The Great Treasure Hunt Read online

  At the end of the street is an old junk shop. It’s gloomy and shabby and nothing ever happens there. At least, that’s what most people think. . . .

  Among the odds and ends and things of no use, a dusty ship in a bottle sits gathering cobwebs on a shelf. But when the world isn’t watching, a tiny pirate crew comes out to explore.

  And when you’re smaller than a teacup, a junk shop can be a pretty dangerous place. . . .

  A black beetle clung tightly to the back of Button the cabin boy. Button gasped and puffed as its hook-like feet buried themselves into his sides and shoulders. His hands gripped the shoelace hard, but he made the mistake of looking down and felt sick. It was a long way.

  “Just a bit further,” he grunted.

  Finally he grasped the edge of the shelf and pulled himself up with all his might, his arms burning. He lay flat, breathing heavily.

  After a moment he got to his knees and pulled the beetle from his shoulder. It scurried off into a corner, receiving a warm welcome from its family. They darted around Button’s legs, clicking excitedly.

  “There you go,” he said. “Make sure you don’t let your little ones wander too near the edge next time.” And the beetles scampered off, click-click-clicking their thanks.

  “Ah, you’re such a good friend to the animals, Button. Well done.” It was Button’s shipmate Lily, back from a morning stroll.

  “Poor little chap,” said Button. “He’d fallen all the way down into the book box. It’s a good thing he has that shell on his back. And those mice would have made a good supper of him.”

  Further along the shelf Captain Crabsticks, head pirate of the pocket-sized crew, had spotted a new book. “There’s not much gets past the old Captain,” he muttered to himself. Though it must be admitted that the book was the size that a small castle would be to you and me, so it wasn’t too impressive that the Captain had noticed it.

  He ran his hand along the spine and tipped his head sideways to read it. “Secret Treasures of the Ancient World.”

  For the rest of the morning the Captain was lost inside the book. He enjoyed it so much that lunch wandered by unnoticed. He was, in fact, missing out on a rather large portion of hard-boiled egg.

  “Where is the Captain?” mumbled Button, filling his face.

  “Tried calling him,” said Lily. “No answer.”

  Jones the ship’s cat meowed under the jam-jar-lid tabletop and Button fed him a scrap.

  “Well, all the more for us then,” said Old Uncle Noggin, who wasn’t going to miss the chance of an extra slice.

  “Hmmmmmm, fascinating,” said the Captain to himself as he started to make his way back toward the old ship in the bottle.

  He screwed up his face and scratched his chin. “I’ve discovered a very serious problem,” he continued. “I’m going to have to rally round the rest of the miniature pirate crew. Our position as rulers of the old junk shop shelves is at great risk. The buccaneers need to know why, and the sooner the better so that we can get this sorted. Now where is that work-shy lot, I wonder?”

  By now, Button was sneaking an afternoon nap in the bottom of a broken egg cup at the back of the shelf. The soles of his shoes pointed up at the ship in the bottle as it towered proudly above him.

  Inside, the rest of the crew were busy at their work. Well when I say “busy at their work,” I mean Old Uncle Noggin was starting to eat his way through a clump of sticky marshmallow he’d found, while Lily was lying in her hammock mending holes in her socks. She was using stolen strands of silky spider thread, pinched from Mr. Dregby’s web. The house spider would not be pleased if he found out!

  Button woke with a start when the Captain sounded the ship’s horn. Lily almost fell out of her hammock: it was her turn to climb the mast and blow into the snail shell to announce dinner. This was a duty that only fell to her or Button: Old Uncle Noggin was too chubby to climb the mast, and of course the Captain was too important.

  Button looked up at the face of the wristwatch hanging on the wall. It was five o’clock already. And there was the Captain climbing down from sounding the ship’s horn. What could be important enough to get him to scale the mast?

  In a moment, the crew were ready. They were never happier than when poised for a pirate dinner. But Captain Crabsticks was making an announcement.

  “Now listen here, my fellow buccaneers. We have a major problem. Something is MISSING.”

