The Jonasons

The Jonasons

a series by Tanyut Sharma

1. THE TREASURE

Chapter – 1

Round the Garden

In this story I shall tell you how we found a long gone treasure in our garden. The way I see it, we were very unlucky because it was the (rotten) fruit of our labors, also we needed the money as our father could not afford to send us to school. It all began a dark night when we were playing charades, an interruption occurred. “Alright children, go to bed now, it’s time to sleep.” cried out mother as we all, or, in other words, Jack, Martha, Bill and me, Joe stood up yawning from our game of charades and went to our respective rooms without exchanging a word. Probably this is why father is on our case of behavior. Sure enough, he called up to us to remind us to at least say goodnight. All he got in return were a few muffled yawns. 

          The next day was rainy and we were all holding a council as to what to do that day. It was not my idea to look for treasure it was Bill’s. After all he was the only one interested in archeology, the rest of us were sure that there were no such thing as buried treasures nowadays. We all had our own points of specialization, I and Martha was interested in cryptographs, while Jack was regarded as the person with the highest common sense. Bill began to insist that there was a buried treasure in our garden (I have made a point of highlighting the word ‘was’); he seemed to be like a hurricane gathering momentum, gradually, but visibly. We told him to go and look for a treasure while we others played something jolly. So the hurricane adamantly released all its force on finding a treasure.

          We were continuing our interrupted game of charades when we had played for about an hour or two when the hurricane (now a breeze) blowed in, claiming that he had found a clue which shall lead him to the so called ‘treasure’. We gaped after him as he began his story. He said (giggling) “Ha ha ha. I have not found anything related to treasure, all I have found in my search of the house is that a few of the boards in the basement creak, the cupboard in the attic is forever locked and the sink in the yard doesn’t work.” He burst out laughing again as we pinned him to the ground and pummeled him.

            Martha suggested that we should capture a rare and exotic animal and sell it in the market to make money. This claim too was met with much hesitation from the others. Finally we came to an agreement, each of would take a turn at making money with the others help. Martha’s idea was the first to be tested. Under the guidance of Martha we all set to work, capturing (or failing to capture) anything that moved. After 3 hours of searching, we all were heartily sick of the whole affair and we gathered around to examine what we had collected so far. Jack had captured a lizard and a cockroach. Bill had stumbled upon a colony of ants and all of the 3 hours he had been collecting ants of which he had about a hundred. I had collected 2 ladybugs and a bright shining bug. Martha told me to throw it away because it could be poisonous. Martha herself had been successful to capture 2 butterflies. After a brief discussion we all decided that these finds were not worth anything and we let our prisoners go. After this little jaunt it was time to go to bed.