Smells Like Treasure

by Suzanne Selfors

Shouting and barking filled the air. “They’re coming back!” Hercules let go of Homer’s arm and ran into the house. The gardeners fled in all directions, like the rabbits had fled the rabbit barn. Homer needed no convincing, nor did Dog. They followed Hercules down the hallway, the stripes of his rugby shirt their guiding light.

  “You won’t believe how many bones I’ve broken just because I live in a house filled with Neanderthals.” Hercules dashed around the corner, then started up a stairway. “And don’t let them tempt you with Ping-Pong. That little ball might weigh no more than a wad of cotton, but when it’s hurled at you at the speed of light, well, it can get lodged in very uncomfortable places. Hurry!”

  Hurrying was easier said than done. Homer wrapped an arm around Dog’s middle and half-pulled, half-carried him up the stairs.

  “And then there was the time they wanted me to play badminton,” Hercules said. By the time Homer and Dog reached the top, Hercules was at the end of the next hallway, his voice fading around the corner. “They threw me over the net.”

  Two corners later, Homer lost sight of Hercules and could no longer hear his voice. “Hercules!” Homer called. He’d tried to keep a mental map of the journey, but he’d been so worried about escaping that he hadn’t paid close enough attention. And he hadn’t bothered to take a compass reading, either. As he skidded to a stop, Dog bumped into his calves. A long hallway stretched before them, lined on both sides with blue doors. “What do we do now?” Homer asked Dog.

  “In here, Mr. Pudding.” Baldwin stepped out of a room at the very end of the hall. He’d changed out of his chauffeur’s uniform and now wore a butler’s black suit with a white bow tie and a striped vest. He motioned them down the hall. “Mr. Simple has ordered breakfast. He prefers to eat in his room. Do you have any special dietary requirements or requests?”

  “Yes,” Homer said as he caught his breath. “I mean, no, I’ll eat anything. But I need my backpack. It’s very important. Romulus took it.”

  “I see.” Baldwin tapped a finger to his chin. “If Romulus took it, then it will probably end up in the coliseum.” He pulled a little notebook from his vest pocket. “I’ll add your backpack to the list of items that need to be retrieved.” He read from his list. “A washing machine, a golf cart, a jumbo pack of toilet paper, two maids, and now, a backpack. After breakfast I will prepare for a clandestine trip to the coliseum.”

  “Thank you,” Homer said.

  “And what about your hound? What does he like to eat for breakfast?”

  “He likes pancakes,” Homer said. “Oh, there’s something else. I’m going to get a delivery at noon.”

  “Very good, Mr. Pudding. I shall bring it to you.” After a little bow, Baldwin strode up the hall.

  A personal butler comes in very handy, Homer realized. Perhaps drawing Hercules’s name from the top hat hadn’t been bad luck after all. Homer considered this as he stepped into Hercules’s bedroom.

  The opulence of the Simples’ mansion had not made its way to Hercules’s room, which was as boring as a motel room. Just a bed, a single window, a desk, a chair, and a bookshelf. “We’re safe in here,” Hercules explained. His first-aid kit sat on his desk. “This is the servants’ wing. I moved here last year, and my stupid brothers and sister haven’t found me yet. I can get a good night’s sleep without having to worry about being tackled.”

  Homer worried about his backpack being tackled. Would any of his equipment survive? Uncle Drake had given him the Borington Binoculars and the night vision headlamp. If he’d been in his own room, he could have distracted himself from his worries with one of his maps or adventure books. But Hercules kept only dictionaries on his shelf. “Is this what you read?” Homer asked, running his hand across their spines.

  “Mostly. I have to study a lot to win those spelling bees. But my brothers and sister are bound to find my hiding place one day. When they do, I won’t have a single dictionary left. They’ll take them just like they took my trophy.” Hercules opened his closet door and started rooting around in a pile of clothes. “I like to memorize definitions. When everything else is spinning out of control, a word is solid. That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”

  “No, it doesn’t sound stupid.” Homer pulled The Complete Dictionary of the English Language off the shelf. “I do the same thing. When I’ve had a really bad day at school, I read my maps. They take me someplace else.”

  Hercules changed into a new rugby shirt, one with orange and yellow stripes. “The other one was covered in Brutus hair,” he explained. “Do you need a new shirt? I bet yours is wet with Brutus slobber.”

