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  For school librarians everywhere

  Chapter

  1

  The Discovery

  It all started when the little round thing-a-ma-whoosie fell off the whatsit on Bigs Maloney’s chair.

  We had just opened our writing journals. Our teacher, Ms. Gleason, was talking about similes. I was busy doodling a picture of a giant tidal wave crushing a city. There was one guy on a surfboard yelling, “COWABUNGA!”

  Suddenly, CRASH! The next thing I saw was Bigs Maloney’s big feet kicking the air. The big lug had leaned back too far on his chair. That’s when—sploing—the thing-a-ma-whoosie that plugs up the bottom of the chair leg dropped to the floor. Plop, whirrrr, phlppt, phlppt. It rolled to my feet.

  “Bwa-ha-ha!” roared Bobby Solofsky, pointing at Bigs.

  Ms. Gleason silenced him with a look. “Are you all right, Charlie?”

  Bigs Maloney’s real name was Charlie. But no one ever called him that, except for Lucy Hiller and Ms. Gleason. Charlie Maloney was the biggest, strongest kid in second grade. So everybody called him Bigs. Which was like calling the Atlantic Ocean a little damp.

  Bigs scrambled to his feet. His face was as red as a tomato. “Yeah, I’m okay,” Bigs mumbled. He turned the chair upright again. It tilted to one side. Bigs frowned. “Uh-oh, I think I busted it, Ms. Gleason,” he said. “Now it’s all wobbly.”

  I raised my hand to show Ms. Gleason the thing-a-ma-whoosie. “This fell off the chair.” I turned to Bigs. “Flip that chair over, Bigs. Let me try to push this thingy back on. That should fix it.”

  Bigs flipped the chair over. Three of the legs had little round whoosies on them. One didn’t. “All I have to do is shove this back into the hollow leg,” I said. “Like … hmmmm … What’s this?”

  I paused. Something was stuck inside the chair leg. It looked like a rolled-up piece of paper. I tried pulling it out, but my fingers were too big.

  “Hey, Stringbean,” I called out. “You have skinny fingers. Let’s see if you can reach this piece of paper.”

  Stringbean Noonan sighed, blew his nose into a soggy handkerchief (yuck!), and peered inside the chair leg.

  “What do you think it is?” Ms. Gleason wondered.

  “Probably just scrap paper,” Helen Zuckerman concluded.

  “Or food,” Joey Pignattano offered, smacking his lips hopefully.

  “Or the beginning of a mystery,” Mila Yeh voiced. Mila winked at me. She was my partner. We ran a detective agency together. For a dollar a day, we made problems go away.

  Stringbean probed with his pinkie into the hollow chair leg. “Don’t rip it, Stringbean!” Geetha Nair urged. Slowly, carefully, Stringbean pulled out a long, round tube. It was a piece of paper, all rolled up, tied by two strands of red yarn.

  Bigs took the tube from Stringbean. He untied the yarn. Then he unrolled the paper and smoothed it out on his desk. Everyone gathered to look over his shoulder.

  The room fell silent.

  “Awesome,” Danika Starling murmured. “This is, like, sooo cool.”

  Chapter

  2

  A Riddle

  Murmurs rippled through the classroom. Everyone agreed with Danika: It sure was cool. In fact, it was cooler than cool. It was freezing.

  The note was written on a white piece of paper. Or it used to be white. Now it was yellow with brown spots on the edges.

  “This paper must have been in there for years,” Ms. Gleason marveled. “It’s dry and brittle.”

  The class pushed forward to read the note. But after Joey Pignattano accidentally stepped on Geetha Nair’s toe, and Athena Lorenzo sort of accidentally-on-purpose elbowed Eddie Becker in the stomach, Ms. Gleason ordered us back to our seats. “I’ll read the note out loud for everyone to hear,” she said.

  IF TREASURE YOU SEEK

  YOU MUST FIRST FIND THE MAP.

  MAKE YOUR MIND AS SHARP

  AS A DIAMOND

  AND CARRY A SHOVEL

  INSTEAD OF A BAT.

