Sue Mongredien – Sleepover Girls Go Treasure Hunting (страница 3)
“Oh, let’s just get on with it and get stuck into the digging,” Kenny said impatiently, and then remembered my mum’s warning. “Er… Very carefully, of course… ”
“Fliss, if by any remote chance there does happen to be Roman treasure down there, we’ll be scraping away at the soil for weeks before we get to it,” Dad pointed out. “It won’t be lying just under the surface, will it?”
“And remember, Mum’s just dug up loads of this flowerbed and she wasn’t scraping gently at all,” I added. “So it might be a bit late to start all that now.”
“All right, all right,” Fliss said huffily, her cheeks going a bit pink. “I just think, if we’re going to do this, we may as well do it properly, that’s all, but if you all think you know better, then… ”
“Let’s get going, then,” Frankie said, before Fliss could get too carried away. “And anything we find gets split equally, yeah?”
“After we’ve bought Buster’s steak, yeah,” I agreed. “Let’s get to work!”
So the great garden dig-up began. At first, we were all dead excited about what we might find, and started talking about what we’d spend our riches on. Fliss was going to have a wild shopping weekend in London with her mum (of course). Kenny fancied an adventure holiday bungee jumping and snowboarding in New Zealand. I was going to set up an animal welfare centre. Rosie wanted to buy a posh new house for her mum and Frankie was going to take her family on holiday to Florida so she could go to the Epcot Centre and the NASA space station. Dad said he was going to take Mum away on a romantic holiday and leave us kids to fend for ourselves for a few weeks. I
Then a scream came from Fliss. “Oh, oh, ugh, GROSS!!” she squealed, dropping her spade as if it was burning hot, and leaping away.
“What’s up? Is it the dead woman’s hand?” Kenny asked eagerly, coming to have a look at what Fliss had found.
Fliss shuddered and closed her eyes. “A worm! A worm!” she moaned dramatically. “It was wriggling on my spade and everything!”
“Oh, FLISS,” I said, going over to pick it up. “You’ve probably scared it by screaming like that, poor little thing.”
“Do you reckon?” Rosie asked, sounding interested. “Do worms have ears, then?”
The others looked at me, expecting me to know but I had no idea. “Well, I can’t
“That reminds me,” Kenny giggled. “What did the earwig say as he crawled into Fliss’s ear?”
“Kenny!” Fliss groaned, shaking her head and looking sick again. “Please just… shut up!”
“Earwig-o, earwig-o, earwig-o,” Kenny sang. “Geddit? ‘Ere we go, ‘ere we go, ‘ere we go… ’”
“You’re lucky I’m too scared to touch that worm,” Fliss said, sounding fierce. “Else I might just have dropped it down your neck for that, Kenny McKenzie. I’m going to have nightmares about earwigs crawling into my brain now, thank you very much.”
“How about this one?” Frankie said, with a mischievous glint in her eye. “There’s a worm at the bottom of the garden and his name is Wiggly-Woo… ”
The rest of us immediately joined in the song.
“There’s a worm at the bottom of the garden
And all that he can do
Is wiggle all night and wiggle all day… ”
“Stop it!” wailed Fliss.
“Come on, Fliss,” my dad said, seeing her bottom lip sticking out about ten centimetres. “Ignore them. Think about all those clothes you’re going to buy, eh?”
We were all in a silly mood by then. “I’ve just dug up a pop group,” Rosie giggled. “Look – it’s the beetles!”
Even Fliss laughed at that. “Hey, I’ve got one – what’s a gardener’s favourite Christmas carol?” she said, joining in. “Soil-ent night!”
Soon we were all coming out with them.
“What smells most in the garden?” Dad asked. “Your nose!”
“Where do insects live?” Frankie said. “Crawley!”
We were having such a laugh, I couldn’t believe it was lunch time already when I heard Mum calling us. Treasure hunting was turning out to be the best fun we’d had in aaaaages!
After a whopping great lunch of bangers and mash – with Fliss having THIRDS of mash – digging up the garden suddenly didn’t seem like so much fun any more.
“I’ve got blisters from that spade,” I said, holding my hands out for the others to see.
“My hands are a bit sore as well,” Fliss said at once. “Has anybody got any hand cream on them?”
“And we haven’t found ANYTHING except worms and beetles and centipedes,” Rosie said, sounding disappointed.
“Hey, what happened to the rich and famous Treasure Team?” Dad said, trying to jolly us along a bit. “Not giving up already, are you? We’ve hardly started!”
“Mr C, you’re a much better digger than we are,” crafty Kenny started. “I don’t suppose you’d fancy… ”
“What, finishing off the digging all by myself?” Dad said, raising his eyebrows. “I didn’t think the Sleepover Club were the sort to be so lazy as to ask a poor, tired old man who’s been working hard all week to give up his Saturday afternoon to… ”
“All right, all right, Dad!” I interrupted hurriedly. “No need to give us the sob story.”
Mum cleared our plates away and we sat around the table looking at each other. “So does ANYONE fancy digging some more?” I asked in the end. Even though I wanted to find buried treasure as badly as everyone else, my blisters really were throbbing on my hand – and suddenly, I could think of lots of other things I’d rather be doing than digging up the flowerbed all afternoon.
“I’ve got to meet my mum – we’re going to the library,” Rosie said. “Otherwise I’d stay and help, of course… ”
“And my mum’s having some people round this afternoon and I said I’d help look after baby Izzy while she gets things ready,” Frankie added. “So I’m going to have to shoot off soon, too.”
“I promised I’d clean out Merlin’s cage,” Kenny said. “He’s getting a bit whiffy and Mum’s been threatening to let next door’s dog have him if I don’t de-pong him soon.”
“She wouldn’t!” I cried in horror. Merlin is Kenny’s pet rat that she’s taught to do all sorts of tricks. The thought of letting him be eaten by the dog next door was just…
“No, she wouldn’t,” Kenny agreed. “She was just trying to make me feel bad – and it worked, as usual.”
“But what about our treasure?” Fliss put in. “Mr Collins is right. We can’t give up already. I want my shopping trip to London soooo badly! I’ve been thinking about all the things I want to buy.”
I was just about to invite her to carry on digging, but she must have second-guessed me, because before I could open my mouth…
“Obviously, I’d stay and help you dig up the garden, Lyndz and Mr Collins, but I… er… I’ve got to get back, too. Mum’s got… er… something planned. Unfortunately,” she said quickly. She tossed her head and looked around the table, daring anyone to question her.
“So we all want the treasure but nobody wants to dig any more, that’s about the size of it,” I summarised. “Well, what do we do next, then?”
“I could have a look in the library for ideas,” Rosie offered. “See if I can find anything about Roman settlements around here in the local history section. We might get some clues from that.”
“Good idea,” Kenny said. “See if you can find a map that says where all the Roman ruins are around the country and which are the nearest to us.”
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