“Maybe the bushes or grass have grown over the entrance or something,” said Josh.
“Josh, what are you working on over there anyway?” asked Sarah.
“I'm about to beat the level eight boss,” said Josh. “He's tough, but if I can just...” He realized this was not what Sarah was talking about.
“Josh, we need your help,” said Sarah. “Help us look for this thing.”
Josh did not bother to get up. But he made a minimum, pathetic effort to look around.
“Well there's some water over there,” said Josh. “And some rock over here, and some bushes...”
Josh stopped mid sentence when he noticed something on the rock right next to him.
“Wait a minute,” Josh continued. “There’s something in this rock. Look.”
Trip and Sarah rushed over. A circular indentation was carved in the face of the rock.
“This is about the size of your Eli bashing plate,” said Josh.
“It sure looks like it,” said Trip.
Trip pulled out the plate. He took a deep breath and gently placed the plate into the indentation. It was a perfect match. The numbers on the plate started to glow with the soft golden light, just as he remembered from his dream. The plate became part of the rock, and a smooth circular crack formed around the rim of the plate. Another one formed around the inner circle of symbols on the plate. A soft light glowed from the cracks. The whole thing produced a complex dial. They gazed at it in awe.
“Cool, how's it doing that?” said Josh quietly.
Josh reached down and turned the outer circle of the plate. It rotated easily.
“What are you doing?” asked Trip, horrified. “Don't touch that until we know what we're dealing with! What happens if we do it wrong?”
“Stop worrying,” said Josh. “This is just like the final level in Mysteries of the Temple Thief.”
“A video game?” said Sarah, appalled. “This is not a video game, Josh.”
“No, seriously,” said Josh, still turning the dial. “It took me months to figure out how it worked. This is exactly like it.”
Josh alternately turned the inner and outer dials. Each time he stopped and spun the dial another direction the sound of a giant rock pin sliding into place came from deep within the rock. Sarah and Trip exchanged an excited look. Josh engaged the final turn, and everything went silent. The plate separated from the rock and returned to normal. They stared at it in silence. Slowly, the sound of insects and birds returned.
“Aw, come on!” said Josh. “That was it! I know it was! Who programmed this thing anyway? That is so not fair.”
Sarah tried to put the plate back in the rock indent. It did nothing.
“Josh!” said Sarah. “I told you not to mess with that until we knew what we were...”
Josh was not going to stand for this. “That was the right sequence! I know it was. If you would just give me a chance to...”
“Now we may never get to the entrance!” Sarah said fiercely. “You may have blown this thing!”
Suddenly the ground started to shake.
“Wait, guys,” said Trip. “What's going on here?”
The ground shook more violently and a rumble could be heard from deep within the earth. Sarah grabbed Trip's arm and held tightly as the ground shook harder. The water in the spring next to them started to drain. Large pieces of rock crumbled inside the spring as the water disappeared.
Deep in a dark cave, ancient wooden gears turned and ancient wooden planks pushed through rock. Where there was once water, rocks pushed out of the walls and formed a crude stairway down into the hole.
Trip turned around and saw Eli backing away, terrified. He tripped over a rock.
“That's not right,” said Eli, wide-eyed. “What are you guys doing? You're going to get us killed!”
Trip grabbed Eli and hoisted him up. He pushed him toward the stairs that spiraled down into the earth.
“The best way to conquer your fears,” said Trip, “is head on. You lead the way.”
Josh handed Sarah and Trip flashlights from his backpack. Trip pushed Eli ahead of him, and they descended the ancient stairway into depths unknown.
CHAPTER 26
They carefully worked their way down the spiral staircase and finally reached the bottom. Water dripped from above. There was a natural crack in the rock ahead. They barely fit through, but they shimmied their way through the narrow passage.
Eli was whining like a frightened six year old. “I want to go home. I want you to take me back to my mom right now.”
“If you don't keep quiet,” said Trip, “I'm going to leave you in here forever. Wait until everyone at school hears how brave you've been.”
