Searching For Treasure - By L.C. Davenport Page 0,2

beside the point."

"Hallelujah, she has a point," Noah said.

"I had decided that if I wanted the boys in school to like me, I had to pretend to be dumb. But Dad said, 'Never hide your light under a bushel. Never let anyone make you deny who you are. Maybe you don't understand that right now. And maybe some of the boys at school don't appreciate you right now, but someday there will be others who will. And those boys, will be true blue and solid gold treasure.' I took his advice to heart. So I guess, I'm still searching for treasure."

Noah could sense tension in Jack at these words, a tension Dana seemed to be totally unaware of, and he almost blurted out, "What about Jack?" But Jack changed the subject abruptly.

"Which brings me to my point." Jack began brandishing his brochure again. "Noah, I think you and I should take your sister out to this haunted treasure-castle for a long weekend in England. The ghosts won't know what hit them."

Noah surprised both of them by readily agreeing, each missing the glint of purpose in his mischievous eyes.

*****

There had been a definite undercurrent in the conversation that day, Dana decided, as the car finally jolted over its last rut, but she had been unwilling to examine it too closely. Turning the key off, she pushed her thoughts to the back of her mind as she climbed out of the car and stretched the kinks out of her back. The sixty miles they had driven from the airport to get here had been nothing. The last one hundred feet had been murder.

Noah scrambled out of the car, stretched mightily and began dragging overnight cases from the back. Jack leaned against the passenger door and stared morosely at the castle. "What kind of fine dining do you think we're apt to find in there?"

Dana leaned comfortably against him and he rested his chin on the top of her head. "This was your idea."

"Don't remind me," he muttered.

A small group of people had already arrived and was clustered around a gate–apparently locked–set in an elaborately worked wrought iron fence. One, a roly-poly man of about sixty-five, broke away and headed in their direction, bristling with vitality and good-humor.

"Well I swear to the heavens! I thought the way the ad read, this was really going to be something. But this place! This place don't amount to a hill of beans in a cornfield. Howdy folks, I'm Henry Hudson from Oklahoma."

"I'm Dana Parker. This is my brother Noah. And this is Jack Harrison."

"Well, I tell you. We all look like sensible folks. What are we doing here?" Henry asked.

"I guess looks can be deceiving," said Noah.

"Out of the mouth of babes. No offense meant, son. But at my age, everyone under the age of forty is a mere babe."

"None taken. At my age, anyone over the age of thirty is old."

Dana thumped her brother on the head.

"Ow!"

Henry chuckled. "Now, children. Over by the gate, the one on the left is my grandson Mark. He's fourteen, though you couldn't tell it from here."

"He's a big kid," Noah remarked.

"That he is. Only a freshman and already on the varsity football team. I declare, if we don't think he's something on a stick back home. The other two, best that I can tell, are honest-to-God treasure hunters. I figured the thing about treasure was just a gimmick to get rubes like us to plop our nickel down, but these guys are taking it seriously. They've got equipment in their car and everything, like they expect to dig the place up."

The murmuring conversation at the gate stopped abruptly. Dana stepped forward to get a better look at the front of the castle. A distinguished-looking, elderly man was coming out of the door with a large ring of keys and was headed towards the gate. Dana looked back at Jack. The bad temper of earlier was gone and his eyes were shining with anticipation. Dana grinned at him and he winked. "Are you ready, Freddy?" Jack said.

"I was born ready," she replied.

Chapter 2

"I thought I heard people out here. Welcome." The handsome old gentleman gazed around the group in front of him as if counting heads. "I do believe we are expecting a couple more. But please, feel free to come on in."

After a bit of fumbling, the gate was unlocked and one by one the visitors entered. One of the men that Henry Hudson had identified as treasure hunters