The Secret Treasures

 

The Secret Treasures

Book 1: George Washington

By Vihaan Chivukula

Chapter One: April 29, 1789,  around 9 A.M.

“Come on!” My friend, William said. “It’ll be fun!’

“Are you kidding me?” I protested. “We could get caught and sent back to be sold.”

“Don’t be such a worrywart.”

“I’m not being a worrywart!”

“Then if you aren’t one come with me!”

“And if we get caught?”

Willam said nothing. He’s a week older than me, he acts like six though. We are both sixteen. We both look alike, black hair, blue, small eyes, even Mr. Peterson, our owner, confused us!

Now you must be wondering what we might have been arguing about. Me and Willam are best friends. I call him Will though . When we both were four we were both sold to the exact same owner and that’s where we met. If you were wondering why we have an owner we’re just slaves. Just a week ago we ran away. Mr. Peterson is the cruelest person on the earth, we ran away because of him. Crazy William here wants to sneak to the White House and watch General George Washington become the first president of the thirteen colonies with some stupid oath! 

“We’ll have a hiding spot!” Will replied back.

“Okay, okay,” I finally said, surrendering, “We’ll go.”

“Great, come on, Levi, let’s go.”

“It’s tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

After some time, we walked back to our hut we built out of the mud and grass. We sat down and ate some of the mangos we collected yesterday.

Chapter Two: April 30, 1789, 11:55 P.M.

“Come on!” Will whispered excitedly.

The guy is way too excited.

Hiding from the crowd in a bush, we peeked through the booming crowd. The White House was humongous, with big pillars holding it, and the flag at the top with a straight angled roof. At the front door stood future president George Washington standing. 

Just a few minutes later, the chancellor, Robert Livingston appeared with a paper in his hand. “General George Washington,” Livingston began, “Repeat what I am about to read to you.”

“I solemnly swear…”

General Washington repeated. 

“...that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States…”

General repeated what the chancellor said.

After it was done everyone clapped and cheered. “May our slaves be happy with you too!” Someone screamed.

I clenched my knuckles after hearing that negative comment. All those lazy people want is to be able to whip someone up. Cruel, terrible comments right to your face. Careless white men beating you up. Cruelty, it's just all cruelty. A real leader would make everyone happy. “Before we continue this wonderful ceremony, I must have a chat with President Washington. Once again, I congratulate Vice President John Adams.” Livingston announced. 

“We missed the vice presidential oath!” Will remembered.

“It’s okay,” I replied back.

“All right, let’s get back.”

“Hold it!”

“Hold for what?”

“Want to find out what they’re talking about?”

“Are you crazy?”

“We’ve been suffering our whole life!”

“So?”

“Let’s have some mischief!”
“We’ll get caught!”
“Don’t be such a worrywart!” 

“Okay, Levi, let’s go!”

Then, we got prepared to enter that White house, with the hope of not getting caught.

Chapter Three:  April 30, 1789, 12:40 P.M.

I gasped for breath, who knew how big the white house is? Me and Will sneaked through the vents and here we are, trying to breath after a forty minute crawl. Washington and Livingston had just started the conversation.

“Here is something new the miners found next to the graveyard,” Livingston began.

He held out a piece of paper and gave it to Washington. 

“The miners found this saying in a book in the Library of Congress.” Livingston said. “It is called Emerald Treasure, the book has a secret passageway to the treasure.”

“Brilliant!” Washington exclaimed.

“You can’t tell anyone, we don’t want too many people digging around at the spot.”

“Agreed, how far?”

“Around forty-five minutes well, if you are walking, leave the White House and take a right, then take the next right, and then the fourth right you see will lead you straight to the library.”

“Then let’s get going.”

“We can’t yet, the ceremony is still on, we’ll have to wait about an hour and a half.”

“All right.”

With that, both of them rushed out of the room.

I looked at Will, “Here that?”

“Yup,” Will replied, “We better hurry though, we only have about two hours and fifteen minutes.”  

Chapter Four: April 30, 1789, 1:30 P.M.

“Levi, I’m starving,” Will told me grumpily.

“How about we change our whole lives and you’re complaining about starving?” I put back on him. “We’re at the library.”

We walked into the library, it looked like a college, grand with shiny windows and pillars that held it up. We looked up at the clock, secretly, without Mr. Peterson knowing, me and Will taught ourselves to read. It was a half-past one.  

