Treasure Hunt

by Nikki Shannon Smith

  “Seriously?” I said.

  “She sees everything. Maybe one of her articles has a clue.” Jason frowned, giving the newsletter a shake. “Wait a second. It feels like there’s something in here.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t open it. There’s no telling what’s in there.”

  He unfolded the newsletter and took out two small, rectangular papers. They were plane tickets. I leaned in closer, reading over his shoulder. We’d been booked on a flight to Texas—today.

  “Oh, man,” Jason groaned, his brown face turning gray.

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to go.”

  “We don’t have a choice, Jason. Our flight leaves in, like, three hours. We have to go now!” He stared down at the tickets. “What’s the matter with you?”

  Jason’s cheeks turned pink. “I don’t want to fly.”

  I’d wanted to fly my whole life. We always drove when we went on vacations because my dad said it was the best way to see the world. I couldn’t believe Jason didn’t want to go.

  “You can’t be serious,” I said.

  Jason didn’t answer me. He turned his back to the camera and took a bunch of deep breaths. What is going on with him? I wondered. Is he really that afraid to fly?

  We’d never taken a taxi before either, but we needed to get to the airport—whether Jason liked it or not. I’d seen people wave down taxis in movies too many times to count, so I figured it couldn’t be that hard. As one came around the corner, I flagged it down and it pulled right over. It was just as easy as the movies made it look.

  “How far is it to the airport?” I asked.

  “About fifteen minutes,” the driver said.

  “How much will you charge to take us there?”

  “Depends on the time. Probably about forty dollars.”

  That sounded high to me. I looked at Jason, but he was no help because he was still freaking out about flying. If we spent half of our money on the first day, we could run out and be stuck somewhere and lose. But we needed to get there fast, and we didn’t really have another option.

  We got in the cab, and the driver stepped on the gas so hard our heads snapped back. Steve grunted. Jason put his head in his hands. This was going to be a long trip.

  Chapter

  12

  Jason

  Jaz stared at me for the first five minutes of the cab ride. I could feel her eyes on my neck while I stared out the window. My hands started to sweat, and I nervously wiped them on my tracksuit pants. Jaz’s stares didn’t help, either. Relax, Jason, I tried to tell myself. People fly all the time. It’ll be fine.

  Finally, Jaz broke the silence. “Is there any food in the backpack?”

  I handed her the bag. She must have been starving because she passed over everything else in the bag until she came across some packs of almonds and dried fruit.

  “Want some?” She tried to hand me some almonds.

  My stomach clenched with nerves. I wished she’d just leave me alone for a while. “No,” I said quickly.

  She laughed. “You’re really scared. Wow.”

  “Shut up!” I said. I wished Brian was old enough to be on Treasure Hunt. Then it might have actually been fun.

  For the rest of the ride my stomach was in my throat, and the only sounds were Jaz crunching and the cab driver’s music.

  When we got to the airport, Jaz paid the driver, and I stood on the curb like I weighed eight hundred pounds. Jaz’s eyes raced all over the place reading signs.

  “We don’t have bags, so we can skip that part,” she said. “Okay. There’s security.” If I wasn’t feeling so nervous, I would have been impressed. Jaz somehow knew what to do even though we’ve never been to an airport. She led me to a long line of people. When we got to the front of the line, a security guard asked us for our boarding passes. Jaz handed him the tickets. Next he asked for our IDs.

  “We don’t have ID,” said Jaz.

  “Birth certificate?”

  “No.”

  “No ID, no entry,” he said.

  Jaz balled up her fists. “We don’t have a choice. We’re on Treasure Hunt. We need to win the money. I’m trying to have enough money for out of state college.”

  As soon as she said that, I got so mad that I forgot about being scared. What did she say?! She’s got to be kidding! I thought. I know she didn’t just claim all the money for herself. Jaz wouldn’t have gotten this far without me. She was lucky I couldn’t speak because I’d never wanted to tell somebody off this badly in my entire life.

  “And we promised my brother a new bike.” Jaz was talking twice as fast as normal, completely ignoring the anger on my face.

  The man just rolled his eyes. “Next!”

  A second security guard stood next to us like she thought something was about to go down. Maybe that was a good idea, since I practically saw smoke coming out of Jazmine’s nostrils.

  She looked at me. “Do something.”

  But I wasn’t about to do one single thing for her. She certainly didn’t think about me when she made plans for our money. When I didn’t answer, she ripped the backpack off my shoulders. “Maybe the Treasure Hunt people put something in here.”

  The backup guard said, “Miss, you’ll have to move out of the way.”

  “Just give me a minute.”

  “Miss, if you don’t move, I will be forced to move you.”

  Jaz looked at me and then at Steve. She rolled her eyes at the security guard. “Fine.”

  Jaz marched over to a chair with me trailing about ten feet behind her. She unzipped the backpack and turned it upside down. A bunch of papers, packets of almonds, two bottles of water, and a first aid kit scattered on the floor. If she would have taken the time to look through the backpack at the beginning like I did, she wouldn’t need to do this, I thought with a sigh of irritation.

