Thanks For Your Help

Going to the beach has always been a customary vacation for my family, and until about 3:00 p.m., the vacation was going as planned.

It was around that time that I saw a suspicious, small, black notebook wash up in the ocean. At first, I had ignored it, though over time my curiosity got the best of me. My family was the only one at the beach, aside from another family about half a mile away from us – we were the only ones that didn’t mind the chill of the afternoon, I suppose. All of this to say, it gave me a chance to hoist my curiosity upon a pedestal of its own and go down to the ocean to pick up this black book. As far as I knew, I was the only one who had noticed it – was I the only one who could see it? Even as I held it up, something that should have been quite noticeable even from a distance, my parents assumed I was only waving at them, and returned with a wave – neither of them, nor any members of the other family, came rushing down to investigate this notebook further with me.

It felt as if I was… chosen for this book, or something. I was surprised at how dry the book had felt after its oceanic venture. The closest mass of land was an island, barely visible to the naked eye from where I was standing, so it was obvious that this book had traveled a long distance.

I was hesitant at first to even attempt opening the book – what secrets would be held inside? What if this wasn’t really meant for me? Should I really delve into the secrets of whoever this belongs to? All of these thoughts rushed into my head, which surprised me. I was a fairly normal kid, never prone to anxiety, let alone of this caliber – a trembling sensation shook through my body, but again, no one seemed to really notice or care.

At first, I thought I was dying, and my brain was having this “oh fuck” moment because it was ceasing to function. It felt like hours of standing there, holding this black book in my hands, as I started coming back to my senses. Freezing this anxiety for a moment, I gathered the courage to open up the book. I was again surprised to find out that the pages were in nearly pristine condition – paper and water normally don’t mix so well. I don’t know how much NeverWet this guy had, but it was enough to keep this perfectly intact, if nothing else. Flipping through it, only the first page was occupied by writing in bold, black ink, almost a quill-like quality. It read:

I really hope this book finds the right person. The job is done, and I have made sure your cut is stashed in a secure location. It is buried in the backyard of 32 Cherrytree Road, in Sussex, by the top-right corner of the fence. Thanks for your help.

It is only possible to assume that these poor blokes had robbed a bank. One quite bizarre fact about this was that the address he had written down was mine. The house that I have grown up in for the past seventeen years of my life has secretly had a mound of cash buried underneath it. We have since gotten rid of that fence, however I still remember where it was and what the dimensions were – and if the cash was still there, I was going to get it.

In a bout of perfect timing, my parents called down to me and began to usher me back up, as it was time for us to leave. Little had I known that I stood there for an hour – I had thought it was much longer, to be honest. I simply nodded, holding the book in my right hand, down by my thigh. Having walked up to them holding the book, I confirmed my suspicion that I was the only one that could see the book at all. If you had asked me at this point, I would have told you I was dreaming, that there was no way this could be real.

The car ride was mostly uneventful – my family was not concerned about why I had spent so much time by the ocean, which concerned me slightly, but I supposed I could let it go. When we got home, I set the book down on the windowsill in my bedroom, did some homework, and promptly went to bed soon after.

The next morning, I woke up and had breakfast. It was a weekend, which gave me plenty of free time. I had confirmed that the events of the previous day were not a dream when I could still see the black book in the windowsill. I waited anxiously for my parents to leave for work, and once they did, I went right outside and started digging.

I was about three feet down when I noticed a shade of brown much brighter and shinier than the dirt I had been digging up.

Was this it? The suitcase containing the “cut”? Anxiously, I dug a wider hole, before pulling the suitcase out. It was thick, and covered in grime, having been buried for who knows how long. I slung it upward onto the surface, slowly putting the dirt back into the hole and patting it down to avoid suspicion.

I brought the suitcase in, throwing it onto my bed and immediately opening it.

I couldn’t believe it.

Multiple piles of $20 bills. A handwritten note, whose handwriting matched the one in the black book, said:

Here’s your $20,000. Enjoy it.

I was in shock. I thought this had been one of many attempts at the hands of my friends to mess with me again, but the reality of it all started kicking in and I found it quite hard to process. I had to hide this. My parents couldn’t know – as it were, I didn’t know about it until yesterday. I couldn’t bring myself to put it back into the hole I’d dug it from – I knew I would forget about it then, even if the book was to remind me.

Under my bed would be much too obvious, and this was way too much cash to put into a slit in the mattress…

To be honest, I’m not sure my parents would even overtly freak out over this, but this is the first thing that’s really mine. They wouldn’t believe anything I could conjure up, anyway – I was the only one who could see the book, after all.

I was too young to have my own bank account, so my parents would be suspicious of a sudden $20,000 deposit.

That left me with spending it all, but that was something I didn’t want to do.

In the suitcase was also an itinerary to a flight to a Croatia that was still in date. I figured I could use that.

And so to Croatia, I went.