Camulod chronicles book.., p.34
The Treasure of Ocean Parkway, page 34
Also by Sarvenaz Tash
The Queen of Ocean Parkway
A Borzoi Book published by Alfred A. Knopf
An imprint of Random House Children’s Books
A division of Penguin Random House LLC
1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
penguinrandomhouse.com
rhcbooks.com
Text copyright © 2025 by Sarvenaz Tash
Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2025 by Ericka Lugo
Penguin Random House values and supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader. Please note that no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Editor: Katherine Harrison
Designer: Carol Ly, adapted for ebook
Production Editor: Melinda Ackell
Managing Editor: Jake Eldred
Production Manager: Natalia Dextre
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Tash, Sarvenaz, author.
Title: The treasure of Ocean Parkway / Sarvenaz Tash.
Description: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2025. | Audience term: Preteens | Audience: Ages 8–12 | Summary: “Two podcasting sleuths help their neighbor solve a cold case—one that is literally etched into the walls of their Brooklyn apartment building” —Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2025005624 (print) | LCCN 2025005625 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-593-80982-2 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-0-593-80983-9 (library binding) | ISBN 978-0-593-80984-6 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Apartment houses—Fiction. | Podcasts—Fiction. | Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. | Mystery and detective stories. | LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction | Novels.
Classification: LCC PZ7.T2111324 Tr 2025 (print) | LCC PZ7.T2111324 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23/eng/20250320
Ebook ISBN 9780593809846
The authorized representative in the EU for product safety and compliance is Penguin Random House Ireland, Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin D02 YH68, Ireland, https://eu-contact.penguin.ie.
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
ep_prh_7.3_153773066_c0_r0
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1: Opportunity Knocks
Chapter 2: A Door Opens
Chapter 3: Home Is Where the Sleuths Are
Chapter 4: Inky Dreams
Chapter 5: Where Mice May Go
Chapter 6: Luck at the Library
Chapter 7: June Light
Chapter 8: Grief Is a Knife
Chapter 9: 42
Chapter 10: A Clue up High
Chapter 11: A Blooming Riddle
Chapter 12: The Hidden Artist
Chapter 13: Down One Avenue
Chapter 14: The Sister of the Queen
Chapter 15: The Scene of the Time
Chapter 16: Subway Safari
Chapter 17: Unpleasant Heights
Chapter 18: Richest Treasure
Chapter 19: Danger Den
Chapter 20: Family Feud
Chapter 21: Database Discoveries
Chapter 22: The Marvelous Petrovs
Chapter 23: An Old Friend
Chapter 24: Checking Out
Chapter 25: Lost in Translation
Chapter 26: Sunday Surprises
Chapter 27: The Enchantment of Memory
Chapter 28: An Origin Story
Chapter 29: Pieces into Place
Chapter 30: Lost and Found
Chapter 31: Past, Present, Future
Chapter 32: The Lambert Legacy
Acknowledgments
About the Author
_153773066_
To my aunt Haideh, who taught me the value of curiosity; my aunt Hengameh, who cultivated my love of art;
and my grandfather Esmaeel, who always saved me the seat next to his. I will never stop telling stories about you.
1
Opportunity Knocks
“And so the mysterious tapping on the air conditioner was none other than Bessie, the escaped owl from the Prospect Park Zoo. She still roams the night, protecting Brooklyn from street rats,” Roya’s voice wafted from her tablet’s tinny speaker.
“A true superhero,” added Amin as the podcast’s theme song swelled behind him. They’d plunked out the tune on a toy keyboard they’d rescued from their apartment building’s “free stuff” shelves.
Roya pressed stop. It was the final listen before they posted the edited episode. “Good to go,” she said, and Amin nodded. They hit the button and watched it upload.
Their podcast, QOOP—short for the Queen of Ocean Parkway, the nickname for the building they lived in—had seen an uptick in listeners over the past couple of months. They were now up to almost 500 subscribers, and not all of them were, as they used to be, from Denmark. Roya suspected it was because the quality of the show had improved so much with Amin as a cohost.
But it wasn’t just the show that had benefited from Amin’s presence. In the past year, Roya’s whole life had felt sunnier and more exciting with a friend like him in her corner, especially after a particularly terrible winter. And then two months ago, Amin had gotten accepted to Roya’s middle school, not necessarily a guarantee in the New York City lottery system, and they’d been elated. The future finally looked bright again.
Well…as long as she kept herself good and busy. “Let’s see what stories we can find for next season,” she said as she opened a new tab on her browser.
“Okay,” Amin said, opening his own laptop.