  “No, I’m good.” Fortunately, Homer’s clothing had proven to be slobber resistant. He’d have to tell Mr. Tuffletop about that.

  Homer set the massive dictionary on the desk and fanned through its pages. “Was it hard to win the world championship?”

  “Very. Do you want to know what my winning word was?”

  “Okay.”

  “It was honorificabilitudinity.”

  “That’s a word?”

  “Yep. It means ‘honorableness.’ The ablative plural is honorificabilitudinitatibus. That’s one of the longest words in the English language.” He emerged from the closet holding a helmet. “Here, you can borrow this.” He tossed it to Homer.

  Homer caught the helmet. “Thanks.” Then he set it aside. “I would like to live my life with honori… honorif… honor—whatever it was.”

  “Honorificabilitudinity.”

  Homer checked his watch again, hoping that some kind of miracle had occurred and time had flown by and it was noon. Of course it hadn’t. The dials spun, revealing the time in Lofty Spires, London, and Cairo. “Wait a minute,” Homer said, rotating one of the dials. “We’re in a different time zone than Lorelei. She’s three hours ahead of us. That means she’s already seen her clues. She has a head start.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair.” Hercules sat on his bed and folded his arms.

  “It isn’t fair.” Homer checked his watch again. Anything was possible with a three-hour head start. “What if she’s already found the coin?”

  “Then I won’t have to go on a quest,” Hercules said happily. He coughed and looked at his feet. “I mean, that would be really terrible.”

  “I know you don’t want to go on this quest,” Homer said, pacing between the bed and the closet. “But I do. Maybe I can’t beat Lorelei, but I want the chance to try to beat her. If she’s got a three-hour head start, I’m doomed.”

  Dog pricked up his ears as a knock sounded on the bedroom door. Homer yanked it open. “What are you doing?” Hercules cried, crawling under the bed. Homer had forgotten all about the dangerous Simple siblings. He was hoping to find a delivery with his name on it. But instead he found a little wheeled cart waiting in the hallway. Three silver domes sat on a white tablecloth. Homer pulled the cart inside. “Who is it?” Hercules asked from under the bed.

  “I think it’s breakfast.”

  Lovely, tantalizing scents filled the room as Homer lifted the first silver dome. Scrambled eggs, thick strips of maple bacon, and six pieces of buttered toast were arranged on a china plate. “That’s your plate,” Hercules said, getting to his feet. Homer lifted the second dome, revealing a bone-shaped bowl filled with cut-up pieces of pancake. He set the bowl on the carpet next to Dog. Dog wagged his tail and began to inhale his meal.

  “What are you having?” Homer asked, grabbing a fork.

  Beneath the third dome was a plate of white toast, scrambled egg whites, and a cup of hot tea. “I have a nervous stomach,” Hercules explained.

  Homer couldn’t imagine turning down bacon. Even when he had the flu, he still loved bacon.

  Piling the eggs on top of his toast, Homer ate as quickly and as loudly as Dog. He hadn’t eaten anything since Zelda’s, and with each swallow his mind sharpened and his energy surged. A professional treasure hunter must be grateful for each and every hot meal. The places where treasures tend to hide, like caves, tombs,
and the bottom of the ocean, aren’t places where bacon is readily available, or any food for that matter. Once a quest is under way, it’s often a matter of feast or famine.

  After breakfast, Dog slept on a pile of dirty clothes. Hercules read one of his dictionaries. And Homer stared at his watch. “One more hour,” he announced.

  “Forty more minutes,” he said.

  “Thirty more minutes.” He ran to the window. No sign of a delivery truck. “Don’t you think I should wait downstairs?”

  “Too dangerous. Baldwin will bring the delivery the moment it arrives,” Hercules said.

  “Twelve minutes.” Homer paced.

  “Three minutes.”

  “One minute!” This was it. The watch’s alarm buzzed, startling Dog out of his dream world.

  A knock sounded on the door.

  23

  The Box of Clues

  Special delivery for Mr. Pudding,” Baldwin said after Homer had opened the door.

