Four best friends have the chance to find the ultimate treasure! But someone wants to take down the GEEKS… An exciting new book in the puzzle-filled, action-packed Hide and GEEK series!
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from T.P. Jagger’s The Treasure Test, which is out now!
The GEEKs:
After a wild treasure hunt that almost got Gina, Edgar, Elena, and Kevin killed in a secret vault hidden in an abandoned amusement park, the GEEKs thought life would go back to normal. They’d saved their town from ruin and secured their friendship forever, right? Man, were they wrong. The only thing that returned to normal was middle school lunch.
THE PROBLEM:
A company wants to reopen the abandoned amusement park, Bamboozleland, and it’s just what the town needs! But a blogger from the next town over starts spreading vicious rumors that the treasure was fake and the GEEKs are a bunch of frauds.
THE TEST:
The GEEKs are determined to prove their puzzle-solving prowess, and what better way than another treasure hunt? A local bigwig sets up a new set of clues for them to follow, and this time the hunt will all be documented. The GEEKs have already saved their friendship. Now they must prove that they are true treasure hunters!
The Elmwood Tribune
Friday, April 1
CEREMONY TO SIGNAL BAMBOOZLELAND’S RETURN
By GINA SPARKS
Did you ever zip through the dips and drops of the Log Mill Run wooden roller coaster? Did you knock into other dinosaur riders at Bump-a-Saurus Wrecks? Or did you simply enjoy gazing across Fair Valley from the top of the Ferris wheel? No matter what your fa- vorite Bamboozleland rides used to be, come out on Monday, April 4, and celebrate, because those rides are about to return!
The discovery of the Van Houten fortune in Elmwood last September brought much-needed tourism to the town. And the business community took notice! Soon Deepsight Development Enterprises purchased the Bamboozleland property, planning to restore and reopen the park. This additional source of income stemming from the publicity surrounding the fortune will provide a more significant, long-term boost to the local economy.
The entire town is invited to the ground-breaking ceremony at Bamboozleland amusement park. The ceremony is scheduled to begin at one o’clock in the park’s amphitheater. See you there, Elmwood!
Bamboozleland is laid out in a large circle, the paths like spokes in a wheel leading toward the carousel in the park’s center, which is where we’d discovered the hidden treasure vault six months earlier. However, for the special ground-breaking ceremony, the park’s center would have been too crowded, so the ceremony was being held in the amphitheater at the eastern edge of the park.
The amphitheater was a semicircle of crumbling cement steplike seating that descended in tiers toward a stage at the bottom. Schoolkids and townsfolk and news crews were settling in, waiting for the ceremony to begin. A microphone stand had been placed in the center of the stage, and a pair of large speakers faced the audience. A curtain hung from a steel frame along the back of the stage, and the other GEEKs and I gathered behind it.
Kevin smoothed the front of his shirt. “Do I look presidential enough?”
“Seriously, Kev?” Elena said. “You’re the Elmwood Middle School sixth-grade class co-president, not president of the United States.”
“I know,” Kevin replied. “That’s why I didn’t wear a tie. Though, maybe I should’ve worn a suit coat. It’s kind of cold.”
“It’s April in New Hampshire,” Elena said. “What did you expect?”
Elena had a point. The sun was shining, but it was still barely above fifty degrees—a pretty typical early spring afternoon in the Fair Valley. I was glad for the fuzzy, extra-thick sweater my mom had given me.
While Kevin and Elena continued to debate clothing choices and the weather and Edgar hummed songs from Oliver!, I opened my notebook and plucked the pencil from my hair bun, ready to jot notes if I noticed anything newsworthy.
As I scanned my surroundings, I spotted my mom at the other end of the backstage area. She’s the owner, editor, and do-it-all journalist of our town’s weekly newspaper, the Elmwood Tribune. She and Kevin’s mom were talking to two men. The first was a tall, thin, middle-aged man with glasses—our friend Max Van Houten.
The real Max Van Houten—not the con artist who’d impersonated him and almost swindled our town out of its finest treasures. Max had inherited the Van Houten Toy & Game Company after his aunt Alice had died.
The second man was a beak-nosed guy with perfectly groomed gray hair, dressed in a tailored black suit, complete with a baby-blue tie and matching pocket square. Thanks to an article my mom had written in the previous week’s Tribune, I recognized him as Lambert J. Schoozer—the businessman preparing to restore Bam- boozleland. Kevin’s mom, who’s on the Elmwood select board and was emceeing the day’s ceremony, seemed to be listening intently. As Mr. Schoozer spoke, I saw her eyes widen and her smile suddenly waver.
I headed that way, my reporter radar pinging.
I’d only made it a couple of steps before I got attacked.
“Rah-oo!” A stubby-legged cannonball shot toward my kneecaps, long ears flapping.
