Arkie Sparkle Treasure Hunter: White Fright Read online

  First published 2012 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

  1 Market Street, Sydney

  Copyright © Petra James 2012

  Illustration copyright © Roy Chen/XOU Creative

  TJ’s Style File © Maddy Gerrard

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  Arkie Sparkle. Treasure hunter ; 3.

  Petra James

  Adobe eReader format: 978-1-74334-842-0

  EPUB format: 978-1-74334-843-7

  CIP details for this book are available

  from the National Library of Australia

  Typeset by XOU Creative

  Printed and bound in China by 1010 Printing International Limited

  Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  Contents

  Cover

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  What’s happened so far in Arkie Sparkle: Treasure Hunter?

  Treasure Hunter’s Diary

  One Seed, Two Seeds

  To Catch a Bug

  Here a Clue, There a Clue

  TJ’s Style File

  White World

  Three Blind Mice

  Road Kill

  Run, Rabbit, Run

  Freefall

  Bear Stare

  Debrief

  What 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?

  Egypt one day, China the next – nothing is geographically impossible when you’re flying around the world in a supersonic mini-jet piloted by the pilot of all pilots: TJ (that’s short for Theodora Junior if any reporters need her name for an international press release). Thanks to TJ’s incredible ingenuity and genius cunning, Arkie, TJ and Cleo have discovered the temple of Ramses II buried in the desert sands, chased a tricky thief along the Great Wall of China, met the First Emperor, deciphered clues, escaped from a cage with gold bars, found the Book of Songs – and still made it home in time for Chinese takeaway and Junior Genius (TJ’s favourite show. Producers please note: she is available 24/7 for an audition).

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

  Arkie: TJ?

  TJ: Hmmm?

  Arkie: Did you write that?

  TJ: I may have given some excellent editorial suggestions here and there.

  Arkie: That would explain it then.

  TJ: Explain what?

  Arkie: Why it’s all about YOU! You’ve hardly mentioned Cleo and me.

  TJ: Well, Cleo’s a dog so she can’t read, and you did spend most of the time in China behind bars. I was the one arranging midnight meetings with Fu Su and Lu Sheng and finding out about secret underground tunnels in the Imperial Palace.

  Arkie: Anything else?

  TJ: Have I left out another heroic deed?

  Arkie: What about your close encounter with the Emperor’s pets? Don’t you want to mention the demoiselle cranes?

  TJ: NO WAY. Those snotty cranes can stay in Ancient China forever.

  Treasure Hunter’s Diary

  DAY 3

  It’s 2 o’clock in the morning and I can’t sleep.

  And it’s not because TJ’s snoring next door and the wall’s shaking (she’d sleep through a natural disaster, I reckon).

  TJ and Cleo are sleeping over for the week because I don’t want to be in the house on my own. It’s too big, too empty. Without you.

  You’ve been gone 48 hours, 18 minutes and . . . 10 seconds.

  I’m thinking about everything that’s happened but nothing’s making sense. Why are thoughts so tangled-mangled in the dark?

  I know what you’d say, Dad: Look at the facts if you’re in a muddle.

  You’d tell me to pull them out one by one and see what connections are sneaking between them.

  Okay, here they are:

  Fact 1: You and Mum have been kidnapped.

  Fact 2: We have to find seven treasures.

  Fact 3: We’ve found two already: the gold statue of Queen Nefertari and the Book of Songs.

  Fact 4: A mysterious person might have helped us in the temple of Ramses II.

  Fact 5 : Two mysterious people stole our scroll on the Great Wall of China.

  Fact 6: Someone got past HAL at the front gate to deliver the second clue.

  Fact 7: Someone broke into BLUR to leave the third clue.

  I’m looking, looking, looking at the facts until my eyes see spots and my head swirls.

  But no threads. No connections. No nothing.

  I know what you’d say, Mum: keep calm, Arkie. Don’t panic first and think later.

  Thinking hard about something doesn’t always make the answer pop up. It’s more likely to happen when I’m eating a cheese sandwich, or thinking about who to invite to my birthday party in 12 hours and 26 days (or whether I’ll even have a birthday party in 12 hours and 26 days).

  Or when I’m waiting to go to sleep. When the little worries in my head wash away and the big worries stay for another day.

  I’ll try that now.

  It might work.

  Mightn’t it?

  Love from Arkie xox

  One Seed, Two Seeds

  Arkie Sparkle had been on the biggest treasure hunt in the world for two days – the longest 48 hours of her life.

  It was 7 o’clock in the morning on Day Three.

  Cleo was curled up on the leather couch in the THinc Tank, the underground headquarters of Treasure Hunters Incorporated. (Basset hounds sleep a lot when they’re on the job.)

  Arkie and TJ, her first cousin and best friend, were sitting at the mahogany desk eating toast and jam.

  A silver envelope lay on the desk in front of them – the clue to Treasure No. Three.

  ‘I still don’t know how they managed to break into BLUR to deliver the clue,’ said TJ. ‘How could they do that?’

  ‘By having access codes that only Mum, Dad, Quincy and I have,’ said Arkie. ‘And maybe a parabrella, or something similar.’ The significance of her words suddenly hit her and she paled. ‘That means they would then know a lot about two of Quincy’s most important treasure-hunting inventions.’

