Arkie Sparkle Treasure Hunter: Ruby Red Read online

  7 treasures

  7 continents

  7 days

  7 books

  6 changes of clothes

  5 suspicious sightings

  4 close shaves

  3 wrong turns

  2 maps

  1 treasure hunter

  p.s. + 1 treasure hunter’s helper

  p.p.s. ++ 1 treasure hunter’s helper’s super-snooper dog

  The biggest treasure hunt in the world is about to begin

  Eleven-year-old Arkie Sparkle’s archaeologist parents have been kidnapped. With the help of her genius cousin TJ and basset hound Cleo, she must find seven treasures across the seven continents in seven days.

  RUBY RED

  DAY 4: The North Carolina coast

  SINK ME! Arkie and TJ have just gatecrashed the pirate party of the eighteenth century – a party given by the villainous Blackbeard. They’re in trouble as soon as they arrive. Pirates don’t like gatecrashing spies – especially ones with a petulant parrot.

  First published 2012 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  Copyright © Petra James 2012

  Illustrations copyright © Roy Chen 2012

  Copyright TJ’s Style File © Maddy Gerrard 2012

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  James, Petra.

  James, Petra.

  Ruby red / Petra James; Roy Chen,

  9781742611266 (pbk.)

  James, Petra.

  Arkie Sparkle: treasure hunter ; 4.

  For primary school age.

  Other Authors/Contributors:

  Chen, Roy.

  A823.4

  Online format: 9781743348444

  EPUB format: 9781743348468

  Typeset by XOU Creative

  Cover design by Mel Feddersen

  arkiesparkle.com

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  Contents

  Cover

  About Arkie Sparkle Treasure Hunter: Ruby Red

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Definition

  What’s happened so far in Arkie Sparkle Treasure Hunter

  Treasure Hunter’s Diary

  Night Scramble

  Anagram Scamagram

  Ahoy!

  TJ’s Style File

  Mad Bad Pirates

  I Spy

  Bilge Rats

  A Pirate’s Lot

  Stormy Seas

  Debrief

  What’s Next?

  In Real Life

  treasure hunter / n 1. a person who hunts for wealth or riches or jewels or gold statues or anything that is treasured by someone.

  2. Arkie Sparkle.

  What’s happened so far in Arkie Sparkle:

  Treasure Hunter?

  It’s getting pretty dizzy around here as things are lost and found and lost again. Arkie’s lost her parents but found a gold statue of Queen Nefertari, the Book of Songs, a letter from her dad and a possible plot to stab Siena (Siena? Who’s Siena?). Arkie, TJ and Cleo found some seeds in the Doomsday Vault, but then Arkie lost TJ and Cleo and found a cousin she never knew even existed. Then she lost the cousin, who flew away on a red balloon, and encountered a polar bear that thought it had found a tasty lunch. Later that night, Arkie had a phone call from one of the most important lost people in her life: her mother (that’s right – the kidnapped one!). Confused? Yes, we are too.

  And that’s where we’re up to in Arkie Sparkle: Treasure Hunter.

  Arkie: We’ve found three treasures, TJ, but it seems like the more clues we find the less we know.

  TJ: Yeah, I find life like that sometimes. Especially since I’ve become an international treasure hunter.

  Arkie: Do you think we’ll ever find out where Mum and Dad are and who kidnapped them and why?

  TJ: It won’t be much of a story if we don’t. Hey, did we ever hear back about the stars on our dressing rooms? I think international treasure hunters should have an entire galaxy on their doors. We haven’t even got a red dwarf at the moment – and that’s the tiniest star of all!

  Arkie: I don’t think we’re going to get them. They said child stars don’t need more stars in their eyes.

  TJ: Well, when I’m starring in Junior Genius on national television, I’ll be expecting a star the size of the Sun on my dressing-room door.

  Treasure Hunter’s Diary

  DAY 4

  I’ve just put the THinc hotline down.

  My hands are still shaking.

  I’m looking at the things in my room, expecting the blinds to blink, the drawers to rattle and shake, the bed to leap with joy.

  How can nothing around me have changed because everything has changed?

  YOU’RE ALIVE, MUM.

  And I just spoke to you.

  You only managed to say a few words because I was babbling on and on and then there was a horrible crash and the phone went dead – but I’m not going to think about that part.

  I’m just going to think about the moment when I realised it was you.

  It was the best feeling I’ve ever ever had.

  And if you’re alive Dad’s got to be alive too.

  You’d have told me if anything had happened to him.

  Wouldn’t you?

  I should wake TJ and tell her this astronomical news but I just want to sit in the dark for a while. Thinking about what you said: Find Edie.

  But how? We never know where Edie is. The last postcard she sent was from Zanzibar. (That sounds such a long way away. I’ll check Google Earth tomorrow.)

  Edie will explain.

  Explain what? How is Edie involved in any of this? She’s not even a member of THinc. It’s just you, me, Dad and Quincy. And, TJ – sort of (she’s the very best stand-by member we’ve ever had, Mum).

  The only thing that links Edie to any of this is STAB SIENA.

  She had written this on a postcard I found on Dad’s Noticeboard of Thoughts.