This is what Roya loved about him. He didn’t question whether they should take a break or go enjoy the summer sunshine. Besides, if there was research involved, Roya knew there wasn’t anything else he’d rather be doing anyway.
“I’ll take the Kensington and Windsor Terrace news and you try Park Slope?” Roya asked.
“Got it,” Amin said, and they both navigated over to the respective news boards about their local neighborhoods.
It was the second week of summer vacation. It had taken Roya some time to convince her mom, Aty, not to send her to camp this year so that she could devote the summer to developing a new season of her podcast with Amin. Their first full season told the fantastical story of a Coney Island fortune-telling machine that was really a time-travel portal. But the secret was that it wasn’t a fantasy at all: Amin and Roya had actually used the portal last summer to travel back in time and save their neighbor Katya from getting stuck in the past. They were the only ones who knew the portal was real—aside from Roya’s dad. Except that Baba wasn’t around anymore. When he passed away in January, Roya and Amin had taken an indefinite hiatus from the podcast.
Then, in May, Amin had approached Roya with a small mystery: several witnesses had reported seeing a flock of chickens parading down the streets of Brooklyn. It was the first thing that had even remotely piqued Roya’s curiosity after losing Baba, so her mom encouraged her to explore it. That eventually turned into a three-episode mini-arc. Since then, they’d also covered a flowering bush that had grown seemingly overnight at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and their most recent mini-arc about the haunted air conditioner.
Now Roya was ready for a new story, preferably one that was complex enough to warrant a longer season. This was how she kept her grief at bay: staying busy in a way that allowed her to keep asking questions—questions that unlike “Why did Baba have to die?” had satisfying answers.
“How about ‘Mysterious Smell Coming from Subway Grates Baffles Locals,’ ” Amin read off his laptop. “What do you think?”
“Maybe,” Roya responded. “Though…what kind of smell?”
Amin skimmed the article. “Apparently, different people think it smells like different things. Someone said burnt marshmallows; another said it’s the scent of their childhood Cabbage Patch Kid doll. And one person said it smells exactly like the Eiffel Tower in the rain.”
“That’s oddly specific. But not gross,” Roya said. “I’m interested. Let me see the article.”
Amin scooted the laptop across the dining table, and Roya started reading.
“Ooh. It’s got some names of people we can talk to,” she said.
“And it’s at Fourth Avenue and Garfield Place, so it’s close. We could probably even head over there today,” Amin added. “We have some time before the trial run.”
“Actually, that would be perfect,” Roya said with a sly grin.
“Oh?” Amin asked, eyebrows raised. “So, the R?” He pointed to his shirt, which had the yellow R train logo on it.
“And that’s the only hint you’re g etting,” Roya responded with a wink.
“I knew it was going to be a lucky day,” Amin replied. Any day he was wearing the shirt of the subway line he got to ride he thought of as a lucky day.
In just a few weeks Amin would be competing in the Great New York City Subway Safari, a contest that had kids putting their knowledge of the city’s subway system to the test to see who could navigate it best. The contestants had a set starting point and ending point, but they would be given a surprise list of ten stations that they had to hit along the way. Whoever did it the fastest would be the winner, with a grand prize of a thousand-dollar scholarship, a whole lot of swag from the Transit Museum, and the honor of getting to record an official subway announcement. Amin’s almost encyclopedic knowledge of the subways made him a shoo-in, as evidenced by the fact that he had easily won his quarterfinal and semifinal rounds. But now that the final was close, he had asked Roya to assign him mock runs so that he could practice under “close-to-competition” parameters.
“I’m just going to double-check with my dad that it’s okay for us to head out a little earlier,” Amin said.
Roya nodded. Mr. and Mrs. Lahiri had gotten more used to the idea of Amin and Roya taking the subway by themselves, but they still wanted Amin to ask for permission every time. Roya had made peace with that. Besides, the Lahiris’ restaurant, Taste of Bangla, was on the way to the subway, so they would likely get snacks for the trip. It was a win-win.
Roya put away her recorder, tablet, and notebook in her backpack. As she opened the door to her apartment, she was startled. Because there was already someone standing there, just about to knock.
It was Thea Lim-Lambert, the twelve-year-old girl from apartment 4J. She was taller than Roya, with long, curly light brown hair that almost reached her waist. Even though she and Roya were the same age, they hadn’t interacted much, which made it extra-unusual when Thea suddenly burst out, “I was hoping you’d be here!”
Roya blinked. She’d never been sure that Thea even knew who she was, even though being the super’s kid meant she was familiar to most of the building’s tenants. But that was nothing compared to the shock of hearing what came out of Thea’s mouth next.
