The Lost Treasure

Hiding in plain sight

  David peaked around the corner of the wall, and raised his hand, signaling for us to follow him. And swiftly we jumped over the fence to mark the property's boundary and moved to the back of the next house. Then we repeated the whole process once more, before coming to a halt.

This was the last house in the lane, and just right of it was the garage, and our bikes.

  There was a problem though, to get to the back of the garage from where we were, we had to get through the substantial gap between the two points with us being very much within the vision of these dangerous people. And that problem was only made worse by the fact there was little cover to duck behind.

But there was a little cover, and that was all we needed.

  There lay a line of thick bushes which presented us a path to our objective undetected if we crawled right next to it. It was difficult but..it was a way.

God I hoped this worked.

  I went first, getting down on my knees and then crawling slowly along the ground, daring not to make a sound. Ibrahim followed behind me silently but David stayed back, and I looked at him.

  "I can't do this, it's too risky" he whispered, "You two are barely invisible behind these bushes and you two are super skinny as well. I wouldn't be camouflaged like you two, and I'd get us all caught."

  I listened to David and pursed my lips, thinking about what course of action to take from here. David was obviously right, and we couldn't allow ourselves to get caught, not when we were on the edge of a possible adventure.

  But then again, we couldn't leave David right where he was. If we got our bikes back, and the men came looking for us, they'd find and capture him.

We couldn't afford that.

  And it seemed David understood that too, because he nodded and whispered, "I've got an idea though, you two go on, I'll catch up."

"Wait what is it?" I asked in a quiet voice.

"You'll see, now go on, we've wasted too much time" he replied, motioning for us to go on.

And that is what we did.

  We inched our way forward, quickly but quietly, and with every passing second I kept hoping that we didn't get spotted.

  I extended my right arm as far forward as I could, and clenched the ground with my fingers, pulling myself forward before repeating the process but with the opposite arm. It was an exhausting yet at the same time, exciting process, because every time I did it, I got closer and closer.

And not more than a minute later, I was there.

  Hesitantly, I stood up behind the back wall of the garage, my legs wobbling a little from being in that awkward laying down position.

  Behind me, Ibrahim got up silently and took the lead, going around the corner of the building silently and I followed.

And that's where I saw the one thing I hadn't expected to see, a door!

  Or well, that's where a door should have been, in actuality there was only the opening, which we could go through.

No wait!

I pulled Ibrahim back just in time as I heard the voice of one of the men in the garage.

"So, we take the bikes with us?" he asked in a deep, sort of raspy voice.

  "I don't really see the point though, doing all this. I say it was a mistake to go after the miscreants in the first place! We got them suspicious and now they could present a problem for us. And I did tell Gary the same thing, but of course no one listens to me!" a voice complained, this one higher pitched than the first one, probably signaling that the man was on the younger side..early 20's?

  "Oh for god's sake stop whining Sam, geez you'd think we were talking to a 5 year old. Those kids are dumb. Just watch, they won't understand the co-ordinates, let alone be able to do anything about it. Not like they have a one way ticket to Norway anyway" spat another voice with a harsh tone in it.

  "He's probably the leader of these three" I thought. "And well, at least we got the co-ordinates right. They do point to Norway, though there is truth in the man's words; we don't have a way to get there"

  "Leave the bikes for now, but I want you both to keep a close eye on these individuals. They can't do anything on their own..but they can alert others. Stay on them 24/7, and always keep track of where they are, got it?" asked the mysterious man in a tone which eliminated any sort of daring to go against his words.

  "Got it man, but gosh, stop acting like you're the boss when you're not" the man with a heavy voice, Gary said plainly.

"I'll get there soon enough, now go" the 'boss' commanded.

  I heard the light sound of walking away from the garage and I slowly peaked around the door opening, only to get the living day lights scared out of me when I came up face to face with a man.

  "And next time you try spying on somebody, be sure to do a better job at it" he spoke calmly, grabbing me by my shirt and lifting me off the ground easily as I kicked and struggled.

  "You know, you brats aren't going to get in our way, but a little beating wouldn't hurt either. I don't want any more interferences from you" he said harshly, looking at me through his mask.

"Now, how many of you are there? Or was it just you spying on us?"