The Lost Treasure

• William Tarrant, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2017

This is not how I imagined I’d be spending the long weekend.
“Ok!” yelled the Pilot battling against the rushing wind, “you’ve got three minutes to pull the strings before you hit the ground.” Opening the hatch to jump, I launch myself out of the small plane, hearing Nick stumbling behind me.
We descended to our destination, the great Amazon. We jumped into a hired jeep and drove to one of the closest villages where we spoke to a couple of the locals. One of them said they saw a suspicious person running with a large box that looked like it was about five kilos. They also said that Nick and I would have to hire dirt bikes to chase after them since the Amazon is very thick and the ground is covered with tree roots and fallen vines. VROOOOM! Went the motors as we raced through the large jungle following the footprints of the suspected thief. We kept going strong till about 2:30pm when we arrived at some sort of temple that had moss all over it and spiders and bugs all around it. There was a stone hippo and bear water feature that were starting to crumble to the ground. Nick and I walked up the half broken stairs following the muddy footprints, we walked in, not being aware of our surroundings and accidentally stepped on a pressure plate. Arrows missed my face by a millimetre.
Nick and I walked through the half collapsed pathway for what felt like 2 hours. As we were about to stop for a break, we noticed a wall light that wasn’t lit like all the others and it was closer to the ground. I suggested that one of us pull it to see if it was a lever to a secret room. Nick being Nick insisted that he did it. “Here goes nothing,” said Nick as he pulled the torch with all his might. CREEEEAK! The floor started moving like an earthquake; we made a leap for safety as a staircase opened in the floor right where we were standing. We ran down the stairs and saw some footprints that looked like they were about a day old. Nick shouted “HELLO!” and suddenly a gang of bats came flying straight in to our faces. I noticed that one of the bats had tape around it and was flying very slowly. I asked Nick for the net gun and shot it. “BULLS EYE!” I yelled. I went to the bat to unwrap what I thought looked like the artefact, which had been stolen. There was one question remaining, ‘Was this the thing we were looking for…?’