  BEGIN BY ANSWERING THIS

  RIDDLE.…

  A MAN LEFT HOME.

  HE RAN AS FAST AS HE COULD.

  THEN HE TURNED TO THE LEFT.

  HE RAN AND TURNED LEFT AGAIN.

  HE RAN AND TURNED LEFT AGAIN.

  HE HEADED BACK FOR HOME.

  HE SAW TWO MASKED MEN

  WAITING FOR HIM,

  YET HE WAS NOT AFRAID.

  Ms. Gleason held up the paper for everyone to see. The words were written in neat capital letters.

  “‘If treasure you seek’?” Ralphie Jordan repeated in a hushed whisper. His eyes gleamed. “I seek! I seek!”

  Soon we were all chanting:

  “You seek!

  I seek!

  We all seek …

  Buried treasure!”

  A whirlwind of voices swirled through the room. Danika Starling was sure that the riddle had been left by pirates.

  “The treasure is probably like gold doubloons or something,” she explained.

  “What’s a doubloon?” Nicole Rodriguez asked.

  Danika shrugged. “Beats me. But it’s the stuff that pirates are always fighting over, so you know it’s gotta be good. Didn’t you see Pirates of the Caribbean?”

  “We’ll be rich!” Eddie Becker cried over the chatter. “We’ll be millionaires! Billionaires! Kazillionaires!”

  “Calm down, boys and girls,” Ms. Gleason said. “I know you’re all excited. I am, too. But I haven’t seen any pirates near room 201 lately. And I highly doubt that the treasure is gold doubloons.” She turned toward Nicole. “A doubloon, by the way, is an ancient Spanish coin,” she said. “You don’t see them around anymore.”

  “That’s because they’re all buried!” Kim Lewis exclaimed.

  “Yeah,” Mike Radcliff shouted. “But we’re going to see some soon. All we have to do is solve the riddle. Then we’ll be rich, rich, rich!”

  Ms. Gleason clapped her hands softly, clap-clap.

  That was our signal to be quiet.

  We clapped back. CLAP-CLAP-CLAP.

  Ms. Gleason took a deep breath. She went to her desk and placed the note inside a drawer. She turned the key, then put the key in a different drawer. “That’s enough for now, boys and girls. I hate to be a party pooper, but we have work to do.”

  A huge groan, like the rumble from a giant’s empty belly, filled the room.

  “But what about my treasure?!” Bigs complained. “And the golden ’loons?”

  “I promise we’ll discuss it tomorrow,” Ms. Gleason replied. “We’ve spent too much time on gold doubloons already. Let’s get our heads back into schoolwork.”

  Yeesh.

  Schoolwork was the last place my head wanted to be.

  Chapter

  3

  Joey Pignattano, World Champion

  Ralphie Jordan eyed the wall clock. He waited as the
second hand swept toward the twelve. “Now,” he announced.

  In a flash, Joey Pignattano gobbled up a bologna sandwich, shoved down two Double Stuf Oreos, slugged a carton of milk, and chomped on a fistful of grapes.

  “Twenty-four seconds flat,” cheered Ralphie. “It’s a new world record!”

  Ralphie and I were impressed.

  Mila was not. “That’s gross,” she observed.

  Go figure.

  Joey beamed triumphantly. He seemed proud, but in a not-feeling-so-hot kind of way.

  “Okay, now let’s put our heads together and try to solve this riddle,” Ralphie suggested.

  “It won’t be easy,” I warned. “Ms. Gleason locked it away. And I can’t remember the words exactly.”

  Joey put his hand on his stomach. The expression on his face turned sour.

  Mila noticed. “Are you okay, Joey? You don’t look well.”

  Joey’s lips trembled slightly. His face turned white.

  I’d seen that look before. There was no time to lose. “Quick,” I told Mila. “Warn the janitor, Mr. Copabianco. Tell the lunch monitor, Ms. Hakeem. We’ve got to get Joey to the nurse … NOW!”

  Ralphie and I jumped up. We pulled Joey to his feet and steered him toward the nurse’s office.

