HIDDEN AWAY ...The Craze of Geocaching!

Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called geocaches or caches, anywhere in the world.

A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook where the geocacher enters the date found and signs it with established code name. Plastic storage containers may hold items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little value.

Geocaches are currently placed in over two hundred countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica, and the International Space Station.

After more than twelve years of activity, there are nearly two million active geocaches published on various online sites. Some estimates suggest there are more than five million geocachers worldwide.

HIDDEN AWAY, a story about geocaching and skateboarding, is intended for all enthusiasts and the young at heart, but particularly those aged 10-14.

The International sign for Geocaching.

Copyright © 2012 Phyllis J. Perry

Published in the United States by

CUSTOM BOOK PUBLICATIONS

SMASHWORDS EDITION

All the characters are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons,

living or dead, is purely coincidental.

For those who have joined me in the hunt:

David, Emily, Clare, Julia, Casey, Yan, Jill, and Barb.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Award-winning author Phyllis J. Perry, grew up in a small gold mining town in northern California.

She attended the University of California and the University of Colorado. The Author has published

more than seventy books of fiction and non-fiction for both children and adults. A member of the Colorado Authors League and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, she has written stories, poems, plays and articles in magazines such as Child Life, Hopscotch, Humpty Dumpty, On The Line and The Single Parent. She lives in Boulder, Colorado and enjoys the sport of geocaching.

HIDDEN AWAY

by

Phyllis J. Perry

Chapter One

Troy stashed the geocaching map into his backpack, climbed on his bike, and from memory, rode off along the designated route taking him to an Open Space area. When he locked his bike in a rack, Troy noticed there was already another bike parked there. Interesting, but no one was in sight.

Troy pulled out his Global Positioning receiver and found he was still a half mile from Plain View, the geocache he was seeking. He started out following the coordinates, walking east. Immediately he noticed how quiet it was out here; no cars or dogs or lawn mowers.

As he trudged along in the hot July sun, he thought, At least I'm getting exercise and I'm out in the fresh air. Mom will be happy about that. Troy could still hear his mother's words this morning before she left the house for her new job in the Hobby Barn. 'For goodness sakes, Troy, don't stay in the house all day moping.'

As soon as his family had arrived in Boulder about a week ago, his mother had done her best to sign him up immediately for a camp, pottery class, or some kind of Science Discovery Program at the planetarium. Fortunately, Troy's dad pointed out that Troy needed a little free time to get used to a new town and enjoy a few lazy summer days before school started. His mother had reluctantly given in. However, with no friends, Troy found time hanging on his hands. He had decided to fall back on his old hobby, geocaching, to fill the afternoon.

After about ten minutes of walking east along the Open Space path, Troy spotted a good-sized creek. Someone who looked to be about his age was fishing there. The boy was Troy's size, average, with dark brown hair peeking out from under a baseball cap.

When Troy got to the bridge over the creek, he found himself just a few feet from the other boy, and he thought he couldn’t march right on by and not even speak. 'Hey,' he said half-heartedly.

'Hey,' the boy replied.

'Catch anything?' Troy asked, while he continued walking.

'No,' the boy admitted. 'Haven't even had a bite today. You planning on fishing?'

Troy stopped. 'No.' He hesitated before adding, 'Actually, I'm geocaching. Normally you don't advertise that fact to strangers, who in the tradition of Harry Potter are called muggles, by geocachers, but Troy felt he ought to offer some sort of explanation of what he was doing here.

'What's geocaching?' the boy asked.

'Basically you look for hidden treasures, or caches, people have squirreled away,' Troy replied.

'I've never heard of anyone around here doing it.'

'Well, I'm not from around here. I mean... I wasn't, until last week. I'm from Texas.'

'A newcomer, huh,' the boy commented. 'What's your name, anyway?'

'Troy... Troy Thompson.'

'Mine's Bud Sowell. How did you get into this geocaching stuff, anyway?'

