Arkie Sparkle Treasure Hunter: Untold Gold 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 deep in the jungle

  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.

  DAY 5:The Amazon

  There’s good news – Edie has arrived; and bad – guess who’s with her? Following the lure of gold and the hopes of lost explorers, Arkie, TJ and Cleo plunge into the heart of the Amazon in the most dangerous hunt yet.

  Contents

  Cover

  About Arkie Sparkle Treasure Hunter: Untold Gold

  Epigraph

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

  Treasure Hunter’s Diary

  Heart Start

  The Question of Cate

  Up to Speed

  Sneaks and Snacks

  Man on a Mission

  TJ’s Style File

  Jungle Tumble

  Jumpy in the Jungle

  Two-faced

  All Fall Down

  Debrief

  What’s Next

  In Real Life

  Ancient History Quiz Answers

  Copyright page

  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?

  There’s double trouble brewing with a cousin here, a cousin there, a cousin, cousin everywhere: sparking along the Great Wall of China; ballooning across the Arctic Ocean; tug of warring in Blackbeard’s cabin. Cate and Clem Sparkle are from the dark side of the Sparkle family – the side that’s so un-sparkly no-one has even told Arkie about them. These twisted twins are definitely up to something but if Arkie and TJ can outfox a famous explorer, hoodwink an emperor, perplex a polar bear and bamboozle a black-hearted pirate, they can be more cunning than cousins. Can’t they?

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

  TJ: I’ve decided not to be a pirate when I grow up.

  Arkie: Is that because you got seasick on the Queen Anne’s Revenge? That was a major storm. We were nearly knocking on Davy Jones’s Locker.

  TJ: No, it’s because I expected the life of a pirate to be more glamour and gold, diamonds and drama, but swabbing decks is very hard work. I’ve still got blisters as big as barnacles. I’m never giving up my computer and mobile for a bucket and mop again.

  Arkie: Well I’ve decided something too. I’m never going to own a parrot when I grow up.

  TJ: Is that because you recently encountered a perfidious member of the Psittacidae family?

  Arkie: Who?

  TJ: Micawber Macaw.

  Arkie: No, Mawby was a prattle-tat but I don’t blame him. He just found his true bird calling as a pirate’s parrot. It’s because I really missed having Cleo with us in Ruby Red. Dogs are the best pets ever, and we are never ever going to leave Cleo behind again.

  Cleo: Woof, woof.

  Heart Start

  Arkie couldn’t believe her eyes.

  She had raced to the front door as soon as she and TJ were one hundred and one percent sure that the person on HAL’s security monitor was really and truly her favourite aunt in the whole world: EDIE.

  Her heart had been stomp,stomp, stomping in time with her feet as she had skidded along the hall to the front door, yanked the door open and thrown herself into Edie’s arms for the biggest hug ever.

  A hug that made her feel normal for the first time in four days.

  Then, quick as the prick of a pin, her balloon of Edie Excitement popped and splattered all over her.

  Arkie saw two extra feet. And an elbow in a striped jumper.

  Someone was standing behind Edie.

  Arkie pulled herself out of Edie’s hug and stared at the person.

  The person who had her head down and was kicking her shoe against the front step.

  The person Arkie recognised from the Great Wall of China and the Doomsday Vault.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’ shouted Arkie.

  ‘Arkie,’ said Edie, taking her hand. ‘I know it’s a shock to see me and obviously her, but I found her at the front gate and —’

  TJ arrived at the door too and smiled at Edie.

  ‘Edie, it is you,’ she said. ‘Sorry about the security probe. We just had to make completely sure you were you. You wouldn’t believe what’s been happening around here.’

  ‘Hello, TJ,’ said Edie.

  Then TJ saw the person standing behind Edie.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she said.

  They all looked at the person who had moved out from behind Edie and was now staring back at them.

  ‘That’s Cate Sparkle,’ said Arkie.

  ‘Cate Sparkle?’ repeated TJ, looking from the girl to Arkie and back again. ‘Really?’ Then, she frowned and crossed her arms. ‘Well, Cate Sparkle, I’ve heard a lot about you and none of it is good.’ She pointed her finger at Cate. ‘You left Arkie stranded on the ice with a hungry polar bear.’