  “Hang in there, Joey,” Ralphie urged. “If you gotta get sick, throw up on Jigsaw!”

  “Hey!” I protested.

  Joey moaned unhappily. Out in the hallway, he motioned for us to stop.

  We stopped … and waited. But Mount Vesuvius didn’t blow. Joey just stood there, staring into space, hiccuping. Finally, he put one hand on my shoulder. And squeezed. There was no escaping his grip. I prayed silently, Please don’t hurl on me.… Please don’t hurl on me.… Please don’t …

  Joey burped and slowly turned his head from side to side. He whispered softly, “It was worth it, right, Jigsaw? Twenty-four seconds. That’s a world record, right?”

  “Yeah, Joey, sure. A world record, sure,” I whispered as I tried to pry his fingers from my shoulder.

  “Even if I do get sick,” he said, “it still counts, right? My record, I mean.”

  “It still counts,” I reassured him. “You’re the champ.”

  Joey smiled to himself, even as his eyes rolled in his head like crazy marbles. “The champ,” Joey murmured. He suddenly bent over, clutching his stomach, groaning loudly. “Oooooh, oooooooh.”

  Ralphie pointed frantically to a nearby door. The boys’ bathroom! “In here, fast,” Ralphie pleaded.

  We grabbed Joey by the elbows and dragged him into the bathroom.

  And we almost got him to the toilets in time.

  * * *

  A few moments later, we could hear Mr. Copabianco, the school janitor, hustling down the hallway. Ching-jingle, ching-ching-jingle. The keys on his belt jingled louder with each step.

  “He’s not gonna be happy,” Ralphie noted.

  Mr. Copabianco threw open the bathroom door, mop in hand. Our eyes turned from Mr. Copabianco to Joey to the bathroom floor. It wasn’t rainbows and daffodils, I’ll tell you that much.

  “Oh, no. Not again, Joey,” Mr. Copabianco said. “That’s the third time this month.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. C.,” Joey whimpered.

  Mr. Copabianco sighed heavily. “That’s all right, Joey. You boys go to the nurse’s office. I’ll clean up this mess.”

  “Uh, Mr. Copabianco,” Ralphie said. “Just one thing.”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I think you’re gonna need a bigger mop.”

  Chapter

  4

  Jigsaw Jones, Private Eye

  For recess, we bundled up against the cold January afternoon. The pale sun gave off as much warmth as a refrigerator bulb, and about as much light. Still, we were happy to play outside—especially today. It gave us the chance to talk about the buried treasure.

  “Don’t nobody get any big ideas,” Bigs Maloney warned, arms crossed. “It’s my riddle and my treasure.”

  He snarled.

  That was Bigs. He snarls every now and then. But I knew he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Scare a fly, sure. But hurt one, never.

  Bobby Solofsky made a sucking sound with his tongue. “You’ve got to find the treasure before you can keep it,” Bobby told Bigs. “Can you solve that riddle by yourself?”

  “Well, uh, um…” Bigs looked from face to face. “I guess maybe I might need some help,” he finally admitted.

  Everyone looked at me.

  “What about it, Jigsaw?” Eddie said. “You’re the detective. Can you and Mila help us?”

  I shoved my hands into my pockets. “You know our rates,” I said. “Mila and I get a dollar a day, plus expenses. We start work once we get the money, not before.”

  “Hire me!” Bobby interrupted. “I’ll work cheap.”

  Bigs frowned. “No, thanks, Solofsky. I trust Jigsaw and Mila.”

  “We could all chip in,” Geetha suggested.

  “We could,” Helen said, “if Bigs agrees to split the treasure with us.”

  Bigs thought it over. He pulled a dime out of his pocket. “Okay. I’ll split the treasure with anybody who chips in,” he said.

  Mila stepped forward. “I remember the riddle,” she said. “There was a man and he left his house.…”

  “… And he was running,” Stringbean chimed in.

  “He turned left, and left, and left again,” Ralphie remembered.

  “No, he turned right,” Bobby replied. “And it wasn’t a house. It was a bank.”