'I got started back at my old home in Round Rock, Texas,' Troy said. 'My best friend there used to go geocaching almost every weekend with his parents. One Saturday they invited me to go along, and I got hooked.'

'How does it work? And what makes you think there's one of those treasure caches out here?' the boy asked.

'This morning, I wondered if people around Boulder ever went geocaching. So I went on the internet to a site called geocaching.com,' Troy said, '...and entered my zip code.'

'So what did you find?'

Bud reeled in his line, and put his pole down on the bank.

'Well, actually there are lots of geocaches around here. I picked out this one in Niwot. The website I visited gave me the longitude and latitude coordinates for a cache called Plain View. So I entered them into my GPS system.' He held up his GPS receiver.

'Can I take a look at that?' Bud asked.

'Sure.' Troy came back across the bridge and walked down the bank. He and Bud sat down, and Troy handed his GPS receiver to Bud.

'There was also a link on the website that took me to a Google map of the area, so I printed it out.' Troy took off his backpack and took out the map and showed it to Bud.

'So you mean there's something hidden near here?' Bud asked, jabbing at a spot on the map. 'Some sort of treasure?'

Troy smiled. 'Yeah, but maybe I should explain treasure. When you're out geocaching, you're not looking for a pot of gold or something really valuable. Treasures, called swag, are simple things. Cheap little things like a plastic spider, or a pin or patch from some event. Sometimes there's a special commemorative coin, but nothing expensive.'

'Oh.' Bud sounded disappointed.

'That first time I went geocaching with the Jantzens, they let me pick something to keep from the first cache we found. I chose a hot air balloon decal. I took it home and stuck it on the front of my math notebook. The fun isn't so much getting the treasure, it's hunting for it and finding the cache.'

'How do the treasures get there?' Bud asked.

'Any geocacher can hide a cache and list its coordinates on the internet. You get a plastic container with a lid, or a metal box of some kind, find a good place it hide it, and you put in a handful of swag to get it started. Then everyone who comes along and finds the cache, takes out a treasure, and puts in some treasure he's brought with him.'

'Huh,' Bud said. 'I think I get it. And lots of people do this all over the country?'

'Thousands,' Troy said. 'All over the world.'

'And you're going to look for one of these caches now?' Bud asked.

'Yeah,' Troy said.

'Mind if I tag along? I'd like to see how it works, and there's sure nothing doing here.'

'Okay, I guess. Sure.'

Troy waited while Bud took apart his fly rod and put away his fishing gear into his back pack.

'Where do you live?' Bud asked as they started hiking east, across the bridge.

'On Evergreen Avenue at the north end of town,' Troy said. 'We just moved here last week.'

'Oh, sure. I know where that is. I live up north too, on Parker Court. What grade are you in?' He cocked his head, sizing up Troy as he spoke.

'I'll be going into eighth.'

'Hey, me too. You'll be going to Centennial then.'

'Is that where you go?'

'Yeah,' Bud said. 'As far as schools go, it's not too bad.'

Troy and Bud walked on for a while. Troy held the GPS in his hand, holding it to the side so Bud could lean in and watch as the distance in feet indicated on the GPS dropped from 364 feet, to 127 feet.

They came up a little rise and walked through a wooded area, pausing for a moment to enjoy a bit of shade from the hot sun. Troy pulled out his water bottle, took a drink, and offered it to Bud. As he handed the water bottle back, Bud looked at the GPS, pointed, and asked, 'What's that mean?'

Troy looked down and noticed that the GPS indicated a weak signal.

'Something wrong with your gizmo?' Bud asked, eyeing the message.

'It's a GPS,' Troy reminded him. 'And no, there's nothing exactly wrong. It's just that the GPS has to be open to the sky to get the satellite signals that guide it. When there are trees overhead, the signal is weak.'

They came out of the woods and reached a weedy field with lots of purple thistles and some kind of blue flowers in it. They definitely were not Texas blue bonnets, and Troy idly wondered what kind of flowers they were. A hot,