  ‘After I rescued her in the Doomsday Vault,’ said Cate Sparkle.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said TJ, shaking her head. ‘Rescue and subsequent abandonment cancel each other out. You might have got a +5 for TOTALLY THOUGHTFUL when you rescued Arkie but you followed that up with a –5 for DEFINITELY DESPICABLE when you abandoned her to the bear. So now you’re at zero on the personality scale.’

  ‘Yeah, zero,’ said Arkie, glaring at Cate Sparkle.

  ‘And,’ continued TJ, ‘if Arkie had died out there – in a slow, horrible, excruciating death as the polar bear ripped her head from her neck and then wrapped its jaws around her headless, twitching —’

  ‘Ah, TJ,’ said Edie, ‘could you abbreviate the anatomical details, please? I’m a bit queasy after the taxi ride.’

  ‘Sorry, Edie,’ said TJ, ‘but it was an Intense Moment and if Arkie had been ripped to gory bits, Cate Sparkle would have been SO in the negative she’d have been OFF the personality scale.’

  ‘Yes, OFF,’ said Arkie loudly. TJ always knew what to say in dramatic situations. She was the best best friend. Arkie was so tongue-tied with anger and confusion and questions, she thought she might burst.

  ‘So, Cate Sparkle,’ continued TJ, ‘Arkie’s new and unpredictable cousin as opposed to me – a cousin you can really trust – what are you doing here?’

  ‘Yes, my question exactly,’ said Arkie, folding her arms and looking from Cate to Edie and back again. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Cate Sparkle scowled and her mouth became a tight line, sealing in her words.

  ‘Okay,’ said Edie, after a several second stare-off between Arkie, TJ and Cate, ‘I think we’ve reached an impasse. Let’s all go inside where we can be calm and rational. And I’ve been on a plane for 23 hours so I really need a shower. We can talk after that. Cate says she’s got important information.’

  ‘But why should we trust anything she says?’ said Arkie. ‘She’s the enemy. We think her father, my uncle – your brother – has something to do with Mum and Dad being kidnapped.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ said Edie, si
ghing. ‘Ted and I suspected Sebastian was planning something after the incident in China last year. But we never thought he’d go this far. It’s a tangle I’m still trying to understand. You have to tell me everything’s that happened in the last four days. I know Cate’s been a part of that too.’

  ‘And we’re very interested to know just how she’s been a part of that,’ said Arkie.

  ‘Yes, VERY,’ said TJ. She pulled Arkie back slightly and whispered in her ear. ‘Battle Tactic 81: Keep your enemies close. Remember the First Emperor of China in Clue No. 2? He insisted all his enemies live in and around his palace.’

  That’s true, thought Arkie, nodding. At least if Cate Sparkle’s here we can watch her every single second. We won’t have to expect the unexpected because she’s already here.

  Everyone was waiting for Arkie to speak.

  ‘OK, I guess,’ she said, slowly. ‘Let’s hear what she’s got to say.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Edie. She smiled at Arkie and went inside. Cate Sparkle walked up the front steps and followed Edie into the house.

  Arkie and TJ stared at Cate as she passed but she kept her head down.

  ‘She looks a bit like you, you know,’ said TJ, as Cate disappeared down the hall. ‘You both do that thing with your nose when you’re mad.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ said Arkie, doing that thing with her nose. ‘We’re nothing alike. Why is she really here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said TJ, ‘but now we’ve got the chance to find out. We can watch her 24/7 and treat her as our prisoner. Let’s feed her brussel sprouts and other disgusting food until she talks.’

  The Question of Cate

  ‘That should do it,’ said Arkie, setting up the large spotlight from a 1920s film set. Quincy had bought it at a garage sale last year.

  She angled the light over the straight-backed chair she had placed in the middle of the THinc Tank and switched it on. The beam flooded the room.