  “Thanks,” Homer said, grabbing the small box. Baldwin turned crisply on his heels and strode up the hall. After closing the bedroom door, Homer sank onto Hercules’s bed. Dog waddled over and sat at Homer’s feet.

  In wobbly handwriting, the box was addressed thusly:

  TO: That Chunky Kid in the Khaki Shorts

  CARE OF: That Namby-Pamby Kid Who’s

  Afraid of Everything

  The Simpleton Palace

  Lofty Spires

  Trepidation held Homer in its grip. What if he couldn’t do this? What if he failed?

  “Aren’t you going to open it?” Hercules asked.

  Thick strapping tape sealed the box. Homer reached for his Swiss army knife but then remembered it was in his stolen backpack. “Do you have scissors?”

  “No,” Hercules said. “Scissors are very dangerous. Do you know how many people slice off their fingers every year because of scissors?”

  Scissors had never frightened Homer, but the way Hercules was staring at him, his eyes blinking nervously, Homer began to tremble. It wasn’t the potential danger of scissors that induced the trembling—rather, it was the fact that Homer was about to face the truth. Whatever lay inside the box was all he’d have to work with. This was the moment of reckoning. He’d figure it out or lose to Lorelei. There was no going back.

  Had Uncle Drake taught him enough? Had Homer read enough treasure-hunting books, studied enough maps? Would he be smart enough to find the coin?

  With a shaky hand, he grabbed a butter knife from the breakfast cart and cut through the tape.

  The box’s flaps popped open.

  From out of the box, Homer pulled a plastic bear-shaped container of honey and two scrolls. He turned the box upside down to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. Upon unrolling the first scroll, a smile burst across his face. “It’s a map!” This was a huge advantage over Lorelei—because if there was anything Homer knew how to do, it was how to read a map. He knelt on the carpet and spread out the map. Hercules held down the two top corners. Dog lay on his stomach, resting his chin on one of the bottom corners.

  It was a simple map, drawn by Lord Mockingbird’s shaky hand. No longitude or latitude lines. No key to indicate scale. A north/south arrow sat in the upper right-hand corner. His Lordship had drawn a simple shape with an X marked in the shape’s center. There were no other markings on the page. The title read: WHERE I HID THE DOOHICKEY.

  “What’s a doohickey?” Homer asked.

  “It’s an unspecified object. I’m guessing he means the membership coin. I don’t know if you noticed, but Lord Mockingbird likes weird words.”

  “I noticed.”

  Hercules pointed to the center of the scroll. “X marks the spot. That should make it easier.”

  “Maybe,” Homer said. He pushed back his bangs and squinted at the scroll. The two lines that comprised the X were darker and thicker than any other lines on the map—meant to draw the eye. “The X could be a trick.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because Lord Mockingbird is a famous mapmaker. Well, he was famous, when he was younger. Anyway, only an amateur would mark his treasure with an X.” Homer ran his finger over the X. “Everyone thinks that pirates marked their treasures this way, but they didn’t. Why would they? It would give away the location. The only reason a pirate would mark an X on a map would be to misdirect someone.”

  “You think Lord Mockingbird is trying to misdirect you?”

  “Maybe.” Dog’s chin held the map in place while Homer unrolled the second scroll. “It’s a riddle of some sort.”

  Hercules smiled and leaned forward. “I love riddles. I’m really good at them.” Then he frowned. “Oh, but I forgot. I can’t give you any answers.”

  The riddle was written in the same wobbly handwriting. Homer read it out loud.

  If ever you meet a mycologist,

  A spore-loving, fungal find-ologist,

  He’ll tell you a tale,

  Blue whale in scale,

  That is sure to best a biologist.

  “There’s no such word as find-ologist,” Hercules said.

  “What’s a mycologist?” Homer asked.

  “I know that.” Hercules smiled proudly. “It’s an easy word to break down. The prefix, mycol, comes from the Greek for ‘fungi’ and the suffix, logy, comes from the Greek for ‘branch of knowledge.’ So a mycologist is a person who studies fungi. That’s plural for fungus.”

  Homer tapped his finger on the page. “A mycologist would want to find fungus. So he’s a fungal find-ologist.”

  “I guess so. But it’s still not a real word.”

  Homer picked up the plastic honey bear. “So what’s the honey for?” He read the riddle again. “I don’t get it. How does this all fit together?” He looked hopefully at Hercules. “Have you figured it out?”

