Treasure Trouble Read online

  by Brian James

  illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin

  Grosset & Dunlap

  For my pirate pal Dan.—BJ

  To Grammy & Grandpa, for treating

  every drawing I’ve ever done as a piece

  to be treasured.—JZ

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Text copyright © 2008 by Brian James. Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Jennifer Zivoin.

  All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young

  Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP

  is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Printed in the U.S.A.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2007018785

  ISBN: 978-1-101-65061-5 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 Splish! Splash!

  Chapter 2 Digging Is the Pits!

  Chapter 3 Something Fishy!

  Chapter 4 Finders Keepers

  Chapter 5 Abandoned Ship?

  Chapter 6 Seasick Sailors

  Chapter 7 Sailing in Circles!

  Chapter 8 Crabby Clues!

  Chapter 9 Snoop and Sneak

  Chapter 10 Smooth Sailing

  Chapter 1

  Splish! Splash!

  “Arrr! Row! Row! Row!” Rotten Tooth shouted as the little dinghy made its way over the waves. Each time he shouted, the rest of us pirates on board the little boat had to pull back on the oars as hard as we could.

  “Blimey, being a pirate kid sure is hard work sometimes,” I said.

  “Aye, Pete, and splashy work,” Gary added.

  Gary was my best mate at Pirate School. We both had light-colored hair. And we both wore pirate hats. But unlike me, Gary was a little clumsy. So every time he pulled on the oar, he got splashed in the face. And since we were sharing an oar with our friend Inna, it meant she got a little splashed, too.

  “Arrr! Maybe if you weren’t such a blunder head, it wouldn’t be so splashy!” Inna shouted. She was the only pirate kid I knew who didn’t like to get splashed. She was also the only pirate kid I ever met who brushed her hair and wore pretty dresses. She said splashing ruined both.

  Some of the splashing even reached our friends Aaron and Vicky. They were sharing an oar behind us.

  “I don’t mind the splashing,” Vicky said.

  I didn’t mind it, either. It was hot in the morning sun and the splashing felt good.

  We were part of our ship’s landing party. That meant we had to row the little boat all the way to the beach. But it also meant that once we made it to the beach, we got to help look for treasure.

  “ROW! ROW! ROW!” Rotten Tooth shouted again. He was standing right behind us and didn’t have to row at all. That’s because he was in charge of the dinghy and the landing party. The pirate in charge never has to row. It’s in the pirate code. In my nine and three-quarters years, I’ve learned all about the pirate code.

  “ROW! ROW! Row with all your might, mateys!” Rotten Tooth yelled. I wished I didn’t have to hold both hands on the oar. Rotten Tooth’s breath was so stinky, I wanted to cover my nose.

  “One day, I’m going to be the pirate in charge. Then I won’t have to row,” I said to my friends.

  “Aye,” Vicky said. “Never mind the splashing—rowing is the part I don’t like.”

  “Aye,” Gary said as the oar splashed us again.

  Inna wiped the water away from her face. “I don’t like either part!” she exclaimed.

  “Quit bellyaching,” Aaron said.

  Aaron was Vicky’s twin brother. They looked exactly alike. They even dressed alike. They both had dark hair and dark eyes. They wore matching red-and-white-striped clothes. The only thing that was different was that Aaron was a boy. And he was a show-off, too.

  “Rowing is easy breezy,” he said.

  Vicky gave him a long look. Aaron was leaning back with both hands behind his head.

  “Arrr!” she growled. “That’s because you’re not even rowing!”

  “Aye! That’s what makes it so easy,” he said.

  Vicky was just about to say something else when Rotten Tooth leaned over and yelled into Aaron’s ear. “ARRR! Get to rowing, ye scurvy pup, or ye’ll be shark bait!” he shouted.

  Aaron gulped!

  “Aye aye!” he said. He grabbed the oar and started rowing like the rest of us.

  “Arrr, that’s what I thought,” Rotten Tooth snarled.

  Rotten Tooth was the meanest pirate on the seas. He was also the ugliest! He had a pointy green beard and green teeth, too. Plus, he was our teacher and the first mate of our ship, the Sea Rat. That meant he was the double boss of us, so it wasn’t a good idea to make him mad.

  “Blimey, I hate rowing,” Aaron mumbled once Rotten Tooth wasn’t paying attention anymore.

  Vicky stuck her tongue out at him. “Arrr! I told you so,” she said.

  I lifted up my pirate hat and took a look ahead.

  “Avast! It won’t be much longer,” I told my friends. The beach was getting closer each time we rowed. “Besides, it’ll all be worth it when we reach land. Once we get ashore, we’ll be looking for buried treasure!”

  “Aye!” my friends agreed.

  Looking for buried treasure was one of the most fun parts about being a pirate. This was the first time since we came to Pirate School that Captain Stinky Beard picked us to be part of the landing party. He said we’d proven that we were brave pirates.

