I spin it in the air. “No kidding, eh? It's kind of a cool little thing thoughâjust like the lanterns here in the square, only miniature.”
It takes a few seconds for my words to bore into Chris's brain, but when they do, he jumps up. “That's it! The cache is on one of the lampposts!”
A few people pivot and stare at him like he's some kind of lunatic.
“Shut your hole, man,” I shush him. “Do you want the entire world to hear?”
Chris sits down again. “Sorry.”
We keep our mouths closed and our butts planted on the bench until we think people have lost interest in us and moved on. Then we take another stroll around the square, checking out all the lamp standards.
“There it is,” I hiss. “That lamppost straight ahead. See it? There's a small bag tied to the base of the lantern.”
“Got it,” Chris says quietly. He keeps walking. Even I can't tell that he looked.
We walk out of Bastion Square. When we're a safe distance away, I say, “I can get up that pole easy. It'll be like climbing rope in gym class.”
“I thought you were afraid of heights,” Chris says.
“The lamppost isn't high. I could jump down.”
Chris nods. “Okay, then. The question is, when? We can't let anybody see us.”
I nod. “Right, but with all the restaurants and pubs around there, the square won't quiet down till after one in the morning, I bet.”
“Then that's when we'll come back,” Chris says as we head to the bus stop.
“Hey, look.” I point as we pass a parking lot. “There's that red convertible again. Wanna check it out?”
But Chris doesn't hear me. His mind is focused on that last cache.
Chris and I decide to meet behind Broadmead Shopping Center at 1:30 am. I'll never be able to lie in bed for three and a half hours without falling asleep, so I set the alarm on my watch and pray that nobody else hears it. I guess I doze off with my finger near the snooze button, because the alarm doesn't even sound a full beep before I shut it off and jump out of bed. I am instantly awake and within minutes fully dressed. I arrange the pillows under the blankets to look like a body, and then I'm gone. The sneaking-out part is easy. My room is in the basement, and there's a door leading out to the carport.
At Broadmead, Chris is waiting in the bushes. I'm not expecting him to be there, so when he jumps out, I nearly pee my pants.
We head onto Quadra Street, a straight route into town. During the day, it's a really busy road. Now it's so dead, I'm wondering if Victoria has been taken over by aliens and all the people have been beamed up into space. The streets are so empty, we don't even bother stopping at traffic lights. But we keep an eye out for cars. The last thing we need is to meet up with a cop. Whenever we see headlights or hear an engine, we pull over into the shadows and wait for the vehicle to pass.
Downtown Victoria is pretty much a ghost town too. Just the same, Chris and I stick to the side streets and alleys. Near Bastion Square, we pass the parking lot where we saw the red convertible that afternoon. It's still there, but now its top is up and it's parked in a corner.
“Hey,” I whisper to Chris and point. “There's your car.”
He looks and nods. “The lady who was driving it must've been partying. Probably took a cab home. Smart. Still, I don't think I'd want to leave a sweet ride like that sitting in an open parking lot overnight. It could get wrecked or stolen. She's taking a big chance.”
“You wanna check it out?”
I can tell by the way Chris hesitates that he's tempted. But he shakes his head and says, “We can do it on the way home. After we get the cache.”
We leave our bikes near the entrance to Bastion Square and slip into a dark doorway. Though it's the middle of the night, the streetlamps shed a lot of light, and we can't take the chance of being seen. We scan the square to make sure we're alone.
We're not.
On one of the benches across the courtyard is a bag lady with her cart. She looks like she's sleeping.
“Great!” Chris mutters. “If she stays there all night, we're never going to be able to get the cache.”
“Maybe we can scare her away,” I suggest. “You knowâmake a noise so she thinks someone is coming.”
“What kind of noise?”
“I don't know. Drop something, maybe, or smack something against the wall.”
Chris nods. “Good idea. Wait here and watch her.”
