The Hidden Treasures

“Tell us again,” Bess said. “Where was Ruth’s treasure hidden?”

  “Under the statue of Carl Sandburg,” Nancy answered.

  Just as they walked into the library, Nancy had the feeling someone was behind them. She turned around and saw Brenda coming up the sidewalk.

  Nancy pulled George and Bess over to the checkout desk. “Brenda’s following us,” she whispered. “Quick, let’s hide.”

  She hurried toward a row of bookshelves. Bess and George were right behind her.

  “Wait!” Nancy said. She stopped so suddenly that Bess and George almost knocked her down.

  “Ow!” Bess cried. “Why did you stop?”

  “Look!” Nancy pointed to a door with a sign: The Carl Sandburg Room. “Let’s hide in here,” she said.

  Nancy opened the door. The girls slipped inside and closed the door.

  “I hope she didn’t see us,” Bess said. She backed away from the door.

  “Oops!” She bumped into a table in the middle of the room. “Sorry!” she said. Then she turned around. When she saw the table, she began to giggle. Nancy and George began to laugh, too.

  Bess pointed to a small statue on the table. “That’s Carl Sandburg,” she said.

  Nancy’s eyes lit up. The girls walked around the table, looking at the statue closely.

  “I don’t see where a treasure would be.” Bess shrugged.

  “Didn’t the diary say it was under the statue?” George asked. “Well, maybe the treasure is under the table.”

  “Let’s look,” Nancy said. The girls got down on their hands and knees and crawled under the table. Bess craned her neck up and peered underneath the table. Suddenly the door opened.

  “What are you girls doing?” a loud voice demanded. “You’re not supposed to be in here without special permission.”

  4

  The Statue’s Secret

  Bess got up quickly and bumped her head on the table. “Ow!” she cried. She rubbed her head.

  Nancy peeked out from under the desk. She recognized Brenda Carlton’s legs in the doorway. Next to Brenda was another pair of legs. Nancy looked up. Her heart sank. The other legs belonged to Mrs. Green, the librarian.

  “What are you girls doing under the table?” Mrs. Green asked.

  “Uh . . .” Bess began.

  “Well . . . we . . .” George said.

  “I dropped my pencil,” Nancy said. “I thought it rolled under the table.”

  No one wanted to tell Mrs. Green that they were hiding from Brenda.

  Mrs. Green looked at them and raised one eyebrow. “I see,” she said. “Did you forget that you’re supposed to ask permission to come in here?”

  “Yes, we forgot,” Nancy said. “We’re sorry.”

  Mrs. Green guided them out of the room. “That’s okay. Just don’t forget next time.”

  “I feel terrible,” Bess said to Nancy and George. “We didn’t tell the truth.”

  “I know,” Nancy said. “We couldn’t really explain anything. If we did, Brenda would know what we were looking for.”

  “You know Brenda told on us,” George said angrily. She looked over her shoulder. “And she’s still following us.”

  “I know how we can lose Brenda,” Nancy said. “I’m going to pretend I lost the diary. You pretend with me.” She led Bess and George into an aisle between two bookcases.

  Peeking through a shelf, they could see Brenda in the next aisle. Her hand was cupped over her ear so she could hear what they said.

  “She’s so nosy!” Bess whispered loudly.

  Then Nancy took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I lost the old diary yesterday.”

  “Where did you go?” George asked.

  “Well, after school I went to the Sugar ’n’ Spice for ice cream,” Nancy said. She said “Sugar ’n’ Spice” louder and slower than the rest of her words.

  “Then I went to the town park to eat my ice cream. Oh, yes, then I went to the Double Dip for another ice cream.”

  “Didn’t you go to the post office to mail a letter, too?” Bess said,

  “Oh, yes, I forgot,” Nancy said. “And I went to the drug store, too. I could have left the diary at any of those places.”

  “We’ll help you look for it,” George said.

  In a moment the girls saw Brenda hurrying out the front door of the library.

  “There she goes.” Bess giggled. Nancy and George started giggling, too. Soon they were bursting with laughter.

  “Shh!” A man reading a newspaper put a finger to his lips. The girls put their hands over their mouths to hold in their laughter.

