The Treasure Hunters Read Online Free PDF Page A

and
expecting to see necklaces or rings. Instead, she pulled out a rolled parchment.
The dim light made it difficult to read.
    She hurried back to the office and
relit the candle before rolling the parchment out. It was a map, and a very old
map by the looks of it. She saw Africa and some islands with the words in a
different language. She squinted, trying to read the script, tilting the candle
to get a little more light.
    “Okay, this is French,” she said to
herself. “Let’s see: signed by Jean-Pierce…Jean-Pierce Vouleigh .”
    Ruby raised her head and narrowed
her eyes as she tried to remember where she’d heard that name before. Where,
where, where––from her father, perhaps? And then it hit her. Her father’s
bedtime stories: the daring and dashing adventures of long-ago pirates. Jean-Pierce Vouleigh , the fiercest of them all.
    “Oh god,” she gasped and looked
back at the map. Could this possibly be his treasure map? If it was, what could
she do with this? She certainly wasn’t going to let the two idiot thieves have
it. Rolling it up, she blew out the candle and hurried out, knowing she had to
get home.
    It was little over an hour later
that she burst into the guesthouse she shared with Merridie and Eden. She could
hear Merri bitching from all the way outside.
    “The she-witch had me polishing
silver,” she said angrily. “I hate silver. I hate England, I hate the Talcotts , and I hate being poor. In that
order.”
    Ruby rolled her eyes right before
she burst into the room, locking the door behind her. Merridie had her arms
crossed with a bottle of wine sitting in front of her.
    “Finally, you’re home––”
    “I found something,” Ruby
interrupted her.
    “Found what?” Eden asked.
    Ruby pulled the rolled up map from
under her arm and laid it on the table. Eden and Merridie gathered around her
to look at it.
    “What is it?” Eden questioned.
    “A map,” Ruby said.
    “Of what?”
    Merridie pointed to some writing. “It’s
slightly faded, but is this French?”
    “Yes, and look at this name in the
lower right corner.”
    “Jean-Pierce something,” Merridie
replied.
    “Jean-Pierce Vouleigh .”
    She said it as if they should know
who she was talking about, but they just gave her wide-eyed stares.
    “He was a mariner who sailed the
Atlantic about a hundred years ago,” Ruby explained. “More of
a pirate, really. He flew the Jolly Roger whenever he came across important
cargo he wanted. Sailors still talk about his lost treasure.”
    “Oh,” Eden said. “Neat.”
    “Don’t you get it?” Ruby asked,
looking back and forth between them.
    “Get what?” Merridie asked.
    “His lost
treasure.” Ruby tapped the map. “This map is a guide to that treasure.”
    Eden nodded as if she understood, but
Ruby saw that it was just a placating gesture.
    “No, listen. We use this map to
find the treasure and we can return to our old life.”
    There was silence as her words sank
in.
    “No more working menial labor at my
family’s home, no more trudging in the god-awful fog and snow every morning and
night. We could go back to New York.”
    “Have you gone completely mad?”
Merridie demanded. “You’re suggesting we three girls head out on some treasure
hunt?”
    Ruby calmly confronted Merridie. She
knew Merri would be the hardest to convince.
    “Yes,” she said calmly. “The three of us, finding whatever this map leads to.”
    Eden looked confused at the map
while Merridie looked at Ruby like she had a screw loose.
    “Absolutely not,” Merridie stated
flatly.
    “ Why not ?” Ruby demanded.
    “We are not adventurers!” Merridie
cried. “We are not treasure hunters! And we certainly are not equipped to
traipse all over the Atlantic Ocean looking for fool’s gold!”
    Ruby looked frustrated at her
friend. “So you like working at my cousin’s home? Because I could’ve sworn you
hated it not five minutes ago!”
    “I’d go,” Eden said quietly.
    However, it barely