  And then Dad wrote STAB SIENA in the letter he left for me in the THinc Tank’s safe.

  It’s got to be important.

  But what does it mean?

  Questions, questions, questions.

  Remember what Dr Seuss said, Mum?

  ‘Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.’

  Well I think that sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are too.

  Especially in the dark.

  When fears fill my head.

  I’m going to wake TJ.

  Love from Arkie xox

  Night Scramble

  TJ was snoring softly and chuckling to herself as Arkie shook her shoulder.

  ‘Wake up, TJ,’ she said. ‘We have to talk. NOW.’

  TJ groaned and opened one eye. ‘But it’s still dark,’ she said. ‘We can’t talk in the dark. Dark is for sleep. Light is for talk.’

  Arkie switche
d on the bedside lamp and bright light flooded the room.

  TJ covered her eyes with her hands. ‘GO AWAY,’ she groaned. ‘You’re compromising my deep-sleep cycle. Eleven year olds need between nine and eleven hours of sleep a night.’

  ‘I’m not leaving till you wake up,’ said Arkie, sitting on her bed.

  TJ muttered and reached for her glasses next to the lamp. ‘What time is it anyway?’ she said, squinting at her watch.

  ‘It’s either really late or really early,’ said Arkie. ‘It just depends on the way you look at it.’

  ‘Well, I’m looking at you right now because you’re sounding more than a little weird,’ said TJ, propping herself up on her elbow, a tangle of sheets and blankets around her. Cleo was snuffling at her feet. ‘This had better be the most earth-shatteringly monumental thing you’ve ever had to tell me in your life.’

  ‘It is,’ said Arkie. ‘I’ve just spoken to Mum.’

  ‘What?’ said TJ, her eyes wide open now.

  ‘Mum. I just spoke to her on the THinc hotline,’ said Arkie.

  TJ frowned. ‘Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?’ she said. ‘Many psychoanalysts believe that dreams play an important part in resolving hopes and fears. You really want to talk to your mum because she’s been kidnapped, so maybe you dreamt you did.’

  Arkie shook her head. ‘No, I really and truly did.’

  ‘Well then,’ said TJ, ‘maybe I’m dreaming?’

  She closed her eyes and waved her hands in the air as if casting a spell. ‘Yes, Arkie Sparkle, you are a Night Terror. BE GONE. Dreams of marshmallow clouds topped with raspberries and whipped cream COME BACK.’

  She opened one eye hopefully.

  Arkie was still sitting on her bed.

  ‘Seriously? Did Aunt Martha really ring?’ said TJ, sitting up and putting some pillows behind her. ‘Tell me what happened. From the beginning.’

  ‘The THinc hotline rang and I answered it,’ said Arkie, handing TJ the red mobile as evidence.

  TJ checked the caller ID.

  ‘Caller ID blocked,’ she said.

  ‘Well, Mum probably had to steal the kidnapper’s phone,’ said Arkie, ‘and you’d expect a kidnapper to have extra special security so they wouldn’t leave any trace of their call, but look.’ She pointed at the screen. ‘The time of the call is there: 11 o’clock. Now do you believe me?’

  ‘The evidence does seem irrefutable,’ said TJ. ‘But what did your mum say?’

  ‘She didn’t have time to say much,’ said Arkie. ‘I got a bit excited and asked her lots of questions.’

  ‘Understandable,’ said TJ. ‘It’s the first time you’ve had contact with your parents since they were forcibly removed from the family home nearly four days ago.’

  Only four days, thought Arkie. It feels like 4444 days.

  ‘Mum said we need to find Edie. She said that Edie would explain.’

  ‘Did she say where your aunt is, or how we’d get in contact with her?’ said TJ.

  ‘No,’ said Arkie. ‘There was a crash and a shout and then the phone went dead.’ She paused. Why had there been a crash and a shout? What had happened? Was her mum okay?

  She closed her eyes as furious questions pricked her head.

  Don’t think bad things, she said to herself. Think good things. Lots of them.

  She thought of when they all climbed Mt Sinai in Egypt at 3 o’clock in the morning, reaching the top just as the sun peaked through the clouds and gently woke the world below.

  She thought of flying in BLUR to Transylvania for Quincy’s birthday last year and staying in a castle with a dungeon and a drawbridge, and dining on pheasant.

  And she thought of what her dad always said when they were in a tricky situation. ‘It’s the mettle of the moment that makes us sparkle, Arkie.’

  She smiled. Mum and Dad are the best treasure hunters I know. They’re going to be okay.

  She opened her eyes. TJ had slumped sideways and was sound asleep. Snoring.

  ‘TJ,’ she shouted. ‘WAKE UP PROPERLY.’

  TJ stirred. ‘Snatched from sleep, again,’ she said. ‘This is a nightmare.’

  ‘We need to work out how to find Edie,’ said Arkie. ‘I think STAB SIENA might be a clue. Why else would both Edie and Dad have written these words?’

  ‘Pretty holey clue if you ask me,’ said TJ. ‘We haven’t a clue what the clue means.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Arkie. ‘We need to brainstorm.’

  ‘Well we can’t think with sleepy heads and empty stomachs,’ said TJ. ‘It’s not natural.’

