The Greatest Treasure Hunt

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.Copyright © 2023 by James PattersonIllustrations copyright © 2023 by Juliana NeufeldCover art copyright © 2023 by Juliana Neufeld. Cover design by Tracy Shaw. Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.Interior design by Tracy Shaw.Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.JIMMY Patterson Books / Little, Brown and CompanyHachette Book Group1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104JamesPatterson.comFirst Edition: May 2023JIMMY Patterson Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The JIMMY Patterson Books® name and logo are trademarks of JBP Business, LLC.The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.Little, Brown and Company books may be purchased in bulk for business, educational, or promotional use. For information, please contact your local bookseller or the Hachette Book Group Special Markets Department at [email protected] of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Patterson, James, 1947– author. | Grabenstein, Chris, author. | Neufeld, Juliana, 1982– illustrator.Title: The greatest treasure hunt / by James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein ; illustrated by Juliana Neufeld.Description: New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2023. | Series: Treasure hunters | Audience: Ages 8–12. | Summary: “Bick, Beck, and the rest of the Kidds face down their nemesis, search for lost treasure, and race to solve a generations-old mystery that threatens to ruin the Kidd family name.” —Provided by publisher.Identifiers: LCCN 2022037055 | ISBN 9780316500197 | ISBN 9780316500364 (ebook)Subjects: CYAC: Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Buried treasure—Fiction. | Twins—Fiction. | Siblings—Fiction. | LCGFT: Action and adventure fiction. | Novels.Classification: LCC PZ7.P27653 Gr 2023 | DDC [Fic]—dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022037055ISBNs: 978-0-316-50019-7 (hardcover), 978-0-316-50036-4 (ebook)E3-20230420-JV-NF-ORI Contents CoverTitle PageCopyrightDedicationMapQuick Note From Bick KiddPart One: Let The Games Begin Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Part Two: Game On! Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38Chapter 39Chapter 40Chapter 41Chapter 42Chapter 43Part Three: From Prussia, Without Love Chapter 44Chapter 45Chapter 46Chapter 47Chapter 48Chapter 49Chapter 50Chapter 51Chapter 52Chapter 53Chapter 54Chapter 55About the AuthorsJimmy Patterson Books for Young Readers by James Patterson For Bailey and Logan Bigelow—J. P. QUICK NOTE FROM BICK KIDDGreetings, treasure hunters!Bick (please-don’t-call-me-Bickford-unless-you’re-my-mom) Kidd here. Just wanted to remind you that I will be the one telling this story while my twin sister, Beck, (short for Rebecca, not Beckford) will be doing the illustrations.Secondary quick note: if Beck draws me with lots of stink lines, that’s what they call “artistic license” (also known as “not true”).I do bathe. I also brush my teeth. Whenever necessary.Strangely, this tale of champions battling for glory doesn’t start with an illustration of me, Beck, or our sibs, Storm and Tommy.Nope. This story starts with some other kids treasure hunting.The Collier kids!UGH.Just writing those three words makes me want to hurl! CHAPTER 1You know, I used to think that I was part of the greatest treasure-hunting family in the history of the world.The Kidds!(Maybe you’ve heard of us???)But then I saw the Collier kids on YouTube.Whoa. They’re amazing. Like junior versions of Navy SEALs or Olympic gold medalists or those people on American Ninja Warrior. The ones who can bounce off the trampoline, swing on the flying nunchucks, run up the warped wall, and not even break a sweat. The ones who win.The four of us Kidd kids were belowdecks on board our new ship, The Lost Again. We lost our first boat, The Lost—the one Beck, Storm, Tommy, and I all grew up on—when it sank into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Egypt after exploding into a ball of black smoke and roiling flames. (But that’s another story.)And you’re right. The Lost was probably not the best name for a boat. Right up there with The Sunk, The Doomed, and The Leaky Hull. Let’s hope The Lost Again doesn’t get added to that list of stinkers anytime soon.We were down in the galley, watching a video of the four Collier kids’ most recent treasure-hunting adventure on their YouTube channel. While salvaging a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting from a flooded villa in Italy, they had to escape from modern-day, art-thieving pirates!Every now and then, the show would cut to Nathan Collier doing commentary from his usual set on the Adventure Channel.Yep. The four Collier kids were the children of Nathan Collier, Mom and Dad’s number one nemesis. And, if he was back on YouTube and on the Adventure Channel, that meant he’d been released from prison in Peru. He had a fifth kid, another son, named Chet. Chet and Nathan were both put behind bars after they helped some loopy billionaire almost murder our big brother, Tommy, in a ritualistic sacrifice when we went searching for Paititi, the Lost City of Gold (which, of course, we found!). It almost became the City of Lost Tommy, too! Nathan Collier was forever trying to snatch our finds or take credit for our discoveries because he wasn’t very good at bringing anything up from a dive besides rusty hubcaps and seaweed.But Collier still had his own basic cable show because he looked good on TV.His four other kids, the ones not named Chet? They looked even better.“Whoa,” said Tommy, staring at the screen. “Is it just me, or do the Collier kids not look like they’re even related?”“Because,” said