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  “On it!”

  Tommy yanked the wheel hard and pointed our bow downwind. He looped a bungee cord through the wheel’s wooden spokes to keep us headed in that direction.

  “Now get below, boys. Batten down the hatches. Help your sisters man the pumps.”

  Tommy grabbed hold of whatever he could to steady himself and made his way down into the deckhouse cabin.

  Just then, a monster wave lurched over the starboard side of the ship and swept me off my feet. I slid across the slick deck like a hockey puck on ice. I might’ve gone overboard if my dad hadn’t reached down and grabbed me a half second before I became shark bait.

  “Time to head downstairs, Bick!” my dad shouted in the raging storm as rain slashed across his face.

  “No!” I shouted back. “I want to stay up here and help you.”

  “You can help me more by staying alive and not letting The Lost go under. Now hurry! Get below.”

  “B-b-but—”

  “Go!”

  He gave me a gentle shove to propel me up the tilting deck. When I reached the deckhouse, I grabbed onto a handhold and swung myself around and through the door. Tommy had already headed down to the engine room to help with the bilge pumps.

  Suddenly, a giant sledgehammer of salt water slammed into our starboard side and sent the ship tipping wildly to the left. I heard wood creaking. We tilted over so far I fell against the wall while our port side slapped the churning sea.

  We were going to capsize. I could tell.

  But The Lost righted itself instead, the ship tossing and bucking like a very angry beached whale.

  I found the floor and shoved the deckhouse hatch shut. I had to press my body up against it. Waves kept pounding against the door. The water definitely wanted me to let it in.

  That wasn’t going to happen. Not on my watch. I cranked the door’s latch to bolt it tight.

  I would, of course, reopen the door the instant my dad finished doing whatever else needed to be done up on deck and made his way aft to the cabin. But, for now, I had to stop The Lost from taking on any more water.

  If that was even possible.

  The sea kept churning. The Lost kept lurching. The storm kept sloshing seawater through every crack and crevice it could find.

  Me? I started panicking. Because I had a sinking feeling (as in “We’re gonna sink!”) that this could be the end.

  I was about to be drowned at sea.

  Is twelve years old too young to die?

  Apparently, the Caribbean Sea didn’t think so.

  2

  I waited and waited, but my dad never made it aft to the deckhouse cabin door.

  Through the forward windows, I could see waves crashing across our bobbing bow. I could see the sky growing even darker. I could see a life preserver rip free from its rope and fly off the ship like a doughnut-shaped Frisbee.

  But I couldn’t see Dad.

  I suddenly realized that my socks were soaked with the seawater that was slopping across the floor. And I was up on the main deck.

  “Beck?” I cried out. “Tommy? Storm?”

  My sisters and brother were all down in the lower cabins and equipment rooms, where the water was undoubtedly deeper.

  They were trapped down there!

  I dashed down the four steep steps into the hull quarters as quickly as I could. The water was up to my ankles, then my knees, then my thighs, and, finally, my waist. You ever try to run across the shallow end of a swimming pool? That’s what I was up against. But I had to find my family.

  Well, what was left of it.

  I trudged from door to door, frantically searching for my siblings.

  They weren’t in the engine room, the galley, or my parents’ cabin. I knew they couldn’t be in The Room, because its solid steel door was locked tight and it was totally off-limits to all of us.

  I slogged my way forward as the ship kept rocking and rolling from side to side. Whatever wasn’t nailed down was thumping around inside the cupboards and cabinets. I heard cans of food banging into plastic dishes that were knocking over clinking coffee mugs.

  I started pounding on the walls in the narrow corridor with both fists. The water was up to my chest.

  “Hey, you guys? Tommy, Beck, Storm! Where are you?”

  No answer.

  Of course my brother and sisters probably couldn’t hear me, because the tropical storm outside was screaming even louder than I was.

  Suddenly, up ahead, a door burst open. Tommy, who was seventeen and had the kind of bulging muscles you only get from crewing on a sailing ship your whole life, had just put his shoulder to the wood to bash it open.

  “Where’s Dad?” he shouted. “I don’t know!” I shouted back.

  That’s when Beck and my big sister, Storm, trudged out of the cabin that was now their water-logged bedroom. A pair of 3-D glasses was floating on the surface of the water. Beck plucked them up and put them on. She’d been wearing them ever since our mom disappeared.

  “Was Dad on a safety line?” asked Storm, sounding as scared and worried as I felt.

  All I could do was shake my head.

  Beck looked at me, and even though her 3-D glasses were shading her eyes, I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was. We’re twins. It happens.

  In our hearts, we both knew that Dad was gone.

  Because anything up on deck that hadn’t been tied down had been washed overboard by now.

  From the sad expressions on their faces, I knew Storm and Tommy had figured it out, too. Maybe they’d been looking out a porthole when that life preserver went flying by.

  Shivering slightly, we all moved together to form a close circle and hug each other tight.

  The four of us were the only family we had left.

  Tommy, who’d been living on boats longer than any of us, started mumbling an old sailor’s prayer:

  “Though Death waits off the bow, we’ll not answer to him now.”

  I hoped he was right.

  But I had a funny feeling that Death might not take no for an answer.

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  TREASURE HUNTERS

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  Contents

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  WELCOME

  DEDICATION

  PART ONE: HEARD ANY GOOD JOKES LATELY? CHAPTER 1: IT’S FUN BEING FUNNY

  CHAPTER 2: MEANWHILE, BACK IN REALITY…

  CHAPTER 3: GUESS WHAT I SAW THIS MORNING?

