“I think you made a friend in Celeste,” Uncle Jim said to me. “I saw her heading up to your room last night.”
“I was so surprised to see her in my bed when I woke up,” I replied.
Celeste tilted her head at my uncle. “Admiral Jim, breakfast, pleasssse.”
He scooped a chunk of omelet from his plate into the cat’s bowl, and she hungrily lowered her head to it.
“You should put Celeste on TV,” Shawn said. “Or do some videos. They would go viral instantly.”
Jim rubbed his mustache. “Viral? Like a disease?”
“Shawn means Celeste could be popular,” I said. “A star. She’s a talking cat! She could make you rich!”
“I think Celeste deserves a quiet life,” Jim said, eyeing the cat as she finished her omelet and licked the bowl. “After three hundred days at sea, I don’t think she craves any more excitement. As for treasure, my memories are my treasures now.”
The cat raised her eyes to Uncle Jim. “More?” she said.
He laughed. “Celeste, you’ll never be a star if you get fat.”
He filled our glasses with cranberry juice. “I have to do some work on the lighthouse this morning,” he said. “The lantern is in need of serious cleaning.”
He glanced out the window. “You two could wander down to the beach, if ye like. But be careful. The tide is in and the waves are high, and the rocks down to the sand can be very slippery.”
Shawn and I exchanged glances. “I think we want to stay in and explore more of the house,” I said. Again, I knew we were both thinking about that locked room.
“Good idea,” Uncle Jim said. He drank his juice down in one gulp. “I should be back by lunchtime. Then maybe I’ll take ye down and introduce ye to the water.”
Why were Shawn and I so drawn to that forbidden room? There was so much to see in our uncle’s house. It would take days to examine every shelf and collection and treasure chest. So many wonders to explore.
But we were both drawn to that locked room as if it pulled us like a powerful magnet. We watched Uncle Jim stride along the narrow, sandy path that led to the entrance of the lighthouse next door. We saw him pull open the wooden door and disappear inside.
And then, without another word, Shawn and I hurried down the hall to the back room. I pulled the chain and the ceiling light flashed on.
My eyes swept over the two treasure chests in the middle of the room, the shelves of souvenirs and weird objects on the walls. My heart began to pound a little faster as my eyes stopped at the rusted lock on the door of the forbidden room.
“Hey—check this out!” Shawn held up a round, greenish object he had taken off a shelf. I took a few steps closer.
“Is this a real shrunken head?” Shawn said. He held it by the hair and waved it at me. It was about the size of a grapefruit.
“Ohh, gross,” I said. “Put it down. Yes, it looks like a real human head.”
“All shriveled,” Shawn said. “But it still has its eyes. Where do you think Uncle Jim got it?”
“Put it down,” I insisted. “I’m sure he has a totally creepy story he’ll tell us about whose head it is and how he got it.”
“Cool,” Shawn said. He lowered the head to the shelf.
Shawn followed me across the room. We both stared at the old lock on the door against the back wall.
“Are we going to do this or not?” I asked.
“We have to,” Shawn said. “I hate mysteries and so do you. We have to know what’s hiding in there.”
“We have one problem,” I said. “We have to find the key.”
Shawn scratched his head. “It could be anywhere. It could be hidden in this room. Or anywhere in the house. How could we ever find it?”
I wrapped my hand around the lock. It was so rusty, it scratched my palm.
I gave it a sharp tug—and the lock fell apart.
Startled, I jumped back. The old lock just crumbled in my hand.
I tugged it off the door. Shawn and I stared for a long moment at the rusted doorknob. Then I took a deep breath. “Let’s do this,” I said.
I grabbed the knob, twisted it, pulled open the door—and gasped.
Pale light poured into the room from behind Shawn and me. Gripping the knob in one hand, I leaned into the doorway, shocked by what I was staring at.
The room was bare.
No furniture. No tall shelves bursting with knickknacks and souvenirs. The room had no windows. The floor was empty, too.
