Karen's Treasure Read online

  The author gratefully acknowledges

  Jan Carr

  for her help

  with this book.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 A Rainy Afternoon

  2 Two Houses

  3 Kristy’s Idea

  4 Detective Karen

  5 A Treasure Map

  6 More Hobbies

  7 Solving the Clues

  8 The Last Clue

  9 At the Library

  10 Stoneybrook Town Hall

  11 Digging for Treasure

  12 Photos in the Attic

  13 One Last Hole

  14 Treasure!

  15 The Coin Shop

  16 Henry Carmody

  17 The Big Phone Call

  18 Visiting Henry

  19 Henry’s Surprise

  20 Nancy’s Recital

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  A Rainy Afternoon

  Rain, rain, go away! Come again some other day!

  I looked out the window. Rain was streaming down. Boo and bullfrogs. It was not supposed to rain in the beginning of May. It was supposed to be sunny and bright. Oh, well, I would call Nancy anyway. Nancy is one of my best friends. She lives right next door. She could come over and we could play inside.

  Brrrrrng! I called Nancy. Her mom answered the phone.

  “Nancy is not home,” said Mrs. Dawes. “She is at ballet class.”

  I knew that Mrs. Dawes must be mistaken. “Nancy does not go to ballet class during the week,” I said. “She goes on Saturdays.”

  “Actually,” said Mrs. Dawes, “she goes a few times a week now. Nancy is going to be in a recital. So there are a lot of rehearsals.”

  A recital! Nancy had not told me about that. If Nancy had to rehearse all the time, then who would I play with?

  I hung up the phone and scuffed into the living room.

  “Nancy is busy,” I told Mommy, “and it is raining outside. I have nothing to do.”

  “Did you do your homework?” asked Mommy.

  “I finished every bit,” I said.

  “You could play with Andrew,” said Mommy.

  Andrew is my little brother. He is four going on five.

  “All right,” I sighed. Andrew was in his room playing with his Legos.

  “Here I am,” I said. “I have come to play with you.”

  Andrew put his arms around his Legos. He pulled them close.

  “Andrew,” I said, “do not be such a Lego hog.”

  “Well, I am not sure I want to play with you,” said Andrew. “You can be very bossy.”

  “I won’t be bossy,” I told him.

  “Promise?” he asked.

  “Promise.”

  But as soon as Andrew started building, I could not help myself. He was stacking the Legos wrong.

  “No,” I said. I grabbed some out of his hand. “Stack them like this.”

  “Karen,” said Andrew. “You promised you would not be bossy.”

  “I am not being bossy,” I told him. “I am showing you how to do it right.”

  Andrew grabbed the Legos back. “You think you are boss of the world,” he said.

  I stomped back downstairs.

  “Andrew does not want to play,” I told Mommy. (I did not tell her why.)

  Mommy was sitting on the couch reading a book. Reading? It was the middle of a weekday afternoon. Why was she just sitting around?

  “Why don’t you join me?” she suggested.

  “Hmmph,” I said. I got my book. Usually I love to read. But that afternoon I did not feel much like it. I stared at one page for a long, long time. Bo-ring! I kicked my legs against the chair. Bang! I turned the page and stared at the next page. Bang!

  Mommy looked up from her book. “Don’t you want to read?” she asked.

  “The story is not very good,” I said. “There is not much happening in it. It is too quiet.”

  “Sometimes it is nice to be quiet,” said Mommy.

  Bang! I kicked my legs against the chair again.

  “Everything is too quiet today,” I went on. “This house is too quiet.”

  Mommy laughed. “Maybe you are not used to being back at the little house,” she said.

  It was true. I was not. I had been back at the little house for only one day. And the little house was quiet — much quieter than the big house. At the big house there are lots of people. There is always something to do. But I did not say that to Mommy.

  Maybe you are wondering what I am talking about. Maybe you do not know anything about the big house and the little house. Maybe you do not even know who I am! Well, let me introduce myself. I am Karen Brewer and I am seven years old. I am in second grade at Stoneybrook Academy in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. And I live in two houses.

