Texas Treasure Read online

  What’s your favorite treasure?

  “I have a teddy bear that used to be my mom’s, and now it’s mine. That’s my best treasure.” —Nava

  “Math because it teaches you to add and subtract.” —Jason

  “My electric piano.” —Joey

  “My school. School is very special to me because I learn a lot and have fun. That’s why it’s my favorite treasure.” —Harrison

  “My family, of course. My family is my favorite treasure.” —Lia

  Visit all the states with Finn and Molly in

  #1 Let’s Mooove!

  #2 The Show Must Go On

  #3 Texas Treasure

  Coming soon!

  #4 Escape from Camp California

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Courtney Sheinmel and Bianca Turetsky

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2020 by Stevie Lewis

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Sheinmel, Courtney, author. | Turetsky, Bianca, author. | Lewis, Stevie, illustrator.

  Title: Texas treasure / Courtney Sheinmel and Bianca Turetsky; illustrated

  by Stevie Lewis.

  Description: New York: Random House, [2020] | Series: Magic on the map; #3 | “A STEPPING STONE BOOK.” | Summary: “Parker twins Finn and Molly help new friend Carlos follow a treasure map left to him by his grandfather”—Provided by publisher. Includes authors’ note about the Alamo and Texas state facts.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019001905 | ISBN 978-1-9848-9569-1 (trade) | ISBN 978-1-9848-9571-4 (ebook) | ISBN 978-1-9848-9570-7 (lib. bdg.)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Maps—Fiction. | Buried treasure—Fiction. | Recreational vehicles—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Twins—Fiction. | Alamo (San Antonio, Tex.)—Fiction. | Texas—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.S54124 Tex 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781984895714

  This book has been officially leveled by using the F&P Text Level Gradient™ Leveling System.

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v5.4

  a

  For William Buda & Archie Sheinmel

  —C.S.

  For Peter, Andreas, and Luci

  —B.T.

  The authors wish to thank Machaia McClenny for her generous help with the manuscript.

  Contents

  Cover

  Travel with Finn and Molly in Magic on the Map!

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  United States of America Map

  Prologue

  Chapter One: Finn’s Turn

  Chapter Two: Back in Time?

  Chapter Three: Cut!

  Chapter Four: Follow That Kid

  Chapter Five: X Marks the Spot

  Chapter Six: Letters and Numbers

  Chapter Seven: The Portal

  Chapter Eight: The Secret Passageway

  Chapter Nine: The Amazing Mirror Maze

  Chapter Ten: The River Walk Diner

  Chapter Eleven: Old Friends

  Chapter Twelve: The Long Way Home

  Authors’ Note

  Texas State Facts

  Texas Map

  On the last day of second grade, twins Finn and Molly Parker came home to find a camper in their driveway. It was white with orange and yellow stripes, a rounded roof, and three windows on each side. It looked just like an ordinary camper.

  That night, Molly and Finn couldn’t sleep. They snuck outside to check out the camper. Finn climbed into the driver’s seat and spun the wheel around. He and Molly knew that they couldn’t go anywhere. They didn’t have the keys. And besides, they were too young to drive!

  But something weird happened…the camper started talking to them. It wasn’t an ordinary camper, after all—it had a PET!

  Not a pet like a cat or a dog, or even an iguana. This PET stood for:

  Planet

  Earth

  Transporter.

  PET explained that it used the information superhighway to travel anywhere in the world, in a matter of seconds. And then, faster than you could say, “Buckle up,” the camper took off!

  When it landed, the doors popped open. “I’ll be back when your work here is done,” PET said, and it shut down.

  Molly and Finn didn’t know where they were or what in the world their work was. But they knew there was only one way to find out, and they headed outside.

  Where will the magic camper take Finn and Molly next? You’ll just have to keep reading to find out….

  The third night of summer vacation was a hot one. But Finn Parker didn’t turn on his air-conditioner. He wanted to make sure he heard the click of his parents’ bedroom door closing. That click would mean that they’d gone to sleep for the night and the coast was clear.

  His parents were taking a long time getting to bed. Finn felt his eyelids growing heavy, and he shook himself awake.

  No. No. NO! he told himself. Don’t go to sleep. You can’t go to sleep.

  He would not go to sleep.

  But Finn was really tired. He hadn’t slept much since school let out. Coach Russo had made his Little League team, the Moonwalkers, run around doing ground-ball drills all day. And then there was the camper.

  The magic camper, with a talking PET (aka Planet Earth Transporter) that could travel anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds! Just two days ago, Dad had traded with one of the other professors at the college where he worked—his car for Professor Vega’s camper. Dad didn’t know the camper was magic. It was possible that even Professor Vega didn’t know.

