Today we are featuring Inklings Book Contest 2022 finalist Amelie Ronnie. Amelie finished 4th grade this past school year and wrote a story called “The Mystery of the Pocket Watch.” Our judge had this to say about Amelie’s story: “The author’s language feels sophisticated. Words like “mustered”, “jungle-like foliage”, and passages like this one: “As the taste of the salty flavours filled his mouth, he felt ready for anything…He was fatigued by now – his legs felt like lead and he had a blister on his right heel,” make the reader excited to continue!” Enjoy!
THE MYSTERY OF THE POCKET WATCH
By Amelie Ronnie
One miserable, dreary morning, a man named Terry was walking to an auction. He was walking hurriedly as there was a special artefact going on sale and he wanted to get it. As he reached the auction hall, he was horrified to find that the artefact had already been sold. He sat down in one of the empty seats in the back row to rest his tired legs. Auctions, he decided, were not fun. At last, it ended, and he went home to report to his boss, Langort. He knew that he would be cross, as he needed the artefact to uncover the last steps for decoding the Egyptian lettering system.
As he arrived at the workshop where Langort lived he began to twitch. He didn’t want to go in. He had not succeeded in his mission. Finally, he mustered his confidence and went into the house. It was empty. He wondered where Langort had got to. Stumbling through the jungle-like foliage, he found his master lying on a sun-lounger in the now setting sun, next to the huge pool. “Langort!” He called out.
“Yes, my boy, have you got it?”
He held his breath, his heart beating in his mouth.
“Sorry, it went just before I arrived,” he answered meekly.
“You did what?”
“It went before I arrived, I’m sorry,” Terry stammered.
“Well, you need to go and get it then, don’t you? You will be leaving tomorrow at sunrise.”
“Oh fine, I’ll go and pack my bag then.”
“Righto.” And off went the apprentice, Terry. He went into his cabin and got what he would need to take on his trip to retrieve the artefact: his compass, food and water supply, his cowboy hat, money and an heirloom of his fathers, and a pocket watch.
It was a beautiful pocket watch, and he did not want to leave it behind.
He was ready. “You’d better come back with it then Terry,” were Langort’s departing words. It would be exciting, Terry thought, chasing people down rivers and alleyways. He let his mind stray for a minute or two then got down to tracking this mysterious person who had taken this object. He started by going to the auction and asking the auctioneer who had bought the artefact. He discovered the buyer was fair and was wearing a suit and jacket.
“Thank you for your help, sir,” Terry said.
“You’re welcome, young fellow,” the auctioneer replied. By the time the two men departed, it was ten pm. “Alright,” Terry thought to himself. “So, I know he is fair, and was wearing a suit. Well, a lot of people wear suits in London, England.”
The next morning, he went about finding some breakfast. He discovered a marketplace bustling with early risers. The smell of bacon butties wavered in the air and people shouted their wares over the noise of the traffic. A pigeon plucked eagerly at a leftover kebab. He chose a warm bacon butty from a greasy-looking van. As the taste of the salty flavours filled his mouth, he felt ready for anything. He walked and walked and walked. Around midday he stopped to get a sandwich. He was fatigued by now – his legs felt like lead, and he had a blister on his right heel. All he wanted to do was rest, so he sat down for a moment in the sun’s blazing heat and watched the pigeons and the boats on the Thames. Filled with new energy, he resumed the walk. He was perspiring stickily in the heat and his shirt was plastered to his back, so he went to get an ice cream. In the early evening, the buzz of the city was comforting but the dark alleyways at night were not. At last, after asking in what seemed like every shop and every street, he found someone who had been to the auction working in an art gallery. The person who bought the artefact was a friend of hers, she said, and she would contact him. Terry thanked her profusely and went on his way. Soon he would have an appointment with this man and hopefully get the artefact and bring it back to Langort.
The next day was much like the other: he had breakfast, walked, had lunch, and walked some more, until he found the address that the lady had given him. It was a towering apartment building. He went to the front desk and asked to see Mr. Jhon Rhinoy. The lady at the reception desk said he was busy; would he please sit on a chair and wait for him? He did as he was told. It seemed like ages before he was called forward but at last, he was. “Mr. Terry Roads,” came the announcement over the tannoy. At the desk, a man, presumably Jhon, was waiting. They walked side by side to his office – Jhon insisted that Terry went first. He sat opposite the desk while Jhon sat behind it.
