Mystery in the Cave (2 page)

Henry carried his suitcase and Benny’s into the bedroom. “We won’t need a thing, Grandfather. There’s a stove, a refrigerator, and a sink, too.”

Violet hugged her grandfather. “I’m glad we’re staying here and not in a fancy hotel. It’s like being in our own house.”

“This is almost as much fun as our boxcar,” Benny said.

After Mr. Alden left, Jessie unpacked the picnic basket and the cooler the family brought on all their car trips.

“Mmm,” Benny said, watching every bit of food Jessie put away in the refrigerator. “What’s for supper tonight?”

“Looks like ham and eggs,” Henry said, helping Jessie. “And I’ll make some fried potatoes, too.”

Soon everyone was busy cracking eggs, peeling potatoes, and cutting up the leftover dinner ham Mrs. McGregor, their housekeeper, had sent from home.

“Let’s eat out on the little porch,” Violet suggested. “There are four chairs and a table out there.”

Though it was dark outside, the Aldens didn’t mind eating outdoors at all. Jessie found a length of string and tied one end to a hook on the porch ceiling and the other end to her flashlight. “There. Now we have an overhead lamp. I’ll light one of the candles I bought and put it in the middle of the table. That way we can see our food.”

“Nothing is nicer than eating outside,” Violet said when she sat down. “This reminds me of living in our boxcar.”

“Only now we get to sleep on real beds instead of straw,” Henry said.

After supper, the sounds of singing crickets outside and clinking silverware inside filled the air. The children dried the dishes together. It had been a long day. They were ready for bed.

Benny had opened his mouth to yawn when something—a noisy, rumbling
something
—hit the porch roof.

“What’s that?” Henry yelled over the rattling sound. He ran to the front door but didn’t open it. “It sounds like rocks falling on the roof. Let’s stay inside so we don’t get knocked on the head.”

Jessie put her arms around Benny and Violet. The children stared out the front window as small rocks tumbled down. No one moved. Finally the noises stopped.

Henry slowly opened the door and the children tiptoed out to the porch. “Maybe there was an animal climbing overhead,” he said, trying to see in the dark, “and that sent a bunch of rocks down.”

Everything was quiet now except for the sound of a very loud motor down below in the parking lot.

“Look, there’s a car driving away,” Jessie said to Henry. “Do you suppose there were rock climbers on this cliff?”

Henry shook his head. “Pretty foolish ones if they were out at this hour. Rock climbing is dangerous enough in daylight, let alone at night. Let’s tell Mr. Howe what happened.”

When the Aldens went to the registration desk, they found Mr. Howe snoring in his easy chair. His reading glasses were still perched on his nose, but his newspaper had fallen to the floor.

“Mr. Howe, Mr. Howe,” Henry called.

Mr. Howe kept right on snoring.

Violet read a small sign on the counter. “It says ‘Ring bell for service.’ ”

When he heard the bell, Mr. Howe’s blue eyes flew open so fast that his reading glasses fell off his nose. He shook himself awake, then brushed back the few strands of hair on his head.

“Can I help you, folks?” he said. “Need a cabin?”

Jessie stepped up to the desk. “Our grandfather rented us a nice cabin, Mr. Howe. He said to see you if we needed anything.”

Mr. Howe stared at the Aldens. It took him a while to figure out who these children were. “Of course, of course. Your grandfather told me you’d be arriving. Hope you like Little Nose Cabin. I usually don’t rent it out to families. Don’t want children getting hurt up on Little Nose Cliff or throwing rocks down. But Nelly Stoner told me you all were careful.”

Jessie wished she didn’t have to tell Mr. Howe about the falling rocks. “Um, we just—um—we just came down to tell you—uh . . .”

“. . . how much we like our cabin,” Henry said, stepping up to the counter. “Thanks for letting us have it. We just wanted to say hi.” With that, Henry signaled the others to go outside.

“But I thought we were going to tell Mr. Howe about the falling rocks,” Jessie said on the way back to the cabin.

“We were,” Henry whispered. “Then he mentioned he doesn’t usually rent the cabin to families. I don’t want him to think we were throwing rocks or anything. Let’s see if we can figure out by ourselves what happened.”

“It’s too dark to do anything tonight. Let’s go to sleep,” Jessie said, leading the way back with her flashlight. “Tomorrow is our rock hunting day.”

“These steps feel as if they got steeper while we were gone,” Benny said in a tired voice. “I wish this cabin had an elevator.”

“Whew. Finally,” Henry said when they opened the front door.

“Hey!” Benny yelled, suddenly a lot more awake. “How did my suitcase get out here? I put it away in the closet.”

“I put mine there, too,” Violet said, spying her blue duffel bag in the middle of the room.

Henry opened all the drawers of the bedroom dresser. Then he checked his suitcase, which was also in the middle of the bedroom. “That’s strange. Nothing’s missing—not money, not our camera. Hey, wait! Where’s my headlamp? I’m pretty sure I left it right on the dresser.”

The children checked the whole cabin. Henry’s headlamp was nowhere to be found.

Henry shrugged. “As far as I can tell, somebody moved all our luggage from the closet. Unless I left my headlamp in Grandfather’s car, I think somebody took it. The question is,
why
would anybody want it?”

“I don’t know,” Jessie said, “but I’m double locking this door right now.”

Everyone decided it was too late to figure anything out tonight and got ready for bed. Benny crawled under his covers and said to Henry, “I’m sleeping with my suitcase right under this bed.” But before Henry could say anything, Benny had drifted off to sleep.