  Finn and his twin sister, Molly, had discovered the magic that first night. They snuck into the camper after bedtime. PET turned on and whisked them off to Colorado, where they rescued a cow named Snowflake. The next night, they went to New York, where they met the star of Molly’s favorite TV show, Hallie Hampton, who sent them on a scavenger hunt all around the city.

  Finn knew exactly where he wanted to go this time…as soon as his parents’ door clicked shut.

  He decided he’d rest while he waited for the click. He closed his eyes and waited. And waited. And…

  There was a knock on his door. Finn’s eyelids flicked open. Molly was standing in the doorway. “Finn?” she whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you fall asleep?” Molly asked.

  Finn sat up quickly. “What? No. Of course not!”

  “Shh,” Molly said. Her eyes flashed toward their parents’ bedroom door. “You’ll wake them up.”

  “I didn’t fall asleep,” Finn whispered.

  “Because if you’re too tired—”

  �
��I’m wide awake,” Finn said. He swung his legs out of bed. He was in his pajamas, but he didn’t need to change into regular clothes. As long as he had his trusty Moonwalkers hat on, he was good to go.

  He and Molly crept down the stairs and out of the house, closing the front door softly behind them. They walked down the driveway and stepped up into the main room of the camper, which was a kitchen, a dining room, and a bedroom, all rolled into one. The counter turned into a table, the couch turned into a bed, and the cabinet turned into a TV.

  Molly walked to the very back. A map of the world was pinned onto a bulletin board. So far, she and Finn had put three pushpins in the map: one in Colorado, one in New York, and one in their home state of Ohio, where they’d lived all their lives.

  Molly touched each pushpin. The tips of her fingers felt little sparks. “I wonder where the next one will go,” she said.

  “I know exactly where it’s going,” Finn said. “Since you picked where we went last night, I’m picking tonight.”

  “Where?” Molly asked.

  “I can give you a hint,” Finn said. “The Reds are playing there this weekend!”

  “The Reds…the Reds…,” Molly said. “Is that something about baseball?”

  “Duh,” Finn said. “They’re a team: the Cincinnati Reds.”

  “You want to go to Cincinnati? Right here in Ohio?”

  “No. I want to go where they’re playing their next game,” Finn said.

  “And where is that?”

  “As PET would say, that’s for me to know and you to find out. Come on!”

  Finn ran toward the big leather seats in the front of the camper. “I’m coming,” Molly said from right behind him.

  “Remember—I get the driver’s seat,” Finn said.

  “I know, I know.”

  Molly sat in the passenger seat. The twins buckled their seat belts. Finn put his hands on the wheel and looked at the screen on the dashboard. “C’mon, PET,” he said. “Wake up! I’m ready to pick my destination!”

  But the screen remained dark.

  “Make sure you’re thinking of your destination,” Molly said. “I was thinking of mine when PET turned on the last time.”

  “I’m thinking of it,” Finn said. He pushed the POWER button next to PET’s screen a bunch of times. Nothing happened. Seconds ticked by and turned into minutes.

  “I guess maybe…maybe the magic ran out,” Molly said. “It’s too bad. I made a new friendship bracelet to give away.”

  Finn took off his Moonwalkers cap and shook his head. “It’s not fair,” he said. “PET picked the first destination, and you picked the second one. I never got a turn.”

  Molly undid her seat belt and stood up. “If we’re not going anywhere, we should go back to bed,” she said.

  Finn put his cap back on. He undid his seat belt. But just as he started to stand up from his seat, the screen lit up. The word “WELCOME” appeared in all red letters.

  “PET!” Finn cried. “Look, Molly! There’s magic left, after all!”

  “Sorry, kids,” PET’s robotic voice said. “My server needed to warm up.”

  “Yay, you’re back!” Molly said.

  “Back and ready to go,” PET said. “Finn has chosen our next destination.”

  “Holy guacamole!” Finn cried. “It really worked!”

  “You two better buckle up.”

  The twins pulled at their seat belts and clicked them into place, just in time. The camper started to hum, and then it shook. There was a flash of white light, and they were off!

  Molly pressed her nose to the window. “I see mockingbirds!” she cried.

  “Where?” Finn asked.

  “Over there—see their gray and white feathers?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said.

  The camper flew over thin green trees, stretches of sand dunes, and a canyon with red rocks.

  “Is that the Grand Canyon?” Finn asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. This doesn’t look as long or as deep,” Molly replied.

  “It looks pretty long and deep to me,” Finn said. “But I don’t see what I’m really looking for.”

  “I can’t help if I don’t know what it is,” Molly said.

  “Minute Maid Park,” Finn said. “The stadium where the Houston Astros play.”

