Boxcar Children 64 - Black Pearl Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner Read Free Book Online Page B

maps when we told them what we were doing there.”
    Know what? They said we couldn’t snorkel in Reef Bay. Know why? ’Cause of sharks!” Benny suddenly remembered.
    Sharks in Reef Bay?” Cousin Mary cried. “Nonsense. Reef Bay is far too small for sharks to swim in. They don’t know much about the ocean, that’s for sure. They probably thought you should snorkel in a shallow area. Well, I’ll just have to search for those maps myself. But first let me tell you about a wonderful outing I’ve planned.”
    The Aldens couldn’t wait to hear.
    How would you like to visit a volcano early tomorrow morning?” Cousin Mary asked.
    Benny immediately forgot the missing snorkels and fins. “Will the volcano be hot and bubbly?” he asked.
    Cousin Mary grinned. “Not this one. Haleakala Crater is a sleeping volcano. It hasn’t been active for over a hundred years, but the crater it left behind is quite a sight.”
    Soo Lee looked up at Cousin Mary with a serious face. “The volcano won’t wake up when we go there, will it?”
    Cousin Mary put her arm around the little girl. “No, it won’t, Soo Lee. Scientists can tell ahead of time if a volcano is going to act up. But Haleakala is still taking a nice long nap.”
    Shucks,” Benny said. “I’ll run away fast if it starts boiling up!”
    That won’t happen,” Cousin Mary told Benny. “You’ll get to see something very special instead — the sun rising up over the crater. It was formed after the volcano blew up a long time ago. Haleakala is the largest crater in the whole world.”
    Watching the sunrise wasn’t nearly as exciting to Benny as watching a volcano blow up, but he didn’t say so. Going to the top of the biggest crater would be fun, too.
    We need to arrive at the crater rim by sunrise. That means leaving here about three o’clock in the morning,” Cousin Mary explained. “You’ll have to go to bed very early.”
    Soo Lee rubbed her eyes. “That’s okay. The beach made me tired.”
    The thought of going to bed made the other children yawn and rub their eyes, too. They’d had a long day.
    Jessie and I had to fight a current to get back to shore,” Henry said. “We won’t have much trouble falling asleep early tonight. Don’t worry, though. We’ll be up in time for the sunrise.”
    Very early the next morning, Mary Cook’s van arrived at the top of the Haleakala Crater. The children had slept for most of the two-hour trip up the long, winding road. They awakened when Cousin Mary turned off the engine. There was a stiff breeze when everyone got out of the van at the visitors’ center.
    Good thing you brought your fleecy jackets to Hawaii,” Cousin Mary told the Aldens. “The temperature at the crater rim is much colder than down below. We’re ten thousand feet above sea level.”
    The children stretched out and yawned. At five o’clock in the morning, the sky was still dark. They walked to the rim of the crater but couldn’t see much in the darkness.
    Benny took a quarter from his pocket. “When it gets light, can I look through those telescope things and see if I can find our cottage?”
    Cousin Mary laughed. “These telescopes aren’t sharp enough to see that far, Benny. Still, you can see for miles from up here. The crater is nearly seven miles long.”
    Jessie rubbed her eyes. “That reminds me of something. The other night I couldn’t sleep very well, so I got up and looked through the telescope on our porch. I thought I saw a boat heading for Reef Bay. It looked as if it left from the Pineapple Place dock. Then it stopped moving.”
    Are you certain of that, Jessie?” Cousin Mary asked. “I can’t imagine anyone going out that late. Joseph has his sailboat at his beach shack in Reef Bay. As for my boat, it’s available for my staff and for guests, but no one has asked me about taking it out.”
    Jessie yawned. “Now I’m not sure what I saw. I was just so tired from waking up over and over. Maybe I dreamed it!”
    Cousin