by Terri Bertha
“We better think of something quick of how to get our sister back. You have to try to remember what you said. We need to reverse the spell.”
The boys went to the kitchen where their mom placed a bowl of water on the floor.
“Come on, girl, drink,” said their mom, nudging the small dog over to the bowl.
Lizzie looked down at her reflection in the stainless steel, and then back up at Mark, growling.
“Now, don’t be like that,” said their mom, scratching the dog’s ears. “Mark loves you. Don’t you, Mark?”
“Yes, I love this little puppy. Let’s go outside and play ball with her.”
The boys tired the dog, playing catch with her in the yard and chasing balls. Lizzie panted, her long tongue hanging from her mouth.
Chris said, “I have an idea. How about if we go back up into my room, and you put on the hat and cape, and we’ll try to recreate what you said and reverse the spell. Do you remember the words yet?”
“I remember it rhymed, and I used the word ‘poodle’ in it.”
“Okay. Let’s go and see if we can reverse this spell.”
Lizzie found a small stick she was having fun playing with, carrying it around in her mouth. After jumping into the small creek nearby to retrieve balls, her paws became muddy, and her fur was wet and matted. The boys carried her up into Chris’ room and wiped her off with a small towel from the linen closet.
“Put the hat and cape back on,” said Chris.
Mark slapped the magic hat on his head, and draped the cape around his shoulders.
“Now think. Try to get that feeling back you had when Lizzie said she was going to tell on you. Get mad like you did before.”
“I think I have it! It went like this, ‘Gazeeb, Gazab,…’”
“Wait! Stop!” yelled Chris. “Don’t say the same thing, or I’ll be turned into a poodle too! Just think the words in your head.”
“Okay,” said Mark. He stood there for a few moments, rolling his eyes around and nodding like he had a song in his head. Then he blurted out, “I have something! I have something to reverse the spell!”
“Okay. Let’s try it.”
Waving the wand it in front of the dog, Mark said in a loud, commanding voice, “Gazeeb, Gazab, Toozilee, Tizzie. Turn this dog, back to Lizzie.”
When the puff of smoke disappeared, Lizzie stood in front of them, with damp curly hair and a pink ribbon falling to one side of her head. Her face was muddy and she shivered in her wet clothes and shoes.
Their mom walked into the room. “Mark. Are you playing with that again? We told you it wasn’t yours.”
“It’s okay, Mom. I told him he could try it,” said Chris.
“Where’s the puppy?”
“Oh, we found the owner and took her back. They were happy to get her home and were worried about her.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. She seemed like such a sweet dog. I was kind of hoping we could have kept her. She would have made a nice pet.”
“It’s too bad you didn’t get to play with her, Lizzie. She was a sweetie. My gosh, child, you better get a bath before dinner. You look like you’ve been out in the rain playing in the mud all afternoon.”
Lizzie walked over to her mom, hugged her, and licked her twice on the cheek.
Chapter Four
Diminishing Returns
Paul and Lou decided they would go on their weekly Saturday afternoon bike ride to the park. The weather was unusually warm, and light sweat jackets and jeans would work for their outside clothing. After riding a few miles around town, they stopped at Mr. Jacob’s convenience store for cold drinks and continued their journey to the park. When they arrived, they parked their bikes in a more secluded spot that wasn’t filled with mothers, strollers and babies. They laid down in a grassy area under the warm sun.
“What a great day to ride,” said Paul.
“Yeah,” said Lou. “I feel like I could just lay here and sleep the rest of the afternoon. You wanna maybe go fishing or to the movies or something later?”
“I don’t know. Let’s see what we feel like and ‘play it by ear’. My dad always says that to my mom when she asks what he wants to do, or where they should go. He always says, “let’s play it by ear”. Then she gets mad because she likes to have everything planned out. So, ‘let’s play it by ear’”.
“It’s too nice of a day to sit inside a movie theater. Maybe we should go to the creek and fish a little.”
