Hidden Treasures
Vicita was digging with DW in the backyard of her home. Her parents had built an awesome new sandbox and she had invited DW over to play. They were currently digging a trench around two spectacular sand castles, decorated with some fallen petals from Vicita's mother's rose bush.
"Hey, girls," Alberto called, walking up to the sandbox carrying a basketball. He put one foot on the box with a light smile, but Vicita wasn't happy.
"Try not to ruin the edges, Alberto. Mom and Dad just made this for me," Vicita said firmly. Alberto nodded, obeying her hidden command and removing his foot from the side of the box. "Thank you," Vicita said, carefully digging the trench. "What do you want, Alberto?" Vicita asked after a moment.
"Did they tell you about the buried treasure?" Alberto asked.
"Buried treasure?" DW gasped.
"Don't act too surprised, DW. He's probably lying like he always does. Go away, Alberto! I don't want you to mess with me today," Vicita said firmly.
"I'm not messing with you. There really is a buried treasure in the sandbox. I put it there myself," Alberto smiled, looking up as a few boys from school approached. "Well, I'm heading to the park with the guys. You kids have fun."
When Alberto was all the way on the next block, DW asked Vicita in a careful whisper if Alberto could be telling the truth. Vicita shook her head firmly. Her brother was always playing tricks on her, and she knew this was probably another one of those tricks.
"He probably buried one of my dolls or something," Vicita scoffed, patting down a pile of sand with her shovel as hard as she could pat it. "I hope he didn't, but that's probably his treasure. Oh no," she paused, looking up with fearful eyes. "Do you think he did that, DW?"
"I think it's a real treasure. Come on, let's dig more," DW smiled, digging closer and closer to the sand castles.
"No, you'll mess them up!" Vicita cried.
"We make these all the time at school, Vicita. You can make them again, I promise. Please, can we dig for the treasure?" DW pleaded. Vicita pouted for a moment about the possible loss of her sandcastles, but soon she decided that if she was the one to knock them down, then they could dig as much as they wanted.
So with the castles knocked down, the girls started digging and digging, sending sand into the air as they dug deeper and deeper.
Finally, when they were all but convinced that Alberto had tricked them, Vicita found a small wooden box in the sand. She wiped it off with her dirty play shirt and showed it to DW, who stopped digging and crawled over to her.
"What do you think it is?" DW asked. Vicita shrugged, trying to figure out how to open the box, but she couldn't figure it out.
"I bet this is one of those puzzle boxes Alberto got from Tia Roma," Vicita pouted. "She's our aunt back home and she likes playing tricks too. She once convinced me she'd cut off my hair as a trick. She's awful, but I want to know what's inside."
"Hey look, there's Alberto," DW said, running up to greet him. "Hey, Alberto, we found a buried treasure! Will you help us figure out what it is?"
Alberto gave her a perplexed look, "You mean you actually found something?"
"Mama, mama, look what I found!" Vicita cried as DW dragged Alberto into the backyard. He dropped his basketball when he saw the little box. "Why are you so surprised, Alberto? Wait, you were trying to trick us!"
"Alberto, what have I told you about that?" Mrs. Molina asked firmly, studying the small box in her fingers. She couldn't figure it out either.
"I just thought they'd have fun digging for treasure rather than playing with sandcastles all the time, Mama, honest," Alberto said, taking the box from his mother. "DW, maybe you ought to get your parents. Maybe they'll know what this is."
"Why them?" Vicita asked. "How come you don't know? You told us to dig."
"Yeah, and I thought you'd just find a seed pod or something. This looks important, see? There's a craftsman's mark right there. Someone hand-crafted this for some reason. DW, go," Alberto said firmly.
"Go, DW," Mrs. Molina agreed. "Alberto, are you sure you know nothing about this?" she asked in a low whisper. Alberto nodded, his face fixed in a confused expression as the Reads arrived.
"I made sure Arthur wasn't trying to trick us," DW called to Vicita.
"We didn't know you'd built this," David chuckled. "Now what about this special box? Oh my, that's nice," David smiled, picking up the box and showing Jane, who had baby Kate in her arms. Neither of them knew what it was, and when Arthur got a turn to look at it, he had no idea either.
With everyone at a loss, they had to wait for Mr. Molina to come home. During that time, Arthur told Buster and Francine about the box. Buster thought it was from aliens, but Francine figured a small animal buried it there to keep. Arthur thought the Molina's dog might've buried it, or even Pal, but he didn't know how long the sandbox was there to know if that was a good idea or not.
Finally, when Mr. Molina came home, Arthur and DW lingered hoping for an answer. But the Molina's wanted a quiet dinner, so the Read children were forced to go home and wait. DW waited in her room, trying to look out her window to see the Molina house. Arthur waited by the walkie talkie he shared with Alberto.
But the Read children heard nothing, and after eight o'clock, both were forced to bed by Jane, keeping them both in suspense until morning.
"DW! DW! Daddy did it! Papa hid the little box!" Vicita cried, showing off her new locket. "He wanted me to have an early birthday present, so he hid the box in the sand. He was going to tell me about it the day before my fourth birthday!"
"Wow," DW cried, looking at the shiny gold necklace on her neck. Arthur soon arrived with Buster and they both admired the necklace. Buster thought it was so pretty he never even mentioned his alien idea, and the day went on, with the girls making their way to the sandbox to look for more "treasure" and the boys disappearing to the park to talk about the upcoming Dark Bunny movie.
~End
Theme 004: Hidden Treasures
Theme 029: Harmless Affair
A/N: I completed this one-shot as apart of a theme list challenge with TheUltimateCombo. For more information, see our profiles.