The Little Black Book

The Little Black Book

The Sudden Appearance of Food and Money

By Ladybug (Ronna M.W. Curtis)

One early spring day, two sisters walked along a path as they were on their way visiting a meadow. The sisters wanted to see if spring was on its way. During the late part of the fall, the winter storm forced the family to take refuge in a cave in the mountain. This mountains’ cave was big enough to drive their covered wagon and manage to survive the winters’ storm.

Marcella is the oldest sister, and she is fourteen years old. Gwendolyn is the younger of the two, and she is nine years old. Their mothers’ name is Jeanie, and their father is Marcello Hays.

Marcella and Gwen, Gwendolyn’s family, who calls her Gwen for short, walked on the trail, wondering why they were moving.

“Marcella,” said Gwen.

“Yes, Gwen. What is it?”

“Do you know why we are traveling?”

“To get to Papas’ new place of work.”

“It will be exciting to meet new people!”

While they were talking, they also walked along the trail; they glanced up and saw the hill, and the meadow was just beyond.

“Marcella, bet I can beat you to the meadow?”

“Eat my dust!”

The two girls ran until they saw the meadow.

“Wow!

“Yeah, you took the words right out of my mouth!” said Marcella.

The snow was completely gone from the meadow, and flowers were starting to bloom. Early flowers everywhere and birds were flying all around as if they were glad for warmer weather.

“We must see if the red bird is here!” said Marcella.

“Why?”

“Mother said that if we see a red bird, winter is over. If we don’t, then we are going to have more harsh winter weather.”

“Let’s split up and look!” said Gwen.

The two girls split up. Gwen went to the meadow’s right, and Marcello went to the left of the field.

Gwen walked until she came to an old log that looked as if it were once a part of a tree. She turned around to see where her sister is; she could barely see the top of her head bobbing up and down. Gwen turned back around and took a closer look at the log. It did not look right. She touched it but removed her hand quickly as if it were going to bite her. She walked all around the downed log until she came to one end. It looked as if something was sticking out of it. Gwen bent over to get a closer look. She was surprised when she saw a book lying there. She thought to herself,” Why is there a book laying in a log?” She looked in the log to make sure nothing was living in it and took the book out. Looking it over, it looked as if it had been lying there for a very long time because it had dirt and dust all over it. “How could this little black book survive out here in the elements like this?” She was puzzled that a book of any type would have been left behind as if it were unimportant! As well off as they were, they had a terrible time buying books; they were costly! Marcella yelled at her to come here as she found a red bird. Gwen placed the book in the smock’s pocket over her dress and took off running toward her sister.

“I am on my way!”

When Gwen arrived at her sisters’ location, she looked all around.

“Where is the red bird?”

“Look over there under the spruce tree!”

Gwen turned around and looked in the direction her sister was pointing, and there were two red birds. One was pecking the ground while the other one was picking up different leaves and sticks.

“Do you believe spring is here to stay?” said Gwen.

“ I hope so. I am getting tired of being cold all the time!”

“Well, let us go home and tell mother that we found a red bird!”

The girls ran as fast as they could to the cave. When they reached the cave, their mother was standing over the campfire stirring food in a pot. They both ran up to her and said at the same time.

“Mother, we found two red birds making nests!”

“That is wonderful news! Your father will want to pack so we can continue on our journey,” said Jeanie.

The two sisters raced around running in circles singing, “La La la, we are going to see our new home finally! Lalala!”

“Where is Father?” said Marcella.

“He is in the wagon making sure it is in good condition for the rest of the journey and checking on the horses. He wanted to make sure that they were well feed.”

Marcella thought to herself,” That is Father, always making sure everything is taking care of!” Marcella turns and walks in the wagon’s direction, and Gwen has a seat by the fire and takes out the book she found.

“What is that?” asked Jeanie.

“I found this while we were at the meadow today. It is a book with pages that have no writing in it.”

“Can I see the book, Gwen?”

Jeanie wipes her hands on her apron and takes the book that Gwen is handing to her. Jeanie opens up the book and flips through the pages. She closes the book, gives the front and back a good look, and looks at the spine.

“Wow! No name, no title, no authors’ name, and blank pages. I wonder why it was in the meadow?”

“That is not all, mother! I found it in a strange-looking log.”

Jeanie hands the book back to Gwen and gets bowels out to serve the rabbit stew. Gwen places the book back in her pocket and takes a bowl of stew from her mother when she hands it to her.

