Sue Mongredien – Sleepover Girls Go Treasure Hunting (страница 2)
“Now, don’t look like that,” Frankie said. “I saw this wicked episode of the
“Here we go… ” muttered Kenny, raising her eyebrows at Rosie. Those two don’t have
I wrinkled my nose while I thought. “Yes, Mum was out here last weekend,” I said. “She roped me into helping her with the weeding. Why?”
“Well… DERRR!” Kenny said, her face lighting up. “Hasn’t it struck anyone else what the obvious answer is?”
The rest of us looked at each other blankly. “Er… a magic plant that grows gold rings?” Fliss said feebly.
Rosie giggled. “Fliss, you’ve been reading too much Enid Blyton,” she said. “Magic plant, indeed!”
“I’m talking about buried treasure, you dimwits!” Kenny said dramatically. “I bet when your mum was digging over her flowerbeds, she dug this ring up without even realising. Which means that… ”
“There could be more down there,” Rosie put in, grabbing Kenny’s arm excitedly. “Buried treasure – in your garden, Lyndz!”
“From years and years ago,” Kenny added, eyes gleaming. “It’s probably really REALLY old and dead valuable.”
Even Fliss had stopped glaring at Rosie and was looking interested now. “What, you mean, we could be rich?” she said eagerly.
“Could be!” I said, grinning at her. I started skipping back towards the house. “Come on, let’s go and show my mum what we’ve found!”
You know what it’s like when you’re dead excited about something and then you show your parents and they’re like, “Oh yeah, whatever,” as if they’ve just seen the most boring thing on earth? Well, that was kind of what I was expecting to happen with the ring as well – for Mum and Dad to crush our excitement with lots of boring, practical reasons why we couldn’t possibly have found some real treasure.
Which just goes to show that parents are totally unpredictable creatures because – miracle of the year – they didn’t say anything of the sort.
“Mum, look what Buster found in the garden,” I shouted as we went into the kitchen. Mum and Dad were both there reading the newspaper and trying to stop my baby brother Spike ripping up the TV guide.
Fliss wiggled the ring off her finger and dropped it into my mum’s hand. “Treasure!” she beamed.
“Is it yours, Mrs Collins?” Sherlock Kenny wanted to know at once. “Did you lose it when you were gardening?”
Mum shook her head. “No, it’s not one of mine,” she said, peering at it. “I’ve never seen it before. It’s very pretty. I wonder whose it is.”
“We were wondering if there could be some buried treasure in the garden,” I burst out excitedly. “What do you think? You might have dug this up the other day when we were out in the garden – and there might be loads more where it came from, too!”
Fliss sat down at the kitchen table suddenly, looking really pale and scared. “I’ve just had a horrible thought,” she said faintly. “What if there’s a dead body down there? A dead body that was WEARING THE RING!”
“Eeeeuughh, do you have to, Fliss?” Rosie said. “Thanks for that lovely idea – not!”
“Darling, I’m sure if I’d raked over the hand of a dead woman, I’d have noticed,” Mum said calmly. She is not the tiniest bit squeamish – as you probably guessed.
“Raked over the… ugh,” Fliss echoed, her face changing from white to green in seconds. She clapped a hand over her mouth and looked sick as anything. “I wish you hadn’t said that, Mrs Collins.”
Dad took the ring out of Mum’s hand and examined it. “It feels heavy enough to be real gold,” he said, sounding interested. “Whereabouts did you find it?”
“Near the ash tree,” I said. “Can we go and do some digging there to see what else we can find, please, please, PLEASE?”
“Definitely not,” Mum said at once. “I can just see it now – my rose bushes all destroyed by you five, hacking away at their roots. No, thank you very much!”
“Oh, per-leeeeze, Mum,” I wheedled. “We’d be dead careful.”
“I mean, if it really is buried treasure, there’s bound to be more down there, isn’t there?” Kenny reasoned. “After all, no one would bury a single ring, would they?”