  Hercules shook his head. “No. But even if I had I couldn’t tell you the answer. But I haven’t.”

  This made Homer feel a bit better. If the World’s Spelling Bee champion hadn’t solved the riddle, then maybe Lorelei hadn’t been able to solve it, either. “Maybe you should focus on the map,” Hercules said. “Since that’s your specialty.”

  “There’s not a lot to go on. I’m guessing that the shape is an island,” Homer said. “But I don’t really know. I don’t even know what part of the world it’s in. I don’t even know if the island is surrounded by freshwater or salt water—if it even is an island.” A big rush of disappointment hit Homer hard, and he slumped against the side of the bed. He knew the symbols and codes that had been used on maps throughout history, and that could have been his big advantage on this quest. But this map was like a child’s drawing. “What am I supposed to do? No one could figure this out. Lord Mockingbird is crazy.”

  “Torch thinks he’s crazy. She called him a crazy old man at one of our meetings.” Hercules lowered his voice. “I think he’s crazy, too. He’s the one who hired me. Look at me. I’m the last person who should be in a treasure-hunting club. I break out in a cold sweat just trying to cross the road.” Dog groaned and rolled onto his side, presenting his belly to Hercules for a scratch. Hercules scooted away.

  Homer’s fate rested in a crazy man’s scribblings. He strummed his fingers on his knees. Lorelei was very clever—she’d proven that by finding the secret L.O.S.T. meeting. She’d proven it by surviving in a soup warehouse, by kidnapping Dog, and by taking over an evil lair. She was determined.

  “Determination is the treasure hunter’s oxygen,” Uncle Drake had once told Homer.

  Gripping the second scroll, Homer sat real straight, cleared his throat, and tried to work his brain around the limerick.

  If ever you meet a mycologist,

  A spore-loving, fungal find-ologist,

  He’ll tell you a tale,

  Blue whale in scale,

  That is sure to best a biologist.

  “The riddle is about a person who wants to find fungus, so wherever the coin is hidden must be a place where fungus gr
ows. Which could be—”

  “Basically anywhere in the world,” Hercules said.

  Homer’s chest deflated. “Yeah. Basically anywhere in the world.” He stretched out next to Dog and read the riddle again. “I don’t understand why a mycologist would tell a tale to a biologist. What tale? And what does a blue whale have to do with it?”

  “Maybe blue whales swim near the island,” Hercules said, then he smacked a hand over his mouth. “Crud. Was that helping too much? Did I just help you find the answer? Because if I did, I’ll have to tell the membership.”

  “No,” Homer said. “You didn’t help me find the answer. But maybe you should stop talking just in case.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  A little puddle of drool had dampened the map directly beneath Dog’s chin. Homer slid the map free and held it up. He turned it sideways, then turned it upside down. Then sideways, then upside down. “Hey,” he said, sitting up. “Do you think the island is shaped kinda like a mushroom?” Hercules nodded. “And a mushroom is a kind of fungus, isn’t it?” Hercules nodded again. “I wonder… Do you have an atlas?”

  “We had an atlas in the library downstairs, but Romulus took all the books to the coliseum for batting practice.”

  “What about your dictionaries? Do you have a dictionary that lists places?”

  “I have a dictionary of proper nouns,” Hercules said, jumping to his feet. He rushed to the bookshelf and grabbed a thick black book.

  “Maybe there’s a Fungus Island, or a town called Fungus.” Homer searched, but nothing turned up. “What about the honey bear? Honey, honeybee, honeydew, honeymoon. Hmmmm… no Honey Island or Honey Bear Island. Are you sure this dictionary is complete?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait a minute.” Homer’s fingers flew through the dictionary. “Mush. Mushroom. MUSHROOM ISLAND!” He slammed his palm onto the page. Startled, Dog jumped to his paws and growled. Hercules scooted backward, nervously eyeing Dog. “An uninhabited island shaped like a mushroom,” Homer read. “That’s it. That has to be it. An island shaped like a mushroom.” Homer got to his feet. “But I can’t be sure. I need to see the island’s shape, either a drawing or a photograph. Then I can compare it to Lord Mockingbird’s drawing. I need an atlas.”