As the boys rose from the ground, Paul spied a black case underneath a park bench.
“Hey look. There’s a briefcase under that bench over there and no one’s around. Let’s take a look.”
“No way!” said Lou. “What if it has a bomb in it, or bloody body parts, or a gun?”
“You have some imagination. I’m going to check it out.”
“Knock yourself out. I’m not touching it.”
Bending down, Paul reached and eased the suitcase out from under the bench. “Wow, this seems kind of heavy. Wonder what’s in it?”
Kicking it softly with his tennis shoe, the boys watched in anticipation for any movement or sound coming from within. When nothing happened, Paul’s fingers gingerly touched the brass latches.
Click.
“You ready?” he asked Lou.
“Yeah. I hope something doesn’t jump out at us.”
Paul eased open the lid.
“Holy crap!”
“Holy crap!” repeated Lou. “Money.”
With opened mouths, the boys stared in disbelief at neatly packed stacks of bills.
“Are these all one thousand dollar bills?” asked Lou.
“I don’t know. Let’s take a look.” He picked up a stack and leafed through it with his fingers. Selecting a few more, they all appeared to be the same.
“Geez, Lou. There must be a thousand of them in here. How much would that be?”
“Don’t you know math by now? A thousand dollars times a thousand is... is…”
“Is what?”
“Is a million dollars! There must be at least a million bucks in here!”
Paul slammed the lid down on the black case. Running his fingers through his dark hair, and rubbing them up across his forehead, he lowered his voice saying, “Is anyone looking at us? How about phones? Are our pictures being taken by anyone? Don’t act suspicious.”
Lou glanced around and whispered, “I don’t think so. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. Let’s think about it for a few days. Come on, let’s go home. I’ll hide it in my room.”
“Shouldn’t we try to find the owner?”
“How are we going to do that? We can’t go around and ask people if they lost a case full of money. Maybe we can check the paper later, and see if there is anything in the ‘Lost and Found’.”
“What if it’s ransom money?” asked Lou. “Someone’s life could be at stake. What if someone dies? We could be the blame. Maybe it belongs to one of those big guys you see on TV that hurt people, and then bury them alive in a grave or grind them up at a sausage factory. We could end up like meatloaf!”
“You and your imagination.” Paul bit his lower lip. “Relax. Let’s play it cool for a couple of days. I’m sure we’ll find the owner. If worse comes to worse, we’ll contact the police.”
Loading the case into Paul’s backpack, the boys hurried back home.
Jumping off his bike, Paul put his forefinger to his lips.”Don’t tell anyone about this. I’ll talk to you later. I need to try to think about what we should do.”
In order to avoid talking to his mom, he bolted up the stairs to his room. Stuffing the case to the back of his closet, he threw clothes on top to conceal it. Picking up dirty clothes, Paul stuffed them in a hamper and tidied up his room. Any unneeded papers, cans, receipts were thrown in the garbage. He vacuumed and dusted so his mom wouldn’t have a reason to enter.
Laying down on the bed he started thinking about the money. Should we keep it or split it u
p with the rest of the gang? Should we tell our parents or go directly to the police? Maybe put it back where we found it? Are we going to be ground into meat loaf?
Paul and Lou ignored each other at school, afraid to speak about the money. After a couple of days without seeing anything in the paper, Lou said, “How about if we go back to the park and sit on the bench near where we found the case to see if anyone’s searching the area?”
“That’s a good idea. But, I was thinking about something. What if the money is fake? I was reading online about how to spot counterfeit bills. Let’s try to figure out if this is bogus before we go back.”
“Okay, let’s check it out.”
Paul dug the black case from the back of his closet and laid it on the bed. Snapping open the latches, he lifted the lid.”What the heck?”
Touching his fingers on the top stack of bills, he said, “What happened to the thousands? I don’t get it. We both saw one thousand dollar bills, didn’t we? Now they’re hundreds.”