  I will tell you all about them.

  Two Houses

  I have not always had two houses. When I was little, Andrew and I lived in one big house. We lived with Mommy and Daddy, and we were one family. But Mommy and Daddy started to fight a lot. One night they sat down with Andrew and me. They told us they loved us very much. “But we do not love each other anymore,” they said. Then they told us they were getting divorced.

  Mommy, Andrew, and I moved to a little house. Daddy stayed at the big house. It is the house he grew up in. After awhile, Mommy met another man. His name is Seth. He and Mommy got married and he became my stepfather. Seth moved into the little house with us, and so did his pets. He has a dog named Midgie and a cat named Rocky. Andrew and I have little-house pets, too. We have Emily Junior, my pet rat, and Bob, Andrew’s hermit crab.

  That takes care of all the people and animals at the little house. Now I will tell you about the big house. A lot of people live at the big house. That is because Mommy is not the only one who got married again. Daddy got married again, too. He married a woman named Elizabeth, so she is now my stepmother. Elizabeth had four children already, and they are my stepbrothers and stepsister. Their names are Sam and Charlie (those two are really old — they go to high school), Kristy (she is a gigundoly wonderful stepsister), and David Michael (he is my age, but he goes to a different school).

  Do you think that is all the people in the big house? No, there are even more. Emily Michelle is two and a half. Daddy and Elizabeth adopted her from a faraway country called Vietnam. There is also Nannie. Nannie is Elizabeth’s mother. She came to help take care of Emily Michelle, but really she takes care of all of us.

  We also have plenty of big-house pets. There is Shannon, David Michael’s big Bernese mountain dog puppy. There is Boo-Boo, Daddy’s fat cat (he can be kind of cranky). And then there are Crystal Light the Second and Goldfishie. (They are Andrew’s and my fish.)

  Andrew and I switch houses every month. One month we live at the little house, and then the next month we go to the big house. At first this was a little confusing. Every time I switched houses, I forgot things. Now Andrew and I have two of almost everything: one for the big house and one for the little house. We have two sets of clothes, two sets of books, and two sets of toys. I have two bicycles and Andrew has two tricycles. I even have two best friends. Nancy Dawes (the prima ballerina) lives next door to me at the little house, and Hannie Papadakis lives down the street from the big house. Now, that is really lucky.

  Because Andrew and I have two of so many things, I made up a special name for us. I call us Andrew Two-Two and Karen Two-Two. (I thought of those names one day after my teacher read a book to my class. The book was called Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.)

  It is fun to be a two-two. I like having two house and two families. At least most of the time.

  Bang! I kicked my feet once again against the base
of the chair. Mommy put down her book and looked at me.

  “So, Miss Karen Brewer, is it hard for you to go back and forth every month?” she asked.

  “Not at all,” I answered. “I am very good at it.”

  Mommy smiled. “But it is a little quieter here than at the big house, isn’t it?” she said. “That is probably why you have to bang your feet and make so much noise.”

  I grinned at Mommy. “Well,” I said, “maybe sometimes it is hard.”

  Kristy’s Idea

  The next day, when I got home from school, Mommy greeted me at the door.

  “Well,” she said, “you will be glad to know that it is not going to be so quiet around the house this afternoon.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Kristy is coming to baby-sit.”

  “Yippee!” I cried. I love it when Kristy baby-sits. She is not only the best stepsister in the world. She is a gigundoly wonderful baby-sitter.

  “I am going to be on a committee at Andrew’s school,” said Mommy. “So I will be gone a lot of afternoons. Kristy will come over whenever I have to go to a meeting.”

  “Mommy is helping to get money for the school ship,” said Andrew.

  “For the scholarship,” said Mommy. “We want to raise money for children who cannot afford to go to the school.”

  That sounded like a nice idea. But I did not wait around to hear the details. I ran to call Nancy. I was sure she would want to come over when she heard that Kristy would be baby-sitting.