  “Houston?” Molly said. “The city in Texas?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wow—the Lone Star State,” Molly said. “Home of the Rio Grande and the NASA space center!”

  “And the Houston Astros, who are hosting the Cincinnati Reds tonight,” Finn said. “The Astros are a good team. Maybe the Reds need my help—like, they could need me to catch a fly ball, or even fill in for one of the guys.”

  “I don’t think they’d let a kid fill in for a major-league baseball player,” Molly said. “No matter how good you are.”

  “We won’t know until we get there,” Finn said. The camper landed with a thud. “Whoa! We’re here already? At Minute Maid Park?”

  PET didn’t answer. Instead it said what it always said when the twins arrived at a new destination: “I’ll be back when your work here is done.”

  And with that, the screen went dark. The camper doors popped open. Molly and Finn undid their seat belts and stepped outside into a grassy courtyard.

  “Whew, it’s hot,” Molly said. “Even hotter than Ohio. Good thing I’m in this sundress. I love the cowboy boots, too.”

  “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no,” Finn said. “Do not tell me I’m wearing an Astros jersey! I can’t do that to the Reds!”

  He looked down to see what he was wearing: a plaid button-down shirt, jeans, and a wide belt with a big silver buckle.

  “Oh, phew,” he said. “Our only problem is finding the stadium. Let’s ask someone…maybe that guy.”

  He pointed to a man in a brown jacket and a matching wide-brimmed hat.

  “Why would someone be wearing a jacket in this weather?” Molly asked.

  Finn shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We’re asking him for directions, not fashion advice.”

  Before Finn could step forward to talk to him, the man threw up his arms and shouted, “What are we going to do? General Santa Anna and his men are coming!”

  “Santa Anna…Santa Anna,” Molly said. “That name is kind of familiar.”

  “Not to me,” Finn said. “But from the sound of it, I doubt it’s anyone I’d want to meet.”

  Another man strode across the courtyard. He was carrying a crate under his arm and wearing a fur hat with a striped tail hanging off the back. Maybe he was Santa Anna! Finn and Molly scooted back and hid behind a wall, just in case.

  Other people came forward and gathered around the man in a semicircle.

  “Is that who I think it is?” a woman asked loudly.

  “I think so,” a man answered.

  “I heard he killed a hundred bears in one season,” the woman said.

  “I heard he can ride a streak of lightning,” the man replied.

  “Oh my goodness,” Molly whispered to Finn. “That man with the crate—I think he’s Davy Crockett!”

  “Now, that name is familiar,” Finn said. “Does he work with Dad at the college?”

  “Of course not,” Molly said. “We learned about Davy Crockett in Ms. Gitty’s class. Back in the olden days, he was a soldier and a politician. He died in the Battle of the Alamo.”

  “If he died, then he’s definitely not the guy standing in front of us, because that guy is alive.”

  “I know. But look at what he’s standing in front of. It looks like an old church, right?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So that’s just what the Alamo looked like in our social studies textbook,” Molly said. “The battle that happened there was the most important battle in the whole Texas Revo
lution. It happened almost two hundred years ago, in 1836. That must be why everyone’s wearing funny clothes. They’re olden-day clothes.”

  “Are you saying they’re all ghosts?” Finn asked, his voice quivering.

  “No, of course not,” Molly said.

  “Phew.”

  “I’m saying we’ve gone back in time.”

  “That’s not possible,” Finn whispered, his face suddenly pale. “PET told us it wasn’t a time machine.”

  “PET is magic. Anything is possible.”

  The man put down the crate he was holding and climbed up onto it. “I’m Davy Crockett!” he cried.

  “Holy guacamole,” Finn said softly.

  “You may know me as the King of the Wild Frontier,” Crockett said. “General Santa Anna and his men are on their way here right now. They want us to surrender so that Texas remains a part of Mexico. But I will help you fight for an independent Texas!”

  There were cheers from the crowd.

  “And afterward,” he continued, “we’ll have a fandango to celebrate, and I’ll play my fiddle. There’s a lot of work to do before that, though. Who’s with me?”

  Molly’s and Finn’s eyes met. They knew they were thinking the exact same thing. And when they spoke, they said the exact same thing: “We are!”

  The twins rushed over to Davy Crockett.

  “CUT!” someone shouted. A man in a T-shirt and shorts strode toward the kids. “What do you two think you’re doing?”

  “Um…this is going to be hard to explain,” Finn said. “We’re from the future, so we know what’s going to happen in this battle and, well…” He lowered his voice. “Mr. Crockett is going to die.”

  “Now, listen here—”

  “It will be okay,” Molly cut in. “Really. My brother and I are here to help.”