  “A-ha!” Jaz cried a few seconds later. She held two papers in the air and flicked her wrists so I could see. “Birth certificates.” She scooped everything off the floor and crammed it back into the backpack. Then she marched to the front of the line like she had already won Treasure Hunt.

  The security guard barely glanced at her. “I’m sorry, miss. You’ll have to go to the end of the line.”

  Jaz got a scary look on her face. “What do you mean, the end of the line?”

  The second guard took a step forward, so I grabbed Jaz and dragged her to the back of the line. When we got to the front again, we made it past the checkpoint with no problem and none of the other teams in sight.

  At least one good thing came from Jaz’s little tantrum: it distracted me from my fear of flying.

  Chapter

  13

  Jazmine

  After getting past the guards, we had to wait in another line at the security checkpoint. When we finally made it through, I checked the tickets, found our gate, and saw we had about an hour to wait. I couldn’t believe how long the security process had taken, and I wasn’t looking forward to waiting around even more.

  But on the way to the gate, I got happy again. There were restaurants everywhere. You could get popcorn, sandwiches, pizza, soda, candy—they had everything. You could go shopping and buy new clothes and a suitcase if you wanted. I headed straight to the pizza place, even though I noticed a bookstore at the last minute. I couldn’t really spend money on a book right now anyway.

  “What do you want?” I asked Jason.

  He just shook his head. Normally I’d insist that he eat something, but he looked like he was going to be sick and I didn’t want him throwing up on the plane. I ordered pizza and a soda, and we sat down at a table. As soon as my food came, a little girl bounced over to us. She looked like she was about four. Her hair used to be in two ponytails, but one side was missing a hair tie.

  “Hi,” she said.

  I took a big bite. “Hi.”

  “I have a present for you.” She smiled.

  “You do?”

  She no
dded.

  “What is it?”

  The little girl handed me a crumpled sticker and a penny, and I thanked her again. She stared at me while I ate, which made me uncomfortable. I noticed Steve filming us, so I gave the girl a small smile and hoped she’d go away.

  Then she handed Jason something that looked like the homemade birthday cards I used to make. He opened it and looked up at me in surprise. “When you get to Texas, report to gate B12,” he read aloud.

  Chapter

  14

  Jason

  Jaz was a different person after she ate. She stood by the window and watched planes take off. It was already getting dark outside. I sat across the room and watched the people. I distracted myself by guessing why they were leaving town. Then they announced our flight was boarding.

  Jaz didn’t say anything when we got on the plane. I sat in the middle, and she sat next to the aisle. Steve sat a couple seats away in the row across from us.

  “No other teams are on this flight,” Jaz said as she looked through the rows of seats. “I think we’re back in the lead.”

  The flight attendants started talking about what to do in an emergency, and Jaz closed her eyes. Now that I was actually on the plane, I started feeling better. I looked through the stack of magazines sitting in a pouch on the seat in front of me as we waited for takeoff.

  Soon, a flight attendant stood at the front of the plane and went through safety instructions. When she started talking about landing in water, I could feel my palms getting sweaty. Calm down, Jason, I thought to myself. It will be fine. Just relax—

  I heard Jazmine gasp for breath beside me. I glanced over and saw that her eyes were shut tight and tears ran down her cheeks.

  “Jaz?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Jaz, are you okay? Do you want me to ask Steve to call the chaperone?”

  Jaz quickly shook her head, but her body was trembling and I could see beads of sweat forming on her forehead.

  “Jaz, are you sick?” As fast as she ate that pizza, it wouldn’t surprise me.

  Jaz whispered, “My whole face is tingling.” She opened her eyes and they were full of fear.

  I bet she’s having a panic attack, I thought. I’d never seen Jaz like this, and it made me nervous. But I didn’t want her to see that I was worried. I did the only thing I could think of and took Jaz’s hand. “You need to breathe. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. Close your eyes.”

  Jaz closed her eyes again and breathed with my counting. Soon her breathing got steadier, and her body started to relax. But I kept counting—it was helping me too. It’s a good thing Steve can’t use his camera on the plane, I thought, relieved.

  After what felt like an hour, the plane started to roll backward, and the sound of the engine changed. Then the plane moved forward. It was slower than a car.

  Jaz’s eyes shot open. “Are we moving?”

  I nodded and kept counting. She wiped her face with her sleeve.

  “You can stop counting now. I think I’m okay.” The plane sped up and Jaz smiled. She giggled as we lifted off the runway. I opened the little shade on the window and we watched the lights on the ground get farther and farther away.

  “Thanks, Jason,” she said quietly after a few minutes. “I thought you were the one that was afraid of flying, not me.”

  Chapter

  15

  Jazmine

  I couldn’t believe I had a panic attack—I didn’t even know I was afraid to fly. I waited until the seatbelt light went off, and then I went to the bathroom. My stomach was in knots. By the time I got back to my seat, there was a snack on my tray.

