Treasure Hunt

Maggy and Murphy had their noses pressed against the cold glass of the window overlooking their backyard. "Can we go outside yet?" shouted Murphy. His mother was downstairs washing dishes from their breakfast. Maggy had always been quiet and Murphy did most of the talking in the house. "In a minute!" replied Mother. As impatient as Murphy was, being inside the house waiting for the snow to stop for the last half hour was quite impressive. "Do you remember where the package is?" whispered Maggy to Murphy. "Under the trampoline dummy," Murphy replied, rolling his eyes. They were both greatly anticipating the moment mother released them into the wilderness of the backyard. They both had red down jackets on, black mittens, blue snow pants, green boots, and white beanies.

Maggy insisted they wear different color scarfs which Murphy begrudgingly accepted. His philosophy was since they were twins, they should dress exactly the same. Maggy wore a pink scarf while Murphy wore a yellow one. "Alright kids go out and play!" shouted Mother. Finally, the moment had come! Maggy and Murphy raced downstairs almost trampling their cat who was sleeping peacefully on the second to last step. Murphy flung the back door open and out they went into six inches of freshly laid snow. Their immense excitement was due to a surprise father had left them. The night before, father had left a note inside their room. The note described a package that was buried beneath the trampoline and had strict instructions not to go looking for it until morning.

"Grab a shovel!" Murphy ordered Maggy. She happily obliged and ran towards the shed while Murphy started towards the trampoline. It was very cold outside and overcast but they didn’t care, the mystery of the package was too great to quell their curiosity. They lived on many acres of land out in the country. Occasionally they would come across foxes, deer, and even skunks. Maggy reached the rugged shed, pulled out a shovel twice her size, and began dragging it back to Murphy. Meanwhile, Murphy had made it to the trampoline and decided to jump excitedly up and down awaiting his sister's return.

When Maggy finally reached the trampoline, she dropped the shovel and asked Murphy, "Could you dig for the package? I just dragged the shovel all the way here." "No problem sis!" Murphy answered. Murphy was the taller of the two, plus he was a boy. Maggy thought to herself digging is a boy’s job. As Murphy dug, Maggy watched the hole grow wider and deeper and never looked away. What could be in the package? she thought. Father always got them trinkets when he was away at work but never hid them like this.

THUMP. The sound of discovery! Murphy had hit the top of something with the shovel. He threw the shovel away and he and Maggy both started clawing at the object to pry it from its earthly resting place. "Let go I saw it first!" shouted Murphy. "It’s supposed to be for both of us!" Maggy protested. In their scuffle, they had inadvertently ripped the thick, brown wrapping paper and the object of their desire fell to the ground in a puff of white snow. They both paused starring at each other at first, then at the ground. As the snow cleared, it revealed a little black book.

"That’s it?" Murphy questioned. "Let’s open it up!" Maggy suggested. The book was about an inch thick, with gold leaf on the edges of the pages. The cover, back, and spine were entirely black. No hint of deformation or markings anywhere. As Maggy slowly opened the book, Murphy stared in anticipation. Upon opening, the book revealed an ocean of blank white pages. "A book with no words?" inquired Maggy. "It’s a journal stupid." chided Murphy. "This means we can put anything we want in it!" exclaimed Maggy with a great big smile on her face.

"Yeah, I guess." agreed Murphy. "Let’s go inside and fill it up with drawings and words!" suggested Maggy. "Fine." Murphy accepted. He was hoping for something cooler like a new action figure or the latest video game. His excitement from before had rapidly diminished. Maggy on the other hand had inherited her brother’s enthusiasm from before their quest began. What should I put it in it first, she wondered? Running back to the house the snow began falling once again and mother of course came calling. Perfect timing.

Up in their warm, dry room, Maggy had laid out all her writing utensils on the floor. She had crayons of every color imaginable, pencils of varying length and sharpness, pens you could erase, pens that were permanent, and pens of multiple colors. Murphy simply sat across from her on the ground and used a simple green crayon. "I'm going to draw Erwin!" Maggie explained. Erwin was the family cat, the one they almost trampled this morning going out to the backyard. As she colored in her drawing of Erwin, he walked by their bedroom and Murphy shouted in surprise, "he’s purple!"

Maggy swung her head around and sure enough, Erwin was now purple! "How did he get purple?" Murphy demanded. "Maybe it’s because of the way I drew him in this journal," Maggy explained while showing him her drawing. "Try coloring him green!" Murphy ordered. His previous lack of interest in this journal was quickly disappearing. As Maggy drew another Erwin and began coloring, Murphy witnessed Erwin’s color slowly change from purple to green. Erwin just stared back at them wondering why humans were always so noisy.

Maggy turned the page of the journal to draw something new in any color she liked when suddenly, she noticed a small note in the bottom right corner of one of the pages. It read, "whatever is written or drawn in this journal, becomes real, be careful!" "Look at this!" shouted Maggy. Murphy stared at the page, then to Maggy, grabbed a crayon and wrote the word "apple" on one of the pages, and waited. Seconds felt like hours as they waited to see if an apple would appear before them. THUMP. They both flicked their heads towards the sound. It was coming from the closet. They crawled side by side towards the closet making as little noise as possible. Murphy reached for the sliding closet door handle and quickly slid it open. "An apple!" they both shouted.

Murphy turned towards Maggy and asked, "Do you know what this means!?" "We can have as many apples as we want!?" Maggy replied. "No silly, it means we don’t have to save our allowance anymore! We can write an amount in the book and it will appear, just like the apple!" Murphy explained enthusiastically. "Good idea!" Maggy agreed. With a flash of the crayon, Murphy wrote "20,000$" in the journal, and again, they waited. An hour passed and still no noise and no money. "I knew it was too good to be true." sighed Murphy. "I bet that apple was in there from last week’s lunch." "But what about Erwin changing color?" asked Maggy. "We were probably just seeing things," Murphy explained. "Dinner time!" Shouted Mother from downstairs. The succulent scent of oven-roasted chicken beckoned them to the dinner table. "Come on let’s eat!" Murphy shouted. So, they ran downstairs nearly stampeding poor Erwin again, who strangely enough still looked a little green......................................THUMP.