  Rotten Tooth wasn’t so sure. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t teach us anything except how to swab the deck. Lucky for us, the cap’n was the boss of him.

  “I hope we find the treasure first,” Vicky said.

  “Aye!” I agreed.

  “That’ll show old Rotten Head,” Aaron said.

  “Aye aye!” Gary said as he splashed Inna again by accident. The rest of us couldn’t keep from giggling when we saw how soggy she was.

  Inna wasn’t giggling.

  She gave Gary a grumpy look. “Arrr, I just hope we get there before
you sink the whole boat,” she grumbled.

  Chapter 2

  Digging Is the Pits!

  Vicky leaned against her shovel and crossed her arms. “Great sails! You’ll never find the treasure that way,” she yelled at Aaron.

  The beach around us was covered with tiny holes that Aaron had dug. They were more like dents than holes. The rest of us were digging holes as deep as we were tall!

  “You have to dig bigger holes!” Vicky told him.

  Aaron folded his arms and lifted his chin in the air. That was the face he always made when he was being a know-it-all. He made that face a lot.

  “Arrr! I was just starting the holes for the rest of you guys,” Aaron said.

  “Aye, because that’s the easiest part!” Vicky shouted.

  “Is not!” Aaron said.

  “IS TOO!” Vicky shouted.

  Then she marched over to Aaron and gave him a tiny shove.

  I didn’t like it when my friends were fighting. So I ran over and stood between them. “Shiver me timbers! That’s no way to act on our first real pirate mission,” I shouted.

  Aaron and Vicky forgot they were angry with each other and turned on me.

  “Real pirate mission? That’s hogwash!” Aaron said. “Rotten Tooth only agreed to let us come along so we could row and carry shovels.”

  “Aye!” Vicky shouted. “That’s why he stuck us here while the rest of the crew is way down there on the other end of the beach. That’s where Rotten Tooth thinks the treasure is!”

  “Aye aye!” Inna said. “The only thing I’ve found is sand!”

  “Me too,” Gary said. “I even found sand in my skivvies.” Then he jumped around and tried to shake the sand out of his pants.

  “Aye. Maybe Rotten Tooth sent us here so we wouldn’t find the treasure, but Captain Stinky Beard said the treasure map wasn’t very clear,” I reminded them. “That means the treasure could be anywhere on this beach! It’s our pirate duty to help find it!”

  My friends scratched their heads. That meant they were thinking really hard about what I’d said. They also scratched their bellies, their arms, and their legs. But that had nothing to do with thinking. It just meant that the sand was very itchy.

  “Arrr, maybe Pete’s right,” Vicky said when she was done scratching.

  “Aye,” Inna agreed. “Pirate duty is serious business. Maybe we should stop bellyaching and start digging again.”

  “Arrr! And digging sure beats rowing,” Aaron said.

  “Aye,” Gary added. “At least we can take breaks and build sand castles.”

  “That’s the spirit, mateys,” I said. “We’ll find the treasure first and prove we’re the best pirates on the seas, even if we are only kids!”

  Then we all put our hands together in a circle and gave our pirate cheer. “Swashbuckling, sailing, finding treasure, too. Becoming pirates is what we want to do!”

  We picked up our shovels and started digging again.

  Everyone except Gary. He was too busy jumping around trying to get the sand out of his skivvies. He jumped around so much that his glasses fell off. When he bent down to pick them up, he tripped over his shovel.

  THUMP!

  He tripped right into Inna.

  Then…CRASH!

  They both tumbled into a big hole that Vicky had dug.

  I ran over to the hole and peeked in.

  “Blimey! Are you guys okay?” I asked.

  I thought for sure Inna was going to pull Gary’s hat down over his ears and bop him on the head. That’s what she always did when Gary made her mad. Only when I poked my head down, Inna didn’t look mad at all. She was actually smiling!

  Aaron and Vicky rushed over to me. They peeked in, too. “She must have bumped her head a little too hard!” Aaron suggested when he saw Inna smiling.

  “Aye,” I agreed.

  “I didn’t bump anything,” Inna hollered. Then we watched as she brushed away the sand under her feet. “I’m smiling because I think we found something!”

  Gary helped her brush away the sand. They were both standing on something. And when all the sand was brushed away, we saw what it was.

  One giant treasure chest, just like Captain Stinky Beard had said!

  “HOORAY!” We all let out a great big cheer.

  Aaron, Vicky, and I danced around outside the hole. Inna and Gary danced around inside the hole. Then instead of bopping Gary on the head, Inna gave him a hug.

  Sometimes being clumsy was the same as being lucky!

  Chapter 3

  Something Fishy!

  “Arrr! The last one there is seaweed slime!” Vicky called out as she ran across the beach.

  “Aye! You better get ready to be slimed then,” I hollered.

  I was right behind her, running as fast as I could. We were racing to tell Rotten Tooth the good news.

