Help Wanted

The toast popped up with a squeak. Riley grabbed the piece and dropped it onto her plate. Her brother, Sid, was already sitting at the table eating his breakfast of stale cornflakes with the last of the almost expired watered-down milk.

She sat across from him and clicked her pen as she scanned the newspaper classifieds.

“See anything good?” Sid asked with a mouth full of cereal.

“Oh yeah, I can apply for this paralegal job as soon as I complete four years of college.”

“Really?”

“No, silly. We don’t have four years. We have six months.”

Six months before the last of the money their parents left to them ran out.

“What are we going to do then? Will we have to move?” he asked.

No matter how often Sid asked that question, Riley could never bring herself to answer it. If she couldn’t find a job in the next six months, they would be kicked out of their apartment. That was if Sid didn’t get taken away from her before then.

She’d been looking for work for the better part of a year, but no one was hiring. Or maybe no one wanted to hire her.

“How are your shoes?” Riley asked.

“Fine.” Sid’s ears went red.

She left her half-eaten toast and walked the three paces to the door where they kept their only two pairs of shoes. Just as she had suspected, there were holes forming in the toe of both of his shoes. That’s what happens when a boy hits puberty: he grows crazy fast. She got these sneakers for him five months ago, and she made sure to buy them a couple sizes up in anticipation of him growing out of them.

“You’re coming with me today and we’re getting you new shoes.”

“You mean old shoes?” he muttered.

She dropped the shoes next to the door. “What did you say?”

He got up from the table and put his bowl and spoon in the tiny sink.

“Sid, you know we can’t afford brand new stuff.”

“I know.”

“Is that kid still giving you a hard time?”

He didn’t say anything.

She had gotten more than one call about it.

“Okay, well, brush your teeth and get ready to go in five minutes, okay?”

He sat on the edge of his cot in the corner of the room. “I’m sorry I said that, Riley.”

She shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. We’re both doing our best and that’s all we can ever do.”

Seven minutes later they were out the door and locking it behind them when their neighbour Mrs. Tambor came down the hall with her five children. They were fighting over a bag of grapes as their mom tried to unlock her door. She smiled at Riley and Sid.

If Riley was having a hard time feeding and clothing her brother, she couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for Mrs. Tambor. Mr. Tambor left them three months ago.

“Come on,” Riley said, taking Sid’s hand and walking down the hallway to the stairs.

Every couple of days for the past year and a half, she’d walked up and down the streets of their city looking for work. And every time she did, she was disappointed.

They were walking past a thrift store when Riley noticed a ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window.

The bell above the door frame rang when they entered the dimly lit store. White shelves piled with trinkets and picture frames and books and junk, filled almost the entirety of the store. The woman at the front counter glanced at Riley and Sid when they came in. Riley sent Sid off to look for some shoes and fingered the ten-dollar bill in her pocket.

“Good morning, I’m Riley.” She smiled and extended her hand but the lady just looked at it. Riley swallowed and continued her query, “I noticed you have a ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window.”

“That’s old.” The lady shuffled over and unceremoniously pulled the sign off the window.

Riley’s disappointment almost buckled her knees. “So you’re not hiring?”

The lady shook her head.

Riley nodded solemnly and went down one of the narrow aisles in search of Sid.

She found him trying on a pair of old leather tennis shoes near the back of the store that were much too big for him.

“There’s nothing here. Let’s go.” Riley pulled Sid up off the floor and turned towards the door.

“Did she hire you?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Sid tugged on her arm. “Look at this! It looks spooky.”

Riley turned to scowl at whatever it was that caught Sid’s eye and there on the shelf was a plain black notebook. The other books on the shelf had a decent layer of dust encrusting their covers, but not this book. It looked brand new. Sid picked it up off the shelf.

“Put it back, Sid.”

He opened the notebook and gasped.

Inside were five bills.

She took the money and counted twenty-five dollars. She could get Sid a new pair of shoes with this, but they needed food too.

Sid closed the book.

“Is there anything written in it?” Riley took the book from him and ran her hand gently over the soft leather cover before opening it again. She stopped herself from yelling.

Inside, where the twenty-five dollars had been, were five more bills.

She counted them. Seventy-five dollars.

She stared at her other hand, still clasping the original twenty-five dollars. She closed the book and Sid grabbed it and opened it again. More money.

Riley stuffed the money into her pocket and took the book to the lady at the front of the store.

“How much for this?” she asked as calmly as her racing heart would allow.

“Two dollars.”

Riley pulled a five-dollar bill out of her pocket and placed it on the counter. “Keep the change.”

Sid stumbled on the threshold on their way out of the store. “She just let us take it?”

“We didn’t take it. We bought it.”

Riley opened the book for the fourth time and found five hundred dollars inside.

