Chapter 1
The Game Is Afoot
“Jabbers, you had better knock it off,” EJ threatened his African Gray parrot, as he tossed a rolled-up sock at his pet from the toppled a pile of clean clothes.
“Knock it off. Knock it off. Awwwk,” squawked the bird. The parrot’s aerial maneuver dodged the incoming sock as Jabbers found the safety of his perch atop his cage.
EJ knelt beside the bed and grabbed the rumpled clothes from the floor. “You know sometimes I wish that you were as hard to find as Great, Great Uncle Waldo’s fabled treasure.” With a shake of his fist, he scolded the bird, “If you keep doing this, I’m going to trade you in for a turtle.”
“Turtle, turtle. Ha. Ha. Ha.” Jabbers mocked, as if he knew it was a bluff. When EJ was home, the two were inseparable.
EJ plucked the stack of the clothes off the floor and stuffed them in the bottom drawer of the huge wardrobe that stood in the corner of his room by the window. He straightened up the pile of baseball cards, which covered the top of his dresser along with an Indianapolis Colts mug partially filled with the change from his allowance, and the trophy he won last season with his ‘Pop Warner’ football team –the Colts.
Jabbers flew across the room to the top of the shelves. His landing started the New York Mets and the Cincinnati Reds ‘bobble-head’ mascots nodding and an autographed football that EJ’s dad had given him rolled to the edge of the shelf, but stopped just short of falling.
As EJ returned to the bed for a second pile of clothes, he noticed the corner of the Carlos Beltran/David Wright poster above his bed had just come loose. EJ hopped up on the bed and tacked poster back in its place between his Peyton Manning and Dwayne Wade posters.
After cramming the rest of the clothes in his dresser, he glanced around the room and muttered to himself, “This room is perfect.” EJ then plopped into his desk chair and spun around to face his brand new roll-top desk. With a quick click of the mouse, the built-in desktop screen began to glow. A 1928 picture of Waldo Gibson standing in front of the Gibson Mansion appeared on the screen. EJ’s thoughts drifted, “Uncle Waldo, give me a clue. Where is your collection? Is your collection still here in the mansion?” As he spun in his chair, EJ continued, “I wonder how it would have been living back then. It would have been great to be there with Great-Great Uncle Waldo as he was building this mansion. If I had been there, nobody would be calling you ‘Wacky Waldo’.”
He snapped out of the daydream, when his mom called from the kitchen, “EJ, lunch is ready.”
“Coming,” EJ called, as he dashed down the hallway toward the massive front staircase. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of what he thought might be someone inside the bathroom but Jabbers didn’t give him a chance for a second look as the precious pet swooped down past him. Besides, lunch was more important than what he did or didn’t see. His feet hit the bottom step when the rumbling of his stomach joined the musical tones of the door chimes in a strange duet.
“I’ll get it.” EJ shouted, as he reached for the ornate golf club door handle, hoping that whoever it was wouldn’t further delay his noontime meal. Seeing only a vague form through the frosted cut glass, he swung open the door, immediately recognizing his best friend. “Hey Aaron, What’s up?”
“What’s up? What’s up?” Jabbers greeted Aaron.
“Hey Jabbers, you’re looking good today.” Raising a black lunchbox, Aaron said, “Dad forgot his lunch, again.”
EJ led Aaron into what would be the living room when the repairs were finished. The boys heard Aaron’s dad talking on his cell phone, while mixing some plaster patch, “…that ‘Slippery Sly’ is really something else. Do you know what that so-and-so did? He cornered me at Charlie’s Diner and tried to bribe me to keep an eye out for any of ‘Wacky Waldo’s’ imaginary memorabilia. I don’t know what he expected me to find. Raymond Gibson darn near tore this mansion apart looking for that infernal treasure.”
Jabbers landed on the side of the plaster tray, dumping its contents on the floor. The handyman turned toward the clatter and he saw the puzzled expressions on the boys’ faces. “Hey John, I’ll call you later. I’ve got to go. Aaron and EJ just came in.”
“Jabbers, I ought to dip you in plaster, then when it hardens you can’t make any more messes,” Aaron’s dad barked. Bending over and scraping up the half-mixed plaster, he continued, “What are you two up to today?”
“Dad, you left in such a hurry this morning that you left your lunchbox sitting on the counter. Mom asked me to bring it to you.”
EJ saw how much Aaron looked like his dad. They both had the same curly, sandy color hair; the same blue eyes; and both were slightly on the heavy side.
Mr. Williams reached for the lunchbox, “Thanks, Aaron. Sometimes I don’t know where my head is.”
