The suspicious search

By Abhyuday Chauhan

On a rainy morning in Texas, Manny and Susan were sitting on the couch playing Mario Kart against each other. In the race, Susan was leading in the 2nd last lap and Manny’s car was right behind hers. He finally overtook her in the last corner of the last lap to win the race. Susan got frustrated and ran to her bedroom and slammed the door.

After some time as the rain stopped, she came out of her room and felt a bit calmed down. She went to Manny’s room to say something, but found out that he was sleeping.  So, she went to her friend Mary’s house to ask her to play Mario Kart or any other game.

Mary agreed and they got ready to leave for Susan’s house. Suddenly, they saw a random paper sticking outside their window. They read it and got flabbergasted. It read, “It is near the park in a house on which the sun shines directly, on a spot in Mr. and Mrs. Pastor’s backyard at noon.”

Initially, they were confused but then they figured out that this was the house which everyone called the “Mystery House”. Soon, they decided to go there to find out by themselves. As they stepped out of the house, Manny scared them, which gave the two nearly a heart attack.

Mary’s mother arrived at the scene after listening to the commotion. She laughed but said to Manny, “You should not do it again as it was funny, but not for Susan and Mary. They could have hit you hard thinking you were a ghost.”

After that, they went to the “Mystery House”. As no one lived in the house, they looked at everything they thought that they should check and then sent Manny to get the torches and a catapult just in case they saw something.

When Manny returned, they went in with Susan leading, Mary in the middle, and Manny staying back with a catapult ready with another torch. Soon, they started hunting for the second clue.

Susan tried to open the main door but couldn’t. They somehow resolved to find another way to enter the house. They moved slowly, but Mary tripped on a broken table leg. As they reached the basement, Mary asked Susan and Manny to try and find the next clue. Susan started from the left corner, and Manny started from the right. But they got nothing

Searching further, Susan and Mary found a key under the chair and showed it to Manny. They tried to find a door in the basement, but could not locate it. After half an hour of searching, they gave up and went upstairs. Suddenly Mary called, “Susan, Manny, I found something.” She inserted the key and a door opened in front of them. They spotted a set of stairs leading down into a secluded basement that had no light. After fighting over if they should go in or not, they finally entered into the basement.

At first, they heard a loud crack since the stairs were made of wood. They felt worried that the stairs might break and they would fall. But they proceeded and saw an old painting in which there was a woman with no eyebrows.

Susan was an art fanatic, who thought that it might not be real as there is only one original. It was said that it’s in Italy instead of the USA, and especially Texas. The group started examining the painting while looking for more clues in the basement. Meanwhile, Susan continued to look at the painting. Taking a closer watch, she saw little engravings at the back of it. In no time, she found that the next clue was written there. However, she and her friends could not decipher it.

They then decided to take it out and climb up the stairs. When finally, Manny was about to reach the top of the stairs, 3-4 steps behind him broke. He panicked and started going up faster, but just as he was about to reach the top, which was 2 stairs away, he slipped. All of his body weight was on one stair. It broke but he had quickly recovered. “Let’s get out of here before the whole house and floor goes down,” he said.

After getting out of the house through the window, the pack went to the park. Trying to figure out what was engraved on the painting, they came to the conclusion that they needed a
zoom-in camera or a pair of binoculars as it was really small.

Manny had a pair of binoculars at his house, so they went there. Grabbing the necessary tool, Manny read aloud and Susan wrote it down on a paper. The engraving mentioned, “The house from where seeing the sunset is almost as mystical as seeing fairies, and on the day of a full moon, there is a special place to watch it from near the forest on a designated board on which it is written. There are wolves in the area, be aware. It will be on a long-living large tree.”

After pondering on it, Susan said, “The long-living and large trees are mostly redwood trees. So, we shouldn’t go there as there could be wolves. It is already 6:30 pm. Bye Mary.”

The next morning at around 9:00 am Mary came to Susan and Manny’s house. Then they went to the sunset viewing deck and to the full moon viewing tree house, which was made above some Redwood trees. They started looking for the clue in the tree house. They suddenly remembered that there was one more such tree house which was said to be a place where one could see the full moon, but it was about a half-mile away from their current station.

Susan said, “Our houses are closer so we should go back and get our bicycles, then we will go back to the other viewing deck.” After getting their bicycles, they were ready to go. They reached the deck and after seeing its condition, they decided to go one at a time as it could break. And, if they needed help someone must call for it. Susan went in first and started looking for the clue. Meanwhile, Mary and Manny stood at a safe distance to see if anything was taped or stuck under it.

 Firstly, Susan searched the main house from corner to corner and then top to bottom. She searched everywhere in the main tree house then went out of the house. She had not heard the creaking noise below her since she was far too intrigued to find the clue.

However, Mary and Manny saw something from under, which they thought could be the clue. But it wasn’t. It was just an advertisement pamphlet, which had come probably flying due to the wind. Their clue had to be a paper, which had almost deteriorated as it was with all the papers.

They looked up and saw Susan looking at them from the top of the treehouse with a piece of paper in her hand. She excitedly shouted, “GUYS!! I FOUND THE PAPER!!” She waved the paper at them and started to come down.

It was 6:00 pm and the night was starting to fall. Just then, Susan came down and heard a pack of wolves howl. They got scared and quickly got onto their bicycles and started moving outside the jungle when something happened.

They saw a silhouette of a wolf or a dog, which was either a Husky or a German Shepherd. It was coming towards them and they knew there was no way out. They were riding their bicycles in full-speed to escape the jungle and suddenly heard a motor vehicle, which lit directly on their eyes. Still, they didn’t stop and kept going. But to their misfortune, about 10 wolves came in front of them. Suddenly, they saw the vehicle which was a forest ranger car and quickly waved their hands to get them to stop.

The car stopped and the officials in the car asked the children what they were doing. They explained their stories and asked the rangers to drop them at their house. They agreed. The rangers said, “We are here to look for 10 wolves, who escaped as we got a report of a sighting.” To this, Susan replied, “We just saw the wolves while we were on bicycles.” The rangers looked at them shocked and asked them where they had seen the wolves. Manny pointed at a place some distance away and said, “They went down near the river.”

The ranger called into his radio and said, “The pack has been spotted along the river, request backup immediately.” Susan started to read the paper in her hand. It said, “You fools this is all fake there is no treasure.”

Soon, they got dropped off at their house and their parents were standing in the front yard. The children ran to hug their parents and Susan thought that this was exhilarating and dangerous treachery.