The Ripped Notebook

It’s your average Monday morning in the Johnson household with her best friend. They get on with their day as usual by eating breakfast and cleaning up. Then, they drive off to work at 8 am and nothing unusual usually happens in the quiet country town of Deer Hills until tonight. Mary and Chloe get home from work around 3 in the afternoon. As soon as they get home from work, they sit down on the couch and watch tv together. The show they’re watching is called, “Murder Mysteries,” which is not as creepy as it sounds. They’re invested in the show, and then Chloe says: “Oooh, that’s creepy. Let’s watch more,” with excitement in her eyes. “In a minute. I have to go down to the basement for something.” Mary says. “Do you want me to come with?” Chloe asks. “No, I’ll be okay, but thanks anyway.” Mary replies calmly. “Good, ‘cause your basement creeps me out anyways,” Chloe retorts. “Oh, come on, you know it’s not that scary,” Mary says while rolling her eyes. Then, Mary walks down to her basement around 6 pm to grab some extra food out of the fridge that’s down there, but as soon as she turned on the light, she screams because she finds something that was never there before. As soon as Chloe heard her scream, she sprints down to the basement and asks frantically, “What’s wrong?!” Mary shouts, “Look!” while pointing at the ripped little black notebook. As soon as Chloe sees the notebook, she freezes in fear. Mary looks at her while waving her hand in front of her face asking, “Chloe are you okay?” Chloe snaps out of her trance and answers, “Ya, I’m f-f-fine,” as she stutters her words a bit. “How about you go on upstairs and I’ll figure this out, okay?” Mary tells her. “Wait, what?! Are you crazy?!” Chloe shouts. “Crazy about what?” Mary asks confused. “You’re really going to investigate that ripped notebook without even knowing who it’s from nor where it came from?” Chloe asks. “Ya, why?” Mary answers. “You crazy,” Chloe tells her and then sprints back upstairs.

Now, Mary picks up the ripped notebook and brings it upstairs with her. She sets it on the table and attempts to put it back together. “I can’t believe you’re doing this, but let me help you,” Chole tells Mary. “You sure you’re up for the challenge after getting freaked out?” Mary asks her. “Yes,” Chole answers rolling her eyes. “And on top of that, you know how good I am with puzzles anyways,” Chole reminds Mary. The entire notebook is ripped in half and the pages are intact, but they’re all out of order. So, the girls spend over half an hour trying to put it together and figure out what it could be. Chloe finally puts two pieces that go together and the first section of it is tunnels that just so happen to be located in Mary’s basement. Once the girls come to the realization of what the first two pages are, they both shout, “What?!” “Since when do I have tunnels in my basement?!” Mary asks curiously and excitedly. “You’re not about to do what I think you’re about to do, are you?” Chloe asks her. “You know me,” and then Mary starts sprinting towards the basement until she hears, “Wait! Let’s finish putting this together first before exploring your mysterious tunnels!” Chloe yells. “Fine,” Mary answers disappointedly. These two best friends attempt to figure out how to put the rest of the book together for another thirty minutes or so, but nothing’s coming up. Then, Chloe looks up at the clock and says, “Dang! It’s already 11!” “Holy moly, we’re so focused on this now that we forgot about our show. But let’s continue this puzzle in the morning.” Mary tells Chloe. “Okay,” Chloe says and then the two girls head on up to bed.

*Next morning.

“Wake up sleepy head!” Mary shouts at Chloe while shaking her. “What, what time is it and why you so perky?” she asks sleepily. “It’s almost 10!” Mary answers excitedly. “What?! Why didn’t you wake me sooner?! We’re late for work!” Chloe freaks out. Then, Mary gives her a devious look. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Chloe asks worriedly. “Because I got us the day off work today and that’s why I’m so perky!” “How?!” our boss never lets us take a day off!” Chloe says with emphasis. “Don’t worry about that. Let’s just continue our investigation!” Mary says excitedly. Chloe rolls her eyes and is like: “Oh brother, not this again.” “Don’t being rolling your eyes at me. You know you had fun yesterday, but you’re just too chicken to admit it.” Mary says wittingly looking into Chloe’s eyes. She rolls her eyes again like “lovely,” and says, “Fine.” “Yay!” Mary says excitedly sprinting down the stairs being too excited to eat and continues the investigation. Chloe comes down about five minutes later and says, “Come on, let’s eat some breakfast first before you go hungry.” “Fine,” Mary says while being jittery and too excited. Chloe looks at Mary and says, “Calm down.” “I can’t! I’m too excited for this and I’m too excited to eat!” twirling while grabbing a box of cereal. “I’ve seen you excited before, but never like this.” Chloe remarks. “Since when do we ever get to solve a real mystery?” Mary asks with liveliness in her eyes. Chloe just smiles at her best friend because she’s never seen her so excited about anything before. After they ate their breakfast, the girls’ cleared their dishes and continued with the investigation.