  “WHAT?” asked Old Uncle Noggin, keen to get to his dinner.

  “Well, what do you think?” continued the Captain. “Tell me, what do we have on board our ship?”

  “We’ve got everything we need,” said Button. “There’s food, there’s a good water supply from the leaky pipe. We’ve got blankets made out of that pair of giant purple underpants, our mustard-pot bathtub, and we’ve even got fresh fruit!”

  “It’s a rotten apple core,” pointed out Lily.

  “Errm, true,” butted in Old Uncle Noggin, “but we’ve got a quarter of a custard cream, a whole thimbleful of sugar, and three types of cheese.”

  The conversation wasn’t going the way the Captain had wanted.

  “Never mind all that. I wasn’t talking about our shopping list!”

  “Three types of cheese? I didn’t think we had three. Name them!” insisted Button to Old Uncle Noggin.

  The Captain gave up trying to make his point. He stood, hands on hips, and waited patiently for his rowdy crew.

  “Well, there’s a whole slice of Cheddar, a bag of crumbly bits of Wensleydale and cranberry, and the other one begins with a G but I can never remember the name of it. . . .”

  “Gruyère?” suggested Button.

  “No.”

  “Goat’s cheese?” said Lily.

  “No.”

  “It must be Gorgonzola,” snapped the Captain.

  “No, it’s none of those.”

  “Well I can’t think of anything else,” said Lily.

  “Ah, I remember,” announced Old Uncle Noggin with a smile. “It’s grated.”

  “Right, if you’ve quite finished talking about cheese,” said the Captain, “I need to make my point and it’s a jolly good one. Pin back those lugs and get listening.”

  “Aye, aye, Cap’n, do tell us, what IS missing from our galleon?” asked Old Uncle Noggin.

  “Well, I’ve been doing a spot of reading about pirate life and it appears we’re without something VERY obvious.”

  “WHATTTT?” said Button, raising his hands in the air.

  “Pirate gold!” said the Captain. “We don’t have a single nugget of pure pirate gold! How can we call ourselves pirates if all we’ve got is moldy cheese and rotten fruit?”

  “And what do you suppose we do about that?” asked Button.

  “I’ll tell you what we need to do about it, young sea urchin. We need to empty out all our rubbish from that great big trunk and fill it with precious booty, otherwise we’re never going to be taken seriously as pirates.”

  “And where do you think it is, this pirate gold?” asked Lily.

  “Well, there must be some somewhere, old chap. This place is filled with wonders and curiosities. Endless piles of undiscovered delights. We’re not proper pirates if we can’t find buried treasure here.”

  Lily hated it when he called her “old chap,” but it was a habit and the Captain wasn’t going to change. She ignored it and carried on.

  “It’s true that everybody loves a good gold hunt, don’t they?”

  Button gave Lily a wide grin. “Yes, they do,” he said. “Of course they do.”

  Their pirate dinner was a celebration that night. A sliver of ham, four bread crumbs, a chunk of the yellow bit from a boiled egg, and even a dollop of caramel from a chocolate
.

  When he couldn’t eat any more, Button wandered off on his own. There was nothing he liked more than sitting on the edge of the shelf, watching the sun go down. He fed bits of splintered wood and tiny chunks of apple to his friends the beetles until it got dark, then strolled back and perched inside his egg cup. Leaning over the edge with his arms folded he peered out over the shop, dreaming of long-lost treasure.

  In the morning, they would start their hunt.

  Uncle Noggin announced he was going to stay and keep guard over the cheese. Supplies were especially good at the moment, and they didn’t want to risk losing them to the baseboard mice if they all went venturing out together.

  “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the old sea dog,” said Captain Crabsticks. He winked. “You young ones can go and do the looting. See what you can find. Holler if you need me, old chaps. I’m right here.”

  Button and Lily wore huge grins. Much as they loved Uncle Noggin, he slowed them down and it was always more fun to go it alone.