“Well, what do you want?” the fair-headed, Viking-like man demanded. His voice was low and gruff like a man of fifty rather than thirty.
“I would like to have the artefact you got from the auction,” Terry replied.
“Oh, that,” Jhon said, speaking slowly while running a hand over his chin and frowning. “Well, I’m afraid I’m not selling that.”
“But you have to,” Terry said, “I’ll give you a million pounds.”
“Well, that is something to consider. Go back to the waiting room while I make my decision.” A nail-biting two-hour wait followed. Finally, he was called back in. “I have made my decision,” Jhon said, “I will sell it to you. For a million pounds.”
“Oh, thank you so much” Terry exclaimed!
“I would like the money within ONE WEEK AND ONE WEEK ONLY.” He demanded.
“Yes sir, I quite understand,” Terry said, and with that, he departed. He ran down the London streets and spent all his remaining money on the bus fare back to Langort’s workshop. He was so tired that he fell asleep on the bus and only woke at the bus stop closest to Langort’s. He sprinted through the garden and into the shed. Langort was there like he usually was, slumped in the chair. “Langort, I’ve done it! I’ve got it for a million pounds!”
“Well, you’re going to have to get that yourself. You know that.” Langort replied.
One week to find one million pounds. Absent-mindedly he put his hand into his pocket and felt the smooth, ever-ticking face of his father’s pocket watch.
The next day, as Terry was walking down a dimly lit side street, he felt sure a group of young men were following him. He felt in his pocket for his father’s watch for comfort and slowly drew it out. One of the men suddenly crossed his path and invited him to come into a dingy-looking restaurant, the door of which he held ajar. It didn’t feel the sort of invitation that could be refused, so cautiously Terry entered. They introduced themselves: Tom, Tim, Marco, Callum, and Lunes. They got to work. “What do you need help with then?” Marco asked.
“What are you inviting me in here for?” Terry demanded
“Well,” said Marco, “We were friends of your father’s. More than friends – colleagues. Your father was an Egyptologist and all of us, including Langort, were his students. We all formed a group to protect archaeological finds. We knew you were working for Langort, and he was trying to get your father through you and steal ancient treasures for himself. Your father knew this, and we pledged to look after you, your father said we would know you because of your pocket watch. Marie spotted it in the office – she’s the receptionist (and also a member of our group!)”
“Oh, so that’s who it was,” said Terry.
“Yes, in the end she told us she had found you and had sent you down, here, and, well, here we are,” said Callum.
“So, what trouble are you in?” Marco asked interestedly.
“I need to get an artefact that Jhon Rhinoy is in possession of.”
“Oh him, we know him boys.” Callum replied. “He’s only recently become interested in ancient finds. We don’t know if he’s to be trusted.”
“But if we do get it,” Tim countered, “we must look at it to decide what to do with it, you can’t take it back to Langort.”
“Okay,” Terry agreed. “But I’m terrified of what Langort might do if he finds out.”
They began plotting to get the object that very night. First, they would provide a distraction. That was to be Tom and Tim. They would shimmy up the guttering and start screaming right outside Mr. Rhinoy’s office window. Marco and Lunes would be at the front desk “distracting Marie,” while Callum and Terry would go to the display case and steal the object when no one was looking. Around five o’clock they set out. Five minutes before the others went, Tim and Tom went to clamber up the guttering and start screaming. This was a good distraction as Mr. Rhinoy had a very long room with the desk at the back by the window and the display case at the front, closest to the door. Meanwhile, Marco, Callum, Lunes, and Terry went to the front office. There, Marco and Lunes started to make hundreds of complaints about the lack of loos, the terrible seating and a lot more. Meanwhile, Callum and Terry were walking to Jhons’ room; if all had gone to plan then Mr. Rhinoy would be at the other end of the room. He was! They smashed the door of the case, grabbed the precious artefact and ran to the fire exit. They’d done it! The rendez-vous was the parking lot for the apartment building, and there were the rest of them with eager faces. “Did you get it?” one of them asked.
“Yes.” Terry replied. They whooped for joy.
