The Delaware Detectives

by Dana Rongione

  Chapter Twelve:

  It’s True

  Jamie and I spent over an hour cleaning up the mess we had made the day before. The booby traps and other pranks brought back memories of the awesome scare, and with them, regret for what I had done. Determined not to dwell on my mistake, I worked quickly and talked with Jamie about nothing of importance.

  After we finished, we still had hours before Pop-Pop was supposed to come and pick us up, so we decided to take a walk through the house and its passageways again, this time looking specifically for things related to war. It didn't do any good. When Pop-Pop finally arrived, we left in disappointment.

  “We still have time,” Pop-Pop said, locking the front door behind him. “Maybe something will come to us tomorrow. Or maybe you could talk to Sally again. She might know something.”

  “Sure,” Jamie mumbled as he followed Pop-Pop to the truck. Without another word, he slid to the middle of the seat. I climbed in behind him and closed the door.

  “Cheer up, kids,” Pop-Pop said, situating himself behind the steering wheel. “Look how far you’ve already come. You’ll find it. I know you will.” With that, he started the engine and put the truck into gear.

  I stared out the side window into the rain that had once again begun to fall. I watched as it bounced off the roof of the house and flowed down the long gutters emptying into a small puddle at the front corner of the house. My gaze then drifted to the small dark structure that was now barely visible through the growing downpour.

  “Pop-Pop, stop!” I shouted.

  He slammed on the brakes, causing all three of us to sling forward and then be jerked back by our seatbelts. “What’s the matter?”

  “I just thought of something,” I exclaimed.

  Pop-Pop let out a deep breath, sighed, and shook his head. “That’s good, Abby, but don’t ever scream like that in a vehicle. You could have caused an accident.”

  “I’m sorry, Pop-Pop.” I looked out the window again, then back at Pop-Pop. “Remember how I told you that I had read a lot about World War II?”

  Jamie and Pop-Pop both nodded.

  I continued. “The book said that people in America were so scared of being attacked that many of them built bomb shelters under their houses or outbuildings. Pop-Pop, did your grandmother have a bomb shelter?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I know of, Abby. Why? Do you think there may be one under the house?”

  “No,” I replied. “I think it's somewhere in that old outhouse.”

  Pop-Pop turned off the ignition. “Why would you think that?”

  I was growing so excited that I could barely get my words out. “Scott and Phyllis took us down the secret passageway that leads to a door in the ground just behind that outhouse. Jamie and I went inside the outhouse. It was so small that we were barely able to move once we were both in there.”

  Pop-Pop looked toward the outhouse, and I could see the question in his eyes.

  “If you look at the outhouse from here, it looks big enough to hold at least three people with no problem. Why does it look bigger on the outside than it does from the inside?”

  Poor Jamie looked so confused. It was obvious that he had no idea what I was trying to get at, so I spelled it out for him.

  “I think there's another part of the outhouse. Maybe there's another secret tunnel or a hidden room or something. The treasure has to be there! It just has to.”

  Pop-Pop looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “Why don't the two of you run out there and see if you can find anything. I'll stay here in the truck where it's dry, but if you need anything, you let me know.”

  After running through the rain, Jamie and I crowded into the small room. It looked just like I remembered. The door was a thin piece of wood with a crescent moon carved into it. The two side walls were bare, and against the back wall sat a thick plank of wood with a small round hole in it.

  Jamie pointed into the dark hole and spoke with a trembling voice. “Do you think it’s down there?”

  I shivered at the thought. “I don’t think so. At least, I hope not.” I shifted my gaze to the wooden “seat.” Not only did the bench stretch from wall to wall, but it also provided a solid panel from knee-height to the floor. If you covered the hole and added a window, it would resemble a window seat. “I wonder, though, if something may be under or behind this panel.”

  We knelt down on the wooden floor and felt along the boards. The wood was cold and damp, but surprisingly smooth.

  “Here, Abby,” Jamie cried. “I found something!”

  I walked over to where he had removed a loose piece of wood from the right-hand corner of the bench. The opening was small and dark, but I could make out a round shape, similar to a doorknob, sticking up out of the floor. I gave it a turn, then jumped with surprise as the wall beside me swung inward with a loud groan.

  “I was right,” I exclaimed. “There is a hidden room.”

  As I walked through the new opening, I noticed a hatch of some sort in the floor. It was barely visible under the dust and dirt of many years, but after sweeping away some of the dirt with my shoe, I uncovered a large metal ring that was attached to the hatch on the floor. I pulled on the ring, and the door lifted, causing a great cloud of dust. When the dust cleared enough for me to see, I was staring into a rectangular hole in the ground. I could see the top of a spiral staircase. Beyond that, it was so dark that I couldn't tell where it ended or how far down it went.

  “Jamie,” I whispered, “I think you’d better go get Pop-Pop, and ask him to bring a flashlight.”

  Jamie, who had been staring over my shoulder, took off out the door. I could hear him screaming Pop-Pop’s name as he ran toward the truck. In a few minutes, he and Pop-Pop returned, bringing three flashlights.

  Pop-Pop froze when he saw the opening in the wall and then in the floor. “Well, I’ll be. I never knew this was here. No wonder Mom-Mom didn’t want this old outhouse torn down. No one would ever think to look here. The only thing that should be under this old outhouse is the cesspit.” He handed Jamie and me a flashlight, then pointed toward the stairs. “Shall we?”