  Aaron stayed behind to guard the treasure. Inna and Gary stayed behind, too. They weren’t really guarding. They were just too small to climb out of the hole.

  “Avast! There he is,” I said as soon as I saw Rotten Tooth.

  Vicky and I ran faster.

  We were so busy racing, we forgot to look where we were going. So we didn’t see Rotten Tooth step in front of us until it was too late.

  DOUBLE CRASH!

  “Arrr! What’s gotten into ye pollywogs?” Rotten Tooth roared.

  We gulped!

  Rotten Tooth looked even madder than the time Aaron was pretending to swashbuckle and buckled him right in the tummy!

  “We’re sorry,” I said. “We were racing.”

  “Racing?” Rotten Tooth bellowed.

  “Aye,” Vicky admitted. “Did you see who won?”

  “ARRR! Ye both lost!” he growled. “When we get back to the Sea Rat, ye’ll be racing to see who can wash the most dishes!”

  “But we were racing to tell you something important,” I said.

  “Aye?” Rotten Tooth asked.

  “AYE!” Vicky said. “We found the treasure!”

  The rest of the landing party stopped digging and turned to look at us. They dropped their shovels and cheered. “Hooray for our little shipmates!”

  I couldn’t tell if they were happy because we found the treasure or because they didn’t have to dig anymore. Probably both.

  Rotten Tooth was the only one who didn’t look happy. He thought us pirate kids were only good for being deckhands. He didn’t like it one bit when we did shipshape pirate work.

  “Arrr, ye better show me,” he grumbled. “And ye better not be fibbing, or else!”

  “Nope. No fibbing,” I said. Then I grabbed one of his hands and Vicky grabbed the other. Together, we brought him back to where our friends were waiting.

  Only when we got there, we didn’t see any of our friends. We only saw a bunch of holes.

  “Arrr! I don’t have time for games,” Rotten Tooth barked.

  “But it’s not a game,” I said. “They were just here.”

  Vicky crossed her arms and frowned. “I bet this is all Aaron’s fault,” she mumbled. She always thought everything that went wrong was Aaron’s fault.

  Just then, we heard a scream coming from one of the holes.

  “INNA!” I shouted.

  We followed the screams. They were coming from the hole where we had found the treasure.

  “Shiver me timbers!” Vicky yelled when she peeked into the hole.

  “Aye!” I said. My timbers were shivering, too! That’s because not only were our friends in the hole, so was a giant sand crab! It was almost as big as Gary!

  Inna was covering her eyes. She didn’t like crabs at all. She said they were the same as spiders, only worse. And she thought spiders were the second-scariest thing in the world besides snakes.

  Gary didn’t have to cover his eyes. He still didn’t have his glasses on, so he didn’t know what was happening.

  “Arrr! This is our treasure, you scallywag!” Aaron yelled as he tried to hold the crab back with a shovel. But the gi
ant crab grabbed the shovel with its claw and snapped it in half!

  “Stand back,” Rotten Tooth said. Then he reached down and picked up that pinchy crab by the back legs! He swung it around and around over his head, then tossed it into the sea.

  My mouth dropped wide open!

  “Arrr! He might be mean, but Rotten Tooth sure is one brave pirate,” I whispered to Vicky.

  “Aye.” She nodded.

  “Arrr! Don’t stand there like barnacles,” Rotten Tooth said to us. “Help your little mates out while I get the treasure.”

  “Aye aye!” we said, and gave Rotten Tooth a pirate salute.

  Aaron gave Inna and Gary a boost while Vicky and I pulled them up. Rotten Tooth lifted the treasure chest out of the hole. Then he lifted Aaron out, too. Before long, everyone had two feet on the ground…even the giant sand crab!

  “It’s back!” Inna shouted, pointing to the crab crawling toward us.

  “Aye, and it brought friends,” I said, pointing at an army of crabs marching behind it.

  Rotten Tooth scooped up the treasure chest and pointed to the rest of the crew. “Let’s go, buckoes!” he ordered.

  We all hurried as fast as we could. It was like the race Vicky and I had run, except that this time, the last one there would be crab bait for real!

  “All hands back to the Sea Rat!” Rotten Tooth hollered. The crew loaded the boats as quickly as they could. Then we leaped on and started to row away. By the time we were out to sea, the beach was covered with sand crabs.

  “That was a close one,” I whispered.

  “Aye,” Inna said. “It almost pinched us in two!”

  “Lucky for you mates, I was there,” Aaron said. For once, being a show-off had actually come in handy.

  “But what were those crabs there for in the first place?” Vicky asked.

  “I heard a pirate tale on my old ship about crabs that guarded treasure,” Gary told us. He had heard tons of pirate tales. The ship he was on before the Sea Rat had an entire library of tales, and Gary had heard all about them.

  “Aye?” we asked.

  “Aye!” Gary said. “It said crabs guard only cursed treasure!”