  Jason said, “I got you some Ginger Ale.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “I like it. Think about all the science behind the engine, the wings . . . everything. It’s a miracle something this big and heavy can fly. Also, the snacks were free.” He popped a cookie into his mouth. He was obviously over his fear of flying. I wasn’t so sure about myself.

  Jason pulled out some papers from the backpack. “We should read these.”

  “What are they?”

  “Bios. There’s a paragraph about every team, and their pictures are at the top.”

  He handed me two. The top one was about Team Touchdown. I took a minute to look at the cute guy, then I read about how the two had been best friends since kindergarten. The other paper was about Team Double Trouble. Their parents were both Harvard professors. The mom was from Brazil, and the twins were bilingual. We’ll have to watch out for them, I thought.

  When Jason finished reading he said, “I’m pretty sure the girl on Team Heartbeat has a crush on the boy. It was her idea to audition, and apparently the whole heartbeat thing was her idea too.”

  “What’s the deal with Team Red Ponytail?” I asked.

  “They compete in horse shows. It says if horses have a red ribbon on their tail, it’s a warning to other riders that they might kick.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So, they’re saying they’re going to kick the competition’s butts. Whatever. What about our bio?”

  Jason pulled ours out of the stack, and we looked at it together. They used our school pictures. The bio said we were described by our mother as “unlikely teammates who joined forces to do something nice for their little brother.” We laughed about the phrase “unlikely teammates.”

  We spent the rest of the flight joking about the other teams and discussing what advantages we might have over them. For the first time since I could remember, we were actually getting along. Before I knew it, the plane was lowering to land.

  We got off the plane and followed the signs to gate B12. I was relieved to see we were the first team there, but the crew of Treasure Hunt people in black jackets who waited for us made me nervous.

  Chapter

  16

  Jason

  Gate B12 was in a different section of the airport that looked like it was closed. There were no people around. When we finally got to the gate, one of the guys in a black jacket handed me a note.

  Steve said, “Read it out loud.”

  I wasn’t about to do that on camera again, so I passed the note to Jaz. She cleared her throat and read, “We hope you’re not tired. We hope you are strong. The tire is heavy. The runway is long.”

  The Treasure Hunt team walked toward the tunnel that led to a plane, and we followed them. Instead of getting on a plane, they went through a side door and down a set of stairs. We ended up outside in the dark. When we reached the runway at the bottom of the stairs, everyone had to put on headphones. I figured it was because the planes were so loud. The runways looked cool at night. Rows of lights marked the sides, so it looked like a huge highway. We passed four gigantic planes, crossed one of the lanes, and stopped in an area of the runway that was empty. I noticed five tires lying flat in a line, which meant we were the first team there. If we can do this task and stay ahead, we might actually have a chance to win this thing, I thought, getting excited.

  A voice came through the headphones, and I jumped. “You will now complete the physical challenge of the Treasure Hunt competition. You must get your tire from this end of the runway to the other end.”

  That sounded easy enough. Even though the runway was as long as two football fields and the tires looked like they were from a big rig or a tractor, all we had to do was roll it.

  The voice continued. “Keep your tire from touching the ground. If you drop it, you must return to the start line and try again. Good luck—this tire weighs one hundred and fifty pounds.”

  I weighed more than that, and I could easily imagine two people carrying me to the other end. I knew we could do it. I noticed Jaz saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear it. Another person in a black jacket pulled a little mic down from Jaz’s headphones and then did the same to mine. Are they recording all of our conversations? I wondered.

  Jaz said, “Those tires
look heavy.”

  “It’s not that bad. There are two of us.”

  “I think we should just grab it and go as fast as possible, before we get tired.”

  I wasn’t sure that would work. There has to be a trick to it, I thought. They wouldn’t give us a challenge where all we have to do is pick it up and walk. That seems too easy. “Let’s test it out,” I said.

  We stood on either side of the tire, faced each other, and picked it up. The tire was heavy, but it wasn’t impossible to lift. The problem was the distance. If our hands got sweaty or sore, we’d drop it.

  “Stop thinking,” said Jaz. “Let’s go.”

  She started walking, and unless I wanted to start out by dropping the tire, there was nothing I could do but follow her. As soon as we started, a big digital clock at the other end flashed 45:00. It was so dark outside that I hadn’t even noticed it before. The clock started counting backward.

  “What’s that clock for?” I asked through the mic.

  “The clock shows the time remaining before the flight to your next destination departs. If you miss it, you will not be disqualified, but you will have to wait for the next flight.”

  “How long is that?” I asked.

  “Two hours.”

  The tire was lopsided because Jaz was so much shorter than I was. I lowered my side, so she wouldn’t get extra weight. We sidestepped toward the finish line. Steve sidestepped next to us, and a woman with a camera on wheels followed. We weren’t even halfway there when Jaz started panting into the microphone.

  “Do you want me to walk backward?” I asked.

  She nodded. We turned so Jaz could walk forward. She sped up right away. “This is way better.”

  “Not for me. I can’t go backward that fast. Slow down.”

  Jaz blew out a puff of air. “We’ve already used fifteen minutes. We can’t slow down.”

  I looked at the start line. “No one else is even here yet.”