The Lost Treasure of Tuckernuck Read Online Free PDF Page A

at it. What does it say?”
    Laurie tried to brush past him. But it’s not easy to brush past someone almost twice your size. (Not that he really was twice her size, but Laurie felt like he was.)
    â€œI found it too, Laurie, it’s not yours.” Bud was on the edge of whiny.
    Laurie stopped and folded her arms. “Sorry, Bud. No dice. I found it, okay? All you did was act like a klutz. This paper means treasure, and sorry, I’m not giving it up.”
    Bud gave a short barky laugh that freaked Laurie out. “Treasure? Is that what you care about? Whoever solves that puzzle can write his own ticket, Laurie. Maybe even give the speech at eighth-grade graduation. Can you imagine how awesome that would be?”
    Laurie stared at Bud like he was an alien who had just sprouted an extra nose and waggled his antennae at her. She had a very difficult time imagining how awesome it would be to give the speech at eighth-grade graduation. In fact, the word awesome didn’t appear anywhere in Laurie’s assessment of that scenario.
    â€œSeriously, Bud? Eighth-grade graduation? That’s what you care about?” Bud was even weirder than she’d thought. Eighth-grade graduation wasn’t for another two years, and everybody knew the school was going to be closed down by then.
    â€œDon’t you?” Bud’s eyes goggled slightly. “I mean, sure, treasure, that’s great, but the speech? You can’t buy that, Laurie. It’s an honor.”
    Laurie stared at Bud for a long second. He wasn’t fooling around—he was really serious. It was weird. Weird enough to make her think about changing her plans.
    â€œBesides.” Bud shrugged. “If you don’t, I could always just go tell Mrs. Hutchins what we found.”
    Laurie bit her lip. There was no way Bud Wallace was taking this away from her.
    â€œOkay,” Laurie started slowly. “How about this? We both read the note and go get the treasure. We share the glory—I get the treasure, and you get eighth-grade graduation. But until we’ve got that treasure in our hands, we tell no one, okay? Not our parents, not our friends, not Calliope Judkin, got it?”
    â€œCalliope Judkin?” Bud looked confused. Laurie didn’t bother to fill him in.
    â€œIs that a deal?” Laurie demanded. She didn’t think it was much to ask, really. They’d probably only need to keep quiet for a day or two. They’d have the treasure by the weekend at the latest. By the time Bud realized he wasn’t getting his eighth-grade graduation glory, she’d be long gone with the gold bars and jewels.
    Bud nodded. “Deal.” He was already mentally writing his eighth-grade graduation speech. His dad was going to be so psyched.
    â€œOkay then.” Laurie grabbed Bud by the arm and dragged him outside and down the front steps, past the weird carved stone sculpture Maria Tutweiler had put in the yard outside the school.
    Before the school was Tuckernuck Hall Intermediate, it had been the ancestral home of the Tutweiler family. And when Maria Tutweiler had turned the old Victorian house into a school, she apparently didn’t care about things like “clashing” or “good taste.” So even though they’d fixed it all up with classrooms, a gym, and a weird round bell tower, there were lots of non-school-like features, like elaborately carved arches over some of the doorways, a big picture of Mark Twain made out of wire in the library, dark patterned wood floors, and even some stained-glass windows here and there. Not to mention the mangy chicken portrait.
    The total effect was one big mishmash, with art deco and more modern sections mixed right in with the old Victorian sections. The Cluckers all thought it came together and worked, but people like School Board President Walker LeFranco just thought it proved how crazy Maria Tutweiler was.
    But most important for Laurie, the