B
y eight o’clock the next morning, nearly every table in the Dragon’s Mouth Coffee Shop was filled. The Aldens stowed their backpacks and rock hunting tools under the last empty table. They could hardly wait for breakfast.

Mr. Howe soon arrived to take their orders. “ ’Morning, Aldens. I recommend the flapjacks. The cook happens to be a good friend of mine—been married to her for forty years. Meantime, let me fill you up with orange juice.”

“We’re going rock hunting today, and I’m going to find a Rockville ‘diamond,’ ” Benny announced. “See, here’s a picture of one in my rock book.”

Mr. Howe took a look at Benny’s book. “Hmm. I’ve got a Rockville ‘diamond’ on display right behind the cash register. You can go get it, young fella.”

Benny dashed off and returned a few seconds later with a crystal-clear rock chunk. It looked amazingly like a huge diamond.

“You should lock this up,” Benny said with excitement. “What if it’s a real diamond, not just a crystal? It could be worth zillions of dollars.”

“Then I’d be a zillionaire and have to retire to a golf course. That wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as running my motor court and coffee shop, would it?”

“Nope, I guess not,” Benny answered. He turned the clear rock crystal every which way to catch the light. “Look, Jessie. It’s like the one in my book.”

“It sure is,” Jessie agreed. “Now we’ll know what to look for.”

While they waited for their flapjacks, the Aldens passed around the Rockville diamond before Benny put it back.

“Those flapjacks will last you awhile,” Mr. Howe said later when the Aldens came over to pay the check. “Now let me get a look at your rock hunting gear. I can lend you some of my own tools, if you’d like. Rock collecting’s one of my hobbies when I’m not here or at the registration desk.”

Henry opened up a canvas duffel bag. “We have a real geologist’s hammer, plus some chisels, a guidebook to the best areas, some gloves, brushes, and a strainer.”

Mr. Howe checked the Aldens’ equipment carefully. “Good. I see some safety goggles in here, too. Don’t forget to put them on when you’re hammering rock. You don’t want a rock splinter in your eye. As for this guidebook, you won’t be needing that. I’ll let you folks in on a secret. Hike all the way to the top of Little Nose Cliff then down the other side. Some interesting rocks at the bottom were uncovered when it was blasted to make room for a road over there. I just bought a hundred acres on that side, so it’s okay by me if you chisel there. If you hammer long enough, you might find some of our Rockville diamonds buried in the rock.”

“Hey, thanks, Mr. Howe,” Henry said.

The Aldens were nearly out the door when Mr. Howe gave them one last piece of advice. “There’s a big meadow at the bottom of the cliff. Good place to have lunch. Just watch out for any sinkholes in the ground. I haven’t had a chance to really explore any of the sinkholes since I bought the property. But some of them go down into caves. So watch where you step. Don’t worry though, there are so many ways out of the caves it is almost impossible to get lost.”

“Good thing I packed our lights and candles,” Jessie said on the walk back to Little Nose Cliff. “We’ll be ready in case we do find a cave. I just wish we had Henry’s headlamp.”

Henry sighed. “Me too. Maybe a hiker thought the cabin was open for anybody and took the headlamp. Since nothing else is missing, I didn’t want to worry Mr. Howe about it in case it’s in Grandfather’s car. Well, I’m not going to let it spoil our rock hunting. Let’s have a good time.”

Forgetting Henry’s headlamp, the Boxcar Children made their way up Little Nose Cliff past their cabin. Up and up they went, careful to watch every step so they wouldn’t slip or send rocks tumbling down.

“Look at this view!” Henry said when everyone got to the top.

Violet looked down at the motor court far below. “The cabins and cars seem like dollhouses and toy cars from way up here.” They headed down the other side.

“Neat rocks,” Jessie said when the children got to the bottom of the cliff. “The colors and surfaces are different on this side of the cliff.” She dug into the duffel bag for Benny’s rock book and flipped the pages until she found what she was looking for. “I think this is the kind of rock that’s supposed to have the Rockville diamonds in it.”

Benny touched the rock. “I don’t see any diamonds. Just plain old rock!”

Henry put on a pair of goggles and handed another pair to Benny. “They don’t just fall in your lap, Benny. We have to dig for them inside the rock.”

The children took turns sharing the goggles and the hammer. They chipped and chipped at different sections of rock. Two hours later, they still hadn’t found anything that looked like the famous Rockville diamonds.

After a while, Jessie noticed that Benny wasn’t having much fun. “I know it seems as if we just ate breakfast, but it’s almost lunchtime. I’m hungry from our long hike. How about you, Benny?”

Benny took off his safety goggles and licked his lips. “I’m hungry for our ham sandwiches. And something cold to drink, too. All this hammering makes me thirsty.”

Everyone collected their equipment and searched for a picnic spot away from the road.

“Let’s try the meadow Mr. Howe mentioned,” Jessie said. “We can come back to this rock later.”

“This meadow is pretty, but I wish we could put our blanket down in some shade,” Violet said. “How about by that tree and some bushes over there?”

Violet led everyone to a cool spot near some rocks and a shady tree. Jessie and Henry spread out the blanket. Then they laid out the food and poured ice-cold lemonade into their cups.

Benny gulped his lemonade and sandwich, then put down the cracked pink cup he brought everywhere with him. “That tasted good,” he said, ready to explore again. “Hey, guess what? There’s cool air coming from this hole in the ground—whoops—”

“Benny!” Violet cried out.

The other three children ran over to where Benny had been standing. He was gone!

“Benny! Benny!” Henry yelled. “Where are you?”

“Down here,
here, here
,” the children heard Benny’s voice echo from somewhere below.
“
Fell in,
fell in, fell in
.”