A Discovery By Chance...

Students of Class VII are on a camping trip along the banks of the mighty river Brahmaputra in Assam where they set up tents. 4 children Sania, Dhruv, Gloria and Arin go for a boat ride along the river. The boatman is wearing a hood and keeps his face hidden. Suddenly the old boat develops a hole at the bottom and begins to sink as water flows in.

The children do not panic as they know how to swim. They jump into the river abandoning the boat and begin swimming toward the shore taking care to keep together all the time. Luckily for them the river is calm at the moment and they come to a cluster of trees after 10 minutes. Tired and cold, they decide to take rest under the trees as the shore is still a long way off. The hooded boatman is nowhere to be seen.

They find themselves on a tiny island hidden deep amidst the thick forest of trees. Their cell phones are all wet and dead. A cuckoo sings sweetly up in the trees. Arin looks up and spots an old treehouse atop a huge apple tree.

Dhruv, Arin, and Sania climb up while Gloria stands guard at the bottom of the tree. The tree-house seems to have been deserted a long, long, time ago. There is no furniture inside but there is a fireplace and few logs of wood. There is a small window with apples hanging just outside. Dhruv grabs some apples for all of them and throws down a few for Gloria standing below. The children hungrily munch on the apples wondering what to do next. 

Sania goes back to the window for more apples and a crow pecks her as she unknowingly puts her hand into its nest. She screams and pulls back her hand along with a piece of paper in it. "Hey friends, look at this!" she cries. There was something written on the paper which was faintly visible,

        "A zig-zag road with a hole in the middle –

         Put it on the door to solve the riddle!"

Arin, the most intelligent of the lot, racks his brains and suddenly shouts – "Ear, it's an 'ear' – a zig-zag road with a hole in the middle is an 'ear'!"

Everyone rushed to the door and puts their ears to it. The door is pushed back against the wall and there is a grating sound behind it. They look behind the door and find that a small trap-door in the wall has opened to reveal a roll of thick paper inside. They carefully spread out the paper and look in wonder at the map drawn on it!

All of them had heard rumors of there being a buried treasure chest somewhere around. And now they were holding proof of it in their hands.

All of a sudden Gloria whistled from below signaling danger and the children quickly closed the trap-door, scrambled down the tree with the map and hid themselves. The hooded boatman appeared and climbed up the tree-house. He thrashed around in the tree-house looking for something. Not finding anything he climbed down and disappeared down the river.

The children followed the instructions on the map and found the treasure chest full of gold and diamonds in a secret cave on the island. They went back to the tree-house and started a fire with the logs in the fireplace by rubbing together two stones.

The smoke signal was spotted by the rest of the class and also the coast guard who soon came to their rescue. The treasure-chest was retrieved from the cave and handed over to the Government of India. 

Arin, Gloria, Dhruv and Sania were rewarded by the Prime Minister for their bravery and the four of them became famous overnight. The hooded figure turned out to be a thief and was caught by the police. The map was given to Arin for solving the riddle in the crow's nest!

The treasure island has been named “Gupt Dweep” and is now a popular tourist attraction with the secret cove and the tree-house being the main attraction.