“I don't care,” moaned Eli. “Tell them what you want. Just get me out of here!”
Trip kept pushing Eli along. The cramped tunnel opened into a small, square, man-made room. As they burst through, they spotted a weathered wooden chest sitting right in the middle of the room. Trip hurried to the chest and pushed Eli to the other side of it.
“Stay there,” said Trip. “I'm watching you.” Trip turned his attention to Josh and Sarah. “This is it! We found it!” His friends rushed over.
Shaking, Trip pulled a small pry bar from his backpack and with a little effort popped the latch off. Josh took a picture. This was the moment they had been waiting for. He held his breath as he slowly opened the chest. He peered inside, and found it was full of old Indian arrowheads and artifacts. He quickly dug through the chest and found nothing else.
“Are you kidding me?” said Trip, totally defeated. “It's just a bunch old arrowheads?”
“No,” said Josh. “We must be missing something. This can’t be all there is.”
“No, Josh, face it,” said Trip. “My Mom was right. This whole thing has been a waste of time.”
“It doesn't have to be over,” said Sarah. “We can keep looking. We'll go back to your house and regroup. I'll read through the book again and see if...”
“We've looked at the book,” interrupted Trip. “We've followed the directions. We’ve opened the passage. And this is what was here. Maybe there was never anything here, or maybe someone else came here and took it already. Whatever it is, it’s over. No more. I can't waste my life away like my dad and Pappy. And now Pappy is getting thrown out on the street, and we're going to get kicked out of our house.”
Trip sat on the ground and buried his head in his hands. Eli took advantage of this moment, and broke into a sprint in an attempted escape. His foot caught a rock the size of a bowling ball and he lurched forward. He crashed into the rock wall, hard, with a dull, hollow thud.
“Did you hear that?” said Trip. “Did you guys hear that?”
Trip grabbed the stone Eli tripped over. He banged on the wall repeatedly with it. With each blow, there was a dull thud and rock crumbled to the ground. Josh grabbed a stone and started to pound on the wall too. Eli quietly worked his way towards the exit, still terrified. When he reached the opening in the wall, he shimmied through unnoticed.
They pounded on the wall, and the wall was breaking apart.
Mom was in the car with the pedal to the floorboard. She was completely flustered and had no idea what she was going to do to Trip when she got her hands on him.
Trip and Josh broke away a good portion of the wall, creating a door into darkness. Trip shined his flashlight around, and discovered a torch on the wall. He reached up, grabbing it, and found it was covered with spider webs. It was firmly attached to the wall.
“We need to light this,” said Trip.
Sarah dug through her backpack and pulled out a lighter. She handed it to Trip, and he eagerly lit the torch. As the flame grew larger, it cast light across an ancient rope hanging directly above it. The rope ignited, and the flame quickly crawled up the rope into the newly discovered room. The flame raced higher and higher.
It reached its destination, high above. A huge ball of rope ignited, and the room was illumi
nated with the dancing light of the flames. All three friends were speechless, mouths hanging open in wonder.
There were life sized golden statues of Spanish Conquistadores, Timucua Natives, and pirates lining the walls of a room the size of a football field. Stairs crisscrossed the entire span of the four walls, reaching towards each other. They led down to the center of the room and created something that resembled an upside-down pyramid. Various chalices made of gold, diamonds, and rubies were scattered around on the stairs. There was treasure everywhere. Shiny jewels, necklaces, gold coins, and every type of treasure imaginable covered the room.
Where the stairs met at the bottom, a twenty feet long platform formed the focus of the room. In the center, there was a beautiful marble fountain about the size of a hot tub, with water flowing over its edges and draining into the floor below. Just beyond the pool was a simple chest made of wood.
“Now this is more like it,” said Josh.
“It’s amazing,” said Trip.
