The Thanksgiving Treasure Read Free Page A

didn’t go very far anyway. But those flat plains were great for bike riding.
    We loved speeding along the back roads on our bikes, and being out in the countryside gave us a great sense of freedom. There were few houses outside of town, just acres and acres of cornfields and wheatfields and grazing cattle. There were hardly any trees, except those that farmers had planted around their houses and for windbreaks along the sides of fields, so you could see for miles. Sound seemed to carry farther out in the country too. You could hear a dog barking a mile away, or a distant train whistle or the hum of big truck tires on another highway far to the North, and if you were lucky enough to ride past a meadow-lark in the summer wheat, he would fling sweet notes right in your ear. The larks had gone South by this time of the year though, and the cold wind stung our faces as we pedaled past the brown stubble of harvested corn.
    One mile out on the highway was the Platte River, which was even more forbidden than the highway, and across the Platte River bridge was certainly the most forbidden place of all—old Walter Rehnquist’s farm. I had an idea that we would find some big, fat cattails there, because they always grew in the marshy areas on riverside property like his. I headed straight for it, not telling Carla Mae where we were going.
    Crossing the long, high bridge was scary, because it was old and narrow and full of holes, any one of which could send you sprawling off a bike. You had to get across quickly, because if cars came from both sides at once, there was just no room for a bike to get out of the way. There was a curve at the far end, so you couldn’t see if cars were coming or not, and we got off our bikes and put our ears to the deck of the bridge to see if we could hear anything coming from up the road. We heard nothing, and we jumped on our bikes and rode across as fast as we could, lurching in and out of holes and hanging on for our lives. We tried not to look over the side of the bridge at the chunks of ice floating far below in the muddy water.
    When we had gotten safely across, we stopped, panting with excitement and exertion. While we were standing there catching our breath, we heard a clopping noise on the bridge and looked back to see a classmate of ours, Billy Wild, coming toward us on his horse. Carla Mae was always teasing me about liking Billy. Sometimes he was OK, but a lot of the time he was disgusting, showing off his cowboy boots and his horse and yanking my pigtails and being a real pain.
    â€œHi there!” he called out.
    â€œHere comes creepy Billy Wild—showing off,” I whispered to Carla Mae.
    â€œHis horse looks like Roy Rogers’ horse, doesn’t it?” asked Carla Mae.
    â€œNo!” I said, impatiently. Carla Mae did not know a thing about horses. “Billy’s horse is gray, and Trigger is a palomino.”
    â€œI mean its hair looks like Trigger’s hair.”
    â€œThat’s not hair, dodo, that’s a mane.”
    â€œHi, what are you doing?” Billy asked as he rode up to us.
    â€œThat’s for us to know and you to find out,” I said in my coolest tone.
    â€œWanna ride, Carla Mae?” he asked.
    â€œNo, thanks,” said Carla Mae.
    â€œWhy not?” asked Billy.
    â€œI’m afraid of horses,” she said.
    â€œAfraid?” I said, disgusted with her, and stroked Cloudy’s nose.
    â€œC’mon, Carla Mae,” he said. “I’ll hold on to you.”
    â€œNot me,” she said.
    â€œYou wanna ride, Addie?” Billy asked.
    â€œWill you get off and let me ride by myself?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œYou’re a girl—you might fall off,” he said, giving me a smug grin.
    â€œOh, drop dead!” I said, angrily. “Come on, Carla Mae, let’s get out of here!”
    We jumped on our bikes and started down the road.
    â€œHe’s really