  Next the girls did some research for their oral reports. Nancy looked up the dates for World War II in the World Almanac. George found a biography of Carl Sandburg, and Bess found some photographs of Abraham Lincoln that she was able to photocopy.

  At the checkout desk, Nancy asked if there was another statue of Carl Sandburg in the library.

  “No,” Mrs. Green told them, “but there’s one in the town park.”

  “Did the diary say anything about the town park?” Bess asked Nancy.

  “I don’t think so,” Nancy said, looking in her blue notebook.

  Her face broke into a smile. “Oh! The statue isn’t in the library. It’s in the library park. But how can that be?”

  “Wait a second, girls,” Mrs. Green said. “I think I can help you.” She walked toward the Carl Sandburg Room, then stopped at the door.

  “You can come in, girls,” she said to Nancy, Bess, and George. “You have permission.”

  Mrs. Green took a large book off a shelf. “This book tells the history of River Heights,” she said. She flipped through the pages. “Here’s what I was looking for.” She read from the book for a moment.

  “There used to be a statue of Carl Sandburg in the little park outside the library. Now the statue is here in this room. If you look outside, you’ll find the original pedestal that the statue stood on.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Green,” Nancy said.

  Nancy, Bess, and George walked quickly to the back door of the library and outside to the park.

  There the girls found a neat pile of bricks that were cemented together. They formed a base about three feet high. Nancy bent over and looked at a gold-colored plate attached to one side of the base.

  “I found it,” Nancy called. “Listen to what this says. ‘Carl Sandburg—Illinois Poet.’”

  “What should we do?” Bess asked.

  George stood up straight. “If the diary says the treasure was under the statue, then it could be here.”

  “That’s right,” Nancy said. “And remember Amelia wrote that the best place to hide something was behind a loose brick.”

  The girls kneeled down and looked at all the bricks very carefully. Sure enough, one of the bottom bricks was loose. Nancy pulled it out.

  “Who’s going to stick her hand in this time?” Nancy asked.

  “Not me,” Bess said.

  “I’ll do it,” George said. “I’d love to find the first treasure.”

  George took a deep breath and put her hand inside the hole. “I feel something!” she cried.

  She pulled her hand out and slowly opened her palm. The girls all gasped. She was holding a ring made out of tin with a red glass heart on it.

  “It’s Ruth’s hidden treasure,” Nancy said softly. “There’s the heart Amelia used from her mom’s pin.”

  “This is amazing!” Bess said. “It’s been here for fifty years!”

  George slipped the ring on her finger. “It fits! Do you think it’s okay if I wear it?”

  “Of course,” Nancy said. “You found it.”

  “That means if we find all the treasures, we can each have one,” George said. “We’re lucky there are three treasures.”

  “Whose treasure do you think we should look for next, Nancy?” Bess asked.

  “I think we should look for Elizabeth’s treasure,” Nancy answered. “Come over tom
orrow, and we’ll figure out what to do.”

  “Yeah!” Bess cheered.

  By then it was nearly dinnertime, and the girls headed for their homes.

  As she was turning down her block, Nancy saw Mrs. Ratazchek coming toward her. Her neighbor was taking a walk with another woman.

  “Hello, Nancy,” Mrs. Ratazchek said. “Do you remember my mother?”

  “Yes, I do,” Nancy answered.

  “Hello, dear,” Mrs. Ratazchek’s mother said.

  “Mrs. Ratazchek,” Nancy began, “do you remember a girl named Amelia Barton? She lived in my house before my family did.”

  “The name Barton is familiar,” Mrs. Ratazchek said. “But I don’t remember Amelia.”

  “I do,” Mrs. Ratazchek’s mother said. “She and her brother, Edward, were about my age.”

  “You actually knew them?” Nancy said. “Do you know what happened to them?”

  “Let’s see.” Mrs. Ratazchek’s mother thought for a moment. “They both grew up and moved away. Edward got married and moved to Chicago. Amelia got married and moved, too. But I don’t know where. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” Nancy said. “That’s a big help. Thanks.”

  That evening Mr. Drew took Nancy and Hannah out to dinner. Nancy ordered an open-face turkey sandwich. “This is just like Thanksgiving,” she said. She took a forkful of cranberry sauce.

