Treasure Hunters--The Plunder Down Under

by James Patterson

  “It’s what I couldn’t remember when you visited us in the jail!” added Dad. “We used to read it to you when you were a baby. It was a picture book. The boy with the tattoo map on his arm?”

  Storm’s tilted her head sideways like a puppy that thinks it just heard someone call its name. Her eyes sort of glazed over. I half expected them to turn into a pair of spinning rainbow swirls, like a computer has when it’s downloading information.

  “Of course!” said Storm. “Stingaree Jack. Got it!”

  “Good,” whispered Dad. “We need to terminate this call. A guard is coming. I don’t want him to see me talking to my wristwatch! Good luck! Happy treasure hunting. Follow the tattoo map, Storm! That’s what Charlotte Badger is undoubtedly doing.”

  The call cut out.

  “And who, pray tell, is this Stingaree Jack fellow?” Uncle Richie asked Storm.

  “And what’s this about a map?” I added.

  “Stingaree Jack was the hero of a picture book that, if I remember correctly, which, of course, I always do, Mom and Dad wrote and illustrated themselves. It was all about a cabin boy named Stingaree Jack who escaped from Benito ‘Bloody Sword’ Bonito’s ship with a treasure map tattooed on his arm!”

  “A map that Mom and Dad drew from the research they’d done!” shouted Beck.

  Storm nodded. “Yes. They were always incorporating actual treasure hunting skills and research into our bedtime stories.”

  “Do you remember the map?” I asked.

  “Now I do,” said Storm.

  “Can you draw it?” asked Beck.

  “Well, duh,” she said as she started drawing a map on the side of a brown paper lunch sack. “What’s the point of having a photographic memory if you can’t make a few photocopies from time to time?”

  CHAPTER 28

  “You guys?” I said, as Storm completed drawing her very detailed map. “If we really know where Bloody Sword Bonito’s treasure is buried…”

  “We do,” said Storm. “And it’s not buried; it’s sealed in a cave.”

  “Even better,” I said. “We forgot to pack shovels.”

  Storm ran her finger along the dotted line of her map. “There is a rock at the first falls with a horse head carved into it. That horse’s nose is pointing to a big rock with a dagger carved into it. The dagger points to a rock with an arrow that points to a second waterfall. The treasure cave is hidden behind the second waterfall.”

  “All that was tattooed on some kid’s arm?” said Beck.

  “Some of the best tattoo artists in the world are scattered across the islands of the South Pacific,” said Uncle Richie. “Have been for centuries. I imagine Bloody Sword sealed the entrance to his treasure cave with dynamite.”

  Storm nodded. “That would explain this image near the entrance. I thought it was a firecracker. There’s also a skull-and-crossbones slashed into the boulders blocking the entrance—an X marking the spot where the treasure is hidden.”

  “Ms. Badger is undoubtedly following the same map,” said Uncle Richie.

  “Yeah!” I said. “That’s why she packed the dynamite. To blast the door open again!”

  “Indeed,” said Uncle Richie. “And, legend has it, inside that sealed cavern, Captain Bloody Sword Bonito stashed four life-size golden figures, each one studded with jewels.”

  “Wow,” I said. “No wonder Bonito’s lost treasure has been on Mom and Dad’s list for such a long time…”

  “But not near the top,” said Beck.

  “But, still. It was on the list. Plus, they were doing research on it since before we were even born. They even wrote a picture book about it. That means we should go get it!”

  “What?” said Beck.

  “If we’re going up to the cave behind the waterfall anyhow, we might as well grab a few golden mannequins studded with jewels while we’re there! Mom and Dad will be so proud.”

  “Remember the task at hand, Bickford,” said Uncle Richie.

  “Well, who says we can’t do both?” I wondered out loud. “Retrieve the opals and grab Bonito’s treasure!”

  “Um, Charlotte Badger would probably say that,” said Storm.

  “It’s a dumb idea, Bick,” said Beck.

  “You mean a genius idea!” I shot back.

  “Okay, if by genius you mean idiotic!”