“I need your help,” Thea said, and then, seeing Amin behind Roya, she added, “Both of you. I’ve got one heck of a mystery for your podcast.”
2
A Door Opens
“You listen to our podcast?” Amin asked blankly.
You know who we are? Roya wanted to ask, but she knew that wouldn’t come across as cool and collected as she wanted it to in this moment.
Because that was the thing with Thea. She—and her older sister, Sunday—had always seemed just a tiny bit out of reach, even for someone as confident and sure of herself as Roya. It wasn’t just that Thea was a couple of months older and that Sunday was now a freshman in college, it was that they seemed to belong to a different world. Roya knew their parents were both artists of some kind and Thea was homeschooled—only she wasn’t often home at all. For most of the year, the Lim-Lamberts were traveling, which Roya knew only because they’d often forget to have the post office hold their mail, so she and Aty would have to clear the piles of envelopes overflowing from their mailbox and keep them until they returned.
“I don’t know exactly why my podcast app recommended it to me. Maybe geolocation?” Thea said. “But I found it a couple of months ago and binged all the episodes. It’s great.”
“Thanks,” Roya said, her face flushing with pleasure. She had kept a previous iteration of her podcast anonymous, but unlike that one, this new series with Amin didn’t spill the tea on a whole bunch of the Queen’s tenants. And by “previous iteration,” she meant in a whole different timeline that, technically, didn’t exist for anyone who hadn’t time-traveled the way that she and Amin had.
“Want to come to my apartment?” Thea asked. The dozen colorful beaded bracelets on her wrist tinkled pleasantly as she gestured with her hands. They went well with her hip, colorful clothing, which was definitely from some other, more exotic country. “It’s probably better if I show you the secret room we found.”
“Secret room?” Roya asked. “Yes, please!”
* * *
—
The elevator was taking too long, so they took the stairs, passing the familiar BunnytheBunny graffiti that was in the stairwell between the third and fourth floors. Roya had a habit of tapping it whenever she walked by.
“So, there’s one thing that I might sorta need you to keep secret from your mom,” Thea said to Roya. “Can you do that?”
“Probably,” Roya replied. “Unless it’s something really dangerous to the rest of the tenants or something.” Aty was the building’s super, and Roya was her unofficial assistant, meaning she trusted Roya to be able to filter through what she really needed to know.
“It’s not dangerous,” Thea said. “But, well, we did do something to the apartment.”
Thea opened the door to 4J, and Roya’s jaw dropped.
She stepped into a wide-open space. It was wall-to-wall with canvases showcasing bright splashes of paint over intricate word collages. The intense July sunshine streamed into the corner apartment, casting interesting lines and shadows on the paintings. The effect was that the whole place looked like an airy, fancy art gallery rather than an apartment.
Roya spun around in awe before realizing something. “Wait…Isn’t this one of the three-bedroom apartments?”
Thea nodded. “Yeaaah. So…my parents knocked down a few walls. That’s the part I was hoping you wouldn’t tell your mom about. I mean, I told my parents that she’s going to find out eventually. But then again, if my family never moves out, maybe not.”
“The Wacky Thwackers!” Amin said.
“Right!” Roya said, remembering that’s what she’d called the 4J tenants in the old version of her podcast, while wondering about the mysterious hammering that often came from their apartment at odd hours of the night.
“The what?” Thea asked.
“Never mind,” Roya said. That episode of her podcast only existed on her tablet now; it had never been posted. “So, where’s this secret room?”
“This way.” Thea led them through the giant art-gallery-esque room and past an alcove that housed a queen-size bed. Evidently, Thea’s parents slept there. They went down a narrow hallway, at the end of which was the one small bedroom that remained.
This room was colorful too, though in a different, messier way. Along with some paintings, there were band and travel posters on the walls, their edges frayed from being taped up. A large desk was brimming over with papers, and notebooks were piled high on a laptop; a potted cactus occupied the only clear space. Clothes spilled out of a hamper in the corner, and neither of the bunk beds was made.
Thea led them to a small closet at the back of the room. She opened it up to reveal a ton of clothes tightly packed into the space. She lifted a bunch of the hangers out and dumped them on the lower bunk.
As more clothes disappeared, Roya and Amin saw that there was a large, neat hole in the closet’s back wall.
Nestled inside of it was a smaller, wooden door. It was beautifully carved with intricate flowers, all seeming to swirl and lead the eye to a delicate brass handle. The same floral flourishes were worked into the metal of the brass. It was the kind of door that just begged to be reached for and opened, a fairy door.
“Wow,” Amin said, stretching out his fingers instinctively but then stopping short of touching the handle.
“It’s okay,” Thea said. “You can open it.”