Trip, Josh, and Sarah stepped over various artifacts, making their way to the center of the room. Trip and Sarah ran their fingers over the smooth fountain walls. The water was cool to the touch. Josh took picture after picture. Trip approached the wooden chest, and to his surprise, it was not locked. He took a deep breath, opened it, and looked inside.
It was full of the most beautiful pieces of the entire treasure room. Gasparilla must have kept his favorite pieces in this chest. Josh took a few more pictures.
“Wow, this really is beautiful,” breathed Sarah.
“And it all belongs to me,” said a dry old voice with a thick Spanish accent.
They were startled, and turned to see a pale, sickly man step from the shadows. The man looked tired, and his clothes were old and dirty. In his hand he held a walking stick, and perched on top of the stick was an ornately carved tree that twisted itself around into a perfect sphere. Nestled inside the tree was a wise old owl. The entire thing was carved from a single diamond.
Mom was inside the Fountain of Youth Park standing next to a large statue of Ponce deLeon. She referred to her map as she tried to figure out which way to go. A clearly upset, disheveled boy came running past, crying and talking to himself. As he ran past, Mom swore she heard him say something about this park being cursed.
Was it possible the pirate Gasparilla himself stood in front of Trip, Josh, and Sarah? Gasparilla died about two hundred years ago. The man standing in front of them now was old and tired looking, but no one lived to be two hundred years old.
“My name is Gasparilla,” said the man, in his tired Spanish accent. “How did you children find this place?”
“There is no way you are Gasparilla,” said Trip. “Gasparilla tied himself to an anchor and flung himself into the Gulf of Mexico two hundred years ago.”
“That is correct,” said Gasparilla. “You know of me. I am impressed. I did tie myself to that anchor and throw myself into the Gulf of Mexico, just as you say. But now I am standing here in front of you, and I want to know how you found this place.”
“My family,” said Trip, clearly nervous. “My family has been looking for this place for a long time. We just used what they had already figured out.”
“And how did you open the passage?” asked Gasparilla.
“We used this,” said Trip, as he pulled out the cast iron plate.
Gasparilla took the plate from Trip. He studied it in silence for nearly a minute.
“This plate is mine,” Gasparilla finally said. He almost seemed happy. “Clever children. I have been looking for this plate for a long time. I had the natives build me this place. But when they built the passage, they lost one of my plates.”
Gasparilla went back to studying the plate intently. Josh snapped a picture.
“Look, whoever you are,” said Sarah, “Gasparilla has been dead for a long time. Who are you really?”
“I am Gasparilla, the most feared pirate to ever sail the seven seas. The water that flows in that spring... People have been searching for it for centuries, but I am the one who found it. But in order for it to work, you need this.”
Gasparilla held up his walking stick with the diamond tree.
“Are you saying this is really the Fountain of Youth?” blurted Josh. “The real Fountain of Youth?”
“Call it what you want, child,” Gasparilla said. “But the water only keeps your body young, keeps you alive. The mind is not meant to stay alive this long. My mind is old, too old. I have gone insane down here. That is why I need this plate.”
Gasparilla walked around the fountain, touching identical plates that were imbedded in the marble walls.
“This plate will rescue me from myself,” said Gasparilla. “At first, all this treasure made me happy. I had to stay alive to guard it, protect it from thieves. It is my treasure, and no one else can have it. So I have stayed right here and guarded my treasure. For two hundred years, I guarded this treasure. Now you come and rescue me from my mind. I don't have to guard the treasure any more.”
Gasparilla reached a spot in the fountain with an indentation, but no plate. He paused.
“I think we have a visitor.”
At the top of the stairs stood Mom. She could not believe what she was seeing as she looked down into the massive treasure room.
“It’s real,” she whispered to herself. “I can’t believe it’s real.”
“Please,” said Gasparilla. His voice echoed up the stairs. “Come down.”
Mom made her way down, still taking it all in.
“I was just telling these young people that I will no longer need to guard this treasure,” said Gasparilla.
“Why?” asked Sarah, terrified to hear his answer. “Why don't you need to guard it anymore?”