  The flashlights didn't help much as we crept down the stairs. Their only use seemed to be lighting our next step; however, it didn’t take us long to reach the bottom. We each turned in a circle, pointing our flashlights toward the walls in an effort to determine where we were.

  For a moment, I thought we were in a small, empty room, but then I noticed an opening in the far wall. “Look!”

  “Let me take a look,” Pop-Pop said as he moved toward where I had pointed. Shining his flashlight into the dark hole in the wall, he said, “It looks like a tunnel. It's probably another secret passageway.”

  “I'll bet Scott and Phyllis don't know about this one,” Jamie said.

  “Well,” Pop-Pop said after taking a deep breath. “Come on. We might as well see where it leads.”

  We followed the tunnel for what seemed an eternity. We were all either too tired, too excited, or too scared to talk. The only sounds I heard were those of our heavy breathing and the occasional growl of Jamie's stomach. The tunnel twisted and turned so many times that I was beginning to wonder if we would end up under our own house in South Carolina. Just when I was giving that idea some serious thought, the tunnel ended—just like that! At one point we were walking in the dark; the next minute we were staring at a solid wall. Well, I thought it was solid until Jamie pointed out the small hole near the ground. To be honest, the hole looked like a doggy door to me. (You know, the kind that you put on your house door so that the dogs can go in and out as they need to.) After studying the wall for a moment, Pop-Pop said that he thought it was made of aluminum and probably was part of a bomb shelter.

  I joined Jamie on the floor and shone my light into the small opening. “There's another room in there—or another tunnel. Come on. Let's go.”

  “Wait a minute, Abby,” Pop-Pop said. “I don't think I can fit through that little hole, and I'm s
ure I don't want the two of you to go in there by yourselves. There's no telling what might be in there or how much farther you will have to go before the trail ends. I think it would be best if we just went back.”

  “Went back?” Jamie cried.

  “Please, Pop-Pop,” I pleaded. “We've come so close. The treasure is probably just on the other side of this wall. If we give up now, we'll never find the treasure. Please! We'll be careful, and we won't go far.”

  I could tell that he was wrestling with his decision. I thought he was going to turn around and start heading back when he surprised me by saying, “I want you to tell me everything you

  see and hear, and if something looks dangerous, stay away from it.” Then I heard him comment under his breath, “Your parents are going to kill me.”

  I crawled through the hole first, being careful not to cut myself on the jagged edges, then helped Jamie through. After dusting some of the dirt from my clothes, I grabbed my flashlight off the ground and began to look around.

  “We're in a small room,” I shouted to Pop-Pop. “The walls are mostly covered by dirt, but parts of them are shiny.”

  “That's the aluminum,” Pop-Pop shouted back.

  I pointed my flashlight toward the ceiling which was probably only three or four feet above me. “And the ceiling is arched like a rainbow. I can see the aluminum shining through in certain spots.

  “Yep,” Pop-Pop shouted. “That sounds like a bomb shelter. Look around and see what else you can find, but be careful.”

  Again I shone my flashlight in each direction. Wall. Wall. Wall. What's that?

  “Over here,” I said, moving in the direction of what appeared to be a door and a large wooden trunk. The door was locked, so I turned my attention to the trunk. It reminded me of the ones you see in pirate movies, you know, the ones that are always full of treasure. As I knelt down in front of it and tried to lift the lid, Jamie came up behind me.

  “There's a big chest here, Pop-Pop, but it's locked.”

  “Are you sure?” Pop-Pop asked. “Sometimes those old locks just get stuck. Try beating on it a couple of times with your flashlight.”

  Turning my flashlight around, I used the end of it to beat on the lock. After the third hit, the lock popped open. Jamie and I each grabbed one end of the lid and lifted it back. We stared with open mouths at what we found inside.

  I reached into the trunk and pulled out a stack of $100 bills. I flipped through the stack, then grabbed another and did the same. “We found it!” I shouted, jumping up and hugging Jamie. “We found it, Pop-Pop!”

  It took several moments for Jamie and me to drag the chest to the small opening in the wall. Once we were there, we realized that the chest wouldn't fit through the hole.

  “How did it get in here?” Jamie asked.

  I pointed in the direction from which we had just hauled the trunk. “Probably through that door, but I'm not sure how to get it opened. Let's go through the hole and explain to Pop-Pop what's going on. I'm tired of shouting.”

  Once we were through, I handed Pop-Pop a crumpled piece of paper.

  “What's this?” he asked.

  “It was on top of the money inside the trunk. I think you should read it.”

  He took the note from my hands and read it aloud. “To whom it may concern: If you are reading this note, then you must have found my treasure. It now belongs to you. Consider it your reward for having faith in a dear old woman.”

  “It’s ours?” Jamie cried. “Hooray!” He jumped up and down and twirled himself in circles until he fell on the floor in a laughing fit.

  Pop-Pop handed the note back to me. “Well, you kids found it. I still can’t believe it, but here it is. So, what are you going to do with all that money?”

  I looked at Jamie, who had finally quit laughing. “I have a pretty good idea.”