Chris creeps back to the corner of the building, hauls a flashlight out of his backpack and bangs it against a metal drainpipe. The clanging echoes throughout the square, and I worry that it might do more than wake up the bag lady. All we need is for a security guard to come running. I glance around nervously.
“Well?” Chris says as he slides back into the doorway beside me.
I look toward the bench. “I think it worked. She's awake, anyway.”
As we watch, the woman gets up, grabs her cart and shuffles slowly out of the courtyard, dissolving into the shadows.
We take one last look around before hurrying to the cache.
“It's still there,” Chris whispers. “You ready? Want a boost?” Before I can answer, he cups his hands together and braces them on his leg.
I rub my hands up and down my jeans. I don't want to slip. Then I grab the post, step into the foothold Chris has made and wrap my body around the pole. I slide my knees up and grip the slippery metal with the tread of my runners, reach for a higher grip with my hands and then straighten my legs. I repeat the process a few more times. My gaze is glued to the little leather pouch tied to the base of the lantern. Near the top of the pole, I lose my grip and slide down a few centimeters, but my runners act as a brake, and I'm able to pull myself back up.
It's a good thing I'm not a huge guy, because once I've climbed the post as far as I can, I have to support my entire weight with my feet and one arm. I need the other arm to undo the pouch. And, of course, the drawstring is tied in a knot.
“Hurry up,” Chris whispers.
That startles me, and I almost lose my grip. “Is somebody coming?” Now I'm sweating, so I rub my hands on my jeans again. First one, then the other.
“No,” Chris calls back, “but they probably will be soon. Snap it up.”
“I'm going as fast as I can,” I growl.
I peer around the square to make sure no one is around. If nothing else, I have a good view. I'm about to get working on the knot again when a movement in the shadows makes me stop. I peer harder into the darkness, but I don't see anything. I give my head a shake and look again. Nothing. I must be seeing things.
It's hard to untie the knot with one hand. The pouch keeps twisting around the pole. This would be much easier if I had a knife.
“Are you nearly done?” It's Chris again.
“A couple more secs,” I grunt as I grab the runaway bag for the fiftieth time. I have an idea. I hold the pouch still with my teeth. That makes it way easier to work on the knot. The drawstring is made of leather, so it's not hard to get a grip. Right away, I feel the knot start to give. Once I get it going, it comes undone easily. In less than a minute I have the pouch unfastened.
“Comin' down,” I say. In one motion, I grab the bag and slide down the lamppost.
“What's in it?” Chris demands before my feet have even touched the ground.
I dangle the pouch in front of him. “You think I've got X-ray vision?”
He grabs the pouch and loosens the drawstring, and now suddenly I'm the one who's impatient.
“It's a business card,” he says. “DeGroot, Jamieson & Associates, attorneys at law. Lawyers? I don't want to get mixed up with freakin' lawyers.”
“Wait. Turn it over. There's something written on the back.”
Chris flips the card and squints at the writing.
“What does it say?”
“
Congratulations! You have found the final cache. Bring this card to my office before 5
pm
tomorrow to claim your reward.
It's signed by a Martin Jamieson.”
Chris looks at me and I look at him. It takes a few seconds for the reality of what's happening to sink in. Finally, Chris grabs both my armsâtightlyâand starts shaking me.
“This is it!” he says. “We've done it. We've found all the caches. All we have to do now is collect our prize. Woo-hoo! Tomorrow we're gonna be rich.” He's not whispering anymore.
I'm excited, too, but I don't want to risk blowing everything, so I shush him and start pulling him toward our bikes. I take the business card from him and look at it more closely.
“This Jamieson guy's office is on Douglas Street. We can catch a bus after school and be there by four o'clock.” I look at my watch. “But now we have to get home. If my parents find out I've been riding all over Victoria in the middle of the night, I won't live to see tomorrow.”
We hop on our bikes and head back the way we came. Chris is so high, I swear he could fly home. As we pass the parking lot, I look for the red convertible, but it's gone. All that's there now is a wire cart.