“It’ll be just like
“Awesome,” Kenny said. “Hey – what if Romans used to live here in your village, Lyndz?”
“What if they lived in your HOUSE?” Fliss breathed excitedly.
My dad burst out laughing. “As this is a Victorian house, I doubt it,” he chuckled. “Fliss, remind me – what century is this again?”
Fliss frowned at him. “Is this a trick question?” she asked suspiciously. “It’s the 21st century of course!”
“Right,” Dad said. “And the Romans were around… when?”
Fliss shrugged. “Erm… about a hundred years ago?” she guessed, looking uncomfortable.
“The Romans were around in the FIRST century,” Dad told her. “Nearly two THOUSAND years ago. Now, I know our house might look two thousand years old, but… ” he joked.
“Dad, do you think this ring could be two thousand years old?” I asked excitedly. “How old might it be?”
Dad peered at it again. “It’s hard to say with gold,” he said, shaking his head. “It ages very well. I very much doubt it’s Roman though, but… ”
“Just think, if we DID find a whole hoard of Roman treasure, we’d be famous,” Rosie said dreamily, completely ignoring my dad. “We’d be on the news and everything.”
“And rich,” I said pointedly. “Weren’t you saying the other night, Mum, that you didn’t know how you were going to pay for the loft extension?”
“Lyndsey, I don’t think your friends need to hear about our money problems,” Mum said with an edge in her voice. She gave me a sharp look over the top of her glasses which said, clear as day, Shut up, Lyndz.
I closed my mouth and looked down. When my mum gives you THAT look, you know it’s best not to argue. But why is it that parents go all weird when you start talking about money? When I’m grown up, I won’t care about how much people earn or how much someone’s house is worth – who’s interested, anyway? I’ve noticed that grown-ups get dead twitchy and secretive about it though. Odd, isn’t it? You’d think they could find something more interesting to get their knickers in a twist over.
I was just starting to think that was going to be the end of any treasure hunting, there and then, when my dad cleared his throat. “Well, maybe it would be worth having another quick look around the ash tree,” he said slowly. “A SUPERVISED quick look under the tree so that no one does any damage to the rose bushes. Or their roots,” he added quickly before my mum could say it.
“YEAHHHH!” I yelled.
“Yay!”, “Result!”, “Nice one, Mr C!” the others cheered.
Mum still didn’t look too thrilled at the idea of us digging up the garden. “Keith, I mean it – if anybody digs up anything they shouldn’t, I really will not be happy… ” she said to my dad warningly, as she started tidying up the newspapers and Spike’s toys.
“Don’t worry,” Dad said. “You won’t even know we’ve been there. Apart from the huge heap of gold coins and goodies we’re going to bring back with us, of course… ”
“WHOOOPEEEE!” Kenny yelled, bouncing around the kitchen like a mad jack-in-a-box. “Come on – let’s go and dig up that booty – like, NOW!”
“Clever, clever Buster,” I said, stooping down to pat him proudly. “We’re going to be rich and famous – all because of you. You’ll get the biggest, juiciest steak there ever was for being such a good little treasure hunter.”
Mum rolled her eyes. “Now, don’t go making promises you can’t afford to keep, Lyndz,” she said, as we went out the back door.
Luckily, Dad was a bit keener on the idea of treasure than Mum was. He once told me his favourite book when he was a boy was
Minutes later, we were “all tooled up” as Dad put it. He had Mum’s garden spade, I had my brother Stu’s smaller spade, Kenny and Frankie had trowels and Rosie and Fliss drew the short straw and had to make do with plastic beach spades. “I’ve never seen the
“That’s ‘cos we’re the cool new version of
Dad chuckled. “Right then, Treasure Team – where did Buster dig up this ’ere ’ighly valuable piece of gold?” he asked.
“Just there,” I said, crouching down and pointing. “See his scratch marks?”
“You know what, if we really ARE going to be like