Читать книгу Sleepover Girls Go Treasure Hunting - Sue Mongredien - Страница 5

Hello! Lyndz here. How are you? I don’t suppose you’ve got a bit of time to hear about how the Sleepover Club went treasure hunting, have you? Oh, good! Come into the garden and we can sit on the swings while I tell you all about it.

The rest of the Sleepover lot thought I should be the one to tell you the story of our treasure-hunting adventures seeing as it all started off right here, in the garden. See the big ash tree over there? Well, that’s where Buster…

Oh. I haven’t even introduced you to Buster! He’s our dog. Do you like dogs? Even people who aren’t really into animals, i.e. Fliss, end up liking Buster because he’s so funny and friendly and GORGEOUS! He’s our Jack Russell terrier and has always got his little nose into something or other.

It was actually Buster’s cute little button nose that started us off on our search for treasure this time. Let me tell you how it all happened.

It was Saturday morning and the five of us – that’s me, Rosie, Frankie, Kenny and Fliss – were sitting around the breakfast table at my house. We’d just had an awesome Sleepover the night before and were giggling about Fliss’s sleep talking which had woken all of us up through the night.

“You were saying something about having your hair cut, I think,” Rosie said, spreading marmalade on her toast. “You definitely said something about your fringe anyway.”

“Yeah, and I heard you say, ‘Shave it all off please – give me the baldy look!’” Kenny joked. (If you didn’t know, Kenny is the biggest wind-up merchant in the world. Don’t believe ANYTHING she tells you!)

Fliss squealed and clapped her hands onto her long, blonde hair at once. Even though she’s known Kenny from the first day we were at primary school together, she still falls for Kenny’s wind-ups every time. “There’s no way in the world I’d have said that, Kenny,” she said seriously. “Unless I was having a nightmare!”

The rest of us chuckled. “I dunno – I think a skinhead might suit you,” Frankie said thoughtfully. “What do you reckon, girls?”

“Noooooo!” Fliss squeaked in horror. “Don’t even SAY that word to me!”

“They’re only kidding you,” I told Fliss, patting her arm. “I never heard you say anything about getting your head shaved anyway. When I heard you, you were muttering about mashed potato!”

“Ooh, was I?” Fliss said. “That’s because my mum’s on a diet again and we’re not allowed to have any potatoes in the house. Or biscuits. Or chocolates. Or cakes. Or cheese. Or… ”

“And out of all those things, mashed potato is what you miss the most?” Frankie asked, raising an eyebrow. “You freak!”

“Oooh, but come on, though… soft, fluffy mash… ” Fliss said dreamily, with a faraway look in her eyes. “I could eat it for breakfast!”

My mum was buttering some more toast for us and laughed at those words. “Fliss, I don’t have time to do you some mash for breakfast but if you stick around for lunch, I’ll make sure there’s some on the table,” she said. “How does that sound?”

Fliss went a bit pink. She always goes a bit funny and shy around other people’s mums and dads. “Thank you, Mrs Collins,” she said politely. “That’s really REALLY kind of you!”

Mum laughed again, Fliss was sounding so thrilled. “Glad to help out,” she said. “Same goes for the rest of you if you want to stay for veggie sausages and mash?”

Even though we were all stuffed with toast and marmalade and boiled eggs and porridge at this point, every single one of us said, “Yes, PLEASE!” as if we hadn’t been fed for six weeks. The Sleepover Club have biiiiig appetites!

After breakfast, we went outside to mess about in the garden with Buster. It was a really sunny day and before long, we were running off our big breakfasts with a game of leapfrog. Our garden is quite long and wide so we were able to keep leapfrogging around in a big circle. Buster got all excited and kept running round our legs until I got worried he was going to get jumped on, and moved him out of the way.

Buster was a bit put out by that, I think – he hates being left out of anything, especially a game that involves lots of running around – but obediently trotted off to do one of his favourite things, which is sniffing around the flowerbeds.

If you’ve got a dog yourself, you’ll know all about the sniffing thing. They just can’t resist having a good old sniff of anything they come across – in the street, in the park, even in your own garden when they’ve sniffed it a million times already! Still, it just goes to show that dogs must know something we don’t know because it was Buster’s sniffing that started us off on the treasure hunt. He must have sniffed around our garden a gazillion times by now and never found much that was interesting – the odd bone, a dead mouse one of the cats had caught, some compost – you know, nothing more exciting than that… but today, all that sniffing paid off.

WOOF! WOOF!

If you’ve got a dog, you’ll also know that different woofs mean different things. Big, deep woofs are to try and sound scary when the postman is at the door. Short, high-pitched woofs are more of an excited noise. And from all the yapping he was doing at the other end of the garden, I knew he was all worked up about something or other.

