Jack Pepper's Greatest Triumph

Jack Pepper's Greatest Triumph

Martin Tarpey

Published by Martin Tarpey at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Martin Tarpey

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - A Special Letter

Chapter 2 - The Great Mystery

Chapter 3 - An Unbelievable Tale

Chapter 4 - The Grand Plan

Chapter 5 - Brain Power

Chapter 6 - Dawning Light

Chapter 7 - Then There Were Two

Chapter 8 - Two Weeks To Go

Chapter 9 - Serious Stuff

Chapter 10 - Just for If

Chapter 11 - Yet Another Brilliant Idea

Chapter 12 - Now It All Begins

Chapter 13 - Jimmy's Fall and Fall

Chapter 14 - A Box of Tricks

Chapter 15 - Final Plans

Chapter 16 - Magic Time

Chapter 17 - The Truth

Chapter 1 A Special Letter

It all happened suddenly. Bang! Jack’s life changed in an instant, there was no warning, no going back. It just happened. Things would never be the same for him, ever again, ever.

Jack Pepper was leaning way back yawning in his chair, as usual, as old Williams droned on, when young Tom Morris knocked on the classroom door and walked in. He was a tiny boy with a thin little voice.

‘What is it boy?’ asked the teacher gruffly, annoyed that his history lesson was interrupted. Tom coughed nervously, looked at the girls and squeaked.

‘Please sir, will you send Jack Pepper to the office after school to collect a letter.’ That was it. Old Williams looked puzzled. The class went quiet, this looked interesting, a letter for Jack Pepper, it sounded important. Who would want to write to him, Scotland Yard or Hollywood?

‘Who has sent you?’ quizzed Mr Williams.’ What’s this all about?’

‘The head teacher sir, a special letter has been sent to Jack Pepper. The head says it looks important and he has to take it straight home for his father to read.’ The little lad then blushed at the girls and walked out of the room as quickly as he could.

‘Thank you, he’ll be down,’ said Williams looking at Jack as Tom closed the door behind him. ‘Mm, this looks interesting Jack, who could it be from I wonder, a special letter for you eh, very curious.’

He stared at Jack who had stopped wriggling and yawning by now, but all the kids were staring at him. Emma thought she knew what this was all about, but Grace was anxious at Jack’s worried look, this wasn’t like him at all. Lucy laughed at the mischief she knew was ahead.

But Jack knew what it was all about. Deep down in his socks he knew. He had been dreading this moment. At their special televised press conference on the Towton Hoard, he had said that he had a special gift. He could find things that were lost. A girl in York had contacted school asking him to find something dangerous that had belonged to Dick Turpin, the eighteenth century highwayman and Jack had asked her to write to him with all the details.

He was going to be asked to find something belonging to Turpin and his murdering gang who had terrorised England. It was something terrible, something lost since the day Turpin was hung by the neck in York on Saturday 7th April, 1739.

Jack had foolishly said that whatever this thing was, even though it was something new to him that he had never heard of or seen before, he would try and find it. And he knew that he would.

At long last the lesson dragged to an end and the kids spilled out of the classroom into the corridor. They all wanted to be with Jack when he went for his letter, his special letter, but Jack told all the hangers on to clear off, he couldn’t be bothered with any of them. He wanted time to think it all out; he said he would collect the letter tomorrow, so they went off to get the school bus, all except his special friends.

‘Go on Jack, go and get your letter before the Secretary goes home,’ urged Emma.

‘It’ll be from that woman in York,’ he muttered darkly.

‘Serves you right Jack Pepper, you’ve done enough bragging about what you can find, well go to the office and see if you can find your letter,’ laughed Lucy wickedly. But Ben could see that his friend was worried, whatever it was he knew that Jack would need his research skills.

Jack looked at his friends calmly. He knew that he was on the brink of a great experience, something bigger and more dangerous than the Whitby Treasure and the Towton Hoard adventures. He had to face this new challenge which would affect all of them. And he had to do it now.

‘Right,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll go and get it. Bring it on! Let’s do it!

Chapter 2 The Great Mystery

After school they all went home to Jack’s, it’s what they always did on Monday nights. The tradition began after Whitby, when they all became very rich. It all went back to Whitby.

They always had a feast and took it in turns to order food to be delivered from a local restaurant. Jack liked English fish and chips best, but sometimes they ordered Asian. Matthew poked his head round the door just as Grace was about to telephone.

