X Marks the Spot

I want to tell you the story of Robert and Angelica Westberg. Brother and sister, Robert was the oldest with 11 years under his belt, so naturally, he was his sister’s keeper as she was only a mere seven years old. They lived, well, really, they didn’t live anywhere. They were homeless. They stayed mostly on the west side of 46th Ave but moved around when possible to avoid being caught and taken to an orphanage. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, they’re also orphans. Their parents, Micheal and Willow Westberg, died about six months ago. They went out for coffee and pastries one morning, and around 5 pm the same day, the police chief arrived at their home to tell the children the unfortunate news.

The policeman said, “Are you the children of Mr. and Mrs. Westberg?”

“Yes, sir,” the children responded simultaneously. As the officer broke the news, all the color fled from their faces, and their eyes grew wide. Angelica burst into tears, but Robert knew he had to stay strong; after all, he was now the man of the house. Little did they know, in a few hours, they wouldn’t even have a home.

After giving the kids a few moments to process, the officer broke the silence. “Alright, kiddos, go pack a bag of your favorite and most valuable things, and I’ll drop you off at the social services office on my way back to the station.” Social services?! Robert knew he couldn’t let that happen. They’d get separated and end up with different families. Robert gad to think of something, fast! They dredged slowly up the stairs to their shared bedroom. They both had their own rooms, but they preferred to share. When in the room, Robert told ANgelica that they had to climb out the window or the mean man downstairs would take them away. They climbed out the window and ran away with their bags full of things.

That is how the Westberg children became homeless orphans, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. After living on the streets for a while, they learned how to get food and sleep comfortably without being spotted and risking being sent to the orphanage. At dinner time, they would outside a popular restaurant called Peppered. It was the go-to spot in town, and yet people there never finished their meals. Weird right? The Westberg’s would wait for all the leftovers to be scraped into the trash shoot the lead outside to the dumpster, except they pushed the dumpster over and caught the leftover food for themselves. After stuffing their faces, they wandered around, looking for a dark corner to curl into for the night. Before they died, his father had given Robert and small black notebook. It was small enough to fit right on the palm of Roberts’s hand, but boy, was it thick. The leather cover was peeling off at the seams, and Robert handled it with such care to avoid ruining it any further. There was a small gold engraving on the back over that had his father’s initials. M.R.W. The inside was filled with scribbles that made no sense to the kids. Cover to cover. Words and numbers.

One night after getting their full at Peppered, they walked 5 or 6 blocks north to their most common corner for sleeping. But when they got there, a scary man was sleeping there.

Robert held his breath before yelling out, “Hey! Can you move? This is our spot!”

“Ya left it unattended, kiddos, nothing you can do about it. Finder’s kee-” Before finishing his tease, he noticed the black book in Robert’s hand.

“Where’d you get that?” He asked, frantically pointing at the notebook.

“My daddy gave it to me before he died.” Robert snapped back. The man’s eyes darted back ad forth before he jumped onto his feet and tried to snatch it. Robert screamed, and he and Angelica took off running. After running a few blocks, they noticed the man was no longer behind them. They found a new alley corner to sleep in and settled in for the night. With the dim light of the street light at the end of the alley, Robert studied his book again. This time, he was carefully reading the scribbles inside. There had to be something special about it if that crazy man wanted it so bad. As Angelica snored beside him, he read and read until he realized something. Every line written in the book was some letters and then a number. The first page said “look within the books” in block letters. Robert had been trying to figure out what that part meant for months. Each line said something like, “Fic 184”, “NonF 33”, or “Rom 854.” Then Robert figured it out. Fiction, NonFiction, Romance. They were genres. Book genres.

“The library!” Robert whispered. He closed the notebook and closed his eyes. Tomorrow they’d go to the library. In the morning, after eating some half-eaten bagels out of the trashcan outside of the cafe, Robert told Angelica about his findings from the night before. She thought nothing of it, however, and just followed her brother’s lead to the library.

The library was separated by genre, and every book in the section was assigned a number. That’s what Robert had assumed the numbers were in the notebook. Robert and Angelica had begun pulling every book on the list and putting them on a table in the back of the library where no one could see them. They pulled out every single one. There had to be at least 25 books listed in the notebook. Once they got them all, they laid them out all over the table, chairs, and floor to figure out what to do with them next. In the notebook, on the next page, after the many pages of books, the words “the first word is what matters most.”

“The first word of the titles!” Robert exclaimed. Angelica rolled her eyes. She still wasn’t convinced. But she did what she was told and went to ask the librarian for a pen a paper. They began writing the first word of each book down on paper. All 25 of them. When they were done, they realized that their words didn’t make any sense.

“Let’s do it in the order that dad wrote them,” Robert demanded. So they wrote down the first word of every title, of every book, for a second time, except for this time in the right order.

“The Dark Alley By The House Is Where It Can Be Found In The Can With The Sliver Lid In A Black And Red Bag”

“What?” Angelica asked as she read it aloud again.

“The alley by the house. Common, let’s go,” Robert remarked, and he grabbed his sister’s arm and pulled her out of the library. Their old house was across the city, so they had a journey ahead of them.

By the time they reached the alley, it was dark, and they couldn’t see a thing. They decided to sleep there and look for the bag in the morning. When the sun came peeping over the horizon, Robert and Angelica sprung up and began to look, which was more challenging than expected. There were silver cans everywhere! They split up and began to look. Finally, on the 3rd to the last can, Angelican screamed, “ I found it, a black and red bag!” Robert sprinted over to where she was standing, and they gazed into the can together. When Robert lifted the bag, it was heavy, like it was filled with bowling balls. They took it over to where they slept and unzipped it. It was full of… jewelry?

“What are we supposed to do with this?” Robert barked. He got up and started pacing back and forth. Angelica lifted the bag and dumped out the jewelry. It all came tumbling out onto the concrete with a clang. While the bag was still upside down, a piece of paper fluttered out. Angelica picked it up and read it out loud.

“My sweet babies. If you’ve found this bag, that means your father and I are no longer with you. The contents of this bag make up our entire remainder of our fortune, and it is yours now. Now I know what you’re thinking; how could all this jewelry be worth any money, right? Well ill tell you. You two need to take this bag to a pawn shop, I will tell you how much all this jewelry is worth, so they cant cheat you. You ask to sell it all. We left this part for you instead of just giving you money because of the chance that someone else finding the money and keeping it for themselves. This way, no one would see the value of this jewelry and would leave it for you. The total value of all this jewelry is $20,000. Use it wisely. You two are our pride and joy, and we’re sorry we had to go. Robert, take good care of your sister; Angelica, use that big brain for good and not evil. Good luck. Lots of love, Mom and Dad.”

They both sat there in shock, and after a while, they stood up and followed their parent’s every direction.

The man at the pawnshop looked at them with such curiosity, but the children kept their lips sealed. They didn’t want anyone to try to take advantage of them. They had to go to 4 different pawn shops to get the full amount of their money because not a single one had enough t cover the whole amount, so they had to break it up into four parts. From that point forward, they only used their money a little at a time so that they’d have enough left for an apartment when Robert turned 18. Lasting seven years with $20,000 was a breeze for the two orphans, and they didn’t mind not having a house since they could afford food and clothes and blankets and such. Life after that was just fine. They were content children and rich children from that point forward without a complaint in the world.