“Mr. Williams, did you say that Mr. Simpleton tried to bribe you?” EJ inquired.
He set his lunch on the walkboard and turned to the boys, “Yeah, some people will do anything for a quick buck.”
“Dad, what’s this about EJ’s Grandpa Raymond and ‘Wacky Waldo’?” Aaron asked.
“‘Wacky Waldo’. ‘ Wacky Waldo’.” Jabbers mimicked, as he landed on the mantel.
“Ok guys, jump up here,” Aaron’s dad said, gesturing toward the waist-high scaffold. “How much do you know about your Great-Great Uncle Waldo, EJ?”
“He was pretty rich,” EJ replied, “but I don’t know where his money came from. Uncle Waldo built the original part of the mansion in the 1920’s. From what I’ve heard, Uncle Waldo may have been a sandwich short of a picnic. Other than that, not much.”
Aaron’s dad hopped up on the scaffold next to the two boys and explained, “Since I was little, everything that I’ve heard about your Uncle was the same. Waldo Gibson was a strange man, who never married and never had any children. Except for a few servants, he pretty much lived alone. ‘Wacky Waldo’, as we used to call him when I was growing up, loved all sports, as you can see in some of the moldings he had made for the mansion.”
“Hey EJ, it looks like Wacky Waldo loved sports as much as we do,” Aaron said elbowing his friend’s ribs.
“That’s right,” his dad continued. “Supposedly, he knew many of the great players and enjoyed acquiring different memorabilia. By different, I mean things that others may not have necessarily thought were worth collecting at all. The legend was that when ‘Wacky Waldo’ passed away and left the mansion to your grandfather back in 1981, most of his collection was still hidden somewhere in the thirty-some rooms of this mansion.”
“Mansion. Mansion.” Jabbers added his two cents.
Aaron’s dad shook his head as he finished his thought, “Your Grandfather Raymond hired a guy to search the mansion, but didn’t find anything. But in the past three years that I’ve been working here fixing what that guy tore up, I haven’t found anything. Ok guys, that’s enough for today. You boys had better get going so that I can have my lunch and get back to work before I don’t have a job at all.”
The boys scooted off the scaffold to leave, when Aaron’s dad asked. “Have you guys been playing in here?”
Simultaneously, they replied with a baffled look on their faces, “No.”
“I can’t understand it,” Mr. Williams said, shaking his head. “When I left Friday evening, all my plastering tools were in that canvas bag,” as he gestured toward the bag in the corner. “When I arrived this morning, the tools were all out and someone had mixed up a full bag of plaster patch. The base coat had been applied to the wall above the fireplace.” Scratching his head, he said he just couldn’t figure out what was happening.
“Now, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the help, but these tools are not toys and someone could get hurt. So, if you find out who my mystery helper is, would you please pass on the warning?”
“OK, dad.”
“Sure Mr. Williams.”
In a flash, the two were out the living room door, with Jabbers flying close behind.
“Hey, want to stay for lunch?”
“Great,” Aaron replied.
The two burst through the kitchen door. “Mom, is it ok if Aaron stays for lunch?”
“I thought I heard Aaron at the front door and I already fixed lunch for both of you,” EJ’s mom smiled and set the plates in front of the boys. It wasn’t the first time that Aaron had shared a meal with EJ, and the menu of choice for both of them was a bologna & cheese sandwich on white bread (cut diagonally) with a touch of mustard and potato chips served on a paper plate with a glass of iced tea.
“Thanks Mrs. Gibson,” Aaron managed to spit out in between bites.
“Mom, Mr. Williams was just telling us about Uncle Waldo’s collection. Do you know if any of his treasures were ever found?”
“Treasure. Treasure.” Jabbers added from his post on the kitchen wall crunching the seeds in his bowl.
“Treasure? Boy, it only takes a half second for your two imaginations to jump into high gear.” EJ’s mother kidded the boys, as she rolled her eyes. “All I know is that if there is a treasure, it probably won’t be enough to cover the damage that your grandfather did to the mansion looking for the supposed treasure. Either it never existed or Uncle Waldo sold it before he died.”
“You be sure to clean up after you’re done eating. I’m going upstairs,” She said, mussing her son’s hair.
“OK, Mom.”
“OK, Mrs. Gibson”
EJ’s mother hadn’t even made it to the back stairway, as Aaron began, “Wow, wouldn’t it be great if there really was a hidden treasure somewhere here in the mansion?”
“Yeah, just think what if we were to find the treasure, after Grandpa Raymond’s professional couldn’t find anything,” EJ added. “I wonder what kind of treasures Uncle Waldo had.”