Texas Treasure Page 3

  “No, we still have to go,” she said. “It could be the tenth stone on the ground.”

  “C’mon,” Carlos said, folding up the map. He and Molly headed back down the hall. Finn followed behind. Inside the room, Carlos counted to the tenth stone on the ground, then bent down and tried to lift it up. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Okay, it’s not ten stones,” Molly said. “Try taking ten steps from the doorway and checking that spot.”

  Carlos took ten steps. But the stone he was standing on wouldn’t budge, either.

  “What if X means the tenth ghost in here?” Finn said.

  “It doesn’t mean that,” Molly said.

  “Maybe it’s behind the tenth artifact on the wall,” Carlos said. He reached for a framed black-and-white photograph.

  “Hey there!” a guard called. “Hands off museum property!”

  Carlos jumped back quickly. “Sorry,” he said.

  “You and your friends should run along now,” the guard said.

  “Oh, please can we stay for a few more minutes?” Molly asked. “We’re working on a project…ah…a project for school.”

  “Isn’t school out for the summer?” the guard asked.

  “Summer school,” Molly explained. “We have a history project about the Texas Revolution due next week. Do you know anything about the subject?”

  The guard chuckled. “It just so happens I know nearly everything about the subject,” he said.

  “Oh!” Molly said. “Cool. I have so many questions. First of all, when was the Alamo built?”

  “The first stone was laid in 1744,” the guard said. “If you come this way, I can show you where it is….”

  The guard walked toward the hall. Molly looked over her shoulder and mouthed “Keep looking” to Finn and Carlos. Then she scurried along after the guard.

  “Wow, Molly figured out that X could mean ten, and now she got the guard off our backs,” Carlos said. “Your sister is smart as a whip!”

  “You don’t have to tell her that,” Finn said. “She already knows. Now, let’s check behind that tenth artifact.”

  Carlos quickly lifted the picture. “Nothing here,” he reported, and he put it back.

  “Hmm,” Finn said. “Well, maybe it’s the tenth stone on the wall instead of the floor.”

  Carlos counted the stones along the wall. They were all different shapes, and the tenth one looked like the state of Texas!

  “It feels loose!” Carlos said.

  “Can you get it out?”

  “I think so.” Carlos stuck his fingers around the edges and pried the stone out of the wall. Behind it was a scroll, tied up with a piece of old twine.

  “Ooh!” Finn cried. “Maybe this is why they call it the burial chamber—because something’s buried in here after all!”

  Carlos grabbed the scroll and wedged the stone back into the wall. He undid the twine, and together, he and Finn unrolled the scroll.

  Carlos sucked in his breath. “Oh, wow, Grandpa!” he said.

  “Is that another map?” Finn asked.

  “Yeah, it’s…whoa!”

  “What?”

  “I reckon this is the other half of the one my grandpa left me,” Carlos said. He put the two together. “I thought the first map was all there is, but look at this. They fit together, and this second part says we have to go to the arcade.”

  “The arcade?” Finn asked. “There’s an arcade in here?”

  “That’s what the map says.”

  “Great. Let’s go there.”

  Finn and Carlos ran out of the dark room. Molly was down the hallway, deep in a history lesson with the museum guard.

  “We found it!” Finn said. “You know, the stuff we needed for…our report.”

  “Perfect!” Molly said. “Thank you so much, Mr. Collins. You’ve been extremely helpful. It’s lucky we met you!”

  “My pleasure,” the guard said.

  “Come on, Molly,” said Finn. “Our next stop is the arcade.”

  Finn, Molly, and Carlos hurried down the hallway. They were one step closer to finding the treasure!

  “You’re in luck,” Finn told Carlos. “There are two things I’m an expert at: baseball and video games. I thought I was coming to Texas to play baseball. But if we’re headed to an arcade, I guess it’s video games.” He rubbed his hands together. “I can’t wait!”

  “It’s so weird,” Molly said.

  “What are you talking about?” Finn said. “You know I’m a video game expert. You see me play my baseball video game all the time. I just got to level five!”

  “I mean it’s weird that there’s a video arcade in the Alamo,” Molly said. “What’s an arcade doing at the site of a famous battle?”

  “Maybe it’s a video game about the battle,” Finn said. “I wonder how many levels I’ll have to beat to get to the treasure.”

  “We’re almost there,” Carlos said. “Just one more turn.”

  The kids turned the corner.

  Finn looked down a narrow corridor with arches overhead. “What in the world?” he said.

  “I don’t see any games,” Carlos said.

  “There aren’t any,” Molly said. “I knew it didn’t make sense to have an arcade in the Alamo. After all, the Alamo was built way before video games were invented. Your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather would never have heard of them!”

  “I don’t understand,” Finn said. “Why would they call it an arcade when there aren’t any games?”

  “Excellent question!” a man said. He was wearing a red Alamo polo shirt, just like Maria’s. He clapped his hands. “Everyone, gather around.”

  A group of people circled the man. There were a few kids and even more grown-ups.