“Great,” I said, “Just ten minutes till the ceremony ends.”

We tried to hide ourselves so that nobody catches any slaves roaming around the library, and only white people were aloud. At the same time we looked like we were sixteen, the library only allowed sixteen and above inside.  We searched and searched, and after thirty minutes we finally found the book. 

“Great!” Will exclaimed, “Now let's get out of here.”

We rushed out of the library, and since we were on the top floor, it took twenty minutes to get out, and an additional ten minutes to get out from the guards at the front. We looked at the clock in the middle from a far distance.

“Oh boy,” I said, “We gotta go, just fifteen minutes till the general arrives.”

We rushed as far as we could from the library till we sat down and read the book. The first page said:

Dear reader,

This is the year 19 B.C for me in China, and I have been enjoying this time. Six years ago I secretly stole a ship and used it to go across the Pacific Ocean. I landed on this huge island. It was undiscovered, completely. That is the reason why I wrote this book. I stayed there for many years, digging out gems and minerals. One day, as I was about to leave this lonely land, a huge man came and buried all of my treasures. Kept me on his ship to china. My treasure is next to a building I built that no one knows who built. Good luck on finding the treasure.

From,

Ra Tzu

P.S.

The rest of the book is facts about emeralds.

I looked at Will, he looked at me in disbelief. “I know exactly where to go.” Will  announced.

(Note: The place Will is about to reveal to Levi is actually not built by an unknown builder) 

Chapter Five: April 30, 1789, 3:05 P.M.

“Okay, I am starving really bad now,” Will complained.

“So you wanted to bring me to the Stone Old House?” I asked

“Yup.”

“Let’s search all of the corners now.”

We stole two shovels from behind the church and began digging and digging until we found something shiny.

We pulled it out and we found in the box dirty emeralds and rubys shining around. 

“We should head back to the hut,” Will requested me. 

Chapter Six: May 14, 1789, 6:03 P.M.

They were back at their hut playing catch with an amethyst.

“Do you think that Washington’s army will be searching for the treasure?” I asked.

“No,” He said back.

“How can you be so sure?” 

“We’re deep in the forest, nobody knows where we are.”

“Except me,” a voice said behind us.

I jumped, startled by the voice. I turned behind me, and my eyes widened.

A white boy our age stood in front of us. He had blond hair, gray eyes, and a curved lip. 

“Lemon?” I called out.

“Hey Levi,” he said back.

Now, you must be wondering, who is Lemon? Lemon was Mr. Peterson’s son. His real name was Marcus, but me and Will like to call him Lemon because his skin looks as if it's an extremely light yellow! Of course we were whipped every time, but we didn’t care.

“Hey William,” Lemon continued.

Lemon isn’t like Mr. Peterson, he used to be until Mrs. Peterson died, which was when he was ten. Since then he treated us nicely, and covered for us when me and Will were teaching ourselves to read. 

“Why are you here?” Will asked.

“I came looking for you,” he replied, “Since you left Pa made me a slave and 

Brynn ran away.”

I nodded. Brynn was Lemon’s sister, who for some reason always buried herself in some book called The Art of War. She spent her free time whipping my back, you can tell I hated her. 

“Did you come to take us back?” I asked.

He laughed. “No way, I came to join your group.”

“So now Mr. Peterson is all alone?”

“Yup, and I’m mostly running away because he became a drunkard.”

“Sure, you can join,” Will said.

Chapter Seven: March 18, 1791, 9:03 A.M.

Last year me and Will told Lemon about the treasure. He was surprised and excited. Now me and Will were waiting for Lemon to come back to find any good news from any of the people. 

Lemon came bolting back to the hut screaming, “We’re going west!”

We stared at him. “I’m sorry, we’re going where?” We both asked at the same time.

“West!” He exclaimed. “There is land there, I just heard, a man named Daniel Boone created a trail sixteen years ago!”

“And you didn’t bother to tell us that sixteen years ago?” I asked Lemon.

“I just found out,” he said, “We can use the treasure you guys found to sell it and earn money.”

“Okay, let’s do it,” Will agreed.

“Great!”

“But there’s something about Indians, right?” I asked.

“Pa told me how to make guns, we can do it, the trail is through the Cumberland Gap.”

A week later they set out with their wagon they built, and took off.