Red Velvet

“Jessie, you are not coming into this house with those muddy shoes,” mother stated. I looked down at my tennis shoes and realized they were filthy. I couldn’t even see the color of my shoes anymore. I immediately removed them and placed them on the back porch of my house. I rushed into the bathroom to clean myself off from the mess I was just in. I was glad my mother did not push too much about why I was so filthy. I sat on the edge of the bathtub waiting for my heart to stop pounding. My mind was racing, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I thought to myself, “was I safe now that I was home, or was I still in danger from what just happened?” “What do we do with what we found?” My twelve-year-old mind needed to stop racing and calm down.

I looked vacantly at the white bathroom wall, my feet touching the cold tiled floor, turning the tub faucet on to fill the tub with hot water. As I sat there waiting for the tub to fill, all I could think about was, “what happened to my best friend Lori and me?” Lori and I have been friends since kindergarten, and we were inseparable. We stayed at each other’s houses, and we were part of the family, sisters more than friends. Lori is spontaneous, creative, and makes friends quickly. She is pretty, tall, has brown hair, hazel eyes, and slim. We are only a few months apart in age, and I am older than her, but she acts more mature than I do.

On the other hand, I try to stay by myself most of the time, but Lori always gets me to come out of my shell most days. If it were up to me, I would stay home and play on my PlayStation to chat online with my internet friends. People you don’t see in person, it’s just easier for me to close the chat if I don’t want to talk anymore. I am of average height, pretty, have brown hair, brown eyes, and curvy for my age.

I was soaking in the tub for quite some time now, and I hear my mother, “Jessie, it is time to eat dinner.” I reluctantly get out of the tub and get dressed. I quickly eat what she made, eat in the dining room, and then rush to my bedroom before she started asking questions. Thankfully, my mother was preoccupied with someone online from her company, so we didn’t talk much at the dinner table. My mother is tall, beautiful, smart, has brown hair, green eyes, and owns her own marketing company. She travels a lot for work, and I tend to stay at Lori’s house when she is gone for more than two days.

Lori’s parents are cool and love to laugh a lot. Her mom is of average height, blond, green eyes, and works from home. Her dad is tall, brown hair, brown eyes, and has his own construction company. They all like to have family nights twice a week, and I love to play board games with them. Her parents go on date night every Saturday, so Lori and I stay home watching horror movies.

We love horror movies, ghost stories, and haunted places. We talk about being paranormal investigators and traveling to the most haunted places in the world. I like watching documentaries, but Lori prefers to explore dangerous places. I would rather be the behind-the-scenes type of investigator, but Lori wants to be in the excitement, experiencing an actual paranormal event for herself.

After dinner, I sat on my bed, too scared to do anything. I hoped Lori was doing better than I was right now. She thought it would be fun to explore the abandoned orphanage by the woods. It all started when our friend Max from our middle school showed us the little black notebook he found in his grandma’s attic.

Max is one of our close friends; he is tall, of average build, has black hair, brown eyes, and is in our same grade. I wished he hadn’t shown Lori that stupid little black notebook.

*****

My day started great; I woke up at five, brushed my teeth, got dressed, you know, all the usual morning stuff. I ate my breakfast and met Lori at her house before heading to school. I thought this was going to be a dull day as always. The air was filled with the aroma of cinnamon rolls when we walked into the school cafeteria. As Lori and I sat down, she spotted Max approaching our table. “Hey, Max, did you finish your math homework?” Lori asked. Max looked at us as if he didn’t understand the question and immediately sat down. “Max?” Lori and I both said. He ignored Lori’s question and started to talk about going on a treasure hunt after school. Lori immediately became intrigued and wanted to know all the juicy details. I just wanted to go home and watch the new horror movie I had been waiting for all month.

I did not want to go on a treasure hunt, but Max explained that he was cleaning out his grandma’s attic when he came across this little black notebook. He dusted off the cover and opened the book to find that the pages were blank. So, he closed the notebook and tossed it aside, and kept cleaning. As he finished the attic, he noticed the notebook was lying on the desk opened with writing on the pages. He thought it was odd because the notebook was blank before. The writing was a warning not to read. Lori found this fascinating. I thought to myself, “nope, I don’t want to know anymore.” Max kept talking, and I watched Lori get more and more excited. I knew I was going to lose this battle.