  “In case you didn’t hear the question, I’ll repeat it for our tour group,” the man said. “This young man wants to know why this space is called an arcade. I assume it’s because he’s used to the word ‘arcade’ referring to a video arcade, am I right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Finn said.

  “Well, the word ‘arcade’ can refer to a video arcade, but it can also mean a covered passageway with arches.”

  “Oh, cool,” Molly said. “That’s my third new word today!”

  “It’s not a new word,” Finn said. “You already knew about the video kind of arcade.”

  “Yeah, but now I know a whole new meaning,” she said. “Besides, I knew there couldn’t be an arcade at the Alamo from back in the olden days.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Finn grumbled.

  “I hate to say I told you so…,” Molly said.

  “That’s not true,” Finn said. “You love to say that.”

  “Any more questions?” the man asked. No one had any, so he went on: “The arcade at the Alamo was constructed in the 1930s. It’s a portal to the garden.”

  “What’s a portal?” a kid asked.

  “It’s an entrance,” Molly whispered to Finn.

  “I knew that,” Finn whispered back.

  “It’s a doorway, a gate, or some other kind of entrance,” the man told the group. “Feel free to take pictures.”

  People lifted their phones and cameras.

  “When you’re done, follow me this way to the garden, and we’ll continue our tour,” he said.

  After everyone finished snapping pictures, the group moved on. “The coast is clear,” Molly said. “Let’s check for loose stones.” She, Finn, and Carlos felt around the ground and over each archway, but the stones were all stuck tight.

  “Now what?” Carlos asked.

  “I don’t know,” Molly admitted. She sat down on a little stone bench to think about what to do next.

  Behind the bench, there was a big tree with a thick trunk and branches that twisted around in every direction. Fi
nn grabbed one of the branches and swung upward.

  “Hey!” Molly said. “Don’t do that!”

  “Why not?” Finn asked.

  “Because I bet you’re not allowed.”

  “But it’s a perfect climbing tree,” Finn said. “Besides, if I can’t play an arcade game, I might as well climb a tree.” He swung up one more branch with the ease of a monkey. Then he felt the tree move.

  “Do you hear that?” Carlos asked.

  “What?” Molly asked.

  As soon as the word was out of her mouth, she heard a low rumbling sound.

  “Finn! Get off the tree!” Molly shouted.

  Finn leapt from his perch on a high branch to a lower branch, and then to the ground. He, Molly, and Carlos backed away from the tree. They watched the tree, their eyes growing wider and wider.

  A crack ran up the length of the trunk. The rumbling got louder and louder, like the sound of an airplane flying closer. The crack in the trunk broke open.

  “I can’t believe it,” Carlos said. “Is this real? Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  Finn’s mouth was hanging open, but he nodded. The trunk had magically formed a doorway that revealed a staircase leading underground.

  “I’m seeing it,” Molly said. Her voice was barely a whisper. “But I can hardly believe it. Finn, you found a portal to…to…to I don’t know where. But I don’t think it’s a garden.”

  “Let’s see where it goes,” Carlos said.

  He stepped toward the doorway, and the twins followed.

  The kids crept down a creaky old stairwell, going lower and lower underground, and farther and farther from the sunlight above.

  “This is even darker and creepier than the burial chamber,” Finn said.

  “That’s why it’s a good place to bury treasure,” Molly said. “If only there was some light down here to see it better.”

  “Oh, I forgot I brought this,” Carlos said. He pulled something out of his pocket. There was a click, and then the staircase was illuminated by the bright beam of a flashlight.

  The wooden steps were uneven and covered in dust. It looked as if no one had been down these stairs in a very long time.

  “I don’t know if being able to see things is making me feel better or worse,” Finn said.

  The rumbling sounded again. “Carlos, shine your flashlight up there,” Molly said.

  He pointed the light up the stairwell they’d just walked down. The kids gasped. The doorway in the tree had closed back up!

  “Now what do we do?” Finn cried.

  “We keep going forward,” Molly said.

  Carlos pointed the flashlight in front of them again. “To the treasure,” he said.

  “To the treasure,” Molly repeated.

  Finn gulped. “To the treasure,” he managed to say.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” Carlos said. “It’s not fair for me to keep everything we find all for myself. I’ll give you a gold bar as payment for your help.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to pay us anything,” Molly said.

  “I insist,” Carlos said. “My grandpa always said the more we have, the more we should share.”

  “He sounds like a really generous guy,” Molly said.

  “He was. He’d want you to have some gold so you could buy something special.”

  “I’m too scared to think about that right now,” Finn said.

  But as they made their way down the stairs to the mouth of a long, twisty hallway, Finn did think about what the gold could buy, and it made him a little bit less scared. If he ever got out of here, he’d buy season tickets to the Reds.

  Scratch that. He’d buy the Great American Ball Park, where the Reds played, so he could go to every game and bring all his friends.

  “It’s as quiet as a tomb down here,” Molly said.

  “That’s not funny,” Finn said.

  “I wasn’t trying to be funny,” Molly said.

  “At least we have this flashlight,” Carlos said.

  The second he said the word “flashlight,” the light went out, and all three kids screamed.

  “I guess I should have checked the batteries,” Carlos said.