‘Make it Italian tonight for me please, Grace’ he said, so they all settled for pizza, to be followed by lashings of chocolate ice cream. Grace ordered a mushroom pizza for Phil Pepper when he came in from work. Matthew always brought Dfor dog with him, and the girls fussed and patted the little terrier while they talked about the letter. Matthew asked what it said.

‘We don’t know, he hasn’t opened it yet!’ chirped Lucy.

‘Come on then Jack,’ teased Matthew, now in the top junior class at his school. ‘Get it opened!’ Jack smiled at his young cousin as he pulled out the white envelope from his trouser pocket.

‘Here, you do it,’ he said, thrusting the envelope into his small hands. ‘Tell us our future!’ They all gathered round as the little lad ripped open the envelope excitedly and handed Jack the letter which he read out loud.

‘Dear Jack. You don’t know me, but I have read all about you discovering that Whitby Roman treasure and the Battle of Towton finds. I have seen all these treasures in the Yorkshire Museum. I also saw you on television when your teacher read out my letter to you. Everybody says that you have a special gift for finding things. I hope so because I need help desperately. You said on television that you could find anything and I believe you! Don’t ask me why, because we haven’t even met, but I am sure that you can find what I am looking for.

I cannot say more in this letter, but I would like to meet you. If you and your friends would like to visit me in York I can explain everything. But you should show this letter to your dad first, it’s important that he knows all about this.

My name is Mary Palmer, I’m 18 years old and my 70 year old grandad is also involved. If you would prefer I could visit you in Leeds, I have passed my driving test and have a small car with a sat.nav. I don’t know what else to say, but I hope that we can meet. I’m frantic. It’s all about Dick Turpin! Best wishes. Mary ’

‘Wow, what a letter,’ gasped Matthew! ‘It’s all about Dick Turpin!’

‘Who was he then, when he was at home?’ muttered a very unimpressed Lucy.

‘Dick Turpin was the most notorious highwayman in English history,’ added Ben wisely. ‘He was hung in York in 1739 for horse stealing.’

‘And a lot more besides from what I’ve read, he was a torturer and murderer as well,’ chipped in Emma.

‘What can this girl be worrying about?’ puzzled Grace. ‘How can a murderer who was hung in York over two hundred years ago affect her?’

‘Two hundred and seventy five years ago,’ remarked Ben, as precise as ever.’ Lucy laughed mischievously and thought that perhaps Dick Turpin had come back to haunt her. It all sounded very exciting.

They all looked at Jack. It was his letter and his problem. What was he going to do? How could a 15 year old schoolboy and his friends help this girl? What could she want finding? Jack didn’t know what to say. He felt helpless, he was in a situation out of his control. His brow furrowed as he looked at his friends and Grace could see that he was troubled.

‘Don’t worry Jack,’ she said, ‘you know that we’re all with you, this stranger believes in you and so do we.’ Just then the back door opened and a grinning Phil Pepper walked, in straight from work.

They all liked Jack’s dad, he was good fun and they always enjoyed being with him. Jack showed him the letter and they all chatted noisily about this sensational news. Phil sat down quietly to read it, before speaking to Jack.

‘Sounds serious son,’ he said, ‘this girl’s obviously very troubled. I must say that she shows a lot of faith in you! What on earth can she be on about? But do you lot really want to get involved in this Dick Turpin thing? I don’t like the sound of it. She’s probably seen too many horror films. Ask her over if you want, but take my advice and give it a miss!’

They were all disappointed that Phil didn’t encourage Jack. But parents are always worried that their kids will get into danger. He was concerned that they would all get very deeply involved in some nasty situation, certainly Jack would. It was the way he was.

Jack looked at his dad and knew his father only wanted what was best for him. Since his mother had left years ago a stronger bond had developed between father and son. They looked after each other and looked out for each other. Jack knew what he wanted to do, but he had to make it easy for his dad. He pushed his chestnut coloured hair out of his eyes and gave him what Grace called his ‘Jack smile’, showing his chipped front tooth and said,

‘Don’t worry dad, It’ll be all right, I know that, trust me, believe me. I have a feeling about all of this, it’ll be fine; I’ll go and ring her up. Will you take us in the car if we go to York?’

‘Of