  “Hello, Karen,” said Nancy when she answered the phone. “I am sorry, but I cannot talk now. I am on my way to a rehearsal.”

  “A rehearsal?” I said. “Again?”

  Nancy giggled. “Karen,” she said, “you are a two-two, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I have to go to rehearsals all the time because I am a tutu!”

  I did not laugh. I was sick of Nancy and her rehearsals. “Have fun,” I said before I hung up. (I did not mean it.)

  Kristy was in the doorway. She had heard my conversation with Nancy.

  “Nancy cannot come over?” she asked.

  “She is going to be in a ballet recital,” I said. “And she has to rehearse almost every afternoon.”

  “Hmm,” said Kristy. “I bet you miss her.”

  “I do,” I said sullenly.

  Kristy looked at me. “Well, maybe you wish you had something to do every afternoon,” she said. “Like Nancy does.”

  “I do not want to go to ballet class,” I said.

  “Maybe you wish you had another hobby,” said Kristy. “One that you would be interested in.”

  A hobby. That was a good idea. “What could it be?” I asked.

  Kristy sat next to me. Both of us put our chins in our hands. We were thinking hard.

  “I have a lot of hobbies already,” I said after a moment. “I am very good at knitting.” Kristy already knew that. Nannie had taught me how to knit when I was at the big house.

  “Do you want to start a knitting project?” asked Kristy.

  “No,” I said. “I want something more unusual.”

  “Hmm,” said Kristy. “How about gymnastics? You are good at that.”

  “No,” I said. “I would like to do something new. Something I have never tried before.”

  Kristy and I thought some more. When Mommy came home, I still did not have a hobby.

  “Hi, Mommy!” I called when she came in. I bounded up and danced in front of her. “Guess what! I am going to get a new hobby!”

  “That is nice,” said Mommy. “What is it?”

  “We do not know yet. But it is going to be something unusual. Something new.”

  Kristy picked up her knapsack to go home.

  “Oh,” she said. “Karen, I almost forgot. I brought you a book. It was a book I liked when I was your age.”

  Kristy handed me the book. The Mystery of Millersville Mansion. On the cover was a picture of a girl with a magnifying glass.

  Oh, goody! A detective story. Things were really beginning to liven up now. And soon I would get an exciting, new hobby.

  Detective Karen

  Kristy’s detective book was very good. It was all about a house with secret passages. By Saturday morning I had finished reading it. It gave me an idea. Maybe I could be a detective. That would be an excellent hobby for me.

  Pitter-pat. Pitter-pat. Outside, it was raining. Not again! “April showers bring May flowers.” May was supposed to be sunny.

  I called Nancy. Once again, she was at a rehearsal. Andrew appeared in the doorway of my room.

  “Do you want to play?” I asked. “We could play detective.”

  “Yes!” he cried.

  “I will be the chief,” I told him. “And you will be my deputy.”

  “What do detectives do?” asked Andrew.

  “Sometimes they investigate houses,” I said. “They find secret passages. Especially when the houses are very old.”

  “Cool,” said Andrew. “Do you think our house has secret passages?”

  “I am sure of it,” I said. (Really, I had no idea.)

  Just then Mommy passed by. She was carrying a stack of laundry.

  “Mommy!” I called.

  “Can you wait a minute, Karen?” she asked. “I have to put these clothes down.”

  I ran out to the hallway to follow her. “But I have a very important question,” I said.

  “All right,” said Mommy. She stopped in the hall.

  “How old is our house?” I asked.

  “Hmm,” said Mommy. She stared into the pile of laundry. “It was built in nineteen twenty, I think.”

  “Nineteen twenty! That really is old.” I turned to Andrew. “Deputy,” I said, “we are sure to find a secret passage.”

  I put on an old, floppy hat that Seth had once given me. It seemed like the perfect hat for a detective. Then I got out my magnifying glass. Now I looked just like the girl on the cover of the book.