  Over dinner Nancy told her father and Hannah about what Mrs. Ratazchek’s mother had said. “If Amelia Barton got married, then wouldn’t she have a different last name now?” she asked. “Before Mrs. Reynolds got married, her name was Ms. Spencer.”

  “Very good thinking,” Mr. Drew said. “You are really using your detective skills, Nancy. Amelia Barton probably does have a different name now. But even if Edward got married, he would still have the same last name. So maybe the way to find Amelia is to find Edward first.”

  “We’re a good detective team,” Nancy said.

  “We certainly are,” Mr. Drew answered.

  After they returned home Nancy rushed upstairs and stretched out on her bed. She was eager to finish reading the diary. In one entry she came across a clue that was so amazing it made her drop the diary.

  She wrote the new clue in her blue notebook exactly as she had read it in the diary: “Aunt Tillie is buried in Elizabeth and Ruth’s backyard.”

  I can’t wait to tell George and Bess about this! Nancy thought.

  5

  A Surprising Clue

  Nancy woke up Saturday morning thinking about the surprising clue she had read the night before. But a delicious smell made her think about breakfast instead.

  She headed for the kitchen, where she and her father usually had breakfast. She was looking forward to the pancakes her father liked to make on Saturdays. Then Nancy remembered there was no kitchen.

  She sighed. That meant no pancakes, either. We’re probably having cold cereal again, Nancy thought. She decided she would be happy when the kitchen was back to normal.

  Mr. Drew was sitting at the dining room table. In front of him was a plate heaped with warm cinnamon buns. Nancy’s face broke into a huge smile.

  “I used the toaster oven to heat these up,” Mr. Drew said. “By the way, I found something on our doorstep this morning.”

  Nancy’s smile disappeared when her father handed her a copy of the Carlton News, Brenda’s newspaper.

  The headline on the front page read, “Local Girls Caught Sneaking into Carl Sandburg Room.” Brenda had written a story about Mrs. Green finding Nancy, Bess, and George under the table with the statue of Carl Sandburg on it.

  Nancy began to laugh. “We were just trying to find a treasure we read about in Amelia’s diary,” she told her father. “And we did.”

  She put a cinnamon bun on her plate while Mr. Drew poured her some orange juice. “We couldn’t tell Mrs. Green what we were doing because nosy Brenda was there.”

  Mr. Drew listened to Nancy’s story with a smile on his face. “When you finish breakfast,” he said, “we’ll pull up the Chicago directory on my computer. Maybe we can find Edward’s address.”

  Nancy drank her orange juice and jumped up eagerly. “Okay, I’m finished!”

  While Nancy and Mr. Drew were looking through the Chicago listings, Mrs. Marvin dropped off Bess and George.

  “Guess what? Dad and I just found Edward’s address and phone number on the computer,” Nancy said. She pointed to the screen. “There are twenty-seven Bartons in Chicago, but only one whose first name is Edward.”

  “Did you find Amelia’s name?” George asked.

  “No, not yet,” Nancy said. “But if she got married, she might have a different last name.”

  Bess and George followed Nancy through the dining room on their way upstairs. Bess saw the Carlton News on the dining room table. “We got copies of that awful paper today, too,” she said angrily. “Brenda sure makes up a good story.”

  George shook her head. “Oh, well. We didn’t tell her the truth. She had to write something.”

  “Where should we start looking for Elizabeth’s treasure, Nancy?” Bess said.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” Nancy’s eyes lit up. “You won’t believe what I read in the diary last night!”

  “Ooh, what?” Bess said.

  “Amelia wrote that Aunt Tillie died and was buried in Elizabeth and Ruth’s backyard,” Nancy said.

  “No way!” George exclaimed. “Their aunt is buried in their backyard?”

  Nancy opened her notebook and read from it. “‘We buried Aunt Tillie in her favorite spot, between the cherry tree and the gazebo.’”

  “I wonder if she’s still there,” Bess said, her eyes wide.

  “Hmm. A gazebo,” George said. “There are two gazebos in our neighborhood. One is in Mr. Randolph’s backyard, and the other is in Jason Hutchings’s.”

