When Liza woke up the next morning, she saw a paper on her window screen.
"Now what could that be?" she asked.
She went over th the window.
"It looks as if a ghost wrote it, sure enough," she said. "Welcome to your new home. Follow the clues to a treasure." Now what does that mean? I better get the boys."
Liza started to go. Then she said, "No, I'm still mad with them. I'll do this myself."
She tried to get the paper, but she could not reach it. It was fastened to the outside of the screen.
"I'll have to go outside for it," said Liza.
"But Mom will never let me get out before breakfast. Maybe I will tell the boys after all."
The boys were awake, too.
"Oh, gosh," said Jed. "I forgot. Dad is going to tell us our punishment this morning."
"I wonder what it will be?" asked Bill.
"He'll probably take our allowance away for a while, "said Jed.
"I wish we hadn't done that to Liza," said Bill.
"It was your idea," said Jed.
"But you thought it was a good one," said Bill.
"So now we both get punished," said Jed.
Then Liza came in. She said, "I've got the strangest message on my window."
"Your window?" said Bill.
"Yes, on the screen," said Liza. "It looks as if a ghost really wrote it."
"Come on. Let's go and see," said Jed.
But just at that moment Mom called, "Breakfast!"
"Now," said Bill, "we'll have to wait."
The children went into the kitchen. Their father was already seated at the table.
"Good morning, Dad," said the children.
Jed and Bill waited to see what he was going to say.
"Your mother and I talked this over, boys," said Dad, "and we thin your punishment should be to restrict you to the immediate grounds for the rest of the week. And the grounds do not include the woods. The only exception to that is if Mom or I go with you."
"But, Dad," said Bill, "we'll never get our tree house built before school starts."
"Sorry," said Dad. "That's the way it is."
"Dad," said Jed.
"We'll hear no more about it," said Dad. "That's the punishment."
After they had eaten Dad said, "I must go. I'll meet you people at the restaurant tonight."
"Are we going to eat out?" asked Bill.
"Yes" said Mom. "We'll eat out tonight and tomorrow I'll go grocery shopping."
"Let's go to your room, Liza," said Bill.
The children went into Liza's room. Bill and Jed saw the not on the windo.
"Gee," said Bill, "that does look ghosty. But what does the last part say?"
"'Follow the clues to a treasure,'" said Jed.
"Underneath that it says, 'is gate firs the garden clue at.' "
"That sure doesn't make sense," said Liza.
"Let me get the paper," said Jed. "The we can figure it out."
Jed went outside. He wqas back in just a few minutes, holding the note.
"It's a scframbled sentence," he said.
"Let's unscramble it," said Liza.
"Let's see, " said Bill. "I think 'first' and 'clue' go together."
"Yes," said Jed. "And I'll bet 'garden' and 'gate' go together."
"Why couldn't it be, 'gardengate is the first clue?"
"But that leaves out 'at' " said Bill.
"Wait a minute," said Jed. "It's first clue is at the garden gate..." said Liza. "Come on!"
The children went outside. They ran back of the barn and out to the garden.
"Something is there," said Bill. "I can see it already."
Bill untied a paper from the gate. He nodded as he said, "Yep, this is it." asked Liza.
"No," said Bill. "It's worse than that. This time it's scrambled words."
"This is like when we were trying to figure out the key tothe treasure at Granpa's," said Liza.
"But that time we knew what the treasure was," said Jed. "This time we don't know what we're getting into."
"Here," said Bill, "take a look at this."
Bill held out the paper to Liza and Jed.
They saw: "idfn a cork ttha saw tapinde thiwe."
"Gosh," said Jed. "We'll need pencil and paper for that."
"I'll get some," said Liza.
She run to the house, and came back quickly with a pencil and paper. She said, "I'll write it down."
Bill said, "Well, at least we know the second word is 'a.' There's no way to scramble that."
"I think the firs word is 'find'," said Jed.
"I'll bet 'saw' is 'was',' " said Liza.
.........continued
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