“Marie Elizabeth Roberts!” This is the first thing that I heard when I got out of bed this morning. It was my mother calling me downstairs. I sleepily walked down the seemingly endless flight of stairs down to our kitchen to find a trail of big, muddy paw prints scattered around on the cold, tile floor. “Why didn’t you fully close the door last night, Marie? You know that Brownie is always digging up my flowers!” exclaimed my mother. “Sorry mom. Brownie is always a good dog when I’m with him, so I thought maybe this time he wouldn’t get out.” I explained. She then told me I would have to go to the store to buy new flowers as well as plant them. It is my dog, and my responsibility.
` After getting dressed in an oversized t-shirt and Nike shorts, I got into the car and drove to Home Depot to get some flowers. I picked out some vibrant purple flowers, as well as a few light pink ones because these two colors were my mom’s favorite. As I was driving home, I got a notification from the News app on my phone: ‘Letter Discovered By Researchers States Buried Treasure Is In New York City.’ I could not believe what I was reading; treasure in our own city! My mother and I have been seriously struggling with money ever since our landlord has upped the rent for our apartment. If we found this treasure, we could finally pay off our dues and have an abundance of money left for us to save! I immediately pulled over and clicked on the notification, which brought me to a webpage explaining their findings. It declared that whoever found this treasure would not only keep it, but get a prize of $100,000. The webpage showed a picture of a map with clues that would lead to the riches. I got back on the road and started driving back home with the flowers, planning on how I would find this treasure before anyone else.
About twenty minutes later, I had already planted all of the flowers, and told my mother I was going off for the day on a scavenger hunt. I was not lying, but I definitely was not telling the whole truth, either. I sat back down in my car and drove off, as fast as the speed limit allowed me, to find the treasure. The map had only three stops; I deduced from the clue of ‘local bakery’ that the first stop was at a place called ‘NYC Muffins.’ I was required to hand out muffins to the poor folks sitting outside of the building. I did so, and I instantly felt extremely good about myself. I even got started in some conversations with them. I could have sat and talked with them all day, as they were such nice and humble people, but I had to keep going if I was going to get the prize. The next clue was to stop at the ‘local animal shelter’, which was called ‘Puppy Plaza.’ It was a pretty fancy name for such a run-down place. Anyway, I needed to play with the dogs until they were all sleepy and worn out. This took a good fifty-five minutes, but it was worth it, and it brightened my day by a lot.
The final task was all I needed to complete and it would lead me to this treasure. I read the clue and it said to go back to ‘do’. I thought this was rather strange, but I think it meant to go back home to my apartment. I quickly drove home to see a shovel in our yard that was not there when I left. On the handle, it had a phone number, supposedly belonging to the researchers that discovered the letter. I called them and started digging up my mother’s newly planted flowers in attempt to find the riches. I suddenly felt my shovel hit something hard and made of metal. This must have been what my dog Brownie had been sensing all along! I thanked him, and even though he had gotten out of the house last night, he was a good boy after all. The researchers arrived shortly after, and they helped me brush the mud off of the hard object to find a treasure chest, similar to the gold and silver ones you would see in movies. We opened it with a key that was attached to the side of the chest, and found a letter. The letter said that the ‘real treasure’ was helping others. Playing with the dogs and helping the poor earlier today taught me that kindness is the greatest treasure of all. Keeping their promise, the researchers gave my mother and me the $100,000. Our family was no longer struggling, and the researchers had truly realized what real treasure was; that day, everyone was happy.