  Andrew and I spent all morning investigating the house. Since I was the chief, I told him what to do.

  “First, knock on the walls,” I instructed. “If there is a secret passage behind a wall, the wall will sound hollow.”

  “Really?” Andrew’s eyes widened. He did exactly what I told him to do.

  When Andrew knocked on the walls in the living room, Midgie ran in. She barked at us.

  “Quiet, Midgie,” I said. “We cannot listen for secret passages when you are barking so loudly.”

  Then Andrew knocked on the walls in the kitchen. Seth popped his head into the doorway.

  “Hey,” he asked, “what is all the noise about?”

  “We are detectives,” I explained. I was trying hard to be patient. “And I am the chief. But it is very hard to be a detective when everyone keeps interrupting us.”

  Seth saluted me. “Sorry, Chief,” he said.

  I pushed the floppy hat farther up on my forehead. So far we had found no secret passages.

  “Let’s try the dining room next,” I said.

  “Can you do the knocking?” asked Andrew. “My hand is getting sore.”

  I sighed. Andrew is only four. It would be much better if I had a real deputy. But detectives must work with what they have.

  “Okay,” I said. “I will do the knocking now.”

  The walls of the dining room were covered with wood. The paneling was old, and the wood was filled with knots. Rap, rap! Rap, rap! I worked my way across the wall.

  “It is good to knock especially hard on the knots,” I told Andrew. “Like this.” I showed him.

  Bang! A chunk of wood fell out of the wall and onto the floor. Now the knot was a hole.

  “Cool,” said Andrew.

  But I knew it was not so cool. I had ruined the paneling in the dining room. When Mommy and Seth found out, I would be in Very Big Trouble.

  A Treasure Map

  I picked the knot up off the floor. I tried to fit it back into the hole. Hmm. It did
not fit exactly.

  “Let me see,” said Andrew.

  “Shhhh,” I told him. I did not want Mommy or Seth to come in. Not until I had fixed the knot.

  Andrew grabbed the magnifying glass out of my pocket.

  “Maybe something is inside,” he said.

  Andrew nudged me out of the way. He peered through the magnifying glass into the hole.

  “Wow!” he said. “There is something in here!” He stuck his fingers into the hole. “Something crinkly.”

  “Let me see.” I grabbed the magnifying glass. Sure enough, there was something in the hole. It looked like a piece of paper. It was rolled up like a scroll.

  “Can you pull it out?” I asked. Andrew’s fingers are smaller than mine. He squeezed them in and grabbed the edge of the paper.

  “Careful,” I said.

  When Andrew had pulled the paper halfway out, he looked up and grinned at me.

  “Good work, Deputy,” I told him. “I will take over now.”

  I worked the paper the rest of the way out of the hole. It was old and yellowed. I unrolled it very carefully. You will never guess what it was. It was a treasure map! I could not believe it.

  “Mommy!” I called. “Seth! Come quick!”

  Mommy and Seth came running. I knew that they would not care about the hole in the paneling now. I had found a treasure map. We were going to be rich.

  “It does look like a treasure map,” said Mommy. She smoothed the paper with her hands. “It looks as if it is a map of our backyard. That would be the hedge there. And that is a big tree, probably the big oak that you built the treehouse in.”

  At the top of the map were three clues. They said:

  1. 22 paces from RWSORAB KACB OORD.

  2. Turn and face ERED MAREST.

  3. Walk to the nearest QUERCUS COCCINEA.

  “The clues look as if they are in code,” Seth said.

  “What is that?” asked Andrew. He pointed to the bottom of the map. There was a signature.

  “ ‘Henry Carmody,’ ” I read carefully.

  “ ‘July thirteenth, nineteen thirty-five.’ ”

  Nineteen thirty-five! No wonder the paper was crumbly. This map was practically ancient.

  “What do you think, Seth?” asked Mommy. She looked at the signature. “Do you think the handwriting is a child’s or an adult’s?”