I pulled the door open all the way, letting more light in. Shawn stood beside me, shaking his head. “This is the forbidden room? There’s nothing here. Is this one of Uncle Jim’s jokes?”
Then, in deep shadow, something came into focus against the back wall. I took a few steps into the room. I spotted a light switch and clicked on a dim ceiling light.
In the light, I could see the whole room clearly. The walls were concrete stones from floor to ceiling. Against the back wall, the dark shape I had spotted turned out to be a tall chest.
I pointed. “It’s like the treasure chests in the other room.” My voice sounded hollow in the small stone room.
Our shoes scraped on the concrete floor as we stepped up to the chest. The wooden chest was painted black. But it looked gray under a thick layer of dust. A heavy chain was wrapped tightly around it, and a rusted lock, much like the one on the door, hung from the lid.
“Maybe this chest has real pirate treasure in it,” I said. “Maybe it’s worth millions of dollars. And Uncle Jim keeps it locked and chained to make sure it’s safe.”
“Then we definitely have to open it,” Shawn said.
“What if there is a pirate curse on it?” I said. “Don’t the pirates put curses on things in the Johnny Depp movies?”
Shawn laughed. “You’re starting to sound like Uncle Jim. Since when do you believe in evil curses?”
I shrugged.
Shawn grabbed the lock. “I’ll bet this is like the lock on the door. Watch it crumble to pieces with one tug.”
He gave it a hard tug. The chain bounced against the lid. But the lock didn’t fall apart. He jerked it again, twisting the lock against the chain. He tried one more time, pulling with all his strength.
“This one isn’t cooperating,” I said. “Let’s try the chain. Maybe there’s a weak link.”
I grabbed the chain. It was heavier than I thought. The metal was scratchy from rust. But no matter how much I tugged it and twisted it, I couldn’t get it to break apart.
“I think Uncle Jim really wants to keep this one a secret,” I said, wiping sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand.
“There has to be a key to the lock,” Shawn said, staring at it. He rubbed his jaw. “Now where would Uncle Jim hide the key?”
I gazed around the empty stone room. “Nowhere here to hide it,” I decided. “I’ll bet he keeps the key on him. You know. Maybe on a chain around his neck. To make sure no one can find it.”
I suddenly realized that Shawn wasn’t listening to me. He was walking along the wall, rubbing a hand on the stones.
“Shawn, what are you doing?” I demanded.
He didn’t answer. He stopped. He tapped a stone on the wall just above his head. “Look, Violet. This stone. It’s lighter than the others. It’s a different color.”
“So?” I said. “Why are we interested in the stones?”
“I’ll show you,” he said. He curled his hand and began clawing at the stone. I saw that he was trying to press his fingernails into the cracks between the stone and the rest of the wall.
It took a minute or so to manage it. Then he wiggled the stone right out of the wall. “I knew it!” he cried. He reached into the hole—and pulled out a large brass key.
I clapped my hands. “Shawn, when did you become a genius?” I said.
“When I was born,” he said, grinning, showing off the two deep dimples in his cheeks.
He handed me the key. I held my breath and lowered it to the rusted
lock. It slid in easily. I gave it a turn and the lock popped open.
“This is almost too easy,” I said. I turned to my brother. “Last chance to forget about this room, forget this trunk, and go find somewhere else to explore.”
Shawn tugged at the heavy steel chain. “No way. It’s too late to chicken out, Violet. We’ve already undone the lock.”
I let out a sigh. “Okay. Here we go.”
I tugged the chain off the trunk and let it clatter to the floor. Then Shawn and I both grabbed the latch and clicked it open.
I reached for the lid of the chest, preparing to push it open. But I stopped when I heard a sound behind us at the doorway.
Shawn and I both turned to the sound. My heart skipped a beat when I saw Celeste sitting upright inside the door.
The cat’s green eyes slid from Shawn to me. Her tail waved once, moving silently over the concrete floor.
Then Celeste tilted her head to one side and said, “I’m telling Admiral Jim.”