  “A quick story before yer go, young hearties,” said Old Uncle Noggin. “To set you on your way and get your minds thinking.”

  “Oh . . . er, go on then,” said Button, hoisting his bag over his shoulder. “What is it about?”

  “It’s about searching, Button. About seeking and finding. It’s a good lesson, that’s what it is.”

  Button perched on the edge of a cotton reel, and Lily crossed her legs on the floor.

  “Once, there was an astronomer who used to spend his days asleep and all his nights outside observing the stars.”

  “Er, what’s an astronomer?” asked Button.

  “Oh, here we go,” said Lily. “Interruptions already.”

  Old Uncle Noggin patiently explained that an astronomer was a person who studied the sky and stars, then he carried on.

  “One evening, as he wandered through the nighttime city with all his thoughts fixed on the sky above him, he fell into a deep well. He lay there in pain for some time, holding on tight to his bruises and crying out for help. Eventually a neighbor heard him and ran to the well. He peered in and through the dark he could just make out the man at the bottom. ‘What happened to you?’ said the neighbor. When the astronomer had described his fall, the neighbor asked him, ‘Old fellow, why, while trying to see what is up in heaven, do you not manage to see what is on earth?’ ”

  “Is that it?” asked Button.

  “Yes, that is it,” tutted Old Uncle Noggin.

  “Well, it’s not much of a story,” Button replied.

  “Well, just maybe it’s one of those stories that has a meaning you have to think about. Maybe it will mean something to you when you go treasure-hunting,” said Uncle Noggin, tapping his nose and winking.

  Lily was tapping her foot. “Er, are we ready?”

  “Yup, let’s go!” said Button. “Thanks, Uncle Noggin. REALLY helpful.” He rolled his eyes at Lily. “And well worth the wait.”

  Button adored the old pirate, but sometimes his stories left him a little cold. Perhaps it would make sense when he’d thought about it a little longer!

  In no time at all Button and Lily were scaling down the huge encyclopedias and clambering over odds and ends toward an unexplored corner of the junk shop. A new batch of clutter was there that they hadn’t yet investigated.

  They took a shortcut through a hole chewed in the corner of a box of teacups and teapots. When they came out on the other side they felt like they were in another world.

  They were surrounded by toys. Dozens of tin robots, dolls, faces looming at them. They looked up in wonder. A wooden dragon on wheels with orange eyes.

  “How come we’ve never seen all this before?” asked Button.

  “Maybe it’s new?” said Lily.

  “There MUST be treasure here,” insisted Button.

  “Why?”

  “Dunno,” said Button. “It just seems . . . magical. Like there’s something here. Maybe the robots are guarding something.”

  “Huh? And you say Uncle Noggin talks nonsense. Dear oh dear!” She grinned.

  Just then Lily was startled by a shuffling noise. A scratching and scrabbling.

  “What was that?” hissed Lily.

  “What was WHAT?” replied Button.

  “That noise.”

  “What noise?”

  “Hmmm. Nothing. It’s probably just me.”

  Button was too busy examining a tin model of a space rocket to take much notice.

  They climbed into the top of the rocket and took a long look out across the toys. A sea of heads and hair, wood and metal, puppets and robots. And a nose, a long pink nose and sharp eyes.

  Then the nose moved and there was a shuffling noise, the whip of a tail and a high-pitched squeak.

  “I told you I heard something,” said Lily. “MICE.”

  Button felt his heart thump into action. He could see three of them now, matted brown fur against the fading reds and yellows of the toys, sniffing the air. Fleabag, Blue Vinny, and Pepper Jack.

  Vinny sharpened his claws against the rusted edge of a tin duck, like nails down a chalkboard.

  “What do we do now?” gasped Lily.

  “We do this . . . ,” said Button. He climbed from the rocket onto a tall tin robot, grabbed the key in its back, and wound it tighter and tighter with all his strength.

  “Here,” said Lily, “let me help.”

  Together they wound the robot until the key wouldn’t make another turn. Then they leaped across to the next one, watching out for the spiky fur and claws of the baseboard mice.

