The clue is near and not too far.
Up above the world so high,
A wife in a pumpkin in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle little star,
Smile for the camera, we know where you are.
“I don’t get it,” I said. I turned around slowly, looking for something that made sense. “There’s a big clock on top of that building, though. Maybe it goes with hickory, dickory, dock?”
From behind the rope, Brian shrieked, “Hurry up!”
I couldn’t focus with all the noise around me. “Read it again,” I said.
Jaz grabbed my hand and started running. The moisture from the grass soaked through the toes of my new shoes.
“Where are we going?” I trusted Jaz because she was smart, but if she was wrong, we would waste a lot of time.
She ran through a basketball game, almost knocked down some little kids at the playground, and stopped in front of an amusement park. As soon as she caught her breath she said, “I noticed this when we were in the car. Look.”
“Mother Goose’s House?” I asked, reading the big banner that stretched over the entrance. Jaz must have been paying more attention on our way to Lindale than I thought. I hadn’t seen the amusement park—and I was actually looking.
“The clues are all parts of nursery rhymes!” She dragged me through the gate and stopped at a sign with a map on it. She shoved the paper at me and told me to read it again while she looked at the map.
I checked to see if anyone else was coming. No one was there but the camera guy. I started reading.
Jazmine groaned. “Can you read faster?”
She snatched the clue and read it herself. I felt my face heat up as I realized the camera had caught that. Jaz was making us both look bad. She put her finger on the map and traced a path with it. She tapped her finger on the middle of the map. “Peter’s Eaters.”
“What?”
Jaz rolled her eyes. “Peter, Peter pumpkin eater, had a wife but couldn’t keep her. You know . . . the nursery rhyme? The park’s food court is called Peter’s Eaters!”
Yeah, I know, I thought, but I don’t know what this has to do with the clue.
Before I could ask another question, she took off running again. For someone with short legs, she was fast. I followed her over a little bridge, past a gigantic shoe, under a moon with a cow jumping over it, and almost bumped into her when she stopped at a little food court.
Jazmine pointed to the top of the hut where people can order food. “Get up there.”
“Huh?”
Jaz growled. “The clue is in the pumpkin on top of the building.”
I didn’t know how she figured that out, but I didn’t question her. Even though Jaz was annoying, I knew she was probably right. I jumped up and grabbed the metal bar that went all the way around the roof. I looked down at her. “Push me up.”
“I can’t. You’re too heavy.”
“Get under me. I have an idea.”
For once Jaz listened to me. I made her squat down, and I put my feet on her shoulders. While she straightened up, I pulled myself up with my arms. Before I knew it, I was on the roof, crawling toward the pumpkin. There was an open window in it, with a fake lady staring out.
“Go in and get the clue!”
I looked down at her. “I can’t fit.”
Jaz put her hands on her hips, sighed, and gave me a fake smile that I knew meant figure it out. I walked around the pumpkin, but there was no other way in. I stood at the window. It seemed like Peter’s girl was laughing at me. I was staring at her scary looking make-up when I noticed some envelopes barely sticking out of her shirt. I snatched one. The envelope said Treasure Hunt: Clue Two. I swung down from the roof and handed the paper to Jaz.
Chapter
7
Jazmine
If all of the clues came as naturally to me as the first one, the other teams had zero chance of winning.
Right after Jason handed me the second clue we heard yelling somewhere in the park. I grabbed his wrist. “Hide,” I said.
As usual, Jason looked confused, so I ran toward the back corner of the park, pulling him behind me. The camera guy followed us, and when I ducked behind a fake pile of hay, he did too.
“Why are we hiding?” asked Jason.
“Because, if the other teams see us, they’ll know where the clue is,” I whispered.
Jason nodded.
I opened the envelope. It had a bunch of papers inside. The first was a train schedule. I handed it to Jason. “Start looking through this.”
Next, there was a copy of a news article about a place called Hotel Telegraph. Last, there was a bag of tile letters—and there were only seven of them.
“Are there train tickets in there?” I asked Jason, who was still studying the schedule.
“Nope.”
“Well, did you find anything in there at all?”
“No,” said Jason, looking confused. “It’s just a schedule with a map of the train stations.”
Okay, Jaz, think. You’ve got this. I gave myself a pep talk, but I could tell I was starting to panic—this was taking too long.
I dumped out the tile letters. Jason helped me turn them all over. Y. T. E. G. N. O. R. I told Jason to look at the papers again and I started rearranging the letters. T-O-N-E-G-R-Y. T-R-Y-G-O-N-E. G-R-O-N-E-T-Y. Nothing was making sense. G-R-E-N-T-O-Y. To make matters worse, Jason wasn’t doing what I told him to do—instead, he was looking through the brochure about Hotel Telegraph. I snatched the train schedule out of his other hand and looked at it myself.
“What if the letters spell a stop on the train route?”
Jason stared at me.
I handed him the schedule. “Read me the names.” That was a mistake. Slow and steady was not going to win this race. I looked over his shoulder and read it myself. “There! Greyton! We need tickets to Greyton.”
