Lola Benko, Treasure Hunter by Beth McMullen
FROM THE OUTSIDE, MY LIFE probably looks pretty good. I travel around the world with my archaeologist father searching for lost things. Not like misplaced keys or that library book you swear you returned. No, Professor Lawrence Benko is a treasure hunter. You know, Montezuma’s gold or the plunder of the dreaded pirate Blackbeard. That kind of stuff. Last year we spent four months searching for the priceless Sword of Honjo Masamune, lost during World War II. The search turned out to be a wild-goose chase and a total bust. But every once in a while, the esteemed professor finds what he’s looking for. That’s when you read about him in the news or see him on television. So what is traipsing around the world aer my dad really like? Well, at twelve years old, I live out of a suitcase and have extra pages stapled into my passport because I used up the regular ones. I’ve been on all the continents except for Antarctica, and that is only because there are not many treasures buried in the ice. I’ve been to eleven schools in seven years, which means I know kids all over the world, but I have no real friends because who wants a friend who just ups and leaves at the drop of a hat? I learned to read on a boat traveling down the Mekong Delta and to divide fractions on an archaeological dig in Mali.