Our middle school has seven periods and three lunches; Max and Lori talked about skipping lunches and head back before sixth period started. I tried to say we should wait until after school, but they did not listen to me. When the first lunch started, we waited for Max at our table. Max rushed to our table and handed the notebook to Lori and said he had to meet his English teacher about some missed work so he couldn’t go. I tried to tell Lori that we should wait until after school so Max could go with us. I didn’t win. We rushed to the abandoned orphanage by the woods as the notebook instructed, and I was a little relieved we were doing this in the daylight and not at night.

The woods were creepy, and people were always saying not to go near them. They would be extra scary at night. They were still scary, just not extra scary during the day. As we entered the abandoned orphanage, I stared at the woods only to make sure I didn’t see anything. Doing this just scared me even more. Lori and I approached a dark hallway upstairs, found that all the bedroom doors were closed, except for the one at the end of the hall. According to the notebook, we were to find a brown wardrobe with the letters NX engraved on it. As we reached the bedroom at the end of the hall, we heard a door close downstairs. We didn’t know it at the time, but the front door had closed and locked.

Lori ignored the sound and pulled me into the bedroom. I could smell a horrible moldy scent coming from the room. There it was in the corner of the bedroom was the wardrobe with the letters NX engraved on it. Lori opened the doors, and we heard a loud bang from downstairs as if someone dropped a book on the floor. Lori frantically searched the wardrobe for anything, but there was nothing there. She closed the doors and started to look around the room.

I was frightened and just wanted to get out of there, but Lori insisted we search the room. As we approached the closet, we heard a scratching sound coming from the wardrobe Lori just examined. My mind started racing, and I imagined the worst as I turned around to look at the wardrobe. The doors were open, and there was something shiny on the top shelf. We approached slowly; Lori reached to grab the shiny box to open it when she was jerked towards the old piece of furniture. She yelled that something had a hold of her wrist and was not letting go. I grabbed onto her and pulled her back as hard as I could. We both fell back onto the floor, and I realized Lori was holding the shiny box. We looked up at the wardrobe, and the doors were now closed, and the whole thing started shaking. We rushed out of the room and headed downstairs towards the front door. Lori was still holding the shiny box and said it was getting heavier with every step. We tried pulling the front doors open, but they wouldn’t budge. She put the shiny box down and opened it; a red velvet bag lay inside tied with a red ribbon. She took the bag out, and we heard the front door make a clicking sound.

I immediately pulled on the front door, and it opened. We ran out of the orphanage and headed down the dirt road. While we were in the orphanage, it rained outside because the dirt road was now full of mud. As we ran down the muddy road, I glanced at the woods and noticed something shiny reflect as the sun came out behind the massive rain cloud. My heart was pounding so loudly that I didn’t hear Lori warn me before I fell into a puddle.

I was muddy, wet, dirty, and scared out of my mind. Lori and I approached the park near the school and realized we didn’t make it back before sixth period. The buses were loading students and heading home. We sat down on the park bench and took a deep breath. Lori opened the red bag for the first time and found a huge stack of money inside with a note. The note just read, “Enjoy,” with a happy face on it. I found it creepy and menacing. Lori and I counted the stack, and it totaled $20,000! We had no idea what to do next.

Lori and I decided to take the money to her house and hide it in her closet. Her mom was busy in the kitchen and didn’t see how dirty we were. I decided I would go home and decompress from what just happened to us. Lori rushed into her bathroom, and she agreed to meet up with me later at my house.

So, here I am, freaked out and totally out of my wits. I hear a floorboard creak from outside my bedroom door and look up to find Lori sneaking into my room. She had the red bag with her, and we decided to split the money with Max. Only if Max promised never to go to the orphanage, “Don’t worry,” he agreed. Lori and I gave the money to our family, and we never spoke about the orphanage again.

We took an incredible trip later that year, all of us. When our family asked where we got the money, we told them we won it in a writing contest.