  ‘Maybe the kidnappers really do have Professor Quince as well as Aunt Martha and Uncle Ted,’ said TJ. ‘Maybe they’re extracting Quincy’s teeth – one by painful one – to make him reveal the secrets to his inventions.’

  ‘No way,’ said Arkie. ‘Quincy would never ever betray us. He’s our family’s best friend. And my godfather.’

  ‘Well, the kidnappers, or someone, cracked BLUR’s access codes somehow,’ said TJ. ‘Let’s look at the clue. Maybe that will tell us more.’

  ‘You open it,’ said Arkie, slurping some hot chocolate.

  ‘No, you open it,’ said TJ. ‘My hands are jammy and it might be a super-sensitive clue that dissolves on contact with raspberry jam.’

  Arkie put her hand on the envelope. ‘It’s very flat,’ she said. ‘I can only feel a tiny bump.’

 
; ‘Maybe the kidnappers forgot to put the clue in,’ said TJ. ‘My granny did that last year when she meant to send me money for my birthday. All I got was the envelope. Not even an IOU. And then she forgot to remember she’d forgotten in the first place.’

  ‘At least you’ve got lots of relatives,’ said Arkie. ‘I’ve only got your parents and you and Isabella on Mum’s side. Dad doesn’t talk about his family, except his sister Edie. I think something dramatic happened before I was born.’

  She picked up the envelope. ‘Okay, here goes.’ She tore it open and looked inside.

  She frowned, then turned it upside down.

  A shrivelled ball, smaller than a marble, rolled out of the envelope onto the table.

  TJ and Arkie stared at it, then looked at each other.

  ‘I think it’s some kind of seed,’ said Arkie. ‘Mum planted peas last year and they looked like this, only greener.’

  ‘A seed?’ said TJ, picking it up and holding it between her fingers. ‘It can’t be just a seed. Isn’t there anything else in the envelope like a poem, or invisible writing, or some kind of really tricky code that needs an ace decoder like me to crack it?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Arkie, turning the envelope inside out.

  ‘But you check it out too,’ she said, handing it to TJ.

  TJ put on her Super Enhanced Goggles, which had X-ray vision, and studied every side of the envelope closely.

  ‘There’s some kind of raised texture on the sticky part,’ she said. ‘I can only just see it.’

  ‘Show me,’ said Arkie.

  TJ pointed to the place and Arkie ran her fingers along it. ‘It feels like Braille,’ she said. ‘It’s often used for codes and secret messages.’ She put on her SEGs too and looked at it closely.

  ‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s Braille,’ Arkie said. ‘Let’s see what Codemode says.’

  Arkie scanned the texture into Codemode and they watched as it sourced the Braille alphabet and then began to decode the writing.

  Soon, a message appeared on the screen:

  ‘Well that’s it then,’ said TJ, sitting back. ‘That’s the clue to the clue. This clue is just the beginning. There are more parts to come.’

  ‘But the seed itself must still be important, don’t you think?’ said Arkie.

  TJ picked it up. ‘I guess,’ she said. ‘It’s a weird clue, though. Maybe we’re supposed to plant it and see what grows?’

  ‘But that could take months,’ said Arkie. ‘We haven’t got that long. What kind of treasure is a seed?’

  TJ didn’t reply but she was squinting so Arkie knew she was thinking.

  ‘Well, we need seeds for food and stuff,’ said TJ, ‘so if we had a plague of locusts that wiped out all the crops a seed could become a treasure. And a locust is a bit like a seed, if you think about it. A single locust can’t do much on its own but a whole bunch of locusts can. Did you know there can be millions of locusts in a single swarm and that they can eat tonnes of food in a day? That’s what I call a real pigout. Some swarms are so massive they can even block out the sun. You’d think it was the end of the world if you saw that.’

  Arkie looked at her. ‘How come you know so much about locusts?’

  ‘I’m reading the encyclopedia again,’ said TJ. ‘In case I get a call from the producers of Junior Genius. I’ve sent in more than a hundred applications so I want to be bursting with knowledge and ready for my Big Opportunity. I’m up to L at the moment, and I’ve just finished reading the entries on locomotives and locusts. Only 250,000 topics and 20 million words to go.’

  Arkie was pacing up and down. ‘Well, we can’t just sit here waiting for the other parts of the clue. Let’s find out what kind of seed it is.’

  TJ took out her hairbrush and brushed her hair twenty times to power up the supermagnification microscope.

  She put the seed on a slide and looked at it under the microscope.

  ‘Just as we thought,’ she said. ‘It’s 100 percent seed.’

  ‘And?’ said Arkie.

  ‘And I’m just typing some information parameters into DATAMAX,’ said TJ.

  The information tablet DATAMAX was connected to all the databases of museums around the world so THinc always had the most up-to-date archaeological research.

  They waited as it glowed blue for SEARCH then red for FOUND and its electronic voice began to speak:

  ≥≥ Data analysis complete.

  The seed in question is a rare

  kind of chickpea. Chickpeas are

  high in protein and were one of

  the earliest vegetables to be grown.

