by Rachel Funk

Created on: September 28, 2009

Excerpt from The Fearless Three and the Pirate's Gold, an early reader's book

It's a warm summer day and Marie and her brother Harry are in their back yard playing. Their older brother, Mike, is inside feeding the dogs. He's eight, so he helps around the house like that. Harry is four and Marie is five, but when they get older, they hope to have jobs like Mike has.

When Mike comes outside Harry is digging in the sandbox and Marie is watching him. She is holding a big leaf off the tree in her hands.

"Hey Marie! Harry! What are you guys doing?" He yells, running across the yard.

"I found a treasure map." She says.

"We're gonna dig it up." Harry adds.

Mike looks again. The leaf had turned into a map and their sandbox into a long, endless beach. "Can I help?"

"Sure!" The littler ones said at the same time and Mike grabbed a shovel and started to dig. It didn't take long until their shovels hit something hard. Excited they dropped the shovels and scooped sand away carefully with their bare hands.

They found a very old wooden box buried in the ground! All three of them helped pull it out of the hole and onto the sand.

"Open it Mike!" Harry yelled happily, bouncing up and down.

"Yeah, Mike! Open it!" Marie joined in, giggling.

"Wait...it's very old." Mike said, "We have to be careful." He brushed the last of the sand off the lid and uncovered words carved into the top.

"Look, look! There are letters. What do they say?" Marie asked.

Mike looked closely and read to his brother and sister what was written on the box. "It says, 'Captain Jamie's Treasure.' Then under that it says, 'Do not open. Or else!'."

The three children looked at each other, wide eyed. "A pirate treasure..." Harry whispered. "What does "or else" mean?"

"It means big trouble." Mike said. He knows the answers to lots of their questions. "But...this box looks pretty old. And I don't see any pirates here, do you?"

They all look around at the very long beach, there were little clumps of tall grass growing here and there, a couple of sea gulls flying high above them and the blue water rolling in wave after wave, but they were the only ones there.

They smile at each other and reach together to open the chest. The lid creaks open very slowly, it was a very old box and it takes all three of them to get it to open. And when they did, they saw what was inside.

It was full of gold coins, gems and jewels. There was so much inside that it spilled over the edge and all around the chest. They dug in with their hands up to their elbows grinning and laughing at their good luck!

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