Box That Watch Found (2 page)

“I’ve read about those,” Henry said. “They use radio signals from satellites to pinpoint where you are, don’t they?”

“That’s exactly right,” Mr. Robertson said.

“Cool!” Benny said.

“And,” Andy continued. “If you’re into geocaching like my dad and me, you can use a GPS to help you find a hidden treasure box.”

“How?” Jessie asked.

“Well, there’s a website that lists all the caches in the world,” Mr. Robertson said. “It’s at
www.geocaching.com
. You can go to that website and enter in a zip code. That’ll show you all the caches that are in or near that zip code.”

“There are more than seventy-five of them hidden within about ten miles of here,” Andy said.

“Really?” Benny’s eyes grew wide.

“Yes.” Mr. Robertson smiled at Benny. “They’re all listed on the website. And they all have names. For instance, this one that you stumbled upon is called ‘Walk in the Woods.’ If you want to try and find a certain cache, all you have to do is hook your GPS up to your computer, then enter the waypoint that’s listed there on the site—”

“A waypoint?” Violet asked.

“It’s a way of marking a particular spot on the earth. In this case, it marks where a cache is hidden. Once you enter the waypoint into your GPS, the GPS will help you find it,” Mr. Robertson said.

“You still have to look around for the cache, though,” Andy said. “A GPS doesn’t tell you exactly
where
it is. It tells you which direction to go and how far away you are from it. See?”

He held the GPS so the Aldens could see the screen. An arrow in the middle of the screen pointed behind them. And the distance above the arrow read 102 feet.

“Why does it say we’re 102 feet from the box?” Jessie asked. “It’s right here!” She tapped the box in Henry’s hands. The Robertsons’ GPS couldn’t have been more than 7 feet from Henry.

“The GPS doesn’t know the cache is here, in Henry’s hands,” Andy said. “It’ll take you to the spot where the box was originally hidden. If it’s been moved, you’re out of luck. You won’t find it. That’s why it’s so important to put the cache back exactly where you found it. So other people can find it after you.”

“We’ll put it back right now,” Henry said, turning around. The others followed him back to the pile of brush.

“Before you put it back, you might want to sign the log book,” Mr. Robertson said.

“Log book?” Violet said.

“Yes. Every cache has one,” said Mr. Robertson. “You choose a nickname for yourself and then you sign the log book. You can write about your adventure finding the cache on the website, too, especially if there’s something wrong with the cache or if something interesting happened to you while you were looking for it.”

“But we weren’t looking for it,” Benny said. “We just found it!”

“Then you can write that, too,” Mr. Robertson said, laughing.

“And you can always take something out of the box if you leave something else in its place,” Andy said.

“There’s never anything very valuable in the containers,” Mr. Robertson said. “People don’t do this to try to get rich. They do it because it’s fun to see whether they can find a hidden treasure with a GPS.”

Henry leaned against a fallen tree and opened up the box again. “I remember seeing a notebook in here,” he said, pulling out the plastic bag with the small blue notebook. He opened it to the first page. “Hey, it says here, ‘Geocache site. Please read. Congratulations! You’ve found it.’ And then it goes on to explain everything Mr. Robertson and Andy just told us.”

“If we had only looked in the log book, we’d have known all this and we wouldn’t have taken the box,” Jessie said.

“That’s okay,” Mr. Robertson said. “I’m sure you kids would’ve brought it back as soon as you realized what it was.”

Henry flipped through the pages in the notebook until he came to a blank sheet. “So, we’re supposed to write something in this book?” he asked.

“Yes,” Andy said. “You might want to say that this is your first find.”

“And you can make up an interesting nickname for yourselves,” Mr. Robertson added. “For instance, when Andy and I sign a log book, we call ourselves the Trailblazers.”

“What nickname should we use?” Henry asked.

“I’ve got an idea,” Benny cried. “How about the Boxcar Kids?”

“The Boxcar Kids?” Andy said. “What does that mean?”

The Aldens explained about their boxcar.

