”Who are you?” Raynn asked.
”My name is Marco Coulson, this is my wife Gabriella, my son Larry, and my daughter Connecticut.” The man said.
”It’s Connie” said the girl.
“Why were you guys behind the waterfall?” Conner asked.
”There’s a hidden cave behind there, we were collecting quartz for a spelunking competition in our town.” Larry said.
”Spelunking?” Cayden said in confusion.
”It means exploring caves as a hobby.” Raynn responded.
”Our town is famous for spelunking and mining. It was one of the only middle eastern towns to be rich in gold. One man named Sean Quilson became the gold king of our town. But it turns out all of the gold that was found was fool’s gold, and many went from rich to poor in weeks.” Larry said.
”Wait, you’re from Quilson Falls aren’t you?” Cayden asked.
Everyone turned and stared at Cayden.
”What? I’m a history nerd!” Cayden said in her defense.
”When Sean Quilson became the gold king, Mideastern Falls was renamed Quilson Falls. When he lost all of his money from the fools gold, he quickly became rich again and out of debt from giving tours in the caves he mined.” Cayden said.
”Why would people want to tour the caves if there was no real gold?” Lili asked.
“The cave he found had quartz, beryl, topaz, wulfenite, and tourmaline. All beautiful crystals.” Cayden said.
”Quilson gave tours in many caves, but the location of his main cave was never known. Our town was hosting a competition to find the cave since they wanted to reopen tours. The winner could keep 7 gemstones from the cave.” Connie said.
”We found the cave, it was behind the waterfall, but our boat crashed into rocks and there’s no way to get back to Quilson Falls.” Gabriella said.
”How far away is Quilson Falls from here?” Raynn asked.
”About 90 miles north, near Ollchaster,” Marco said.
”Ollchaster is where we can buy the inflatable island!” Lili said.
”Yeah, so, do you guys have like, a boat, or something?” Connie asked without having a clue what Lili was talking about.
Well, our families are sort of, traveling 500 miles without a boat.” Lili blurted out.
“Wow! I thought we were crazy to go 90 miles with nothing but a speedboat and 3 jet skis!” Larry said.
”Larry, don’t call them crazy.” Gabriella told her son sternly.
”Wait, did you say you had 3 jet skis?!” Raynn asked hopefully.
”Yeah, while our dad was steering the boat with all of our stuff on it, everyone else was in jet skis. We figured jet skis tied to the boat would help pick up speed. Plus there wasn’t that much room on the boat anyway. We even ate on them! We only got off the jet skis if we had to go to the bathroom or if we were sleeping.” Connie said.
”Man, that sounds like spending a week on a yacht compared to our last couple of days!” Conner said.
“Conner, Cayden, you like mechanics, right?” Raynn asked while looking at the bottled message.
”Only obsessed for the past 3 years” Cayden responded.
“Then why don’t you help them fix their boat while Lili and I look for clue #2. And no buts or I’ll tell mom.” Raynn said.
”Fine” Conner and Cayden shrugged reluctantly.
”Or maybe, we should come with you. I have no idea what ‘clue’ you’re talking about but I L❤️VE adventures!” Connie said looking slightly worried.
”Actually, we’d prefer to go by ourselves.” Raynn said, not wanting to share the prize money.
Lili and Raynn walked away, they knew that the clue must have meant to look at all small trees. However, almost all of the trees were small, so they were stumped if it meant something else.
“Wait, I think we need to look at the tall tree in the center of the island.” Raynn realized.
”No, only the ‘ALL’ in ‘smALL’ is capitalized” Lili said.
“But a ‘T’ is capitalized before you even read the word ‘smALL’” Raynn countered.
Raynn pointed to the bottled message.
”How could I have missed that?” Lili exclaimed.
They walked to the center of island by the tallest tree. There was another bottled message, it read
If you found this clue, intelligence shows, The next clue can be found down below.
They looked down, and for a second they were clueless. But they realized there was a cave with shallow waters underneath them.
”Do we have to go? There might be bats, and it’s dark!” Lili said.
”Oh come on, you love bats. It’s the possibility of spiders that you’re afraid of. I don’t get arachnophobia.” Raynn said.
”Most common phobia in the world!” Lili countered.
Suddenly, Raynn remembered where she saw the amulet the man had.
”Oh no, we have to save Conner and Cayden!” Raynn exclaimed.
To be continued in chapter 6...
ns 15.158.61.43da2
