Tunnel of Secrets by Franklin W. Dixon Read Free Book Online

someone in a red robe with, uh, a beak, did you?” Frank asked.
    Curly gasped and dove behind the trash can.
    “You mean the ghosts?” Zeke asked matter-of-factly. “Sure, people see them all the time.” He wasn’t joking. “I’ve never seen one personally, but you hear stories about the ghosts and ghouls that haunt these old tunnels. You said you saw one yourself, right, Curly?”
    “Sure did,” Curly said, peeking from behind the trash can. “Came right up and stole my sandwich when it thought I wasn’t looking.”
    “Um, what do they do besides steal sandwiches?” I asked, not sure if I really wanted to know the answer.
    “They’re the Admiral’s minions, of course,” declared Curly. “They protect his treasure from thieves.”
    Frank and I stared at Curly, dumbfounded. Treasure? Sal had written about the Admiral’s treasure when he and Delia had their argument before the press conference. Zeke leaned in to whisper, “Curly’s a deck or two short, if you know what I mean. Folks think they see things sometimes, but it’s mostly just imaginations running wild.”
    “You tell that to my sandwich!” Curly huffed.
    I knew Frank was trying to process the same thing I was. Sal had said the Admiral’s ghost kidnapped Layla and was holding her captive in the Secret City. It sounded crazy, but so did the fact that we were standing in the middle of an underground city conversing with a couple of mole people. Had we actually stumbled on the very place Sal was talking about?
    “This place isn’t called the Secret City, is it?” I asked.
    “Well, technically, I guess it is a secret, although it might be a little generous to call it a city,” Zeke said. “So, no.”
    Before I had a chance to get too bummed, Zeke offered a new ray of hope. “But I think I may know how to get to the place you boys are looking for. . . .”
    This was it—the next big clue!
    “Just follow the rainbow past Oz and hang a right at Hogwarts. You can’t miss it.”
    Or not.
    Zeke guffawed, clearly amused with himself. “I’m sorry, boys, I just couldn’t help myself. Somebody’s been pulling your leg. A mythical haunted city under Bayport? Preposterous! The place you’re talking about isn’t any realer than the ghosts who stole poor Curly’s sandwich.”
    “It isn’t a joke, Zeke,” Curly said, turning to us. “It’s where the Admiral keeps his treasure. Deep underground, a lot deeper than here, though no one knows exactly where—at least, no one who’s alive to tell about it.”
    Curly looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice to a whisper. “The only ones who know how to find it are the ghosts that live there, and they make sure to keep it that way. Some say just speaking its name is enough to bring their curse down on you. Once that happens, well, they might let you live, but you’ll wish they hadn’t.”
    I gulped. I didn’t actually believe in ghosts, of course, but down in those abandoned tunnels after the maskedwhatever-it-was had attacked us in the library and with Layla missing—well, it was enough to make even a levelheaded guy like me want to start sleeping with a night-light.
    “Take my advice,” Curly warned. “Forget all about that place and go back up there where it’s safe and sunny. You seem like nice boys, and I don’t want to see you dead. Or worse.”
    Curly gave us a frightened look, then hurried back to his boxcar condo, slamming the door, bolting the lock, and shutting the blinds.
    “Well, that’s reassuring,” I said.
    “Scientifically speaking, there’s no evidence to suggest that paranormal phenomena like the ones Curly described could even exist,” Frank said, sounding less confident than I think he meant to.
    Zeke just looked amused. “I wouldn’t let Curly scare you boys too much. Like I said—it’s preposterous! But . . . who knows? Maybe he’s right. There are many tunnels and passageways running under Bayport. The ones that everyone aboveground has