INTERNET PUMP ADVENTURE

Chelsea, Matt, Kendall, and Dexter were always playing practical jokes on one another. Sometimes the jokes were funny, sometimes they were cute, and sometimes they were a little mean. All of them tended to be elaborate; the kids used the math and science skills they learned in class to set up the pranks.

One day, Chelsea, Matt, and Kendall were challenged by Dexter to go into his grandfather's old abandoned house to retrieve papers from the attic bedroom that Dexter claimed were valuable and worth money. He said that he had found an open window into the basement and had started to explore when his beeper went off and he had to leave. He'd give them first crack at the papers, if they weren't too scared to go into the "haunted" house.

After school that afternoon, the three of them crawled through the open window into the basement. It was dank and dirty, and there was barely any light through the few dirty windows around the room. There was an old round washtub across the floor that didn't look too dirty, so they put their backpacks in it and started to explore the room. Chelsea looked through some of the old, crumpled papers and found a blueprint of the house just as Matt and Kendall managed to clear a path to the stairs.

They went up both flights of stairs to the attic. A note was stuck to the side of the cistern (water tank) in the make-shift bathroom. When they pulled at the note to read it, a string connected to the note pulled out a plug at the bottom of the tank. They heard water running, but they ignored it and read the note.

To see what it said, go to the next page and click on the note on the side of the cistern.