“Oh, I hope he hasn’t found a real frog from next door’s pond,” I said, feeling worried. “He’s got a real thing about them and I’m sure they don’t think it’s such good fun when he tries to play with them.”
“Frogs, YUCK!” Fliss said at once. She is one of those people who feels sick at the thought of blood, beetles, spiders, snakes, rats, mud, bad smells, ghosts, dead things… you get the idea.
“Oh, frogs are sooo sweet,” I said defensively. “How can you not like a cute little froggy, Fliss?” I didn’t bother to wait for her answer – I didn’t have time to listen to all the reasons she would be able to come up with for hating them. “Hang on – I’ll just see what he’s found.”
I ran off up the garden, half hoping it really was a frog but thinking that, more likely, it was going to be a worm or piece of rubbish that the wind had blown in. I certainly wasn’t expecting to find some treasure!
As I got near him, Buster started running round and round in circles, barking dementedly. “Calm down, daft dog!” I said, laughing.
He ran over to something he’d uncovered in the soil and pushed it with his nose. It glinted gold in the autumn sun.
“What have you found, then?” I said. I still wasn’t excited at this point, I was just wondering if it was a shiny chocolate wrapper (not that I have food on the brain or anything!). It wasn’t until I got right there and bent over to look that I realised that it wasn’t just a piece of old rubbish. Oh, no! Quite the opposite, in fact. Buster had found… a gold ring.
“Buster, where did this come from?” I asked in surprise. I picked up the ring and blew the last crumbs of soil off it. It felt heavy and warm in my hand.
“Hey, look at this, you guys,” I shouted excitedly. “Buster has struck GOLD!”
The other four ran over to have a look. “Wow! A ring! Where do you think it came from?” Fliss said, eyes wide. “Can I try it on?”
“Is it one of your mum’s rings?” practical Rosie said. “Or yours?”
“It’s not mine and I don’t think it’s Mum’s,” I replied. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“Is it your dad’s?” Kenny asked. “Or one of your brothers’? It must have come from somewhere.”
Fliss rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Kenny, don’t you know anything about jewellery? It’s a lady’s ring – look how small it is!” she said, wiggling her middle finger which was now wearing the ring. Fliss is very into stuff like jewellery and make-up – and she also loves a chance to go on about it whenever possible.
“No, I didn’t know because I’m not interested,” Kenny retorted, quick as a flash. “And anyone who IS interested must be… ”
“Hey, I wonder if it’s something to do with the supernatural,” Frankie interrupted. Out of the five of us, Kenny and Fliss are the ones who argue most often, so Rosie, Frankie and I have to jump in and stop them before it gets out of hand. “I mean, things don’t just appear in people’s gardens like that, do they? It could be a sign!” she added, looking excited.
“Supernatural?” scoffed Rosie at once. “Sign? Leave it out, Frankie. It’s a ring that Buster has found, that’s all.”
“Now, don’t look like that,” Frankie said. “I saw this wicked episode of the X-Files once, where… ”
“Here we go… ” muttered Kenny, raising her eyebrows at Rosie. Those two don’t have any time for Frankie’s theories about aliens, UFOs and spaceships. The drama with Frankie’s telescope and ‘alien’ spotting on Cuddington Hill was something we were still trying to live down. “Now – getting back to the real world, has anyone been doing any digging in the garden lately?” she added loudly, drowning out Frankie’s X-Files story.
I wrinkled my nose while I thought. “Yes, Mum was out here last weekend,” I said. “She roped me into helping her with the weeding. Why?”
“Well… DERRR!” Kenny said, her face lighting up. “Hasn’t it struck anyone else what the obvious answer is?”
The rest of us looked at each other blankly. “Er… a magic plant that grows gold rings?” Fliss said feebly.
Rosie giggled. “Fliss, you’ve been reading too much Enid Blyton,” she said. “Magic plant, indeed!”
“I’m talking about buried treasure, you dimwits!” Kenny said dramatically. “I bet when your mum was digging over her flowerbeds, she dug this ring up without even realising. Which means that… ”
“There could be more down there,” Rosie put in, grabbing Kenny’s arm excitedly. “Buried treasure – in your garden, Lyndz!”
“From years and years ago,” Kenny added, eyes gleaming. “It’s probably really REALLY old and dead valuable.”
Even Fliss had stopped glaring at Rosie and was looking interested now. “What, you mean, we could be rich?” she said eagerly.
“Could be!” I said, grinning at her. I started skipping back towards the house. “Come on, let’s go and show my mum what we’ve found!”
You know what it’s like when you’re dead excited about something and then you show your parents and they’re like, “Oh yeah, whatever,” as if they’ve just seen the most boring thing on earth? Well, that was kind of what I was expecting to happen with the ring as well – for Mum and Dad to crush our excitement with lots of boring, practical reasons why we couldn’t possibly have found some real treasure.
Which just goes to show that parents are totally unpredictable creatures because – miracle of the year – they didn’t say anything of the sort.
“Mum, look what Buster found in the garden,” I shouted as we went into the kitchen. Mum and Dad were both there reading the newspaper and trying to stop my baby brother Spike ripping up the TV guide.
Fliss wiggled the ring off her finger and dropped it into my mum’s hand. “Treasure!” she beamed.
“Is it yours, Mrs Collins?” Sherlock Kenny wanted to know at once. “Did you lose it when you were gardening?”
Mum shook her head. “No, it’s not one of mine,” she said, peering at it. “I’ve never seen it before. It’s very pretty. I wonder whose it is.”
“We were wondering if there could be some buried treasure in the garden,” I burst out excitedly. “What do you think? You might have dug this up the other day when we were out in the garden – and there might be loads more where it came from, too!”
Fliss sat down at the kitchen table suddenly, looking really pale and scared. “I’ve just had a horrible thought,” she said faintly. “What if there’s a dead body down there? A dead body that was WEARING THE RING!”
“Eeeeuughh, do you have to, Fliss?” Rosie said. “Thanks for that lovely idea – not!”
“Darling, I’m sure if I’d raked over the hand of a dead woman, I’d have noticed,” Mum said calmly. She is not the tiniest bit squeamish – as you probably guessed.
“Raked over the… ugh,” Fliss echoed, her face changing from white to green in seconds. She clapped a hand over her mouth and looked sick as anything. “I wish you hadn’t said that, Mrs Collins.”
Dad took the ring out of Mum’s hand and examined