“I like it,” Violet said. “Let’s call ourselves the Boxcar Kids.”

“Yes, let’s!” Jessie put in.

Henry wrote,
This was the first cache we ever found. We found it by accident. We’re looking forward to more geocaching!

“Do you want to take anything?” Mr. Robertson asked.

“I don’t know.” Jessie scratched her head. “We don’t have anything to put in there, do we?”

The Aldens checked their pockets. Nobody had anything to leave in the box.

“We always carry a few trinkets for geocaching,” Andy said. He pulled a little wind-up frog out of his inside jacket pocket. “If you want to take something, you could leave this in its place.”

“That’s nice of you,” Violet said.

“Go on,” Mr. Robertson urged. “Pick something. You have to take something to remember your first find.”

“Hmm. What should we take?” Henry asked the others.

“Take the coins! Take the coins!” Benny cried, jumping up and down.

Henry pulled out the bag with the coins and handed it to Benny. Then he wrote:
took coins, left frog.

“You should sign the log, too,” Henry said, handing the notebook to Mr. Robertson. “You would’ve found the box if we hadn’t. Plus you gave us the frog.”

“Okay,” Mr. Robertson said. “I’ll say that the Trailblazers were here with the Boxcar Kids.” He smiled as he jotted a few lines in the notebook. When he finished writing, he sealed the notebook back up in the plastic bag, put it in the box, and closed it. Then the Aldens and the Robertsons buried the box back in the brush between the two trees just the way they’d found it.

“There’s supposed to be another cache not too far from here,” Andy said. “It’s called ‘Edge of the Forest.’ Do you want to come with us and see if we can find it?”

“Sure,” the Aldens replied eagerly.

“Let me tell the GPS we’re looking for a different cache now,” Mr. Robertson said, pressing the button on the side of the gadget a few times. “Okay, now we’re set up to find the ‘Edge of the Forest’ cache.”

Mr. Robertson handed the GPS to Benny, then said, “Which way do we want to go?”

Benny peered at the arrow on the screen. “That way,” he said, pointing deeper into the woods.

“I wonder if it’s over by the nature center?” Violet said. “If we stay on this trail, we’ll come out over there.”

“Could be,” Mr. Robertson said. “I think we’re probably about half a mile from the nature center.”

The group walked single file in a line behind Benny. Jessie held Watch’s leash. Watch sniffed the ground as they walked.

After a little while, Benny said, “It’s 52 feet over this way!” He pointed to the right. The path curved to the left.

They were almost through the woods at this point. They could see the nature center building just ahead.

“We must be close then,” Andy said. “Start looking, everyone. Check tree stumps, holes in trees, piles of brush, anything that looks like it could hold a medium-sized container.”

“The GPS is going crazy!” Benny cried. “The arrow is turning round and round. And the number keeps changing from 13 to 20 to 15 to 17—”

“That means it’s right around here,” Mr. Robertson said.

The Aldens and the Robertsons lifted small logs and peered in hollows of trees.

Finally, Jessie said, “I think I found it!” She pulled a plastic storage container out from between two logs. This one was smaller than the first cache. It contained a yo-yo, a plastic watch, two keychains, and another notebook and pencil.

“Hooray!” Benny jumped up and down. “This is fun!”

“You know, there’s a geocaching club here in Greenfield,” Mr. Robertson said. “We meet at the nature center. Maybe you’d like to check out one of our meetings? You might even be able to borrow a GPS from the club if you want to do some more geocaching on your own.”

“Can we?” Benny asked his brother and sisters.

“Sure,” Henry said. “Do you know when the next meeting is?”

“I think we’re meeting this Friday at noon,” Mr. Robertson replied. “But check the website to be sure.”

“We will,” Jessie said. “Thanks for teaching us about geocaching!”

“It was our pleasure,” Mr. Robertson said.

“See you on Friday!” Henry said.

“I wonder what we’ll find the next time we go geocaching,” Violet said.

“Maybe we’ll find a mystery!” Benny said.

