by Petra James
She turned around slowly, putting her hand on the rock to steady herself.
The rock was cold and wet. She looked up. Water was trickling down steadily from above.
I bet these were falls once upon a time, she thought.
As she looked back down at her feet, she could see something glistening in the corner of her eye.
There was a gold coin lying on the ground.
Arkie picked it up and studied it. The coin had two faces on it, and her breath quickened.
She knew what this was. They had studied Roman mythology with Mrs Malakoff in class last week.
It was Janus, the Roman god with two faces. One face looked forwards to the future, and the other looked back to the past.
Kind of like TJ and me, thought Arkie. We’re looking at the past to find something in the future. But, there’s something else about Janus, thought Arkie. And then she remembered: Janus was also the god of doorways.
Doorways!
Arkie clutched the gold coin in her hand. It was a sign. Septimus had been here. He must have been. And he was telling her something.
Arkie knelt down to look more closely at the area where she’d found the coin. And that’s when she saw a thin seam of light peeking out from the base of the cliff.
She stood up and waved excitedly to TJ.
TJ waved back and pointed at her ear, telling Arkie to use Lexi.
‘TJ,’ Arkie shouted through Lexi. ‘I think there’s something behind this cliff. I can see some light.’
‘But how is that geologically possible?’ said TJ. ‘It looks like solid rock.’
‘I know but I don’t think it is,’ said Arkie. ‘I’ve just found a gold coin with Janus on it.’
‘Janus, the god of beginnings,’ said TJ. ‘And endings.’
Arkie was already clawing at the vegetation on the rock face, pulling down the vines that covered it.
Her heart was pumping. Was this it? The entrance to the city of untold gold. The Lost City of Z?
Arkie scanned the face of the cliff for some kind of door, or opening. Maybe there’s a hidden mechanism, she thought. A lever that activates the door.
Arkie waved at TJ, half hoping she would walk across the bridge to help her. But she knew it was too dangerous.
TJ waved back and pointed at the sky.
‘WHAT?’ mouthed Arkie. Her Lexi was filled with static. Something was interfering with the reception.
TJ jumped up and down and pointed at the sky again. Cleo barked loudly.
There was a deep rumble of thunder and a streak of lightning.
Arkie looked up. She could see now what they were trying to tell her. It was about to rain. And rain in the Amazon is rain like no other. It’s fast and furious and swallows the rainforest in clouds of grey.
Then she saw a long, thin piece of stone protruding at an angle from the rock.
She pulled it down and, slowly, a small part of the rock began to heave. Arkie was astonished. It’s opening!
Everything happened at once then.
As heavy rain began to fall from the sky, water cascaded down from the cliff above.
A long forgotten waterfall was springing to life as a river higher in the mountain flooded and raced over the side of the cliff.
Arkie was drenched in a second. Was the rock still opening? She couldn’t see – it was hidden by the blur of water, clinging like heavy sheets of wet plastic to the side of the cliff.
For a split second, Arkie hovered on the edge of a decision: should she push forwards, through the waterfall, trying to squeeze through the opening; or go backwards, across the bridge?
The sound of TJ screaming ‘RUN’ through Lexi shattered her thought.
She dashed on to the bridge as the roar of the waterfall behind her grew louder and louder.
Arkie could just see TJ, through the mist, on the other side of the cliff – her hand to her mouth. Cleo was barking and jumping up at her legs.
I’m not going to make it, thought Arkie as she stumbled on the bridge. She couldn’t cross it carefully this time.
She had to run across it. As fast as she could.
The waterfall was spewing in a torrent, chasing her with fury, as she reached the middle planks of the bridge with water sloshing around her feet. The weight of the water would soon topple the bridge. And her.
She could feel the bridge starting to break up and fall away just as a hand grabbed her arm.
Clem Sparkle was beside her, hovering in the air with a motorised backpack. He lassoed a rope around her waist, which was already tied to his own waist.
‘Hold on to the rope,’ he yelled. ‘Quickly. Don’t think. Just do it!’
As the last pieces of rotten wood plummeted to the rapids below, Clem pulled Arkie free. With the rain lashing at her face, she swung in the air below him as he flew them back to the side of the mountain – a few hundred metres up the path from Cleo and TJ.
Arkie collapsed on the ground. ‘Thank you,’ she gasped.
‘Sparkles don’t forget their debts,’ said Clem as he untied the rope.
‘But what are you doing here?’ said Arkie. ‘What’s Quincy doing here?’
Clem looked pained. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘My father would —’
‘Your father would what?’ said Arkie. ‘Is Quincy being held hostage too? Is your father blackmailing him? Quincy would never betray us. NEVER!’
Clem looked at Arkie. ‘I’m sorry for everything, Arkie.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Arkie. ‘I don’t understand —’
‘I have to go,’ said Clem, looking at TJ and Cleo who were running towards them. ‘I shouldn’t be here. This hunt is over.’
‘But I didn’t find the entrance to the lost city,’ said Arkie. ‘At least not for certain.’
‘But you did find your answer,’ said Clem. ‘Dying to find the city: that cost is too high.’
‘Clem, please don’t go,’ said Arkie. ‘Not yet. I need to talk to you. I need to know what it’s all about.’
Clem looked at her. His dark eyes seemed so sad.
‘YOU, ARKIE,’ he shouted as the motorized backpack lifted him higher and higher off the ground, into the air and away from Arkie.