“Sauce!” I knelt and let myself get tackled by my dog. Sauce—part basset hound, part Scottish terrier— slurped his tongue across my face. I laughed as his long Scottish-terrier mustache tickled my cheek. I was glad my mom had brought him. I figured Sauce deserved to be honored at the ceremony too. After all, it was Sauce’s keen hearing and sense of smell that had kick-started our search for the Van Houten fortune in the first place.
I gave Sauce a quick scratch between the ears and stood up. “Come on, boy. Let’s go see if Mom’s getting a scoop!”
Sauce gave a happy bark and followed me.
I eased in behind my mom, eavesdropping on her interview. She held her phone out, recording Mr. Schoozer as he spoke.
“So,” Mr. Schoozer was saying, “when we get done with it, Bamboozleland will no longer be just another tiny, outdated amusement park.” He pointed across to the western section of the park, where an old wooden roller coaster called Log Mill Run climbed into the sky. “We’ll tear down that splintering mess and replace it with the looping, lunging Space Spiral!” He gestured toward the center of the park. “Instead of a slow, boring carousel, our central attraction will be the Death Drop, where harnessed riders will plummet toward the ground, free-falling for over a hundred feet. And we won’t just have better rides. We’ll also expand, creating space for more rides. Bamboozleland will grow from a dud to a destination!”
Wait a second. . . . Grow? No wonder Kevin’s mom had looked surprised!
It was my mom’s interview, but I couldn’t keep quiet. “Hold on.” I stepped forward. “You just said Bamboozleland will expand. I thought the plan was just to restore the original park.”
As a journalist, I knew I should have phrased that as a question, but I was too shocked to think straight.
Mr. Schoozer winked and flashed a white-toothed smile. “If a baby Bamboozleland is good, a big Bamboozleland is better! With all these woods around”—he swept out his arms—“the growth potential is phenomenal!”
I blinked, stunned. “But the woods are—”
“Excuse me.” Mr. Schoozer held up a finger and pulled out his phone, which buzzed in his hand. He glanced at the screen. “I need to take this call.” He turned his back and drifted away.
I looked at my mom, then at Max. “They can’t expand!” I said. “The money from selling Bamboozleland was supposed to be used to buy more of the woods to extend the nature preserve, not the amusement park!” “I know, Gina Bean.” My mom put her hand on my shoulder. “Let’s not worry about that right now, though.”
She smiled. “Today is a day to honor you and your friends.”
“That’s right,” Max said. “If it weren’t for you and Elena and Edgar and Kevin, we wouldn’t even have an expanding Bamboozleland to worry about. For now, let’s celebrate!”
I forced a smile. “Okay.” I reached down and scooped Sauce into my arms, reminding myself of how bad things had been for Elmwood just a few short months before. “Mom, is it all right if I take Sauce to say hi to Elena and the others?”
“Of course, Bean. But be quick. The ceremony’s about to start.”
I hurried back to my friends, Sauce wriggling in my arms.
As Elena, Edgar, and Kevin scratched Sauce’s head and got licked across their faces in return, I told them what Mr. Schoozer had said.
Edgar frowned. “I want Bamboozleland to be restored to the way it was—the way I remember it when we were little.”
Elena gazed dreamily toward the center of the park. “Not gonna lie—the whole Death Drop thing sounds uh-maz-ing. But still . . .” She sighed. “Not at the expense of the nature preserve.”
“I don’t know.” Kevin scratched the back of his neck. “A bigger Bamboozleland would be good for Elmwood. More rides means more visitors, which means more support of local businesses.”
Elena raised an eyebrow.
“I’m just saying there must be a way to make Bamboozleland bigger without cutting too much into the surrounding woods,” said Kevin confidently. “In politics, you learn the art of compromise. Compromise makes it so everyone can be happy.”
“Or no one,” Elena mumbled.
Elena and Kevin can argue forever about almost anything—they actually like to argue. So I was glad when their Bamboozleland-versus-nature-versus-politics debate got interrupted by Kevin’s mom calling out, “Okay, kids! Now’s your big moment!” She stood at the edge of the curtain on the amphitheater stage, waving us over. My heart pounded with an unexpected burst of nerves. I wasn’t like Edgar, who loved the stage and the spotlight. Or like Elena, who confidently posted her science YouTube videos to tens of thousands of subscribers. Or like Kevin, who could stand in front of an entire gym of middle schoolers and get them fired up about building a school vegetable garden that would provide fresh produce to families in need.
I glanced around and spotted Sophina a little bit off to the side of our group. She was smiling and winking and snapping selfies that were probably uploading straight to Instagram.
I definitely wasn’t like her, either. I was a journalist!
I preferred being in the background!
I swallowed the nervous lump in my throat and gave Sauce an extra-tight squeeze.
As I followed the others out from behind the curtain, my mom called out, “Go get ’em, Bean!”
“Hooray for our treasure hunters!” Max added.
I looked back at them and gave a tiny wave. That’s when I noticed Mr. Schoozer. He was pacing back and forth, still on his phone, one hand waving wildly at nothing and no one.
He did not look happy.