  Many people find them

  absolutely delicious.≤≤

  ‘Thanks, DATAMAX,’ said Arkie. ‘I like chickpeas too. Mum makes the best hummus with them.’

  ‘Hey, maybe that’s it,’ said TJ. ‘Maybe we have to eat the clue?’ She screwed up her face as she looked at the chickpea. ‘It’s not a very appetizing clue, though. They could have coated it with chocolate.’

  ‘I think we need more than one chickpea to make hummus anyway,’ said Arkie.

  Suddenly Arkie’s mobile pinged. ‘That’s strange,’ she said, looking at the screen. ‘Who’s sending me a text message this early in the morning?’

  ‘One way to find out,’ said TJ.

  Arkie clicked on the message and gasped. ‘It’s from them.’

  ‘Them who?’ said TJ.

  ‘Them the kidnappers,’ said Arkie. ‘The text is signed with the same Z that’s on the ransom note and the other clues.’

  ‘What do they say?’ said TJ.

  Arkie read the message aloud:

  You have completed Part 1 of the

  clue correctly. Part 2 now follows:

  One seed, two seeds, three seeds, four.

  Find the place where there’s even more.

  Bank on seeds when the end is nigh

  Safe from seas that rise up high.

  Z

  P.S. Pack a thermal.

  Or two.

  P.P.S. Just a photo is not enough.

  ‘Aha,’ said TJ, reading over Arkie’s shoulder. ‘Told you Zac, Zander, Zacheus, Zena or whoever they are would be sending a poem.’

  But Arkie didn’t reply. Instead, she picked up a piece of paper and a pen and started writing. She handed TJ the note.

  TJ looked up from the note. ‘You mean —’

  Arkie put her finger up to her mouth to shhhh TJ. She took the paper back and wrote another sentence.

  To Catch a Bug

  TJ and Arkie stared at each other in chilled silence.

  Someone had been spying on them all this time, hearing their words and plans, always being one step ahead.

  Arkie remembered that feeling from Day 1 when she had found the ransom note in the cookie jar. A feeling that someone was watching her.

  Of course, she thought, a bug. That explains how they knew we were back from Eygpt so they could deliver Clue 2. It’s like we’re playing a game but they know the rules and we don’t. Well the game just got a little trickier because now we know they are watching us and they don’t know that we know.

  She scribbled another note to TJ.

  TJ took the pen and paper and wrote back.

  TJ stood up, pulled her shoulders back, loosened her mouth and jaw and then pointed at the railway clock on the wall. ‘IS THAT THE TIME?’ she shouted slowly. ‘I HAVE TO GO UPSTAIRS AND I’M TAKING CLEO, MY SUPER-SNOOPER DOG, WITH ME.’

  TJ waved goodbye with several swoops of her arms, and clanked up the spiral staircase with extra heavy footsteps. Cleo followed close behind.

  At the top of the stairs, she gave Arkie the thumbs-up and Cleo wagged her tail.

  Arkie put her head in her hands. That had to be the most suspicious PERSON LEAVING A ROOM she had ever seen. TJ had been ripped off!

  She opened the door of the gadgets cupboard and lifted down the box on the second shelf with the label I SPY.

  The Bugster was next to the Sneaky
Snake Sound Synthesiser at the bottom of the box. Its bulging electronic eyes stared at her.

  The dragonfly Bugster was one of Professor Quince’s favourite surveillance detectors. ‘It takes a bug to catch a bug,’ he always said.

  Arkie remembered the week they had all stayed at Quincy’s house by the lake. She and Quincy had spent hours watching dragonflies hovering above and zooming across the languid water – a ballet of wings.

  ‘Dragonflies are some of the fastest insects in the world, Arkie,’ Professor Quince had said. ‘Now you see them, now you don’t. What effective detectors they’d be.’

  The next day he had drawn up plans for the Bugster.

  That was the way Quincy worked. He was always sprouting ideas before breakfast, lunch and tea and had at least a dozen inventions on the boil at the same time.

  I wish you were here now, Quincy, she thought, as she lifted the Bugster out and switched it on.

  Her dad said they would be anatomically incomplete without Quincy. ‘You, Martha and I are the heart and soul of THinc,’ he had said. ‘But Quincy is the head. We need his brains.’

  As the Bugster began to flutter around the room with a gentle beating of its wings, Arkie looked again at the seed sitting in the middle of the desk. It was so tiny. Was it really a part of Treasure No. Three? And what did the seed poem mean?

  She needed to think.

  She walked over to her dad’s desk.

  The leather chair creaked around her as she settled into it, put her feet up on the desk, placed a pen behind her ear, rested her dad’s glasses on the end of her nose and closed her eyes.

  She had seen her dad do this a hundred thousand times when he was perplexed by a problem. ‘If inspiration’s going to hit me on the head,’ he always said, ‘I want to be comfortable when it happens.’

  Arkie felt her thoughts rushing from one side of her brain to the other.

  First they had to find a gold statue of Queen Nefertari in Egypt.

  Then they had to go to China to find the famous Book of Songs.

  Now it looked as though they had to find some seeds. But where?