  Yes, we were erupting into a mini Twin Tirade, right there in the backseat. It happens sometimes on road trips. Especially since we couldn’t really play license plate bingo. There weren’t any other cars on the dusty dirt road, except Tommy, who was right behind us.

  “We only have five days left, Bickford!” shouted Beck.

  “So what, Rebecca? We only need one day to finish the job!”

  “The pirates have weapons!”

  “We have boomerangs. And Storm.”

  “We didn’t bring any dynamite!”

  “So we’ll use theirs.”

  “Oh, great. That’s something else we need to grab off a group of gnarly scallywags. Opals, dynamite, and jewel-encrusted statues!”

  “I want all that gold and jewelry, Beck!”

  “And I want a new twin brother.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No way. One twin brother is enough.”

  “If you had two, we’d be triplets.”

  “That’d be weird.”

  “Totally.”

  Yes, our tirade was in the cooldown stage.

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s just go for the opals. But if Charlotte Badger wants to give us the dynamite and the golden statues, we’ll take them.”

  “Deal.”

  We shook on it.

  “Uh-oh,” said Uncle Richie, glancing up into the rearview mirror. “Looks like trouble.”

  “No trouble back here,” I said. “We’re all done.”

  “Totally,” added Beck. “We’re cool.”

  “Bully for you two,” said Uncle Richie, slamming on the brakes. “Thomas, on the other hand, isn’t quite so fortunate. It seems his vehicle has rolled over and landed, tires-up, in a swampy bog.”

  CHAPTER 29

  The four of us tumbled out of the lead vehicle and ran back to make sure Tommy, Terry, and Tabitha were okay.

  The three of them, looking slightly dazed, were wading through the murky water. It was up to Tommy’s thighs and the Tasmanian twins’ chests.

  “Are any of you injured, Thomas?” cried Uncle Richie when we reached the edge of the shallow swamp.

  “I’m okay,” said Tommy. “But I’m not sure about Tabitha and Terry. They haven’t screamed at each other once since we flipped over.”

  “Why’d you wreck?” I asked.

  “Because these two were bored sitting in the backseat. They decided to climb up front with me. Then Terry wanted to drive, so he jumped into my lap and took the wheel. Then Tabitha decided she wanted to drive, too. So, she jumped into Terry’s lap and wrestled the wheel away from him. There was a lot of wheel twisting, back and forth. That’s, more or less, when we wiped out.”

  “It’s all Terry’s fault!” shouted Tabitha. “He’s a clumsy, cack-handed boofhead!”

  “Am not,” screamed Terry. “Tabitha’s just dilly. If brains were dynamite, she couldn’t blow off her hat!”

  “Um, you guys?” said Storm.

  No one paid attention to her. Tommy was covering his ears and the Tasmanian Terrors were still screaming at each other.

  “You have a face like a sucked mango!” hollered Tabitha.

  “Then so do you!” Terry shot back. “We’re twins, remember?”

  Storm tried again. “You guys?”

  Tabitha swatted at the air. “Onya bike, Terry. Tell your story walkin’!”

  “Don’t have a bike, Tabitha. Can’t walk. Water’s too deep.”

  “And that log just moved!” Storm shouted.

  Only it wasn’t a log.

  It was a crocodile.

  A giant crocodile! The thing had to be at least ten feet long. It was lurking
at the edge of the little lagoon.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Jaws open, it lunged into the water, gunning for Tommy, Tabitha, and Terry.

  “Go for the eyes,” shouted Storm, who must’ve memorized a survivalist book about how to fight off a crocodile. “Poke it in the eyeballs! It’s the only way to fend off an attack!”

  “Listen to your sister, Thomas!” shouted Uncle Richie. “Poke that blasted beast in the eyeballs!”

  “Can’t poke,” said Tommy, scooping up Terry and Tabitha. He cradled them under his arms. “My hands are busy.” He dragged his legs through the water and, moving in slow motion, tried to haul the Tasmanian twins to safety.

  But the croc was fast. Faster than Tommy, especially when he’s carrying two kicking and screaming kids. The crocodile also had jaws (Storm told us later) that could clamp down with the power of thirteen tons per square inch. Its skin was so thick, you couldn’t pierce it. Its head was a solid mass of hard bone.

