The Goonies by James Kahn Read Free Book Online Page B

That's thirty,” I said.
    “Brilliant,” said Mouth.
    “Stretching feet,” said Data. “Your feet stretch when you walk.…”
    “So that's it!” I said. “If we walk thirty paces, to the lowest point, we'll get the riches.”
    Chunk shivered. “I dunno… it's gettin' late. My mom's gonna be worried.” I knew what he meant. It was down and gloomy. “Besides,”
     he said, “what's that place doin'open in the fall? It's only a summer place—I was here once when I was a kid. But I think I just saw someone walkin' around
     in there. Seems pretty creepy.”
    All of a sudden a car pulled into the drive. It stopped in front of the building, and two guys got out wearing dark business
     suits. They walked up to the front door and went inside.
    “See,” said Data, “there's nothin' to be scared of. There's two other customers goin' in.”
    “Maybe they ain't customers,” Chunk whispered. “Maybe they're drug dealers or somethin'.”
    Data didn't buy it. “Drug dealers? Did you see their clothes? J.C. Penney polyester. Drug dealers wouldn't be caught dead
     in those rags.”
    I had to agree, although I should say I don't know exactly what drug dealers would be caught dead in. Probably we were all
     thinking along the same lines, because Mouth seemed kind of put-offish. “So what made you think nobody ever followed this
     map before and split with whatever's buried there?” he said.
    “They could've,” I told him. “But I never heard of anybody finding more stuff than already's in the museum. And anyway, to
     grown-ups this is already worth enough—you know, they dig up an old map and threw a wooden frame around it and hang it in
     a museum and can it art.”
    “Okay, but how're we s'posed to dig for anything?” Mouth wanted to know. “Knock on the door? Ask whoever's there? 'Scuse me,
     mind if we wreck your floor? Borrow a cup o' jewels, golden rules, ship of fools'?”
    They were starting to chicken out, and I was too chicken to do it alone, so I had to get 'em up for it. “Look, the place is
     obviously open for business. We can pretend like we're comin' in for somethin' to eat and then joint the case.” Or maybe I
     meant get on the case.
    “You mean case the joint,” said Data.
    “Yeah.” That's what I meant. I was just talkin' outta the wrong movie.
    We walked down the hill and parked our bikes at the base, right next to the near side of the graveyard. The clouds were almost
     black and rippin' by like a stormy ocean above us. Man, it was somethin' else.
    We stepped real slow between the gravestones. They were at all different angles, so you couldn't tell if you were walkin'
     on somebody's grave exactly or not, so we tried to go gentle wherever we put our feet. A cemetery's not a place where you
     want to offend anyone.
    Made me think of this
Twilight Zone
where on a dare this gunfighter has to stick a knife in the grave of the man he killed. So he sticks his knife in the grave,
     but he accidentally sticks it in his coat, too, so when he stands up, he thinks the guy's tuggin' at him from the grave, so
     he dies of fright.
    I checked to make sure my coat wasn't draggin' on the ground.
    Suddenly we heard a loud bang, like a firecracker, coming from the house. We stopped. Then two more:
Bam! Bam!
    It seemed kind of scary, but it also seemed like here we were in this graveyard, nearly Halloween, and it was really neat
     scarin' ourselves at any sudden noise.
    “That sounded like gunshots,” whispered Chunk. “Not the big ones like you hear in war movies but real ones.”
    “Gunshots. Jeez, Chunk, turn off your brain,” I said.
    “No problem there,” said Mouth.
    “Somebody probably just dropped a pot in the kitchen,” I added, just for an example. I mean, I really thought it was probably
     somethin' like that. So I started walkin' toward the lighthouse again.
    When we got there, it was real quiet. Mouth looked through the front-door windows, but they were too dirty to see anything,
     he