Paul glared at his friend with narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows.
“Wait a minute,” said Lou. “You don’t think I changed them out, do you? First of all, I wouldn’t do such a thing. And second of all, I don’t have a stash of one hundred dollar bills to fill this case. Let’s see how much we have.”
“Maybe in the excitement of finding the money we thought we saw another zero,” said Paul, trying not to be accusatory to his friend.”We must have been confused. That’s okay. We still have a case of hundred dollar bills.”
Counting the money, the boys found they had a thousand one hundred dollar bills.
“One hundred thousand dollars is still a lot of money,” said Lou.
“It doesn’t look counterfeit. Let’s just split it up,” said Paul.
“No. We said we were going to go to the park to see if anyone showed up looking for it. Let’s go. If we don’t find anyone searching around, then we’ll split it up.”
Riding their bikes directly to the park, they barely spoke. Sitting on a bench in the same location where they found the money, they tried to act normal.
“Will you stop shaking your feet and legs like that?” said Paul. “You’re a nervous Nellie.”
“What’s a nervous Nell—”
“Shh...” whispered Paul. “Here comes someone.”
Approaching the boys was a disheveled man weaving back and forth towards them. Dirty knees poked through holes in his sweat pants, and his shoes were caked with mud. One shirt sleeve was ripped at the elbow, and his long gray hair and beard hadn’t seen a razor in weeks. He stopped where the boys were sitting. “Have you kids found a black case? Please, I need to find my case!”
Paul and Lou barely raised their eyes to the man. They sat rigid with their backs glued against the bench, tightlipped.
“Boys, did either of you find a black case here in the park?”
Lou responded. “Well, we just got here, and didn’t see anything. What was in your case?”
“I didn’t lose it today. I lost it days ago. It had all my precious money. I’ve been looking everywhere for it. I need it!”
“How much was in it?” asked Paul.
“It has everything I own! A million dollars! Have you seen it?”
Neither boy answered. It certainly couldn’t have belonged to this guy, plus it only has a hundred thousand dollars. My mom has donated better clothes. He looks like a man who hasn’t showered in weeks. With their hands tightly positioned under their legs, they didn’t dare budge, for fear of looking guilty.
“Sorry,” Lou gulped.”We haven’t seen it.”
“Good luck. Hope you find it,” said Paul.
Nervously, they stood, and mounting their bikes, rode like the wind to Paul’s.
“Come on. Let’s check and make sure we counted it correctly.
As they bolted up the stairs, Paul’s mom greeted them. “Hi, boys. You guys seem to be in a hurry. I made chocolate chip cookies. They’re on the kitchen counter if you want some.”
“We’ll get them in a minute, Mom,” said Paul. “Lou needs some cheat codes from my gaming magazine.”
“Oh, by the way, nice job cleaning your room. It makes me happy that I don’t need to go in and pick up clothes all the time. Try to keep it looking that nice.”
“Thanks!” and in two more steps he was at the top of the stairs.
Locking his bedroom door, Paul retrieved the case and placed it on the bed. Lifting the lid, the boy’s anticipation was immediately squelched.
“Not again,” said Lou, staring down at the open case. “How could we both make the same mistake of not knowing what kind of bills were in there? Now they’re all tens. It doesn’t look like anyone tampered with it.”
“Criminy,” said Paul. “According to my calculations, a thousand times ten dollars is now ten thousand dollars. No way could this have been the homeless guy’s case. There’s not enough money.”
“Since it’s not his, we should start spending it. How about if tomorrow we go to the mall and buy ourselves the new gaming consoles and the Kastle Kapture game that was just released. That will leave us plenty of money to split up afterwards.”
“Works for me.”
The next day, the boys decided to walk to the mall and avoid asking for rides from their parents. “Now is not the time to be answering questions about what we’re buying and where we got the money,” said Paul.