  That’s when Storm pulled out the boomerang she had tucked into her belt and sent it whirling.

  She, of course, was aiming for the eyeballs.

  The creature snapped open its jaws. It was about to take a big bite of Tommy’s butt when, BAM!

  Storm’s boomerang bopped it in the right eyeball.

  It froze.

  Just long enough for Tommy to scamper out of the water with the Tasmanian Terrors.

  They weren’t even hurt.

  We could tell.

  Because they started screaming at each other again.

  CHAPTER 30

  While Terry and Tabitha screeched themselves blue in the background, Uncle Richie called Timbo Tyler’s secret number on the spy phone.

  “G’day?” Tyler said when he answered his watch.

  “Timbo? Richie Luccio here. Sad to say, we’re in a bit of a sticky wicket. One of the vehicles you lent us is stuck in a swamp. Upside down. I can send you the GPS coordinates…”

  “No need, mate,” we heard Mr. Tyler say through the phone. “I popped a tracker on your vehicles, too. Standard practice ’round here. How are Terry and Tabitha?”

  Uncle Richie’s gaze drifted off to where the Tasmanian twins were making mud pies and slapping them in each other’s faces.

  “Smashing. Timbo? I wonder if I might ask another favor?”

  “Name it, mate.”

  “Well, once we acquire the opals from Ms. Badger, I suspect we might need to beat a hasty retreat. Something that might prove difficult with just one Land Rover and seven people.”

  “Too right. Reckon it’ll be a regular bush bash, you lot trying to outrun the pirates.”

  “You wouldn’t have access to, oh, let’s say, a helicopter?”

  “An egg beater? No worries, mate. When you need the whirlybird, just give me another jingle on the blower.”

  “The, uh, phone?”

  “Right. That’s what I said. The blower.”

  “Bully. Again, our gratitude.”

  “Just keep my niece and nephew safe and secure, and I’ll be happy as a box full of birds.”

  “Actually,” said Storm, “the birds wouldn’t be very happy if they were trapped in a box…”

  Uncle Richie put a finger to his lips and winked at Storm. He didn’t think this was the time for an Australian slang debate.

  And so, with our emergency extradition plan in place (the helicopter, unless Timbo Tyler was really going to send us an egg beater), we crammed into our one remaining vehicle.

  “You and Beck need to ride up on the luggage rack,” said Tommy, after Uncle Richie, Storm, Terry, and Tabitha had squeezed into the Land Rover and taken up every available inch.

  “What?” Beck and I said together. It was less of a twin thing; more of a blowflies-in-our-teeth thing.

  “We don’t have much farther to travel,” said Uncle Richie. “According to our tracker, Ms. Badger is parked less than a mile away!”

  And so we rode that mile up on the roof of a bouncing Rover. I still have the luggage-rack marks on my hands and knees to prove it.

  Finally, Tommy brought the vehicle to a stop—right behind an abandoned Aussie Troopie parked on the shoulder of the road. There was a sign welcoming us to Point Nepean National Park. We could see Port Phillip Bay. It looked like a perfect place to park a pirate ship.

  “That’s Charlotte Badger’s vehicle!” said Tommy as he bounded out.

  “But where’s Charlotte Badger?” said Storm, as she came stumbling out of the cramped backseat.

  “Therein lies our problem,” said Uncle Richie, thoughtfully stroking his chin, the way Mom and Dad do when they don’t have an answer. “Which way did she go?”

  “That way,” said Terry, pointing to a clump of trees.

  “And she’s with two men,” added Tabitha. “One of them is carrying something heavy.”

  “Probably a box of dynamite,” said Terry.

  “We better hurry,” said Tabitha.

  Terry nodded. “They left their vehicle two, maybe three hours ago.”

  Uncle Richie, Storm, Beck, Tommy, and I all had our jaws hanging open.

  “Don’t just stand there with your jaws hanging open!” said Tabitha. “You heard what Terry said. If you want to catch your pirates, we need to do it, now!”

  CHAPTER 31

  We all trooped behind Terry and Tabitha.