“It’s because you’re giving it to us, right?” said Josh. “For bringing you that plate?”
Gasparilla placed the plate into the indentation and something rumbled in the distance. The plate glowed as it became part of the fountain.
“I will not longer need to guard the treasure,” continued Gasparilla, “because there will be no more treasure. When my native friends built all of this for me, I had them create a way to destroy it if I ever needed to. And that is why I have been waiting for that plate. Now, I will be able to rest, the way we are meant to rest when our time on this planet is done.”
He raised the diamond owl tree high above him. Right in front of their eyes, Gasparilla faded to dust, and a mysterious gust of wind carried him away. The walking stick fell to the ground with a clatter.
The rumble was much louder now, and the whole place shook violently. Rocks tumbled from the ceiling, the rumbling deafening. The fountain overflowed at an alarming pace, flooding the floor. The walls cracked. Gold statues toppled, and were crushed by giant boulders that fell from the ceiling.
“We've got to get out of here!” yelled Trip. “Let's go!”
Trip dragged Mom and Sarah up the staircase as it shook violently. He looked back and saw Josh, still taking pictures. Trip ran back to get him.
“What are you doing? Come on!”
He grabbed Josh and pulled him up the stairs. The entire room crumbled in a cloud of dust behind them.
At the top of the stairs in the arrowhead room, Sarah and Mom waited anxiously for Trip and Josh. Much to their relief, they emerged from the staircase, coughing but otherwise unharmed.
“This place is about to collapse!” yelled Mom. “We've got to get out of here!”
Trip took one last look into the treasure room and thought of what might have been. The entire roof of the treasure room collapsed with a deafening crash.
In the arrowhead room, a wall split as water broke through. Trip ran for it, and narrowly escaped being crushed as the arrowhead room was blasted away in a torrent of water.
Outside in the clearing, Sarah, Mom, Josh and Trip ran up the staircase into the open air. The stairs crumbled apart behind them as they ran. Smoke and dust billowed up from inside the hole. Just
as they made it out, water exploded in a geyser from the hole. When it dissipated, the spring reformed, and everything settled down quickly.
Trip looked around, blinking. The place looked exactly the way it did before they opened the passage.
“That was amazing!” hooted Mom. “Did you see that place? I can't believe you guys found it. I can't believe it's real.”
Mom grabbed Trip in a huge bear hug. Mom could not hide her happiness.
“I was so worried!” Mom said as she squeezed Trip tighter. “You're still grounded, you know? Oh guys, you are all so amazing!”
Mom grabbed Josh and Sarah and included them in the big hug. She held them tight and would not let go.
“Uh, Mrs. Montgomery?” said Josh. “You're crushing me!”
Mom still wouldn’t let go.
“No, really,” said Josh. “You're really hurting me. I think you’re going to break something.”
Mom let them all go, a little embarrassed. They all exchanged huge, triumphant smiles.
“Oh, yeah,” said Josh, as he reached into his backpack. “Do you think anyone would be interested in this old thing?”
He pulled out the diamond owl tree. It still had a small piece of the broken cane attached to it. He also held a small pouch of coins and jewels. The group could not believe what they saw.
“When did you…? How…?” Trip tried to ask.
“I grabbed it and was trying to document the historic moment with a picture when you came back and manhandled me out of there. Why is your family so rough anyway?”
The group stared at Josh and burst out laughing.
“Oh, yeah,” said Josh, opening the biggest pocket on his backpack. “You owe me some flashlights and rope and stuff. I dumped that stuff out in there to make room for this stuff.”
Inside his backpack were handfuls of treasure from the wooden crate.
Josh looked at them all with a goofy smile. “What? Didn’t you guys get any treasure?”
CHAPTER 27
Trip sat next to Pappy's bed, showing him pictures of the adventure. Josh really did take some wonderful shots.
Gasparilla's Treasure (Trip Mongomery Book 1) Page 12