“Yeah, that makes sense!” Jason said, excited. “Hotel Telegraph is in Greyton too! I bet that means we’re supposed to go there to look for more clues.”
“Perfect. But how are we supposed to get tickets with no money?” I found the prices on the schedule. A ticket to Greyton was $5.50. “What if we have to sneak in?”
Jason didn’t answer me. I looked at him, and he was staring at me like I was an idiot. After a long second, he tossed something up in the air. A twenty-dollar bill landed on the schedule.
“You snuck money? You’re going to get us disqualified!”
“Nah. It was in the backpack you didn’t want me to waste time looking through.” Jason smirked.
“How much?”
“A hundred.”
Chapter
8
Jason
Jaz didn’t say a word. She peeked around the haystack, and then took off again. The cameraperson, whose name I learned was Steve, and I followed her out of the park and down the street. When she got to the corner, she stopped.
She panted for a minute. “Where is the train station?”
“How should I know?” Why did you take off running if you didn’t know where you were going in the first place? I thought, irritated. She was always in a race with her own self. Jaz stood in one spot and turned from side to side. She looked lost. It was a good thing Lindale didn’t seem like the kind of place where people messed with you on the street.
“What are you—”
Jaz cut me off. “Shhh.” Spit sprayed out of her mouth. “I’m listening for trains.”
I left her standing on the corner acting like a human satellite. I walked two buildings down to a coffee shop. A woman came out holding a tray full of cups.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Do you know where the train station is?”
She looked up and stared at something behind me, so I turned around. It was Steve. Jaz was still on the corner spinning around.
“Are you one of the contestants on Treasure Hunt? You are, aren’t you!” She smiled and flipped her hair at the camera. “Will I be on TV?”
> “I don’t know, but I need to get to the train station. Can you help me?”
“Well . . .”
As she explained the directions, I could tell this lady wanted every second of fame she could get. But I needed her help and didn’t want to make her mad, so I had to wait through it.
As I ran back to Jaz, the woman yelled, “Good luck!”
I told Jaz the directions, and she said, “How do you know?”
“I asked somebody.”
I was happy to see she looked a little ashamed, like she felt dumb for not thinking of that herself. Sometimes smart people think too much, I thought. Or maybe they just can’t imagine needing help.
We ran all the way to the train station. Even more people recognized us as contestants, and they took pictures and clapped. I realized I would probably like being famous. As long as I wasn’t racing against the clock trying to win $20,000 with Jaz telling me what to do.
Chapter
9
Jazmine
Jason thought he was so smart for getting us to the train station. He had a smug look on his face while we sat on the platform waiting. I didn’t want to admit it, but we’d gotten here thanks to him.
“So,” said Jason. “How did you figure out the clue was in the pumpkin?”
“The clue was all nursery rhymes, so I figured it had to be inside Mother Goose’s House. I didn’t know what the middle meant, but when I saw Peter’s Eaters on the map, I knew it went with a wife in a pumpkin in the sky. The rest was easy.” I smiled at the camera.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two guys wearing yellow run onto the platform. It was Team Touchdown. It didn’t matter if one of them was cute; I did not want them anywhere near us.
They saw us before we had a chance to hide and had the nerve to come over to where we were. “Hey,” said the tallest one, like he thought he was cool.
Jason nodded at them. I gave him a fake smile, and I could tell he got the point. This was not a football game and I was not a fan. Luckily, the train pulled up. I wanted to get as far away from them as I could, but instead I got on the same train car and sat a couple of seats away, facing them. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, I thought.
The ride to Greyton was only about twenty minutes. When we arrived, I took my time getting off the train.
“Why are you going so slow?” Jason asked. He had a lot of nerve. He was the king of slow.
“I don’t want them following us.”
Greyton was the opposite of Lindale. It was a big city, and people were everywhere. There were no trees, no flowers, and no parks. Steam that smelled like boiled eggs drifted up from a grate in the street. If I hadn’t committed to winning Treasure Hunt I would probably turn around and take the train right back to where we started.
We stood on the sidewalk trying to figure out what to do next. A woman bumped into me and didn’t even apologize. Team Touchdown disappeared into the crowd.
I read the article about Hotel Telegraph on the train, and it wasn’t very helpful. It only talked about the upcoming fifty-year anniversary, who built the hotel, and how some famous people I had never heard of had stayed there.
Jason said, “Let’s get directions.”
“I’m not talking to some random person on the street. That’s your department.” I didn’t like talking to strangers. I stood behind Jason while he asked a man how to get to Hotel Telegraph.
After ten minutes of walking, I saw Team Touchdown ahead of us. They went into a building with green flags hanging above the door. The flags said Hotel Telegraph in fancy white letters.
A wrinkle appeared between Jason’s eyebrows. “Maybe we shouldn’t have let them get ahead of us.”
We needed to keep moving. I ducked into the hotel and pulled Jason behind a fountain in the lobby. The football players stood at the front desk. After a few minutes, they got on an elevator with a cameraperson right behind them.
Once the elevator doors closed, we went to the front desk.
“Excuse me, but what did those guys say?” I asked the receptionist.
