Gluten-Free Murder by P.D. Workman

Author:P.D. Workman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: pd workman

Chapter Eleven

SOMEHOW, WORD THAT ERIN had gotten her hands on a Civil War era treasure map seemed to have spread through the town like wildfire. Bald Eagle Falls might have only had a weekly newspaper, but news obviously traveled much faster through other means. Everyone seemed to have something to say about it, even Peter’s mother, when she stopped in to pick up some bread and some cookies. Erin reminded herself that she had been planning to start up a kids’ club. She just needed to sit down at the computer and design some kind of membership and point-tracking card. In the meantime, she offered the Foster children each a free cookie.

“I’ve heard there’s all kinds of treasure in the hills,” Mrs. Foster said. “Gold for soldiers’ payrolls, or valuables stashed away by rich families who didn’t want to be pillaged. Some of the rumors go back even further than that. To pirate gold or valuables the early settlers hid from the natives. Or sacred artifacts that natives hid from the settlers!”

“Pirate gold?” Vic echoed. “In Bald Eagle Falls?”

“Pirates!” Peter exclaimed, brandishing an imaginary sword while he munched on a cookie in the other hand. “We should search for pirate gold!”

“No, not right in Bald Eagle Falls,” Mrs. Foster said. “In the hills. Hidden in caves. The map Erin found, it’s a map of the caves, isn’t it?”

Erin smiled as she rang up the bill. “I really don’t know how much the map would help anyone searching for treasure. It is old, but I don’t think any of the information is secret. It’s just a mining survey or something, not a pirate’s map.”

“No one knows where all the caves are around here. There are all kinds of stories about lost caves and mines. The hills are riddled with them. Like Swiss cheese.”

“Can we search for gold?” one of Peter’s sisters begged. “Can we go to a cave?”

“We’re not going to a cave,” Mrs. Foster told her. “That’s all I need. My children getting lost in a cave.”

“We wouldn’t get lost!” Peter objected.

“Yes, you would. You get lost at the grocery store. What would I do? Go home without all of my children?”

“We don’t get lost,” Peter said. “Just separated. That’s different. We could find our way home.”

“From the grocery store, maybe. Not from a cave, deep down in the ground.”

The littler girl started to cry and Mrs. Foster rolled her eyes. “What’s the matter, Juni?”

“I don’t want to get lost in a cave in the ground!”

Mrs. Foster pulled her close. “You are not going to get lost in a cave, Juni. No one is going to get lost in a cave.”

As they left the store, Juni continued to whine and snivel, while the others made their plans to go searching for pirate gold.

“Pirate gold?” Erin said to Vic, laughing.

“Never get between a southerner and rumors of treasure!”

“You still want to explore caves?”

“I promise I won’t get lost!”

#

It felt good to go home at the end of a busy day, back to the comfort and familiarity of the house, to pat her furry little fuzzball and just relax.

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