being users of Mr Shush’s library.

  ‘All right then,’ he said reluctantly. ‘You may enter.’

  We all walked slowly into the library, placed our reading folders quietly down on the tables, and then proceeded to break pretty much every rule that we’d just been reminded about, sending poor Mr Shush into a shushing frenzy.

  I found a copy of The Book of the Thousand and One Nights. I scanned the table of contents: there were stories about fishermen and princes and barbers and birds and beasts and gold, but nothing about pirates or buried treasure.

  ‘Well,’ said Jack, ‘does it tell us where the treasure is?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Sorry. False alarm.’

  ‘Can I have a look, Henry?’ said Jenny.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, sliding the book across the table to her.

  ‘DON’T SLIDE BOOKS ACROSS THE TABLE!’ said Mr Shush, who was suddenly right behind me. ‘How many times have I told you, if you must pass a book, then pass it by hand.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Shush,’ I said.

  Jack tried to stifle a laugh.

  ‘Shush, Jack!’ bellowed Mr Shush. ‘People are trying to read.’

  Jack nodded and Mr Shush moved on to find somebody else to yell at.

  ‘Now, this is interesting,’ said Jenny.

  ‘What is?’ I asked.

  Jenny tapped the open book. ‘There’s a story here called “The Ruined Man Who Became Rich Again Through a Dream”.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jack, ‘and your point is?’

  ‘Think about the note,’ said Jenny. ‘But of your riches you will only dream! It’s a clue! A definite clue!’

  ‘What’s the story about?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ said Jenny, running her finger rapidly across the page. ‘Let me see . . . It says that there was a ruined man who lived in Baghdad and one night he dreamed that a man told him to go to Cairo to seek his fortune.’