  “Oh no!” Finn cried. “I can’t see my hand, and it’s right in front of my face! We need to go back!”

  “We can’t go back,” Molly said. “The tree closed up.”

  “So there’s no way out?” Finn asked. “What’s the use of finding treasure if we’re stuck underground? It’s not like we can buy anything down here.”

  “Maybe there’s a door at the end of the hall,” Carlos said. “Let’s keep going. We can feel along the walls.” He took a small step forward, and there was a tiny spark of light under his foot.

  “Your shoes!” Molly said. “They’re the light-up kind!”

  “Oh, I forgot that, too,” Carlos said. “We can use them as a backup flashlight.”

  “Phew,” Finn said.

  Carlos and his light-up sneakers led the way. But sneaker lights aren’t as bright as flashlights, and the passageway was still nearly dark. Molly walked with her arms out in front of her, like a mummy, and banged into a stone wall.

  “Ow!”

  “You okay?” Finn asked. He rushed toward the sound of her voice, tripped over something, and fell to the ground.

  “Are you okay?” Molly asked him.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Finn said. He put a hand to the ground to push himself back up. “AH! I think I tripped over…I can’t even say it.”

  “What?” Molly cried.

  “It feels like bones! There’s a skeleton! Probably from someone who died in the Texas Revolution!”

  Carlos stomped and lit up the ground with his shoes to reveal a pile of sticks.

  “It’s okay,” Carlos said. “We’ve come so far, and I reckon we’re almost there.”

  The end of the passageway was a dead end. There was no way to go forward, and with the tree entrance closed up, they couldn’t go back, either.

  Finn took off his Moonwalkers cap and leaned against the stone wall. Maybe the pile of sticks had turned out to not be a skeleton, but it was possible he, Molly, and Carlos would be skeletons down here one day.

  He shivered, then looked up. “Umm…hey,” he said. “It looks like the only place left to go is up.”

  Molly and Carlos turned their eyes toward the ceiling. A thin beam of sunlight was peeking through a trapdoor above.

  Finn stretched his hands up toward the door. Not even close. He jumped, but he couldn’t reach it that way, either.

  “What if I make a slingshot with my hands? Then you can put your foot here and I can boost you up,” Carlos suggested.

  “I guess I could try,” Finn said.

  “Pretend that you’re going for a fly ball,” Molly said.

  Carlos weaved his fingers together. Finn put his sneaker in Carlos’s hands.

  “One, two, three!” the kids counted.

  Carlos launched Finn toward the ceiling.

  Finn managed to dislodge the trapdoor and pull himself through the hole. Carlos and Molly were left standing alone in the dark.

  “Finn!” Molly called up toward where her brother had disappeared.

  Finn didn’t answer.

  “Where do you think he is?” Carlos asked.

  “I don’t know,” Molly said. She felt her body tighten in fear. What if Finn had ended up in an Alamo dungeon?

  But then a rope dropped down from the hole. “Grab on and climb up,” Finn said. “It’s so weird up here. But I promise you, I’m the real Finn.”

  “The real Finn?” Molly asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ll see when you get here. Climb up.”

  Molly looked over at Carlos. With the little bit of light coming in from t
he hole in the ceiling, she could see his face. “Do you want to go first?” she asked.

  “After you,” Carlos said.

  “Okay.” She put her hand on the rope, but then she let go.

  “Come on,” Finn called. “Don’t you want to get out of that creepy passageway?”

  “Yeah, I do, but…,” Molly said.

  “But what?”

  “I’m afraid of heights,” she said.

  “You went up the elevator of a New York City skyscraper, no problem,” Finn reminded her. “And you stood at the top of the Empire State Building.”

  “I know,” Molly said. “I guess I’m afraid of falling from heights…and it’s easier to fall off a swinging rope than off a steady building.”

  “I can help you with this,” Carlos said. “We just did ropes in gym class. I’ll tell you what to do. Grip the rope with both hands. Keep your hands close together, one on top of the other. At the bottom, pinch the rope between your feet.”

  “Okay,” Molly said. She followed Carlos’s instructions. The rope swung back and forth a little bit. “Whoa.”

  Carlos grabbed the rope to steady it. “Don’t worry, I’m spotting you. You can do this,” he said. “Now take your top hand and move it higher. Good job. Same with your bottom hand. Keep the rope between your feet, but loosely, and move your feet up, too.”

  Carlos kept holding the rope steady as Molly inched her way up. Slowly but surely, she got to the opening in the ceiling where her brother waited. Finn grabbed Molly’s hands and pulled her the rest of the way through. She wrapped her arms around her knees and sat with her head down to catch her breath, while Carlos took his turn climbing up the rope.

  “Congratulations, you made it,” Finn said when Carlos got to the top. “Along with a whole lot of fake Carloses—and fake Mollys, too.”

  “Huh?” Molly said. She looked around for the first time.

  They weren’t alone.

  Hundreds of Carloses and Mollys and Finns were staring back at her.

  “What…? How…?” she started.

  “I believe the words you’re looking for are ‘holy guacamole,’ ” Finn said.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Where are we?”