“No—wait!” I cried. “Please—”
But before I could move, the cat whirled around and disappeared, her tail held straight behind her.
“Celeste—please!” Shawn shouted. He jumped to his feet and ran to the door. A second later, he turned back to me. “She’s gone.”
He walked back to the chest, shaking his head. “Who knew the cat was a snitch?” he murmured.
He dropped down beside me. I was still on my knees, ready to push open the chest lid. “Now what?” Shawn asked. “We’re busted. We’re in major trouble, I guess.”
“Then we might as well go ahead and open this chest,” I replied. “I mean, if we’re already in trouble, what difference will it make?”
Shawn nodded. “This better be good,” he said.
We both gripped the lid and pushed it up. It took a few tries. The lid was stuck. We both groaned as we pushed the thing up with all our strength.
It made a popping sound as it finally came loose—and we swung the heavy lid up as far as it would go.
“Whew.” I mopped my forehead again as we jumped to our feet. And peered into the open chest.
“No treasure,” Shawn murmured, very disappointed.
“What are those?” I cried.
We were staring at little square boxes painted different colors. The whole trunk was stacked with these square boxes. Mostly blues and reds and purples.
I grabbed one off the top. It wasn’t very heavy. I held it up to examine it. “Hey, check it out,” I said, pushing it toward Shawn. “There’s a crank on the side.”
Shawn squinted at it. “It reminds me of that toy we had, remember? You turn the crank and it plays music, and then a clown pops up from the top?”
“It was a jack-in-the-box,” I said. “When you were little, you loved it. You played with it for hours, making the clown pop up, then pushing him back in.”
“Maybe this is a jack-in-the-box,” Shawn said. “What are you waiting for, Violet? Turn the crank.”
I wrapped my fingers around it. Then I hesitated. “Shawn, I … I suddenly have a weird feeling. Like we shouldn’t turn the crank. Like there’s something bad inside the box.”
He groaned. “Violet, it looks just like the one we had. It’s a toy. What’s your problem?”
“My problem is that Uncle Jim locked it up and told us this is a forbidden room. So he probably knew something about these toys … something he wanted to keep away from everyone.”
Shawn shook his head again. “How do you spell Violet?” he said. “W-I-M-P.” He grabbed the box from my hands. He gripped it tightly with one hand, wrapped his fingers around the crank on the side, and began to turn it.
As Shawn turned the crank, music started to play. It sounded like someone plucking the strings of a tiny guitar, and it was playing the same song our old jack-in-the-box played—“Pop! Goes the Weasel.”
“Shawn,” I said, “do you think there’s a law that all jack-in-the-boxes have to play ‘Pop! Goes the Weasel’?”
I don’t know if Shawn heard me. He was staring at the box in his hands, concentrating hard.
Then, suddenly, the music made a loud “POP!”
Shawn and I both cried out as the lid popped open and a chimp dressed in a white cap and white sailor’s suit popped up on a spring. I laughed, watching the monkey puppet bob from side to side. “I knew it was going to pop open, but it surprised me anyway!”
Shawn grabbed the monkey’s plastic head and pushed it back into the box. He closed the lid. “I don’t see what’s so scary about this,” he said. “It’s just a baby toy.”
I lifted another one out of the chest. This one looked older. The wood had a lot of cracks in it. The crank was bent.
I turned it slowly and it played the same song. As Shawn and I gazed at it, the words to the song played through my mind …
All around the mulberry bush,
The monkey chased the weasel.
The monkey thought ’twas all in good fun,
POP! goes the weasel.
The lid shot open, and the box nearly fell out of my hand. Up popped a sailor in a white sailor suit and cap. His little wooden right hand was pressed against his forehead in a salute.
“Cute,” I said.
Shawn frowned. “I don’t get it. So Uncle Jim collects jack-in-the-boxes. Why lock them up and tell us the room is forbidden?”
I laughed. “Maybe he’s embarrassed that a big, tough sailor like him collects toys.”
“Does that make any sense?” Shawn said. “I don’t think so.”
I shoved the sailor back into his box and snapped the lid shut.