  Bess started giggling. “I wonder how Jason would feel about having someone’s Aunt Tillie buried in his backyard.”

  “Which yard should we go to first?” Bess said.

  “Well,” Nancy began, “I’ve been thinking. Mr. Randolph doesn’t have a tree in his backyard. But Jason does.”

  “I just thought of something, too,” George said. “If we find the treasure at Jason’s, then it means that Elizabeth and Ruth used to live in Jason’s house.”

  “I just hope Brenda doesn’t follow us there, too,” Nancy said. “Next she’ll write a story about us sneaking into Jason’s yard!”

  “We may have to sneak in,” George said. “It’s Saturday, remember? So Jason might be home.”

  The girls sat on Nancy’s bed. How could they get into Jason’s yard to look for the treasure?

  Nancy jumped up. “I know how we can get into Jason’s yard. We’ll take Chip.”

  Chocolate Chip was Nancy’s chocolate-colored Labrador retriever.

  “Will Chip sniff out the treasure?” Bess asked.

  “Sort of,” Nancy said. “I’ll take some dog treats. Then, when we get to Jason’s, I’ll throw one in his backyard.”

  “Great idea!” George said. “Then Chip will run into the yard to get it.”

  “Yes,” Nancy said. “And then we’ll have to go get Chip. I’ll catch Chip, and you both can look around the yard.”

  “That could work,” George said.

  “I think so, too,” Bess said.

  Nancy knocked on the door to her father’s study and told him that they were taking Chip for a walk. Then she hooked Chip’s leash onto the dog’s red collar, and the girls headed for Jason’s house.

  As they walked past Jason’s back fence, Nancy tossed a treat into the backyard. The girls stopped so Chip could run after the treat. But the puppy sat down and looked up at Nancy, wagging her tail.

  Nancy tugged gently on her dog’s leash. “Get up, Chip!” she whispered. “Come on, girl!”

  “Give her a treat to eat,” George whispered. “Then throw another one into the yard.”

  “Hurry!” Bess whis
pered. “Someone will see us standing here.”

  Nancy bent down and let Chip sniff another treat. After Chip lapped it up she threw another one into Jason’s yard. Chip put her front paws on the fence.

  “Oh, no! She won’t jump,” Nancy said. “We’ll have to open the gate.”

  They tiptoed to the back gate and opened it quietly. Nancy threw another dog treat into the yard, and Chip ran to get it.

  “Finally!” Nancy sighed.

  The girls followed Chip in. Nancy caught Chip by her collar and started petting her. Quickly Bess and George ran to the gazebo. They searched the grass around the gazebo as quickly as they could.

  Suddenly Bess let out a loud scream. “I just found Aunt Tillie’s gravestone!”

  6

  In Jason’s Backyard

  Bess pointed to a brick in the gazebo’s foundation. The initials A.T. were carved on it. “A.T. must stand for Aunt Tillie,” she cried. “Aunt Tillie’s buried here!”

  Just then the back door to Jason’s house flew open, and Jason came running out.

  “Hey!” he said when he saw the girls. “What are you doing in my yard?”

  “Well, you cut through everybody’s yard on your way to school every day,” Bess said.

  “Do not,” Jason said.

  “Do so,” Nancy said.

  Jason looked down at George. George was still on her hands and knees. “What are you looking for?” he asked suspiciously.

  George jumped up. “Nothing,” she said quickly.

  “Chip ran into your backyard, and we came to get her,” Nancy said.

  “Oh, yeah?” Jason said. “Then why did Bess scream?”

  “I . . . I thought I saw . . .” Bess began.

  Just then Mrs. Hutchings stuck her head out the back door. “Jason, we have to leave for the dentist now,” she called out.

  “Hello, Mrs. Hutchings,” Nancy called.

  “Oh, hello, Nancy,” Mrs. Hutchings said, smiling. “What are you girls up to?”

  “Um, we’re just trying to catch my dog,” Nancy said. She tried not to sound nervous. “Chip ran into your yard.”

  “Okay, dear,” Mrs. Hutchings said. Then she headed for her car, which was parked in the driveway.