Holding the gaming consoles under their arms, along with the Kastle Kapture game, they waited patiently in the checkout line. The young clerk rang everything up and told them their grand total. She had a confused look when Paul set the case on the counter and opened it up. Paul and Lou’s mouth’s dropped open as the tens were now one dollar bills.
“There’s probably not even a hundred dollars left,” said Lou.
Knowing a hundred bucks couldn’t possibly pay for the gaming consoles and games, Paul said, “Sorry. We must have brought the wrong case.”
“Next time, bring your parent’s credit card instead,” said the clerk, laughing. “It would be easier than carrying around a black briefcase and it doesn’t look as suspicious.”
“This sucks,” said Lou, leaving the store dejected and dragging themselves back home. “It’s like we have nothing now. Maybe we should have tried to find the owner right away, instead of keeping it for ourselves. Or maybe the case did belong to that crazy old guy.”
On the way home, the boys sat down on the sidewalk outside of Mr. Jacob’s. “Was this a dream?” asked Paul.
Lou pinched Paul in the arm. “Ow! Why’d you do that?”
“To see if you were awake or dreaming,” said Lou, laughing. “We couldn't both have had the same dream. We know what we saw. Well, at least we have a hundred dollars to split. That should buy us something.”
“Do we really have a hundred bucks now?” said Paul. He opened the case. A single one dollar bill lay inside. “Just what I thought. We don’t have a hundred. We’re down to a single dollar.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I. It must have been a gag gift or it’s cursed. Either way, we’re going to get something out of this. Come on, let’s go inside and get us each a candy bar.”
Paul and Lou entered the store with downturned mouths and long faces.
“What can I do for you boys?” asked Mr. Jacob.
“Oh, we want to get a couple of candy bars,” said Lou.
“How about these ‘Gazillion Million Dollar’ bars? They have caramel, nuts, nougat and chocolate. All the kids seem to like them.”
“Okay,” said Lou, and he placed the dollar on the counter. “We’ll take two.”
Paul and Lou almost screamed when Mr. Jacob said, “That will be a dollar twenty-nine cents. Sorry, you don’t have enough money here.”
Chapter Five
Jacob’s Downfall
Mr. Jacob’s eyes twinkled. “Sorry, you don’t have enough money, but I’ll let you have two candy bars for a buck. You guys look like yo
u could use a treat.”
“Thanks!” said Paul. “We’ll bring in the twenty nine cents next time.”
On the way out the store, Lou said, “That Mr. Jacob is a really nice guy. He’s given lots of people stuff who are down on their luck. There should be more people like him.”
When Fred Jacob was closing the store that night, and counting his register, he noticed a unique feature on the dollar bill the boys had given him. At the top of the bill were the words ‘silver certificate’. Fred knew some currencies were special notes or limited prints. Taking a dollar out of his wallet, he replaced it with the one from the boys, making sure the register balanced for the day. Putting the silver certificate dollar into his back pocket, he made a mental note to do some research to find its actual worth.
The next morning, Fred got up early and hummed a tune to himself as he shaved in the bathroom. Remembering the dollar in his pocket, he decided to stop at the coin shop before opening his store. His research had shown that collectors will pay more than the actual denomination, depending on the condition of the bill. After visiting the shop, Fred was more than happy with the twenty dollars he had received for the rare dollar bill.
Once back in the store, Fred went about his business and thought he made a good deal on the dollar. People were buzzing in and out during the busy morning, selecting items they needed for the day like milk, bread, and snacks.
Fred was proud of his store. It had been handed down to him from his father and grandfather. He never turned anyone away because they were short on money and always gave extra when measuring something out. IOU’s were forgotten.
People respected him and perceived him an honest and hardworking man. At least once every few weeks, Fred delivered boxes of canned goods to the food bank. Laura, who was in charge of the bank was always grateful. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Jacob. We appreciate your generosity and don’t know what we would do without you. You really make a difference in people’s lives.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad I’m able to help those who are less fortunate.”