  They led us through a tangle of scrubby underbrush and up onto the limestone cliffs ringing the southern shore of Port Phillip Bay.

  “So, uh, how do you guys know we’re heading the right way?” I asked.

  “Because our mother’s people were here long before any of you European types,” snarled Terry.

  “She taught us how to read the land,” said Tabitha, sounding irritated. “How to track anything. Animal, human—even birds.”

  “Ah,” said Uncle Richie, “I take it your mother is of Aboriginal descent?”

  “She’s a Palawa!” snapped Tabitha.

  “That’s the proper name for an Aboriginal Tasmanian,” explained Storm.

  “Well, duh, you boofhead,” said Terry. “Tabitha just told you that.”

  Then the two of them slapped each other a high five.

  “Aboriginal trackers are celebrated throughout Australian history,” said Storm, ready to give us another information dump. “In 1864, they were able to locate the three missing Duff children, who had been lost for three days, by tracking their movements through an arid and rugged area not far from their home. The settlers, of course, had given up all hope of ever finding their children alive.”

  “And you can give up all hope of finding your pirate lady if you don’t shut up!” hissed Terry.

  “Was she wearing long boots with a three-inch stacked heel the last time you dipsticks saw her?” asked Tabitha.

  We all nodded.

  “She’s close.”

  I raised my hand.

  “What?” said Terry, angrily.

  “How’d you know they were carrying dynamite?”

  “Sparkles on the ground back near their vehicle, boofhead. Some of the powder must be leaking.”

  “Here’s the horse head!” said Storm, rubbing a rock that someone, probably Charlotte Badger, had smeared with fresh mud so no one else could read it.

  “There’s the waterfall!” said Beck.

  “And the second waterfall,” said Storm, pointing to a cascade of foamy water tumbling off the cliffs, maybe one hundred feet away. Fortunately, the sound of all that rushing water would mask the noise of our final approach, which we’d be doing stealthily, for sure.

  “Bully!” said Uncle Richie. “It seems the opals are within our grasp. Thank you, Terry and Tabitha, for your expert guidance.”

  They both shrugged. “Whatever,” said Terry.

  “We figured we owed you one for the crocodile save,” said Tabitha.

  Terry turned to Storm. “You’re good with that boomerang.”

  Storm actually blushed and lovingly tapped the new boomerang tuck
ed under her belt (she’d left the first one in the swamp with the croc). “Thanks.”

  “Maybe you’re half Palawa, too,” said Terry with what looked like it might’ve been a grin. It was hard to tell. His face was still dirty from that mud pie fight.

  “Come on, you guys,” said Tommy. “We’re only like a hundred feet away from snatching the two opals we need to set Mom and Dad free!”

  Suddenly, we heard an explosion.

  The second waterfall went shooting sideways, opening up like a parted curtain.

  When the smoke, dust, and spray cleared, I could see something glistening in the shaft of sunlight cutting through the waterfall.

  It was gold.

  I figured it might be covered with jewels, too.

  Because it had to be one of Bloody Sword Bonito’s stolen statues!

  CHAPTER 32

  The seven of us went racing up the narrow path along the cliff.

  “Coming through,” shouted Tommy, elbowing his way through the pack.

  “Careful, Tommy,” Storm shouted after him. “You might trip on a rock then slip and fall to your death!”

  “Or I might nab Charlotte Badger before she escapes from that cave with our two opals!” He kicked his legs into high gear.

  “Children?” wheezed Uncle Richie, who was huffing and puffing and bringing up the rear. “I believe… a stealthier approach… might prove… more advantageous!”

  “We can’t let her get away!” shouted Beck.

  “And I want one of those golden statues!” I hollered.

  “Bickford?” cried Uncle Richie, his voice fading behind me. “Keep your eyes on the prize! Stay focused. All we want are those two opals.”

  “Plus the statues!” I shouted back.

  “We’re treasure hunters, Uncle Richie!” said Beck. “This is a twofer: A two for one deal we can’t pass up!”

  Meanwhile, Terry and Tabitha had scurried up the scrubby rocks jutting out from the face of the cliff and were forging their own, much more rugged, path toward the waterfall and cave.