“Oof!” Kenny finished her round of leapfrogs, and we all stopped to watch Buster. He was scrabbling away in the soil and kept cocking his head at me and barking louder and louder.

“I think he’s saying we should be playing leapdog, not leapfrog,” Rosie joked.

“Oh, I hope he hasn’t found a real frog from next door’s pond,” I said, feeling worried. “He’s got a real thing about them and I’m sure they don’t think it’s such good fun when he tries to play with them.”

“Frogs, YUCK!” Fliss said at once. She is one of those people who feels sick at the thought of blood, beetles, spiders, snakes, rats, mud, bad smells, ghosts, dead things… you get the idea.

“Oh, frogs are sooo sweet,” I said defensively. “How can you not like a cute little froggy, Fliss?” I didn’t bother to wait for her answer – I didn’t have time to listen to all the reasons she would be able to come up with for hating them. “Hang on – I’ll just see what he’s found.”

I ran off up the garden, half hoping it really was a frog but thinking that, more likely, it was going to be a worm or piece of rubbish that the wind had blown in. I certainly wasn’t expecting to find some treasure!

As I got near him, Buster started running round and round in circles, barking dementedly. “Calm down, daft dog!” I said, laughing.

He ran over to something he’d uncovered in the soil and pushed it with his nose. It glinted gold in the autumn sun.

“What have you found, then?” I said. I still wasn’t excited at this point, I was just wondering if it was a shiny chocolate wrapper (not that I have food on the brain or anything!). It wasn’t until I got right there and bent over to look that I realised that it wasn’t just a piece of old rubbish. Oh, no! Quite the opposite, in fact. Buster had found… a gold ring.

“Buster, where did this come from?” I asked in surprise. I picked up the ring and blew the last crumbs of soil off it. It felt heavy and warm in my hand.

“Hey, look at this, you guys,” I shouted excitedly. “Buster has struck GOLD!”

The other four ran over to have a look. “Wow! A ring! Where do you think it came from?” Fliss said, eyes wide. “Can I try it on?”

“Is it one of your mum’s rings?” practical Rosie said. “Or yours?”

“It’s not mine and I don’t think it’s Mum’s,” I replied. “I’ve never seen it before.”

“Is it your dad’s?” Kenny asked. “Or one of your brothers’? It must have come from somewhere.”

Fliss rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Kenny, don’t you know anything about jewellery? It’s a lady’s ring – look how small it is!” she said, wiggling her middle finger which was now wearing the ring. Fliss is very into stuff like jewellery and make-up – and she also loves a chance to go on about it whenever possible.

“No, I didn’t know because I’m not interested,” Kenny retorted, quick as a flash. “And anyone who IS interested must be… ”

“Hey, I wonder if it’s something to do with the supernatural,” Frankie interrupted. Out of the five of us, Kenny and Fliss are the ones who argue most often, so Rosie, Frankie and I have to jump in and stop them before it gets out of hand. “I mean, things don’t just appear in people’s gardens like that, do they? It could be a sign!” she added, looking excited.

“Supernatural?” scoffed Rosie at once. “Sign? Leave it out, Frankie. It’s a ring that Buster has found, that’s all.”

“Now, don’t look like that,” Frankie said. “I saw this wicked episode of the X-Files once, where… ”

“Here we go… ” muttered Kenny, raising her eyebrows at Rosie. Those two don’t have any time for Frankie’s theories about aliens, UFOs and spaceships. The drama with Frankie’s telescope and ‘alien’ spotting on Cuddington Hill was something we were still trying to live down. “Now – getting back to the real world, has anyone been doing any digging in the garden lately?” she added loudly, drowning out Frankie’s X-Files story.

I wrinkled my nose while I thought. “Yes, Mum was out here last weekend,” I said. “She roped me into helping her with the weeding. Why?”

“Well… DERRR!” Kenny said, her face lighting up. “Hasn’t it struck anyone else what the obvious answer is?”

The rest of us looked at each other blankly. “Er… a magic plant that grows gold rings?” Fliss said feebly.

Rosie giggled. “Fliss, you’ve been reading too much Enid Blyton,” she said. “Magic plant, indeed!”

“I’m talking about buried treasure, you dimwits!” Kenny said dramatically. “I bet when your mum was digging over her flowerbeds, she dug this ring up without even realising. Which means that… ”

“There could be more down there,” Rosie put in, grabbing Kenny’s arm excitedly. “Buried treasure – in your garden, Lyndz!”

“From years and years ago,” Kenny added, eyes gleaming. “It’s probably really REALLY old and dead valuable.”

Even Fliss had stopped glaring at Rosie and was looking interested now. “What, you mean, we could be rich?” she said eagerly.

“Could be!” I said, grinning at her. I started skipping back towards the house. “Come on, let’s go and show my mum what we’ve found!”