Annie is a grown woman now, past all that childish adventuring stuff, but when her cousin Henry claims to have overheard instructions to buried treasure she is forced to decide whether or not to invest her belief in one more childish adventure.
“Buried Jewels” is available for the month of March 2025 on this site. The ebook is also available on all retail stores. You can also read this story in the collection Baverstock’s Allsorts Volume 1.
If you’d like an audio version, listen to this episode of the Baverstock’s Allsorts Podcast.
Buried Jewels
By Jessica Baverstock
I DAB THE ultramarine liberally across the bottom of my canvas, outlining the shore. Henry, my cousin, juggles paint tubes beside me.
“In recovery after surgery?”
“Yeah,” Henry says.
I chew the end of my paintbrush. “Sure you weren’t hallucinating?”
He drops the burnt umber and scowls at me. “There was a biker in the next bed chuckin’ his guts. If that’s a hallucination, I want stronger meds.”
I shrug. “I’m just saying, you were recovering from heavy anesthetic. You sure you weren’t…”
He dumps the vermilion and atomic tangerine on my small fold-out table. “Annie, can we get past this and on to what I’m trying to say?”
I squint at the view, and then turn back to my canvas. “Shoot.”
“Thank you,” he says. “So this mob boss in the bed across the room…”
I pause mid brush stroke. “How do you know he was a mob boss?”
Henry looks like a cat about to sink his claws into a stray furniture leg. “Italian. Deep voice. Large man. Marlon Brando complex.”
“Naturally,” I say, blobbing a white foam nose on the crest of my swirling wave.
Henry clears his throat. “And he’s saying, ‘Buried jewels, by the shell, paperbark, Banksia.’”
“Uh huh,” I say. “Sounds delirious to me.”
He sniffs. “Probably was. Ingrown toenail, I think. But he did say buried jewels.”
“Yes, I heard the first time.”
Bouncing into my peripheral vision, he continues. “We could find them. Dig them up. Become rich!”
I raise an eyebrow at the young sap. “If, and I stress the ‘if,’ there are buried jewels, chances are they’re stolen and you wouldn’t be able to keep them anyway.”
“Maybe there’s reward money.” The infuriating twinkle never leaves his cadmium-green eyes. “And we’d have a wealthy person forever in our debt.”
I stare at him. “Are you actually twenty-one or did I dream that?”
He purses his lips and looks at the view past my canvas. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I sigh. “Look, I’m trying to focus. Painting requires concentration.”
He rubs his eyes with the palm of his hand, leaving a smear of burnt umber across his eyelid. “Digging for buried treasure, real or imagined, is a whole lot more interesting than sitting on your front lawn painting the Listerine Ocean Freshness billboard over the road.”
“It’s the nicest looking thing around here,” I say, making sure my brush rattles forcefully against the glass as I wash it. “Besides, I’m planning a collection of billboards. I’ve already done last month’s car insurance ad, and next month I’m hoping they’ll put up a menswear poster.”
He stares at me like I’ve already passed on from the living.
“Come on,” he says, grabbing my arm. “We’re going treasure hunting.”
With surprising speed, and complete disregard for my painting supplies, he bundles me into his gray van and we’re off.
When Henry is driving, the journey is far more endurable if you divert your attention from oncoming traffic. I quickly find a topic of conversation.
“What makes you think the mobster wasn’t just speaking random nonsense?” I say. “I had a workmate who came out of anesthetic singing The Star Spangled Banner.”
“So?”
“He was Lithuanian.”
Three empty Pepsi cans and a stray map book are flung across the floor as we round a corner. It takes a minute before my seatbelt loosens enough to be comfortable again.
“I suppose you need my help to decipher the clues?” I say.
He smiles. “Nope. I’ve worked them out already.”
“Then what do you need me for?”
“You’re my sidekick. Treasure hunting is nowhere near as fun without a sidekick.”
“Aren’t sidekicks meant to be younger than the hero?” I say through gritted teeth.
He thinks about it. “Perhaps, but I’ve been your sidekick heaps of times when we were kids. Remember the case of The Midnight Melon Muncher? We must have camped in the middle of the vegetable patch for three nights running until I spotted that possum. It’s about time you repaid the favor.”
“Fine,” I mutter to myself. “But at least my adventures were plausible.”
Twenty minutes later we find ourselves in a tiny park, staring up at a rusted metal street sign.
“It does indeed say Banksia Gardens.”
Henry grins. “And there’s the Shell.”
I squint across the road. “It’s a petrol station.”
“Yes,” he says. “A Shell petrol station. And there’s the paperbark.”
I look at the leprous tree, its bark peeling in large strips.
“Right,” I say. “What made you think this would be the place?”
“It fits the description.” He pulls a shovel out of the van. “And he mentioned East Willard, just off the highway.”
“How good of him to include street directions,” I say, eying the spade he hands me. “Did he happen to mention exactly where he buried the jewels?”
The sarcasm is lost on him.
“My guess is this spot here,” he says. “The grass hasn’t completely grown over the mound.”
I start digging, while Henry studies the rest of the sparse lawn. He chooses a spot about three meters away and gets to work.
Two and a half hours later I’ve had enough. We’ve unearthed three chunks of cement, an old tire and come dangerously close to puncturing a telephone cable. No sign of buried jewels. I’m hot, tired, dirty, and sure it is only a matter of time before the police turn up to ask us why we’re excavating a public park. Judging by the size of our holes, ‘aeration’ doesn’t rate as our best defense.
I have just calculated the exact distance between my spade and the back of Henry’s head when he cries out, “I’ve found something!”
“Don’t touch it,” I say, rushing over. “It might be the mains.” I look down the hole, then back at him. “I don’t see anything.”
He keeps digging, more carefully now. “I heard a clunk. There’s something down there.”
And sure enough, there it is. A wooden box.
Henry slides his shovel under the box and is just about to lift it out when I lay a hand on his shoulder.
“Wait.” I’d just spied something partially covered by the mound of freshly unearthed dirt. Pulling it out, I ask, “What did the man say was buried? His exact words.”
“Jewels,” says Henry.
I hold up the plank of wood and read the inscription. “Here lies Jules. Our beloved beagle.”
“Ah,” says Henry.
We stare at the wooden box for a reverent moment.
I pat his shoulder. “Fill it in. I’ll take you to dinner.”
As we shovel dirt back into the hole, Henry says, “It’s probably better this way. I’m sure discovering buried jewels leads to mountains of paperwork.”
I shrug. “I think it would have been nice to have one last adventure together.”
Henry stops digging and grins at me. “What do you mean ‘last’? We’ve got a lifetime of adventures ahead of us.”
I think about this as I watch him finish burying Jules again and replace the wooden plaque.
We head back to the van together.
“Next time,” I say, “You’re the sidekick.”
“Buried Jewels” is available for the month of March 2025 on this site. The ebook is also available on all retail stores. You can also read this story in the collection Baverstock’s Allsorts Volume 1.
“Buried Jewels”
Copyright © 2014 by Jessica Baverstock
Cover and Layout copyright © 2014 by Jessica Baverstock
Cover design by Jessica Baverstock
Cover art copyright © gemenacom/Can Stock Photo Inc.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.