“Holy crap!” Sid shouted.

“Watch your language… But I know what you mean.” Riley beamed down at him.

Riley took the money and practically skipped with Sid to the biggest department store in town. They stocked up on new clothes, shoes, coats, underwear, and socks. From there they went across the street to a grocery store and filled up a cart with food and other necessities. Riley called them a cab to take them home with their haul.

Once back in their little dustbin of an apartment, Riley and Sid cleaned. Everything. Cleaning supplies had been a luxury up until that morning and Riley was not going to look at the stains on the floor and in the bathtub for one more second.

At the end of the day, with their closets bursting, their cupboards overflowing, and their fridge chugging away, Sid asked a question, “What if it stops working?”

Riley reached over to where the book sat on the coffee table and opened it. Two hundred and fifty dollars. “Good question.”

“Are you still going to find a job?”

That had been part of her reasoning for buying the new clothes. She wanted to look more presentable to prospective employers. She knew the ratty polo shirt and frayed jeans she’d worn to the thrift store that morning probably played a part in the woman’s decision.

“Yeah, I am. The plan hasn’t changed,” she said.

Riley landed a job at a coffee shop two weeks later. She wasn’t quite working full time, but she was picking up extra shifts whenever she could.

She only opened the book once a day now, and whatever she found inside, she put directly into her savings account. She didn’t want to take more than she needed, but it’s hard when there’s a gold mine on your coffee table. Though money had been scarce for the past couple of years, she didn’t want the sudden wealth she had inexplicably stumbled upon to go to her head. Or Sid’s.

On her way to work one morning, she saw a homeless man sleeping under a storefront awning with a soggy paper cup in front of his face that held a couple of quarters. The next day, she brought the money she found in the book that morning and put it in his cup. She walked away feeling better than she had when she found the magic book in the first place. So she made it a habit. Every other day, she took the money from the book and gave it to someone in need. Whether it was a homeless person or a young mother, whoever Riley saw that looked like they could use a couple hundred dollars, or whatever it was that day, she gave it to them. Sometimes it was in the form of a sizable tip for a server, or sometimes it was to a non-profit organization in the community.

Riley knew what it was like to be in some of their shoes. Literally.

Sid was happy too. That’s all Riley wanted; for him to be happy and safe.

On her way to take the garbage out one afternoon, she ran into Mrs. Tambor.

“Hi dear, how are you? You look well.” Mrs. Tambor smiled.

“I am well, how are you? How’s your family?”

“Oh you know, the usual. Cory broke a tooth yesterday. Don’t know how I’m going to pay for that but I’m doing my best and that’s all we can ever do.”

Riley thought for a second. “I have an idea for how you can pay for it. Hang on.” Riley ran back into her apartment and came out holding a chunk of cash.

“Where on earth did you get that, child?” Mrs. Tambor exclaimed.

“Don’t worry about that. Take it.” It was a cool fifteen hundred dollars, the most she’d ever pulled out of the book at once.

Mrs. Tambor eyed her. “Are you doing something unsavoury?”

Riley laughed. “No, Mrs. Tambor, I’ve been saving it to give to someone who needs it. So I’m giving it to you.”

Mrs. Tambor blinked. “You’re serious?”

“Absolutely.”

“Oh, dear.” Mrs. Tambor tentatively took the money from Riley, and then pulled her into a crushing hug. “Thank you, sweetheart. Thank you.”

Riley did the math that night. She’d kept track of how much money she’d received from the book and the total neared twenty thousand dollars, most of which was in her savings account.

So she made a decision.

The next morning, she leaned the notebook up against Mrs. Tambor’s door and waited inside her own. Mrs. Tambor came out to take her dog out for a walk and Riley heard the notebook fall onto the carpet.

“What’s this?” Mrs. Tambor said to herself. “Oh, good heavens!”

Riley grinned. She had put a note on the book that said ‘open me a lot’.

“Oh, lord!” Mrs. Tambor cried again. She started sobbing softly and closed the door. By then, Riley could hear Mrs. Tambor’s kids clamouring around asking what was happening. Riley’s smile grew when the kids audibly caught on to what was happening.

“What’s going on?” Sid asked sleepily from his bed.

“I gave Mrs. Tambor the book.”

Sid gaped at her.

Riley shrugged. “She needs it more than we do.”

She’d bought him a pair of shoes in every size he would ever need. Besides that, she had a job now. They’d had the magic book for four months. It was time to give it to someone else. Riley just hoped it would be as beneficial for Mrs. Tambor and her children as it had been for herself and Sid.

Riley looked at the clock. If she didn’t get her act together soon she’d be late for work and Sid, for school.

“What’s for breakfast, Sid?”

“I don’t know. Do we have any cornflakes left?”

Riley smiled.