Kayla Froese

The Price to Pay

It all started with a little black notebook. Covered with a leather exterior that resembled the smell of a brand new car. Laying on the store shelves waiting to be bought by a journalist or maybe a poet that has been searching for their new muse. Any person who was to grab that little black notebook had no idea what was to be of their old life after purchasing it. So as the notebook sat there on the shelf, collecting dust and getting dodged by every other customer coming through the story, there stood Emily. Emily was an employee at the bookstore, only working part-time as she aspires to be an author some day. She only took this job so she could gather enough money to find a publisher to publish her very own book she had been working on for years. Though she had hit a roadblock in her writing and could not find an ending to her novel, writer's block they call it. Emily knew she had to do something about her writer's block but had no solution or hope. One day after the book store closed, Emily stayed back to empty the shelves to make room for new inventory. As she was clearing the journal/notebook section, the whole store started shaking, books were falling off the shelves and the alarms were set off. It was an earthquake, they are actually pretty common in the state of California but normally you barely feel them. This earthquake however, was only an M4 so it did not cause too much damage to the state. Though it did fright Emily and her fellow co-workers, and it made the inventory process twice as long. As Emily was picking up the fallen notebooks, she noticed a black leather notebook laying open with the number $20, 000 written across the pages in bold font. Confused, Emily attempted to cautiously pick up the notebook only to pass right through the book like it was thin air. Instead, she came out holding a wad of cash that counted $20, 000. "This can't be real", Emily whispered to herself. She had no idea how this was even possible, she didn't know what to do. "I need to turn this in", she thought, "but if I do they'll ask me where I got it and then I'll be brought in to questioning, and I can't do that!", she debated. Puzzled, Emily decided to put the cash in her book bag, along with the notebook. She hurried home and in hopes to find some answers to this out of the world mystery. Emily dumped the money onto her kitchen table and found that it had doubled the amount since leaving the bookstore. She now had $20, 000, Emily felt bad, she felt as though she had stolen this money from someone she doesn't even know. The guilt was swallowing her as she contemplated what to do with the cash she has come into contact with. She spent all night searching for any clue to where this money could have come from but couldn't find anything even closely relating to her situation. As she was doing so from her living room sofa, she saw a glowing light coming from the kitchen. "Oh great, what is it now?!", exhausted, Emily hesitantly made her way into the kitchen to see the notebook wide open with it's pages flipping back and forth while shining this bright beam of light from the pages. She went to go close it only to see a faint memory of herself in the last previous months. "I'm sorry but we aren't able to help you." a secretary of a publishing office spoke to Emily. "But you don't understand, I've worked so hard on this, you, you can't just turn me away!" Emily cried, "I'm sorry but we aren't able to publish an author that doesn't have an agent to represent them.", said the secretary. "I have never even heard of that ridiculous rule!", Emily cried but fading away. Back to reality, Emily slammed the little black notebook shut in disbelief. "It...it...it can't be...a...a...a notebook giving me the chance to finally get what I want!", screamed Emily. She immediately started writing her last chapter, "Finally," she thought, "finally I have the material to finish my novel!". Emily spent sleepless nights working on finding the perfect words to go into her final chapter. Hours turned into days turned into weeks, she didn't stop working until it was done, "Perfect!!", she yelled in relief. Emily finally finished her novel, though what she did not know was that the $20, 000 that came from the little black notebook was not simply just given to her. What Emily did not know was that she would have to give up her recognition of being the author of what would be soon the #1 selling book in America. To be continued…