Shawn and I tried a few more boxes. The next box held a woman pirate. She had long blond pigtails and red lipstick smeared all over her grinning face. She carried a tiny plastic skull in one hand.
More pirates popped out at us. One box had a two-headed pirate. One head was smiling. One head was frowning.
“That’s a weird one,” Shawn said. “Think it was a mistake?”
“No way,” I replied. “Someone thought it was funny.”
Almost all of the jack-in-the-boxes played “Pop! Goes the Weasel.” A few of them played tunes we didn’t recognize.
I tried cranking one box backward just to see what would happen. The song played backward, but a little pirate popped out anyway.
Shawn sighed. “This is getting boring. I don’t see why we’ll be in big trouble with Uncle Jim just because we played with a bunch of old jack-in-the-boxes.”
We were nearly to the bottom of the chest. “Check this one out,” I said. I leaned over the side of the trunk and pulled out an old-looking dark wood box. I raised it and blew a layer of dust off the top.
“This one doesn’t have a crank,” I said.
“Are you sure, Violet?” Shawn took it from my hand and studied it carefully. “Here’s a hole where the crank should go.”
“Maybe it broke off,” I said. Again, I leaned over the side of the chest and pawed around at the bottom. No sign of a crank.
“Maybe we could pull a crank off one of the other boxes and use it on this one,” Shawn said.
I felt another heavy stab of dread in the pit of my stomach. A warning from somewhere.
“Shawn, maybe Uncle Jim doesn’t want this one to open,” I said. “Perhaps he took the crank off it. Maybe that’s why he buried this box at the bottom under all the others.”
Shawn ignored me. He had already pulled a metal crank off one of the other boxes. He jammed it into the side of this dusty, old box. “It looks like all the others,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re afraid of.”
I held my breath as he began to turn the crank.
“It’s working,” he said.
Music began to float out from inside the box. It wasn’t “Pop! Goes the Weasel.” It was deep and gloomy. Like horror-movie music.
“Shawn—stop,” I said.
He kept cranking. The deep, scary music played. Shawn cranked faster. The music kept its low, stead
y drone.
“Hey, it should have popped open by now,” Shawn said, frowning at it as he turned the crank.
“Maybe it’s broken,” I said. “Put it back in the chest. Okay, Shawn? Seriously—”
POP.
The lid popped up. And the room exploded in a deafening, shattering blast of thunder and smoke.
“Can’t breathe …”
I coughed and choked in the swirls of thick black smoke. I shut my eyes, but I couldn’t stop the burning tears from rolling down my face.
I held my breath as long as I could. I could hear Shawn choking beside me. But the smoke was so thick, I couldn’t see him.
Finally, the black faded to gray, and the heavy blanket of smoke cleared. I wiped my wet eyes with both hands. I struggled to see through my tears.
Shawn had dropped to his knees on the floor. He hunched next to the box, which must have dropped from his hands. The lid stood open, and a pirate puppet bounced from side to side on its spring.
I dropped down beside my brother and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. “That was a horrible explosion. Scared me to death.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Thanks for letting Jack the Knife out!” the little pirate shouted.
Shawn and I both gasped. “It talks!”
The pirate’s mouth didn’t move, but the voice was definitely coming from him. He tossed back his head and we heard a laugh, a hearty, loud laugh.
He wore a red bandanna over his black hair. A bright blue jacket over a black-and-white-striped shirt. He had large brown eyes and a long nose above a black mustache.
He carried a long-bladed knife in his right hand. His left hand was missing. A curled metal hook appeared in its place.
“Jack the Knife has been waiting many a year!” the little figure cried, bouncing on his spring. “Are you ready for a Jack Attack?”
A shudder ran down my spine. “Th-this is too creepy,” I stammered. “Shawn, please—push him back in.”
Shawn leaned over and spread his palm over the pirate’s bandanna. He pushed down.
“Hey!”
He pushed harder. Then he raised his eyes to me. “It’s stuck. It won’t go back down.”