  ‘I’ve been reading up on Interrogation Techniques in the Cold War Spy Manual,’ she said, ‘so I’ll be watching Cate Sparkle very closely for signs of lying: itchy-twitchy nose, or ear; sweating; not making eye contact; face flushes.’ She looked around the THinc Tank. ‘It’s a shame we don’t have a lie detector, but I don’t think there’s anything electrical we can hook her up to at short notice. You’d better add a portable polygraph to your list of things to invent, TJ. Have you got the brussel sprouts?’

  TJ had just emerged from the galley kitchen in the THinc Tank with a saucepan. ‘I’ve mixed them with chillis, anchovy paste and cod-liver oil,’ she said.

  ‘Masterstroke,’ said Arkie, putting her nose in the saucepan. ‘Smells foul.’ She looked around the THinc Tank and smiled. ‘Our work is done and the scene is set. It looks just like a whodunnit, or Cluedo – but without the body in the library or Reverend Green.’

  ‘Have you got the list of questions, Arkie?’ said TJ.

  Arkie took out her notebook. ‘I’ll start with some easy ones, like: What is your name? How old are you? These will lull her into thinking they’re all going to be easy and then I’ll hit her with the big one: WHERE ARE MY MUM AND DAD?’

  TJ passed her a note: WHAT ABOUT THE BUG?

  NEW TACTIC, wrote Arkie. LET THEM KNOW WE’VE GOT CATE SPARKLE.

  TJ nodded. ‘What shall we do now?’ she said.

  ‘I guess we wait,’ said Arkie, sitting on the leather couch.

  Cleo plopped down next to her, and TJ squeezed in at the other end, clutching her encyclopaedia.

  ‘What do you think you call a group of cousins?’ said TJ. ‘You have an Audience of listeners and a Bench of bishops, but I can’t find a collective noun for cousins.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Arkie, scratching Cleo under the ear. ‘I’ve never really thought about it before.’

  ‘Well, at the rate you’re accumulating cousins, I think you need to,’ said TJ.

  ‘You don’t think there are any more, do you?’ said Arkie.

  ‘We can ask Edie if you should be expecting an avalanche of relatives any time soon,’ said TJ. ‘Hey, what about a “kaleidoscope of cousins”

  ‘That sounds good,’ said Arkie. ‘Or a “conspiracy of cousins”’

  ‘Yeah, that’s good,’ said TJ, ‘but I think “kaleidoscope” might be better. A kaleidoscope works on the principle of multiple reflections and duplicate images. Because Cate and Clem are twins, they’re kind of like mirror images of each other.’

  ‘And that’s why I thought Clem looked so familiar on the beach at Blackbeard’s party,’ said Arkie. ‘In a way I had seen him before because he looks like Cate.’

  ‘I always wanted to have a twin,’ said TJ. ‘Imagine having two of me.’

  ‘That’d be interesting,’ said Arkie. ‘One of you might be a boy. Like Cate and Clem.’

  ‘Yes, they’re fraternal twins,’ said TJ. ‘Did you know that William Shakespeare had twins too? And he wrote twins into some of his plays, like Twelfth Night. Twins are very handy if you want to explore personality ideas like swapping identities; good twin, bad twin — ’

  ‘And which twin am I?’ said a voice from behind them.

  Arkie, TJ and Cleo jumped.

  Cate Sparkle had come down the spiral staircase so quietly. Like a cat, slinking among the pigeons – bobbing and cooing unaware until the final, fatal

  ‘We’ll decide that after the interrogation,’ said Arkie, getting up off the couch.

  Cate looked at the light and the chair, and smirked. As Arkie approached, Cate leaned into her. ‘Clem told me about your rigging rescue on the Queen Anne’s Revenge,’ she hissed. ‘Very noble.’

  Arkie blushed. She had always thought ‘noble’ was a good word but it didn’t sound good the way Cate said it.

  ‘So this is the famous THinc Tank,’ Cate said, walking around, pulling out a book from the bookshelf and flicking through it. ‘Funny how the things you imagine always seem smaller in real life.’

  Cleo growled and Arkie took the book from Cate’s hands. ‘Well, it’s big enough for us,’ she said, replacing the book in the bookshelf.