“Oh, Benny,” Jessie laughed. “We don’t find mysteries everywhere we go.”

“No, but a lot of times
they
find
us,
” Benny said.

“All you have to do is enter a zip code and the website will show you all the caches that are nearby,” Violet told Grandfather and their housekeeper, Mrs. MacGregor, that evening.

The children had spent some time exploring
www.geocaching.com
. They had tried to tell Grandfather and Mrs. MacGregor what geocaching was during dinner, but everyone agreed it would be easier if the children could show them. So after dinner they all gathered around the computer. Jessie sat at the keyboard and Watch curled up at her feet.

Mrs. MacGregor squinted at the screen. “All of those are names of … what did you call them? Caches?”

“Yes,” Jessie said. “A cache is a sort of treasure box. And look.” She pointed at a number on the screen. “This tells us how far away each cache is from our house.”

“These two, ‘Walk in the Woods’ and ‘Edge of the Forest’ are the ones we found today,” Henry said. “You can read what we wrote here.”

“But if you wrote in the notebook that you found the box, why do you need to go to the website and write it again?” Grandfather asked.

“You don’t have to,” Jessie said. “But it’s fun to read about the cache
before
you try to find it.”

“And if there’s something wrong with the cache, if it’s missing or damaged in some way, you can let people know that by leaving a comment on the website,” Henry said.

“This is all very interesting,” Mrs. Mac-Gregor said, peering over Jessie’s shoulder.

“All we need is a GPS unit and we can go geocaching on our own,” Henry said. “Mr. Robertson told us the local geocaching club has a few to lend to new members.”

“Hmm,” Grandfather said. “I believe I have a little handheld GPS.”

“You do?” Benny asked.

“Yes. I bought it a couple of months ago,” Grandfather said. “I thought it would be useful for hiking.”

“Could we see your GPS, Grandfather?” Henry asked.

“I’ll go get it.” Grandfather got up and went to the closet. He came back with a small canvas case that looked like a camera bag. Grandfather unzipped the case and pulled out a rectangular object with buttons and a screen.

“Hey, that looks just like the Robertsons’ GPS!” Benny cried.

“Do you have a cable to hook it up to the computer?” Jessie asked.

Grandfather reached inside the case and pulled out a black cord. “I’ll bet that’s what this is,” he said, holding it up. “I think there are some instructions in here, too.” He looked inside the case again and pulled out a sheet of paper.

“Looks easy enough to set up,” Henry said, looking over the instructions.

“Can we borrow your GPS for geocaching?” Violet asked.

“Sure,” Grandfather said.

“Can we go geocaching tomorrow?” Benny asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Grandfather said.

So the children got everything set up. Then they decided which caches they wanted to try and find next.

“ ‘Squires Point,’ ” Jessie read the name of one of the caches in the list. “Isn’t that the name of one of the hiking trails in the Pine Ridge Recreation Area?”

“I think it is,” Henry said.

“Then I’ll bet the cache is hidden somewhere around that trail,” Violet said.

“I wonder if there are other caches hidden in the same area,” Jessie said. “If we go out to Pine Ridge, maybe we can find several caches at the same time.” She glanced up at the computer screen, then clicked on “find other caches nearby.”

The Aldens downloaded the information into Grandfather’s GPS. And the next day, after a good hearty breakfast, the children loaded up their pockets with small trinkets for trading and set out for the Pine Ridge Recreation Area on their bikes.

They locked their bikes to the bike rack in the gravel parking lot, then Henry got out the GPS. He turned it on and set it to find the Squires Point cache.

“It says the cache is four-tenths of a mile north of here,” Henry said.

The Aldens turned toward the north. They saw a dirt trail at the edge of the parking lot. A brown sign read,
Squires Point Trail.

“That’s it!” Benny cried. “Come on, everybody. It’s down that trail!”

The Aldens started down the Squires Point Trail. Benny carried the GPS.

“I don’t know if we want to stay on the trail,” Benny said when the path curved to the left. “The arrow is pointing straight into those trees.”