It's three thirty in the morning when I sneak back into the house. After being up for twenty hours and cycling to town and back, I should be dead tired. But I'm too pumped. Chris and I found all the cachesâand they were
not
easy to find, so I'm totally stoked about that. But even better, now we get a prize. Someone is actually going to reward us for doing what we like to do. My heart is beating faster than a hummingbird's wings, and so many thoughts are whirring around in my head, it's impossible to think them all. How can I sleep?
Suddenly, my stomach growlsâreally loud. It sounds like some kind of animal is trapped in there. All that riding has made me hungry. Luckily, I have half a candy bar in my backpack. I dig it out and wolf it down. So now I'm on a sugar high too.
Needless to say, I don't close my eyes all night, but it doesn't matter. When morning arrives, I'm not the least bit tired. In fact, exhaustion doesn't hit me until lunchtime, but boy, does it hit me! One minute I'm walking on air, the next it's like I've been run over by a brigade of steamrollers. I can barely stand. Eating gets rid of the shakes, but it makes me even more tired. I sleep through my afternoon classes.
At three thirty, Chris is waiting for me outside the school.
He frowns when he sees me. “You look like crap, man.”
“I don't function well without sleep,” I mumble.
Chris grins. “I didn't sleep last night either. Who cares? Shake it off. There'll be plenty of time for sleep after we collect our money.” Then he shoves me toward the sidewalk. “So let's go get it.”
His enthusiasm is contagious, and I perk up on the bus ride downtown.
“How can you be sure we're going to get money?” I ask him. “How do you know it won't be movie passes or gift certificates or something like that?”
“Easy. We got fifty bucks for finding the first two caches, and they weren't even challenging or dangerous. So the last two have to be worth more.” He shakes his head. “Think about it, Eric. Gift certificates for risking our lives? No way, man. It's gotta be money.”
The law firm is on the other side of the street, a block from the bus stop. As we wait for the light to change, I stare at the buildings across the street.
“Which one is it?” I wonder out loud.
Chris looks again at the address on the business card and then squints across the street and points. “Second entrance from the corner. The tall sandcolored building.”
When the light turns red, we race across the intersection, but as soon as we reach the building, we stop. This is it, and, though it's the moment we've been waiting for, something holds us back. The unknown, I guess. Finally Chris reaches for the door handle and breathes so deeply, I swear he sucks in half the air in Victoria. Then he opens the door, and we're on the move again.
DeGroot, Jamieson & Associates is on the ninth floor, so we take the elevator. Thankfully, it's not one of those glass ones. If I could see how high we're going, I'd probably pass out. The elevator is fast, and only a couple of seconds after the doors close, they open again. Giant lettering on the wall ahead informs us that we've reached the ninth floor. Too bad my stomach is still in the lobby.
Chris scans the directory and then heads left. I follow him. He points to a set of carved wooden doors at the end of the hall, where it splits right and left. “That's it,” he says.
The words are no sooner out of his mouth than a woman appears around the corner and walks toward us. She's young and pretty, and the yellow dress she's wearing lights up the dark corridor like sunshine. But it's her hair that I can't stop staring at. It's long and blond and shiny, and it ripples over her shoulders like she's in a shampoo commercial.
She's looking straight at us, and as she gets closer, she smiles. That's when I realize I know her. Well, not actually know her, but I've seen her before. I just don't know where.
She stops in front of us, so we stop too.
“Hi there,” she says brightly. “Can I help you fellas?”
Chris smiles at her. He's a sucker for pretty girls. I'm still trying to figure out how I know her.
He shows the woman the business card. “We're looking for DeGroot, Jamieson & Associates,” he says, though the office is right in front of us.
The woman lifts Chris's hand so she can see the back of the card. That's when she gasps and covers her mouth. She takes a step backward. Then she sort of staggers and starts laughing. “You're our mystery treasure hunters!” She points to the business card. “And if you have Martin's card, you've found all the caches. We didn't think anyone would. That's wonderful!”
Before I realize what's happening, she's hugging us, and I can't help noticing how good her hair smells.