He gave me a funny look. “Something about a clue. I don’t have no idea what they were talking about.”
“Well, what did you tell them?” I could barely keep the exasperation out of my voice. This guy was slowing us down.
The man leaned forward. “I told them I didn’t know what they were talking about.”
I leaned forward too, but before I could say anything else, Jason thanked the man and led me away.
Chapter
10
Jason
I knew that if I didn’t step in soon, Jazmine was going to get us cussed out. “We’re wasting our time with him,” I said. That, at least, she understood.
I got her away from the desk, and she stood in the middle of the lobby with her hands on her hips. “Well, I say we at least check out the lobby, but we better hurry up before the other teams get here.”
The hotel was really old fashioned and smelled like our grandma. This isn’t going to work, I thought as I looked at all the ornate furniture. The show wouldn’t have us waste our time searching this whole hotel. But Jazz was on a mission, so I sighed and got started.
We dug through the dirt in all the potted plants but didn’t find anything. Jaz peeked behind the red velvet curtains, and I checked behind the gold-framed paintings on the wall. A woman sitting in a chair that looked like a throne closed her book and watched us. We didn’t find a single clue.
“Now what?” I asked.
Jaz pointed. “The sofa cushions. I’ll take this couch, you take that one.”
I felt like the robbers in movies who turned the house upside down looking for stuff. I guess the guy from the front desk thought we looked suspicious because he walked up to me and cleared his throat. “What do you think you’re doing?”
I put the cushion down and gave it a little pat. “Nothing,” I said.
Jaz rushed over. “We’re on a reality show called Treasure Hunt. We’re looking for clues to where the treasure is.”
The man looked at Steve. “Is this one of those shows where you try to irritate people to see what they’ll do?”
Steve said, “No, sir.”
The man frowned. “I don’t know what’s wrong with everyone today, but there are no clues here. If you don’t leave right now, I’m calling the police.”
Jaz rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
When we got back outside, she just stood there looking confused. Finally she said, “Well, there has to be something about this place.”
Jaz was right. Maybe the employees didn’t know about it. Or maybe it was on the outside somewhere. Or maybe we missed something when we read the article.
“Jaz, maybe we should read through that article again.”
Suddenly her eyes got big. “We need to hide,” she said, panicking.
But there was nowhere to hide. Plus, we were wearing matching red clothes, so it wasn’t like we could blend in. Not to mention Steve stood there like a big advertisement. I didn’t see any reason to hide anyway.
“Team Double Trouble is coming!” Jaz’s voice was about three times higher than normal. “Everyone is gaining on us.”
Jaz was seriously about to lose it. I told her to take the article out and act confused. I snatched the article out of her hand and frowned at it. I held it close to my face and moved my lips. I could see Team Double Trouble out of the corner of my eye.
They laughed at me, and one said, “Read much?”
“Shut up,” said Jaz. Steve pointed his camera in Jaz’s face. I tried to read her face to see if she was just acting for the camera, but she actually seemed really angry at the twins.
They laughed again and walked into the hotel.
I couldn’t believe she stood up for me. “Thanks,” I said.
Jaz just shrugged like it was no big deal. “Whatever.”
Even though I was trying to make them think we were stuck, they hit a nerve. I gave the paper back to Jaz, and
she read it to me. She wasn’t a jerk about it either. When she finished I shook my head. There were no clues.
Jaz is gonna get antsy just standing still like this, I thought. We have to do something. I glanced around and saw a woman handing out papers to anyone walking by who would take one. Not sure what else to do, I took a step toward her, but Jaz stopped me. “I don’t think you should bother anyone.”
I went anyway. “Hi, I was wondering—”
“Let me guess!” she said, beaming. “You were wondering what my newsletter says.”
“Well, not really. But—”
“It’s the people’s newsletter. I put everything that happens in this area in it.”
Before I could think of what to say, she handed me one of her carefully folded newsletters and winked.
Chapter
11
Jazmine
I crossed my arms, tapped my foot, and waited for Jason to finish talking to the lady. He always does this, I thought. He just loves being a social butterfly. After what felt like forever, Jason walked back toward me, glancing down at the newsletter.
“Don’t even think about reading that thing,” I said.
He was about to argue, so I made him put the newsletter in the backpack. I led him and Steve around the side of the hotel.
The alley smelled like pee, and the two big dumpsters were so full the lids wouldn’t close. A cat jumped from a ledge onto the ground in front of us and hissed. Jason wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I don’t think the Treasure Hunt people would send us down a dirty alley.”
“Yeah, let’s turn around,” I said.
“Maybe they have a backyard or a courtyard.” Jason snuck around the cat and past the dumpsters with Steve trailing behind him. “Stay there,” he called over his shoulder.
I was not about to stay by myself, so I followed him around the corner of the building. The back of the hotel was whatever the opposite of a backyard was. It wasn’t any bigger than the alley, and there was garbage piled up against the building. We saw a shadow move and took off running.
This whole thing was turning into one big, stupid wild goose chase, and Jason wasn’t doing anything to help. He took the newsletter out of the backpack.
Treasure Hunt Page 2