“We need to get out of here as quickly as possible,” Callum said, “they’ll be after us in a minute. Look, look what it is.” In Callum’s hands was a heavy, aged metal pendant, in the shape of a scarab beetle. One of its eyes looked out of place; he left it there, not wanting to pull at it and lose it. Suddenly, he knew where they must go, “Egypt,” he cried out. “Egypt, we need to go to Egypt! I’ve seen photographs of this amulet – it may be very significant. I’m certain both Jhon and Langort know this and will try to get it back.”
They ran back to Callum’s house, jumped into his car and went rocketing down the cobble stone path, passed the sign that read: “NO CARS.” Within fifteen minutes they were at Heathrow airport, passing in with a load of other passengers without being checked by security. They checked the timetable and bounded onto the next plane to Egypt, taking some seats that were not reserved for them. Luckily, they were not caught, and the other passengers were late.
Each one thought to themselves, “we’re on, we did it.” After the boring long safety talks that even the cabin crew couldn’t get through, they finally took off. The five boys went into a deep sleep, exhausted on this late-night flight. Around five hours later they finally landed in the country where they were to uncover what the artefact would help them do: Egypt and its ancient hieroglyphic lettering system. They jumped out of the nearest window in the airport and ran in the morning sun, which was already ferociously hot! Behind them, they could hear sirens.
The artefact was an ancient amulet. One of the jewels making the eye of the scarab beetle was indeed loose. Terry fiddled with it, it came out in his hand and behind it was wedged a set of instructions handwritten in tiny lettering on papyrus: “go to the place of the pyramids where the sun and a fir tree are in line with a pyramid. Then press the amulet into the engraving of a scarab and you shall uncover a world of beauty.”
It was only an hour’s walk to where they wanted to go. They found a fountain and drank until they had quenched their thirst. Then they started their dreary trek to the pyramids – Callum said that it would be faster to run. Five minutes in, they were all huffing and puffing so they decided to take a break and agreed they would run for five minutes then walk for five minutes. This resulted in taking forty minutes to get there instead. By the time they arrived, they were crawling on their hands and knees and deeply out of breath, gasping and gasping with sweat rolling down their backs. By this time, of course, they had taken off their shirts and were burnt all over their shoulders, and backs. Finally, the pyramids came closer – big, looming, beautiful things – each one standing about 30 metres tall. The sun was now climbing in the sky – good. They found a fir tree and the sun in alignment, pointing to a certain place in the middle pyramid. Marco placed the amulet inside the spot; the scarab twisted with a scraping sound, forming the symbols into a funny shape. Lunes was the first one to realise it was a hieroglyph – the Egyptian lettering system. They jotted it down in Tim’s journal and then saw that more hieroglyphs were visible, and turning a funny red colour, Tom pressed them, and a churning sound came. The pyramid was falling, and in the middle was a huge sack full of gold necklaces, bangles, bracelets, every treasure imaginable! Obviously, they were now catching people’s attention, so Terry waved them off. Suddenly, as Terry walked forward, he tripped and caught his arm on something, he was bleeding fast. Callum grabbed the bag and amulet and dialled into his phone.
“Who are you calling?” said Lunes
“Arthur.” Callum replied. “He’s got a helicopter.”
A whirring noise appeared overhead, and dust flew in the air as the helicopter touched down. Terry was starting to go white; the blood was draining from him. The boys loaded him into the helicopter and Arthur took off.
After being in the Cairo hospital for four days, Terry finally began to come round. Before they had started the blood transfusion, they had done a DNA test. It turned out that Jhon Rhinoy was his uncle, his father’s brother. Once he found out, Jhon came to the hospital immediately. Terry confessed to him all he had done wrong. It turned out Jhon wasn’t mad, he was only interested in protecting the amulet after all. Two days later, Jhon and Terry buried the scarab deep in the mud by the river, so it could not be used again. The pyramid treasure was returned to the Egyptian authorities to be displayed in a museum. Langort was caught trying to steal a valuable jewelled urn from a museum. Langort was not his real name, it was an alias; his actual name was Rick Seeker. He’d changed his name when he went to study with Terry’s Dad at the university and he had a huge criminal record. He was put on trial for attempting to steal a huge amount of treasure. He was found guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. So, everything turned out ok and Terry went to live with his uncle for some peace and quiet. Or so he thought…….
THE END
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