  “A bank? Hey, Solofsky, are you trying to confuse us?” Danika challenged. “There was no bank in that riddle.”

  “There were two masked men,” Mike jumped in. “They might have been bank robbers!”

  “But the man was not afraid,” Mila said. “That seemed like an important part of the riddle. Why wasn’t he afraid?”

  “Because he was a bank robber, too!” shouted Eddie. “That’s where the treasure is—in the bank!”

  Soon everybody was chattering and making wild guesses. One thing was for sure. We were getting nowhere fast.

  “Relax, everyone,” Mila said. “You hired Jigsaw and me. We’ll solve the mystery of the buried treasure.”

  “You better,” Bigs threatened.

  And he was right. We’d better. Because everybody in room 201 was counting on us. On the way back to class, Mila walked beside me. She whispered, “Do you have any ideas?”

  I shook my head. “Right now,” I muttered, “I haven’t got a clue.”

  Chapter

  5

  “Like” and “As” and the Pittsburgh Pirates

  I was starving when I got home from school. I had half a toasted bagel with peanut butter and a tall, cold glass of grape juice. Bull’s-eye. It hit the spot.

  When I need to think, I work on jigsaw puzzles. So I went into my room and dug out a tough one. It was called “Our Solar System.” I started with the border, then I moved through the planets. Earth was easy, because it was green and blue. Saturn, with its rings, was even easier. Then things got tough. While I was staring into space, I suddenly remembered the beginning of the riddle:

  If treasure … something something … map.

  Make your mind sharp like a diamond,

  Carry a shovel instead of a bat.

  There was a knock on the door. “Hey, Worm! Mom says you’ve got homework to do.”

  That was my oldest brother, Billy. He always called me “Worm” and “Shorty.” But he usually said it with a smile, so I didn’t mind. Not much, anyway.

  I had spelling words to study for Friday’s test. Plus Ms. Gleason gave us a worksheet on similes. Ms. Gleason said she wanted us to try to use more colorful language in our writing journals. And she didn’t mean words like red, pink (groan), and blue. She wanted us to practice our similes. That’s when you compare one thing to another, using the words as or like.

  I had to complete a pile of sentences.

  1.  The fen
ce is as rickety as MY GRANDMA.

  2.  The fish is as slippery as GREEN, WET SLIME.

  3.  The groan was as loud as AN ANGRY MONSTER WHO JUST STUBBED HIS TOE!

  4.  The cold was as cold as ICE CUBES ON TOP OF CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM IN THE NORTH POLE IN THE WINTERTIME.

  5.  The spring flowers looked like A SLEEPING RAINBOW.

  6.  The boy leaped like a KANGAROO WHO DRANK TOO MUCH COFFEE!

  7.  The clouds were as black as THE INSIDE OF A COW.

  I put my homework into my folder. Then I set out toward the kitchen to see what was cooking. I bumped into Grams in the hallway. I guess she wasn’t so rickety after all. I bounced off her like, um, a Ping-Pong ball.

  “Sorry, Grams,” I apologized. “I was thinking about a case.” I confided to her in a whisper, “We think pirates might have buried treasure near our school.”

  Grams laughed. “Pirates? Like the Pittsburgh Pirates?”

  “Not the baseball team,” I scoffed. “Real pirates! You know, with peg legs and yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum. Those guys.”

  “I see,” Grams replied. “Come tell me all about it.”

  Chapter

  6

  Solved!

  I never left home without my detective journal. And since I was already home, my journal was easy to find. I grabbed it from my bookshelf and met up with Grams in the living room. I wrote in my journal:

  CASE: The Case of the Buried Treasure

  CLIENT: The Kids in Room 201

  I was telling Grams about the riddle when the doorbell rang. My dog, Rags, went nutso as usual—barking, leaping, slobbering, slathering, and spewing drool. It didn’t matter how many times the doorbell rang. For Rags, it was always The Most Exciting Thing on Earth.

  Dogs. Go figure.

  I opened the door to see Mila staggering under an armload of books. “I went to the library,” she announced. “These books are about riddles. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find that same riddle in one of them.”