Sweet Valley Kids Super Snooper Edition #5: The Case of the Hidden Treasure

It's summer in Sweet Valley or something because all the kids are on the beach. The twins are hanging out with Amy, Eva, Lila, Ellen, Todd, and Winston when Jessica decides to bury her legs in the sand. While trying to get out, she finds two silver dollars in the sand and rushes to tell her parents. They make a joke about her finding buried treasure, but Ned tells them that they need real equipment to find real gold and points to a woman on the beach with a metal detector.

The kids instantly run over and start badgering her. Todd wants to know how it works, Elizabeth wants to ask her a bunch of questions, and Jessica wants to brag about her treasure. The woman tells them to sod off and shouts at them when the detector goes off because they literally just jump down and start digging in the sand. Everyone else thinks she's mean and calls her Mrs. Crabby, but Elizabeth thinks that she's hiding something. Eva tells them that if you find buried treasure that you have to give it to the museum. Elizabeth hears the woman talking about gold on the phone and decides that she must be trying to steal from the museum. The kids all decide to investigate the case.

The only other thing that happens is they find Mrs. Crabby picking up some silver coins from the ground. Jessica storms over, calls her a thief, and demands that she give the treasures to the museum. She then shows them that all she found were two nickels from the 80s. When she asks if Jessica plans to give her coins to the museum, Jessica just blushes and runs away.

Alice tells the girls about all the treasure that sank off the coast and shows them a magazine about archaeologists. They see Mrs. Crabby in one of the pictures, which is somehow proof that she's a thief. Despite her telling them to buzz off, the kids later start playing near her stuff while she's in the water. They find a map with a bunch of red marks on it, which is more proof that she's a thief.

Since Lila knows everything, she asks her dad to arrange for them to take a tour of the local archaeology museum. He's apparently on the board of directors, but in a realistic touch, Lila just blushes when asked what a board of directors does because she just knows he goes to some meetings. Eva's mom volunteers to drive them, and they meet Dr. Reed. He's the head of the museum and was in the same magazine article.

Dr. Reed tells them that archaeology isn't really about finding buried treasure and shows them what they actually do find and prize, which is super disappointing for the kids. He also lets them know that gold wasn't found in California until well after the pirate era. The kids see Mrs. Crabby with a tray of ancient coins and start shouting. Dr. Reed calms everyone down and seems pretty amused at their claims, but Eva's mom is super embarrassed and makes them all go home.

The kids must have nothing else to do because they all go back to the beach. Jessica sneaks a bunch of their mom's gardening tools in the trunk to help them dig. They spread out and keep digging, but the only thing anyone finds is a bike chain that Amy discovers. Lila finds out from her dad that Mrs. Crabby is actually Abigail Jefferson. She's worked for the museum for years and lost her husband recently.

When they go back to digging, Jessica finds a gold bracelet. Though they think it's ancient treasure at first, they quickly realize that all the charms on the bracelet are modern. It also has an inscription to AJ on it. Mrs. Crabby then shows up, gasps, and asks where they found it. She tells them that it was a gift from her husband for their 30^th anniversary, which is why it has 30 charms on it. She lost it and after he passed became obsessed with finding it. The person she was talking to on the phone was her daughter who was worried her mom was too crabby.

Since she's actually not a bad person, they give her the bracelet back. She also tells them that she studies ancient coins and the coins they saw her with at the museum were ones she was taking home to study. Since this is a Sweet Valley book though, she does apologize to them for being so mean, even though they totally deserve it. Jessica gets down about how they never found any real treasure, and smug little brat Elizabeth looks at the woman and points out that they found something priceless. Barf.

*Lila is completely blasé when Jessica finds the silver dollars on the beach. Even as everyone else goes wild, she points out that she has real gold coins at home and can't be bothered with silver.

*It's not surprising that she has no concept of money though. She tells them that they'll probably each get $1,000 for finding the treasure, which she'll use to buy a horse, new canopy bed, and new clothes. Jessica thinks it's enough money to buy out the whole mall. Remember being that young? :)

*The older I get, the more I emphasize with Mrs. Crabby. Those kids are terrors! They all act like she's so mean to them, but she just wants to be left alone and doesn't want kids messing with her expensive metal detector.

*Also, when they start playing around her stuff, Winston literally runs across her beach towel and knocks her bag over, which is how they see the map. Why do their parents not do anything? I would be so pissed if I came back from a swim and found all my stuff scattered around because parents were too busy gossiping to watch their kids!

*Alice is still in decorating school in this book. She tells the girls that she can take them to the beach but that they can't stay long because she needs to come home and study.

*Ellen is at the very beginning of the book and finds a shell on the beach that everyone loves. Even though she's clearly in the drawings later on, she's literally never mentioned again.