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“Treasure hunters,” Jake said with a knowing look at the coins.
“Pardon?” Maggie said.
“Treasure hunters,” Jake repeated. He unwrapped the sandwich he was holding and took a bite of it.
Sam said, “Saying the same two words again doesn’t make it any clearer, Jake. What do you mean?”
Jake’s cheeks bulged with food as he said, “It’s modern-day treasure hunting. I had a go at it once, but I got bored.” He swallowed his food, and then took another bite.
Maggie shared a confused look with Sam. “I’m none the wiser. Are you?”
“No.” Sam swiped the half-eaten sandwich from his son. “Stop eating for one moment. Explain yourself more fully.”
Jake glowered at Sam. “Okay. There’s no need to steal my food. Modern-day treasure hunting has a few names depending on which app you download, and which group you join. The one I joined was one of the biggest groups. Once you download their app, you can start looking for nearby treasure.” He looked at the plastic coins.
Maggie said, “I’m still not following. Are these coins supposed to be treasure? They don’t look that valuable.”
“They’re not. But that’s not the point of the hunt.”
Maggie and Sam waited for him to expand. Jake didn’t, and continued to stare at the coins.
“Jake!” Sam called out causing his son to jump. “We need more information. If the gold coins are not the treasure, then what is? And how does this treasure hunting work?”
Jake answered, “The coins are just trinkets for people who locate a hidden box. If you find the box, you can take a coin or whatever other useless items are left there. I once found a box with hair scrunches in them. I don’t know what idiot left those.” He pushed his floppy hair back again.
Maggie wished she had a scrunchy with her. She would tie Jake’s hair up.
She said, “Start at the beginning. Talk to me as if I don’t know anything. Which I don’t.”
Jake nodded as if that was very easy to believe. “Okay. You have to join an official group. Some of them vet you first. The one I joined had a long list of rules. Someone in the group will hide a treasure box somewhere locally. Then they’ll send the location via the app to whoever wants to go looking for it.”
“It sounds simple enough,” Maggie said.
“It isn’t. Whoever hides the treasure box tries to make it as difficult as possible for others to find it. It’s all part of the fun. They’ll give a location, but it’s not always precise. They might direct you to part of a forest, and then you have to search a wide area until you find the box. I wasted two hours of my life doing that once. And the box doesn’t always look like a box. It might be disguised as a rock or a rotting branch.”
“Then how do you know it’s the treasure box?” Maggie asked.
“Experience,” Jake replied. “And help from other treasure hunters. When I was in that forest area, I only found the logbook because a group of other hunters turned up to help me.”
“Logbook?” Sam asked. “I thought you were looking for a box.”
Jake gave his dad an annoyed look. “I was, but I just told you they don’t always look like a box. The one I found was shaped like a rock. It was plastic, but I didn’t know that. It looked like all the other rocks around it. Which is the point, I suppose. Anyway, the other people who turned up soon found the fake rock. There was a hidden compartment in the bottom of it. And the logbook was inside.” He gave them a nod as if that explained everything. “Can I have my sandwich back now?”
Sam moved the half-eaten sandwich out of Jake’s way. “Not until you explain about this logbook thing.”
“The logbook is the point of the hunt. Once you find it, you sign it to let everyone know you found it, including the person who hid it.”
“And that’s it?” Maggie asked. “People do that? Spend hours looking for a fake rock just to sign a logbook?”
Jake nodded. “Yeah, that’s it in a nutshell. Actually, I think I did find a logbook in a fake nutshell once. The logbook is sometimes a small scroll of paper. The one inside that fake rock was tiny. If actual boxes are used, the logbook will be bigger. And if there’s room, the person who hid the box will leave a little gift for whoever finds it. And some finders even put items inside the box as a thank you to the hider of the box.”
Maggie folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. “I don’t believe you. You’re making this up.”
“Why would I do that?”
“To see if I’m stupid enough to believe you.” She looked at Sam. “Do you believe him?”
Sam was looking at the computer screen in front of him. “I didn’t, to begin with. But I’m online now. Maggie, it’s a real thing. It’s a massively real thing. There are blogs, websites, forums, social media...” He looked up from the screen. “Jake, when you first saw these coins, you said it was a big mistake. Why did you say that?”
Jake didn’t answer that question. He looked at Maggie, and asked, “Did you find these?”
“I did.” She quickly told him about the man in the tree.
Jake said, “He must have dropped these by accident when he was hiding the treasure box in the tree. He’ll soon know he’s dropped them. The people in these groups are obsessed with how many trinkets they put in boxes.”
“Does that mean he’s going to come back to the tree?” Maggie asked.
“Probably. If he knows they’re gone, he might think you’ve taken them. And he knows what you look like, and where you live. He’ll demand his coins back. But that’s not the worst of it. If he’s planted a treasure box in that tree, there’ll soon be loads of treasure hunters looking for it. If the locations aren’t that accurate, they might even look in your garden. They could start digging it up.”
“They can’t do that!” Maggie declared. “That’s illegal.”
Jake shrugged. “The law hasn’t stopped them before. They live by their own rules.”
Maggie stood up. “I don’t want anyone in my garden! Digging it up! I’m going home.” She frowned. “Perhaps I should phone the police. Then I’ll go home. Or I’ll phone the police when I get home. Someone might be digging up my roses right now!”
Sam grabbed the coins and got to his feet. “I’m coming with you.”