  ‘Hot chocolate and toast then,’ said Arkie, ‘followed by some Serious Thinking.’

  ‘OK,’ said TJ, pulling back the blankets. ‘And that means you too, Cleo.’ She prodded the sleeping bundle of fur at the end of her bed with her foot. ‘If I’m not allowed to sleep, neither are you.’

  Arkie, TJ and Cleo stumbled down the spiral staircase to the THinc Tank, dragging blankets and pillows behind them.

  As Arkie descended the last couple of stairs, she looked around hopefully.

  Even though she knew they wouldn’t be there, something inside her still expected to see her mum and dad, sitting at the mahogany desk, discussing the latest archaeological dig in Jordan, or quoting from an article on 13th-century Japanese ceramics.

  Quincy would often be there too, humming to himself as he filled pages and pages of his notebook with mathematical equations for new inventions.

  How can something that looks so familiar feel so different? thought Arkie, looking around the THinc Tank, which was the same as always. The Zulu warrior’s spear was still suspended above the desk (danger helped her dad think) and souvenirs from all their trips around the world were still strewn from one end of the underground headquarters to the other.

  Her mum’s favourite Panama hat hung on the anchor of a Spanish galleon – as though she’d only just thrown it there.

  Because familiar things are hollow when the people who made them familiar aren’t there, thought Arkie.

  She attached Lexi to her ear and signalled to TJ to switch to THink. Although the Bugster hadn’t found a bug in the THinc Tank yesterday, they needed to be super cautious. The kidnappers somehow seemed to know what they were going to do before they did.

  ‘I’ll make the hot chocolate and toast,’ said TJ. ‘You can start thinking.’

  TJ went into the THinc Tank kitchen, which was long and narrow, like a ship’s galley.

  Arkie’s mum said you should never be far from food. Or the sea.

  ‘OK,’ said Arkie, slumping onto the leather couch. Cleo nestled in beside her, keeping her feet warm.

  Arkie’s head was buzzing as she thought of her Dad’s letter and the words both he and his sister had used: STAB SIENA.

  Mum and Dad just aren’t the stabbing types, thought Arkie.

  Her mother always captured spiders alive, and she didn’t speak to her dad for days once when he stood on a beetle by mistake.

  She thought of what else her dad had said in his letter: Things are not always as they seem.

  But what? she thought. What is not as it seems?

  Arkie sighed and pulled a blanket around her shoulders, snuggling into the folds. She just wanted something to make sense.

  She was still trying to digest what she’d discovered in the Doomsday Vault yesterday – that she had another first cousin, Cate Sparkle, and an uncle – Sebastian Sparkle.

  Where had all these relatives suddenly come from?

  She hadn’t even known they were skeletons in the closet. Now they were real live people who somehow seemed to be involved in what was happening.

  Arkie felt trapped in a net of clues – becoming even more ensnared whenever she twisted this way or that, trying to get out.

  But I’m a Sparkle, she thought, sitting up. I come from a long line of treasure-hunting Sparkles. And Sparkles never ever give up.

  She opened her Treasure Hunter’s Notebook and looked at all her notes so far.
She wrote her mum’s mantra at the top of the page for inspiration:

  When in doubt, write it out

  Arkie stared and stared at the words on the page. As her eyes grew glassy, the words began to break up and float around in front of her, a parade of letters.

  She could almost hear them laughing at her, taunting her, as they chased each other around the page.

  The answer was in there somewhere. Hiding. She knew it was.

  Arkie could hear her dad’s voice, quoting one of his favourite lines from Dr Seuss: I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.

  And in all the nonsense before her, a single brain cell suddenly burst awake.

  Arkie saw a connection.

  She circled two of the clues in her book:

  Arkie counted the letters in each.

  They had exactly the same number of letters.

  Then she compared the letters in each.

  They had exactly the same letters.

  Of course! It was so obvious.

  ‘TJ,’ she shouted. ‘Come quickly.’

  ‘Coming,’ said TJ, balancing hot chocolate and toast on a tray. She looked at Arkie’s excited face. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The answer’s been here all the time,’ said Arkie pointing at her notebook. ‘And Dr Seuss was right: it is simple.’

  ‘Dr Seuss?’ said TJ, frowning. ‘What’s Dr Seuss got to do with it? Is your brain short-circuiting because it’s sleep deprived? I could understand that. I’m short-circuiting a bit myself. I just buttered the toast with milk.’

  ‘No,’ said Arkie, ‘it’s just something Mum used to say. I’m definitely circuiting!’ She opened her notebook and showed TJ. ‘Look.’

  ‘I see a bunch of perplexing questions with no obvious answers,’ said TJ.

  ‘But can’t you see it?’ said Arkie.

  TJ looked again. ‘See what? It’s not one of those 3-D pictures that you have to stare at till you become cross-eyed, is it? I’m not very good at those.’

  ‘STAB SIENA and SEBASTIAN,’ said Arkie, slowly.

  ‘Yes, you’ve circled them in your notebook,’ said TJ.

  ‘Anything else?’ said Arkie.

  ‘Can you give me a clue?’ said TJ.