  It wasn’t easy to turn the keys on the robots: they were huge and rusty, but Button and Lily were strong and fast. They wound up the next and the next, until their hands hurt and the box had a great tin army on the march. The force of the stomping metal feet weakened the cardboard edges of the box, making them pop open and letting the robots spill out on the floor. Some fell on their sides with their feet still working away; the others kept going, sending teacups and books toppling over.

  The rag-tailed mouse varmints had no choice but to flee. Lily and Button perched on top of the rocket, watching the mice scatter in panic to all corners of the shop.

  But the Pocket Pirates knew that those miserable mice would be back in a flash. Treasure-hunting in the open wilderness of the shop was too dangerous: they needed to hide, and quickly.

  Button and Lily had no time to enjoy the view. They could see the perfect place for escape: an old dolls’ house was up ahead.

  They couldn’t be sure if they were imagining it or not, but as they clambered down from the rocket they thought they could hear the scratch and scrabble of mice, close behind them. They tore toward the house at lightning speed. Lily threw a glance behind her. “Faster!” she shouted. “They’re here!”

  Button knew exactly where he was heading. He ignored the front door and hurled himself instead through a tiny half-open window, letting out an “OOMPH!” as Lily crash-landed on top of him.

  The mice poked their huge sniffing noses through the window, but it was too small for them to get inside. They snarled and muttered through the gap, then disappeared with their tails whipping up behind them.

  Button knew that now they’d been spotted out and about it would not be easy to escape from the mice. They would find a way inside. Lily raced to the front door and blocked it shut with an old roll of parcel tape, as Button watched the mouse crew disappear around the back of the house.

  “This treasure-hunting is dangerous pirate business,” said Button. He couldn’t see the mice, but he could still hear them. “You know what I always say, Lil!”

  “What’s that, Button?”

  “We’d be much safer out to sea on that ship. Dry land is not for the faint-hearted.”

  He pushed the little window closed, and it was only when he stood back that he realized the dolls’ house was sitting at an angle. His whole body was sliding backward, and he had to hold on to a doorway to stop himself tumbling into the
next room.

  With Lily at his side he began to venture through the house, pulling at the furniture and walls to help move onward. Every now and then they’d lose their grip and go sliding back down the slope.

  “One step forward, two steps back!” said Button. “We’ll get there eventually.”

  “Where are we heading, though?” asked Lily.

  “I’m not exactly sure,” admitted Button, and they both started shaking with laughter.

  “We have to keep quiet!” giggled Lily.

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Button, forcing himself to stop laughing. He took the trusty shoelace from his backpack and lassoed it around a banister at the top of the stairs.

  “Grab my waist,” he instructed.

  With Lily behind him, he mountaineered his way up the house.

  “There’s EVERYTHING we need in here, Lil,” gasped Button as they passed through the kitchen. “Tables, chairs. Teapots, cups, and saucers. Plates and pans and pots!”

  “Most of it is no use,” Lily pointed out.

  “Why?”

  “We can’t cook in pans made of plastic!”

  “But some of it is all right,” Button insisted, pointing at a beautiful clock with a long case. “You see? Look at this. A proper working clock.”

  It was handmade, intricately carved and painted. They listened for ticking. “Nothing,” said Lily. “It doesn’t work.”

  “It just needs winding,” said Button. “Look, there’s a little crank.”

  “Button, haven’t we got better things to do than mess around with a grandfather clock? We’re supposed to be treasure-seeking. That means gold!”

  Just then a frantic scratching came from below, and they caught sight of a large claw hooked onto the staircase, a pink nose, and sharp eyes.

  “They’re here!” cried Lily.

  Hearts racing, they pulled themselves up the stairs, trying to ignore the horrible scrabbling sounds as the mice tried to climb after them. Panicking, Button shoved the clock with his feet as he passed, letting it fall so that it halfblocked the stairs. They thundered through the door at the top and barricaded themselves into a large bedroom.