His words echoed around the valley.
Debrief
‘So the story of the Lost City of Z is still untold,’ said Arkie.
She was sitting on the leather couch in the THinc Tank with TJ, Edie and Cleo, eating a toasted sandwich and drinking hot chocolate.
‘For now, anyway,’ said Edie. ‘Technology has made it possible to map geographical areas in ways that were impossible before. And now we have a definite clue to location. I don’t think it’s the last we’ll be hearing about the city of untold gold.’
Arkie touched the gold coin in her pocket. And at least we know a little more of Septimus’s story now, she thought. She liked to think he had found the city of gold.
She had taken a photo of the coin and emailed it to [email protected] but k.napper hadn’t replied yet. Too busy scheming, thought Arkie, as she checked her empty inbox, again.
‘But what about Clem Sparkle?’ said TJ. ‘Is he a good guy? He didn’t hang around long enough for me to ask him.’
‘Or is he a bad guy with good bits?’ said Arkie.
‘But that would make him murky,’ said TJ, ‘and I really don’t like murky. It’s totally uninspiring.’
‘But situations are seldom good or bad, TJ,’ said Edie. ‘And people even less so.’
‘Except for Sebastian,’ said Arkie. ‘He seems to be consistently bad.’
‘He wasn’t always like that, Arkie,’ said Edie.
‘What happened to the twins’ mother, Edie?’ said TJ.
‘She died when the twins were little,’ said Edie. ‘From a mystery virus. It was very sudden and very sad. Sebastian had to see his own children experiencing the loss he felt as a child when our mother died. I think that pain helped shaped him into the person he has become.
Someone who is closed emotionally. He feels nothing now. It’s safer that way.’
‘And Quincy?’ said Arkie. ‘How does he fit into all this?’ She had to ask the question but part of her didn’t want to hear the answer. It was like a raw wound inside her. She felt as though it would never heal.
‘Quincy was Ted and Sebastian’s best friend at school,’ said Edie. ‘It’s fine to share a best friend when you’re getting along, but when you’re not, friendships become complicated.’ Edie paused. ‘Sebastian was devastated when Quincy stayed with Ted. And when he was a child, if he wanted something, he’d persevere until he got it. If Quincy is working with him, Sebastian now has THinc’s secret weapon.’
Arkie remembered her dad’s words: Quincy is the head of THinc. We need his brains. And then she thought of Clem’s motorized backpack and Cate Sparkle’s shoes: shoes that sparked and made her super-fast. They were Quincy inventions. They had to be.
‘But Quincy is my godfather?’ said Arkie.
‘He’s the twins’ godfather too,’ said Edie.
‘So he’s suffering from divided loyalties?’ said TJ.
‘Possibly,’ said Edie.
‘And we still don’t know why Sebastian’s doing all this,’ said TJ.
Arkie was silent. She hadn’t told TJ and Edie what Clem had said to her. His words didn’t make any sense. She didn’t want to repeat them and make them seem more real.
How could all this be about her?
Was it her fault her parents had been kidnapped?
I need to find Clem again, she thought. He has the answers to my questions.
What Next?
‘TJ,’ shouted Arkie, coming upstairs from the THinc Tank a couple of hours later. ‘Where are you? Edie’s just heard from one of her contacts. She thinks she might have a fix on Sebastian and ZETA. We’re going to check it out before the next clue turns up.’
Arkie looked in TJ’s bedroom.
Cleo was asleep on TJ’s bed but there was no sign of TJ.
Arkie looked in the kitchen.
TJ needed brain food every couple of hours so the kitchen was one of her favourite places.
The remains of a cheese and tomato sandwich were on the bench, next to TJ’s computer.
Strange, thought Arkie. It’s not like TJ to leave food. And she’s never far from her computer.
The screen was black but it sprang to light when Arkie touched it. It was on SLEEP so TJ had obviously been looking at it recently.
TJ’s MeMy page was open and there was a post-it note stuck to the side of the computer screen.
Arkie scanned MeMy and saw there was a new message on the message board:
Arkie frowned. There was something suspicious about this message.
How did Quizzal know that TJ had just got back from the Amazon?
Arkie read the message again and again, the feeling that something was very wrong swelling in her head.
Only six people knew TJ had been to the Amazon:
1. Arkie
2. Edie
3. Cate Sparkle
4. Clem Sparkle
5. Quincy
6. Sebastian Sparkle.
Only three people also knew TJ was waiting to hear from Junior Genius today:
1. Arkie
2. Edie
3. Cate Sparkle.
Of these three people, she could rule herself and Edie out.
That left only one name common to both lists.
One person who had stayed at Arkie’s house, collecting information, before vanishing in the night:
She knew TJ was waiting to hear from the Junior Genius producers today.
She knew TJ desperately wanted to be on the show.
Cate Sparkle must have told her father, and he had set a trap.
A trap for TJ.
First published 2012 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
Copyright © Petra James 2012
Illustrations copyright © Roy Chen 2012
Copyright TJ’s Style File © Maddy Gerrard 2012
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
James, Petra.
James, Petra.
Untold gold / Petra James.
9781742611402 (pbk.)
Series: James, Petra. Arkie Sparkle: treasure
hunter ; 5.
For children.
Treasure
troves--Juvenile fiction.
A823.4
EPUB format: 9781743348796
Typeset by XOU Creative
Cover design by Mel Feddersen
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