  ‘What are you doing, TJ?’ said Cate, smiling at TJ and sitting down beside her on the couch.

  ‘I’m reading the encyclopaedia,’ said TJ. ‘Swotting up for Junior Genius. It’s a quiz show.’

  ‘I know,’ said Cate. ‘It’s my favourite show.’

  ‘Really?’ said TJ.

  ‘Did you see last week?’ said Cate. ‘When that boy got up to Delta Level? It was so exciting. And he would have got that last question right too if he hadn’t mixed up electroencephalogram and electroencephalograph.’

  ‘I know,’ said TJ, leaning forwards eagerly. ‘It was Absolutely Awful. To be so close to winning and then to miss out on the very last question. I was so nervous for him I could hardly swallow. I want to be on the show too so I’m hoping for some very anxious situations in the next two days so I can practise swallowing under moments of extreme pressure.’

  ‘I reckon you’d have a really good chance of winning it,’ said Cate.

  ‘Do you?’ said TJ.

  ‘Well, you’re obviously smart and you’re working on your pressure points,’ said Cate. ‘It’s not about just knowing the answer to the question. It’s about how you handle knowing the answer to the question.’

  ‘Very true,’ said TJ.

  ‘We could run through some quiz questions later, if you like,’ said Cate. ‘I’m happy to help you prepare.’

  ‘That would be amazing,’ said TJ. ‘There’s a new draw for contestants very soon.’ She looked at the Archaeological Society calendar hanging on the wall. ‘Later today, in fact. I’ve got my fingers and toes knotted in hope. And I haven’t had much time lately because of this treasure hunt.’

  ‘You mean the treasure hunt to save my parents?’ interrupted Arkie.

  TJ blushed. ‘Of course, I didn’t mean to imply the treasure hunt was inconvenient, Arkie,’ she said. ‘Just that it has been taking up all
our time.’

  ‘That’s okay, TJ,’ said Cate, smiling at her. ‘Let’s catch up later. After the “interrogation”.’

  Arkie watched as Cate sat on the couch and began to tickle Cleo under the chin. Cleo soon rolled over onto her back for a tummy scratch.

  TJ laughed. ‘You’re such a soppy dog, Cleo,’ she said. ‘You’d tell all your secrets for a tummy tickle.’

  Cate Sparkle laughed too.

  That’s right, Cate Sparkle, thought Arkie. Make yourself comfortable in my home with my best friend and my best friend’s dog.

  Cate Sparkle looked up at Arkie over Cleo’s tummy. She wasn’t smiling now and the look she gave Arkie was chilling.

  Arkie shivered.

  Edie came clanking down the spiral staircase, her hair still wet from the shower.

  ‘I’m glad you’re all getting to know each other,’ she said smiling as she saw them. ‘Cate, if you don’t mind, I just need to speak to Arkie and TJ alone, please. I’m sure you understand. It’s the first chance we’ve had to talk.’

  Cate smiled sweetly. ‘Of course, Edie,’ she said. ‘I’ll be upstairs. Just call when you want me.’

  ‘Thanks, Cate,’ said Edie.

  ‘Bye, Cate,’ said TJ.

  Cate waved to TJ from the spiral staircase.

  ‘Go with her Cleo,’ whispered Arkie. ‘Watch her every second.’

  Cleo growled softly and clanked up the stairs behind Cate.

  ‘She’s awful,’ said Arkie, when they couldn’t hear Cate’s footsteps any longer. ‘Is she really my first cousin? Are you sure it’s not a case of mistaken identity and my much nicer cousin is waiting in the wings?’

  ‘Well, I’ve only met her once before,’ said Edie, ‘but she’s definitely Sebastian’s daughter. She’s got his eyes: brown and inscrutable.’

  ‘Actually, I don’t think she seems too bad,’ said TJ. ‘Maybe we’ve been wrong about her?’

  ‘We don’t know her very well,’ said Edie. ‘And she’s nervous about being here.’

  ‘She’s got a funny way of showing it,’ said Arkie. ‘She’s been really mean to me.’