Treasure Box – part 2

 Treasure Box – Part 2

Finding the park was no problem. I’d been there many times as a child. Where to find the missing shoe was a bigger problem. I looked around for anything unusual. I checked the phone wires overhead. My friends and I used to have fun tying our sneakers together to see which one of us could get a pair caught on the overhead wires. One was rarely successful and when we were, the grounding we received from our parents usually convinced us never to try it again. Anyway, there were no shoes hanging from a wire, which made sense, since you need two shoelaces to be successful.

After looking in bushes, under benches, and in garbage cans, I came to a new piece of equipment I had never seen at this park. It was a bouncy house. There were a number of kids inside it and I noticed that none of the kids were wearing shoes. One of the Bouncy House rules was that you couldn’t go in it with your shoes on. I checked around the perimeter of the house until I found the entrance. Just outside the entrance, on the ground, were a dozen or so different sneakers and shoes of all sizes. A quick examination of the different pairs led me to one shoe that was missing its mate. Not only that, it was also missing a lace.

I picked up the shoe, walked some distance from the bounce house, where I wouldn’t be seen, and checked out the shoe. The bottom of the shoe was coated with a thick, gooey substance. It looked and felt a little like Silly Putty. I took out the pocket knife and scraped off the gunk as best I could. Attached to the shoe was a very small flash drive and the words “safe me”. I had no idea what that meant. I thought someone had just misspelled the words, “save me,” so I pocketed the drive and went off to find a liquor store. It was getting late and I hoped I could find one that was open.

Luckily, the liquor store right near the park was open. I went in and when the clerk asked me how he might help me. I said, “I’m looking for a bottle of Ruinart Brüt Rose Champagne.”

I was asked for some form ID so I handed my driver’s license to the clerk. After glancing at it, he handed it back to me, reached underneath the counter and grabbed a bottle of some clear liquid. It was clearly not champagne. He put it in a bag and said, “That will be $100.00, Robby.”

He had only seen my driver’s license, which stated my name as Robert, yet he called me “Robby”. This confused me. How would he know that I was called Robby? I was about to ask when he said, “Time’s running out, Robby, I wouldn’t waste your time with more questions. Besides, I’m not at liberty to answer any anyway.”

With a slight bit of hesitation and reticence, I handed over the $100, took the bag and left and decided that I needed to go home. Life was getting very confusing.

When I got home I placed the empty water bottle in the sink, opened up the bottle of liquid from the liquor store and poured its contents into the water bottle. At first, nothing happened. Then some blue writing appeared on the sides of the bottle. It was an address, a locker number, followed by the numbers 18 42 12. The address was an airport in the city. The storage locker was in the airport’s departure terminal.

The last piece of writing which was much smaller said, “bring passport”. The airport was at least a 3-hour drive from where I was. Barring any complications, I should be able to get there with time to spare, but I was really tired. I decided to set my alarm and take a short nap before I left. The thing about short naps is, if your alarm doesn’t wake you up, you can end up oversleeping. Four hours later when I woke up, I realized that time was running short. I grabbed my passport, rushed out the door, got in my car and took off for the airport.

I parked my car, ran into the terminal, and found the locker. It had a combination lock on it. Luckily I had written down the message from the bottle and decided to use the 18 42 12 to try and unlock the locker. It worked and inside I found the second box. Using the key I had from the first box, I opened the second box. Inside was a First Class ticket for a flight that was leaving in 2 hours to Canada, a wallet that included currency for both the United States and Canada, a small notebook filled with an itinerary,  directions to and from places, hotel reservations and in bold REDletters, Beware of Gaston. If I was confused before, I was totally befuddled now, not to mention a little anxious.

Hopefully, I could sit down and piece together what had happened so far before I boarded the plane. That wasn’t going to happen. I had to board the plane now. So, stowing away my anxiety and fear, I boarded the plane to meet the unknown head-on. What’s the worst that could happen?