This is an adventure story about four boys. There’s no lesson to be learned, it’s just a story to entertain the reader. It’s a long short story, 48 pages, 15000+ words, so I will only be posting 5 or 6 pages at a time. I plan to post three times a week. Sometimes a like to read a story that takes my mind away from today’s problems, so if this story does that for you, I’ll consider it a success. Comments are welcome.
The sun glared down relentlessly, baking our skin. Sweat dripped from our noses on to the blacktop driveway and sizzled like bacon in a cast iron skillet.
The summer of ’68 like every other one, except hotter. Each night the fan blew hot, humid air on our tired sunburned bodies. Getting a good night's sleep nearly impossible. The only thing that gave us comfort was a trip to the swimming hole. It was nothing but an abandoned quarry, but it was our only relief from the sweltering sun.
It was routine for me to meet my buddies, John, Frank and Mike, on the cliff above our swimming hole. I got up early, ate with passion, dressed, and ran out to meet the guys at the quarry. We always met at the same time and place, but on that day our simple lives were jolted. The swimming hole held a secret that gave us an unexpected adventure.
My name is Kevin and I write the stories of our adventures.
* * *
That morning was the same as every other until we made a discovery. We lived in a small southern Missouri town, a great place for kids, but a depressed economy. Three of us were thirteen. Frank was older and our leader, eight months, and three days from the coveted sixteenth birthday. Something all of us envied. He would be the first to drive in our group.
I found Mike sitting on the rock upon my arrival. He was always the first to show up. His family was messed up so he took every opportunity to get away from them. Mike had a bruise on his back and cut on his face, but as usual, didn’t want to talk about it. We waited until everyone arrived before we dove in. Frank the last to show up that day, but he brought an apple pie. Stolen it from old lady Parker, while it cooled on her porch. Still warm with the sweet scent of cinnamon wafting through the air and not the first pie we had swiped from her. They were always acquired the same way. You really couldn’t blame Frank; what sane person could have resisted the alluring scent. So many of her pies went missing, you’d think she would’ve wise up by now.
Mike looked at me with a silly grin then turned to Frank. “What! No ice cream?”
We all laughed when Frank threw a hunk of pie at him. “That’s your piece.”
We swarmed the pie like we hadn’t seen food in a decade. The rest of the morning we swam, lay around, and taunted each other. Then just before we were about to leave, John came out of the water frantically yelling, “Hey guys, over here, you gottta see this.” He was the best swimmer and could hold his breath the longest time. All of us jumped in the water and swam to John as fast as we could.
Gasping for air, John said, “. . . at the bottom . . . a car, b- body inside. I need help.”
“We can’t hold our breath that long.” I glanced at the others. “We need to call someone.”
“No, not yet. I’ll try again.” And without another word John dove back down to the bottom.
Frank followed him down, but surfaced a couple minutes later. “I made it to the car, b—but I had to come back up. John was trying to open the door.”
A minute later John popped out of the water. He held a bag. Holding it up he said. “I couldn’t open the door to pull the woman out.” Wheezing, he said, “The trunk popped open . . . I found this.”
John was exhausted, so we helped him back to the shallow water. Mike took the bag from John. “What do you think’s in here?”
Frank pointed at the lock on the bag. “It’s locked, so it must be something valuable.”
They pulled themselves onto a flat rock. Mike handed the bag back to John and said. “Let’s open it. I have a pocketknife in my shorts.”
“Wait!” I yelled. “What about the lady?”
John glimpsed at each of us then stared directly at me. “Kevin, she’s dead. She won’t be any more dead a few minutes from now.”
“True, let’s open it,” Frank exclaimed.
Mike had already headed up to get his pocketknife. When he returned, he handed the knife to John. “You found it, so you get to open it.”
John jabbed the knife into the heavy-duty canvas bag just below the zipper. It took a few stabs to break through the material, but once he did, the knife cut cleanly and water gushed out to expose rolls of hundred dollar bills. None of us had ever seen this amount of money. There were no markings on the bag. “It might not be stolen. It could be hers, you know the dead lady,” Mike explained.
Frank asked, “Who carries all this money in a locked bag in the trunk of a car?”
“Well, not me.” Mike piped up. “I don’t have any money or a car.”
“It’s found money. We get to keep it, that’s the rule.” John held up a roll of hundreds.
I chimed in, “It belongs to the woman in the car.”
“Maybe, but she’s still dead, so what can she do with it.” Frank picked up the bag. “Let’s count it.”
John handed each of us a roll. “Be careful, we don’t want to tear any of the bills. Lay them in the sun for a few minutes to dry out.” He then placed the other rolls on the flat rock to dry.
We did as John said despite our angst patiently waiting for the money to dry out. After the rolls felt dry we carefully pulled the bills apart taking care with each one, knowing this could be our money. We counted ten rolls and found each had a thousand dollars. All the rolls were the same size and we had thirty rolls. Silence was broken when Mike screamed, “THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS! Holy Crap!”
I rubbed my peach fuzz. “We gotta call the police.”
“Well! Yes, to tell them about the lady, but do they really need to know about the cash?” Frank fingered the money. “That’s over seven thousand dollars each. That’s a new car for me.”
John picked up the bag. “Let’s hide it until we can think about what we need to do.”
We all agreed that seemed to be a reasonable plan. We stashed it under a rock near the cliff we always dove off. It took three of us to lift the rock. We knew it would be safe. As we headed down the hill, we spotted two guys unloading scuba gear from their car.
“Do you think they’re looking for the girl?” Mike whispered
“More likely the money,” I replied.
“We need to tell the police about the woman in the car.” John rubbed his shoulder. “They’ll chase those guys away.”
We hustled down the road to the sheriff office and told them about the lady in the car at the bottom of the quarry. Sheriff Carson went immediately to high alert, and the deputies grew even more interested when we told them about the scuba divers we saw.
We offered to show them but the sergeant said, “We’re professionals. This is what we do. If we need help from a bunch of kids, we’ll ask.”
After more questions, a deputy said, “That’s it for now, but don’t leave town.” He then laughed at his own joke because he knew we couldn’t afford bus fare to the corner.
Mike couldn’t resist a comment. “Wow, that’s so funny. You should be on the Tonight Show. Johnny needs you.” We hurried out the door before Mike could say anything else.
As soon as we left the station, two patrol cars passed us with their sirens blasting.
There were things we needed to discuss so we all agreed to meet that night at the big oak tree after supper.
We met at 7 p.m. No one was late; Mike being first again. This was a lot of money, too much really for a bunch of teenagers. If we kept it, we wouldn’t be able to spend it for a long time. Keeping it and expecting everyone to be hush, hush, about it was unlikely.
“Can’t we just take a little? Just one bill . . . a one hundred dollar bill.” Mike said with conviction. “That’s not asking too much. It’ll never be missed.”
Frank nodded. “I agree. That amount wouldn’t draw too much attention. I’d have money to put down on a car.”
“That’s only $400 dollars.” John leaned against the tree. “Chump change compared to thirty thousand. But, it’s the smart thing to do. Something is better than nothing.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Seems fair. We deserve that just for telling the police about the car and dead lady.”
The next thing we needed to do after each of us got our hundred-dollar bill was to stash the rest of the money where the police would find it without them getting suspicious. We all agreed, but how? It’s something we needed to sleep on and meet the next day with our ideas.
* * *