“Father and I were talking, and he said we would be leaving the day after tomorrow! Isn’t that exciting!” said Marcella.

“Yeah, let’s start packing!”

Gwen and Marcella run to the cave wall and start grabbing stuff from it. Their parents talk in detail about their trip.

"We will all pack for the trip the next day," said Marcello.

Marcella and Gwen come back to their parents and say together.

“We have packed all of our belongings!”

Jeanie looked at Marcella and Gwen and said,” That did not take long!”

“We did not unpack everything.”

The girls’ parents explain what will happen the next two days and after a lengthy conversation with their parents, Marcella and Gwen decide to go to bed. They say their goodnights to their parents, and they are off to bed.

“I think I will go to bed too; I have a long day tomorrow,” said Marcello, and with that, he went to bed, which left Jeanie staring at dirty dishes. She looks at the mess and lets out a sigh, then starts to work cleaning up the dirty dishes, and then she gets some much-needed rest.

The next day Gwen was the first to wake up; she went to her smock she had worn over her dress the day before and took out the little black book. Looking at it, she opened it up, started fumbling through the pages. Satisfied there were no words written in it anywhere, she turned to the very back of the book and noticed a small compartment. The compartment was long and had a flap folding over and pulling its self shut. Gwen looked at it with excitement, and she was terrified at the same time. She finally tore open the flap and noticed it tried to pull its self together again; with a slight tug, she was able to open it up, and looked inside, and saw a round object. Gwen touched it with amazement!

“Wow!” she thought as she looked at the long round object. She held it so tight in her hand that she dropped it. When it fell, the end that had a sharp-looking tip on it drew a line on the page; at that same time, she felt something out of the ordinary was in the room with her. When she looked up, she saw a line just like the one drawn in the book. It stayed in front of her, hovering above the ground at eye length, and stayed there. It did nothing else! She picked up the stick with the sharp end and looked at it with a surprised look. Gwen looked at the other end of the bar and saw a white but weird feeling surface on the other end. Gwen decided to use the other end of the stick to see what it would do. She picked it up and started rubbing that end of the stick to the line drawn by accident on the paper to see what it would do to the bar hovering at her eyes’ length. She watched the line at eye length as it started to disappear. “Oh, my, this is a writing stick!” she thought to herself.” She had an idea. “What if I drew a big breakfast on a dining room table?” She went over closer to the fire that was now smoldering as if it were about to go out. She started drawing the inside of the cave, and then she decided to draw the fire burning brightly and the table next to it, with food on the top of it, bacon, ham, eggs, toast, orange juice, jam, and fresh breakfast rolls. Gwen’s stomach started growling at the thought of having such a breakfast.

When Gwen finished drawing, she looked up and saw everything she had drawn. She took a deep breath as she could smell everything she had just drawn! Gwen wasted no time and sat down at the table to eat. Filling her plate up, she heard something moving around behind her; she turned around, and it was Marcella.

“Good morning!” said Gwen.

“Good morning! How did we get such wonderful food to eat?”

“Don’t ask, just sit down and enjoy!”

It was not long after that Jeanie got up and walked over to where Gwen and Marcella were eating.

“Where did you get all of this stuff? And where did the food come from?” said Jeanie.

“I don’t know. I got up, and it was here! Isn’t it wonderful!” said Marcella.

“I drew it in the book that has no written words, and it became real!”

“Well, I don’t want to be ungrateful so let’s eat!” said Jeanie.

A short time later, Marcello walked in and saw the table full of food.

“Don’t ask, just eat!” Jeanie stated.

After Gwen finished eating, she started looking through the little black book, and another compartment became visible. This time it was in the front part of the book. Gwen opened it up, and her family looked on with anticipation of what was in the compartment. When Gwen opened it up, she saw money inside an envelope. There was a note in it that reads:

To the new owner of this book,

My name is Thomas, and my date here is May 30, 2029. I am the former owner of this book. I can’t get this book to work properly; I have heard a rumor that there is $20.000 hidden within this book to the person who can get it to work. If you do, please share the money with me. I have listed my coordinates, and I will stay here until the day I die!

Sincerely,

Thomas E. Jamieson

“That is impossible! That would be in our future, let me see, about one hundred and thirteen years in our future! He must have made a mistake with his date.” Said Marcello.

Gwen took the money out of the envelope and found it was United States Currency.

“Let me see how much is there?” said Marcello.

Marcello spent some time counting.

“There is $20.000 here!”