Now, the girls’ go back to their ripped notebook and continue on with their investigation. They’re both thumbing through the pages trying to figure out which two pages go together. About 30 minutes later, Mary notices a page on Chloe’s side that might match hers where she gets excited and asks: “Chloe could these two pages possibly go together?!” Chloe triple checks both pages among the other pages spread out on hers and Mary’s side and shouts, “Yes, they do go together!” So the two girls’ put the two pages together and try to figure out what it is. It took them about 15 minutes or so to finally figure out what it is when Mary asked this: “Does it have to be decoded?” “You’re a genius!” Chloe shouts. Mary looks at her confusedly. Chloe answers, “You do have to decode it because it’s a hidden treasure map for an antique jewelry box located throughout the tunnels from your basement.” Mary smiles with the upmost perkiness. Then, they got back to putting together the other 4 pages they have left in total. So each girl has two pages each left on their sides. These two girls are so confused because as they both attempt to put two sheets together, nothing works until Mary suggests, “Let’s combine all four of our pages.” “Okay,” Chloe answers rolling with it. Once they discovered what they found, they were in complete and utter shock.

In addition to the above, the four-sheet map shows what each tunnel leads to including the one with the antique jewelry box. There are six tunnels located within the big map that lead to different places throughout their town. Then, Mary gives Chloe an excitedly mischievous look. “You really want to go explore those tunnels, don’t you?” Chloe asks her. “Yes!!” Mary screams with amusement in her eyes darting for the basement until this, “Wait?! We don’t even know where they’re even located in your basement!” Chloe yells. “Bring the maps with you and let’s go!” Mary shouts while darting down the basement stairs. Chloe grabs all the maps and runs down the basement stairs to meet Mary down there. They look over the map and it shows a button under the desk, so both girls crawl under the desk to see if they can find the camouflaged button. Then, one of them feels a small bump in the wall and smacks it where a door opens. Both girls’ start screaming like crazy since they thought they were going to go straight through a trap door. It took them ten seconds going down the slide to the bottom.

Subsequently, once they hit the bottom, they were cracking up and shouted: “That was awesome!” while laughing even more. They look at the map they have and explore the first tunnel. They happen to find a secret door not shown on the map inside the first tunnel. They choose to open it and it lead to an ice cream shop. Next, after returning from the first tunnel, they went to explore the second one. That tunnel lead directly to a bike shop as if nothing happened and Mary says, “I’m coming back here later.” Next, they go back to explore the third tunnel which happens to lead to a trampoline park. Both girls’ are so excited about that they go run and jump on the trampolines for about five minutes. “Let’s not get side-tracked!” Chloe shouts while running back to the tunnels. “Okay! Wait for me!” Mary shouts running after her. Now, they’re exploring the fourth tunnel. Chloe sees something shiny in the distance and asks, “What’s that?” Mary asks, “Where?” Then, Chloe points to the shining light. “Let’s go see!” Mary says running towards it. Chloe just rolls with it following behind. Mary starts digging around it and shouts with excitement, “It’s the jewelry box!” “Awesome! Let’s see what’s inside it!” Chloe yells with excitement. “Let’s wait until we get back to the house to open it.” Mary tells Chloe. “Oh fine, then let’s go explore that last two tunnels.” Chole says. “Okay!” Mary shouts with excitement while putting the jewelry box in her bag. Then, the girls explore the fifth tunnel and once they see where this one lead to, their jaws dropped because it lead to their local mall. “We’re definitely coming back here.” Chloe says with intensity in her eyes while looking at Mary. Now, the girls head back to explore the last tunnel which just so happens to be the sixth one. The sixth one just so happens to lead to their favorite coffee shop which is Energy Castle café. The two girls randomly pop in and sit there chatting for about twenty minutes or so. “We should probably head back now.” Chloe tells Mary. “Good idea, who knows how far we are from the house?” Mary questions.

After all the fun they had exploring the tunnels, it is now time for them to head home. It took them about ten to fifteen minutes to get home. Once they arrived back home, they were in the basement and darted upstairs to Mary’s room to see what’s inside the mysterious antique jewelry box. Mary opens it and asks, “What is this?” “It’s a small envelope with letters addressed to us.” Chloe answers. The girls’ read it where it’s not just from both their grandfather’s, but it’s also from both of their father’s as well. They open the box further and there’s a deeper compartment at the bottom of it and the girls are both amazed and shocked at what they found. At the bottom of that jewelry box happened to be cash that added up to $20,000 where both the grandfather’s and father’s did this on purpose for the girls because they knew they would end up living in the same home together.

In conclusion, not only were the girls ecstatic about receiving $20,000 from their father’s and grandfather’s, but they also had fun exploring the tunnels. Both girls’ also came to the realization that the men in their families once shared and lived in the same home they are currently living in.