  CHAPTER 4: WHERE I FOUND MY FUNNY BONE

  CHAPTER 5: BULLY FOR ME

  CHAPTER 6: WHO YOU CALLING CHICKEN?

  CHAPTER 7: IT’S A GREAT DAY—FOR ABOUT TWO MINUTES

  CHAPTER 8: A BURGER AND FRIES FIXES EVERYTHING

  CHAPTER 9: IF YOU CAN’T STAND THE HEAT…

  CHAPTER 10: LIFE IS FUNNY—AT LEAST, MINE IS

  CHAPTER 11: DIAGRAMMING MY DEATH SENTENCE

  CHAPTER 12: A LEGEND IN HIS OWN MIND

  CHAPTER 13: HYSTERICAL HISTORY

  CHAPTER 14: WEEPING WITH THE WEEDWACKER

  CHAPTER 15: LIVE FROM NEW YORK—IT’S JAMIE AND FRIENDS!

  CHAPTER 16: FRANKENFURTER

  CHAPTER 17: THE THREE AMIGOS?

  CHAPTER 18: TWO’S COMPANY, FOUR’S MORE FUN

  CHAPTER 19: COMING ATTRACTIONS I DON’T WANT TO ATTRACT

  CHAPTER 20: JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT SCHOOL WAS SAFE…

  PART TWO: STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE CHAPTER 21: HURRY UP AND WAIT

  CHAPTER 22: FREE JOEY!

  CHAPTER 23: CALLING ALL GODS!

  CHAPTER 24: WISH THIS WAS A BASKETBALL COURT…

  CHAPTER 25: MRS. GAYNOR’S EXCUSED ABSENCE

  CHAPTER 26: TRUE CONFESSIONS

  CHAPTER 27: RIDE ’EM, COWBOY!

  CHAPTER 28: GETTING HOUSE-TRAINED

  CHAPTER 29: HOW TO DO NOTHING, AND DO IT WELL

  CHAPTER 30: A BATTLE OF WITS?

  CHAPTER 31: THE BIG LAUGH-OFF

  CHAPTER 32: RAFE WHAT?
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  CHAPTER 33: THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

  CHAPTER 34: BAD KARMA

  CHAPTER 35: FATE STINKS

  CHAPTER 36: NEVER LET ’EM SEE YOU SWEAT

  CHAPTER 37: COMEDY CONVOY

  CHAPTER 38: GETTING “CREME’D”

  CHAPTER 39: FUNNY MEETING YOU HERE

  CHAPTER 40: WILL JAMIE CHOKE? FIND OUT NOW!

  CHAPTER 41: NO RISK, NO REWARD

  CHAPTER 42: AND THE WINNER IS…

  CHAPTER 43: HOMETOWN HERO

  CHAPTER 44: COOL NEWS

  CHAPTER 45: MAD ABOUT MADISON AVENUE

  CHAPTER 46: AND IN OTHER NEWS…

  CHAPTER 47: SPEAKING OF DUMB…

  PART THREE: VIVA LAS VEGAS—OR SHOULD I SAY, HASTA LA VISTA, LAS VEGAS? CHAPTER 48: NOSE-TO-THE-GRINDSTONE TIME

  CHAPTER 49: STOP AND SMELL THE SEA SPRAY

  CHAPTER 50: FAMILY TIME

  CHAPTER 51: BEWARE THE MIGHTY MEATY

  CHAPTER 52: CARSICK

  CHAPTER 53: EVEN A BAD JOKE IS GOOD MEDICINE

  CHAPTER 54: ALL HANDS ON DECK

  CHAPTER 55: CALLING IT QUITS

  CHAPTER 56: SATURDAY NIGHT DEAD

  CHAPTER 57: I GUESS THIS IS THE END

  CHAPTER 58: THE MIDDLE SCHOOL COMEDY CLUB

  CHAPTER 59: THE BEST AFTER-SCHOOL ACTIVITY EVER

  CHAPTER 60: BRINGING DOWN THE SCHOOLHOUSE

  CHAPTER 61: ENCORE PERFORMANCE

  CHAPTER 62: LIFE IS LIKE A YO-YO

  CHAPTER 63: KNOCK, KNOCK! WHO’S THERE?

  CHAPTER 64: HOW FEDEX CHANGED MY LIFE—FAST!

  CHAPTER 65: FLYING HIGH (WITH OR WITHOUT AN AIRPLANE)

  CHAPTER 66: LAS VEGAS OR “LOST WAGES”?

  CHAPTER 67: THE FEAR FACTORY

  CHAPTER 68: THE WILD WILD-CARD CONTESTANTS

  CHAPTER 69: WHO AM I? WHERE AM I?

  CHAPTER 70: AND THE WINNER IS???

  CHAPTER 71: HOMECOMING KING

  CHAPTER 72: GIRL FRIEND OR GIRLFRIEND?

  CHAPTER 73: IF I HAD $110,000…

  EPILOGUE: COMING SOON: JAMIE’S HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER!

  P.S. FROM JAMIE

  BOOKS BY JAMES PATTERSON

  A SNEAK PEEK OF TREASURE HUNTERS

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by James Patterson

  Illustrations by Laura Park

  Excerpt of Treasure Hunters copyright © 2013 by James Patterson

  Illustrations by Juliana Neufeld

  Cover art © 2013 by Laura Park

  Cover design by Neil Swaab and Tracy Shaw

  Cover © 2013 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

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  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher. Third-party website addresses listed in this book are accurate and age appropriate as of the time this book released, but they are beyond the publisher’s control. The publisher cannot guarantee that the content of these sites will not change.

  First ebook edition: December 2013

  ISBN 978-0-316-20696-9

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