“She broke her leg!” Tears came to Ben’s eyes, “and that guy has been trying to kill us!” The man ran over to Blue Van Man. The tears were flowing freely down Ben’s cheeks now. He was completely overwhelmed. His mom came up and hugged him, trying to give comfort; surprisingly he hugged her tight and wouldn’t let go. Some of the crowd came and helped Lacey; they set her on the ground then called for help.
The man in the suit tried to rouse Blue Van Man, “What on earth happened?” he asked Ben.
“I kicked him square in the jaw.” Ben said confidently. “He was gonna kill us, even after we gave him the money.” He pointed to the case in the unconscious man’s hand.
“No, no Ben,” The man paused, “see we have the money.” The man pointed to a large check that a few people were holding. “Ben, this man is a photo journalist; I hired him to follow you guys to take pictures for our campaign.” The man in the suit bent over Blue Van Man. Everyone in the crowd looked at Ben; embarrassment blushed across his face,
“Oh…my bad.” He said sheepishly. The crowd continued to stare at him; he buried his face in his mom’s shoulder. Something occurred to Ben though and he looked at the check again, he looked at Lacey, she was resting on the ground. He wasn’t sure if he was reading incorrectly, or if there had been some sort of huge error. “Aunt Lacey, look at the check.” He pointed. Lacey’s jaw dropped, she knew she was delusional from the severe pain, her brain couldn’t quite articulate what she was seeing, and the only thing that made sense was that she just wasn’t seeing straight.
“Ben, can you see that?” She asked.
“Uh huh.” He sighed in disbelief.
“My eyes must be messed up,” she said as she focused on the check, “aren’t there way too many zeros and commas?” She asked.
B
lue Van Man moaned loudly and sat up. He looked around and didn’t seem shocked at all to be surrounded by a huge crowd of people. He looked over at Ben, who was standing next to his mom. The man next to him rose and walked over to Ben.
“Ben, looks like we need to clear a few things up.” he looked at the cameramen and motioned for them to begin recording. “I’m Stan Berton from United Cellular; we, along with Garmin, sponsored the geocaching contest with the Cocoaliscious Cereal Company.” Ben’s eyes lit up as a sense of understanding came over him. “Bruce here,” he pointed to Blue Van Man, “is a photo journalist, who was hired to follow you on this adventure and take pictures, so that we can use them in our new advertising campaign.” Ben looked at Bruce,
“Sorry man. If I would have known, ya know, that you weren’t trying to kill us and steal the money, well I never would have, um…kicked your butt. “ he said.
Bruce stood up, “I tried to tell you, but the boss here didn’t want you to know, so that the pictures would be real. If you would have known you would have acted differently and the photos wouldn’t be authentic.” he said. “But for a kid, you really protected yourself, and your aunt here.” He motioned to Lacey, who was now being attended to by emergency personnel. He walked over to Ben and handed him the case.
Stan began talking again, “So Ben, I understand that you were under the impression that the grand prize was ten thousand dollars?”
“Yeah, but that’s not ten grand.” Ben pointed to the large check.
“Yeah, well see you read the wrong part of the instructions, the grand prize is actually one million dollars.” Everyone in the crowd cheered and hollered with excitement, it was even better knowing that Ben had no clue how much he was really getting. The people holding the check walked over to Ben, whose mouth was wide open and handed him the check. “You also get another cell phone; you can keep the one we gave you at Crater Lake.” Stan now looked directly at the cameras, “United Cellular is now offering Garmin GPS capability on our new one hundred percent water proof cell phones, never again will you have to worry about being lost, whether you are just going about your daily routine or on a treasure hunt for one million dollars.” He smiled broadly, as he recited his rehearsed lines. The cameras turned off and Stan regained his casual demeanor. “Sorry, I had to do that for the advertising.” he said to Ben.
“So we get a million dollars?” Ben asked, still in disbelief.
“Well, you get a million dollars, yes.” Stan noticed the questioning look on Ben’s face, “The prize money can only be given to one individual, since the cereal was purchased by your mom, and the toy compass was yours, Ben, the money is yours.” Stan looked at Lacey, “Sorry, but I’m sure you understand,” he said to her.
Lacey’s smile faded, but when she looked at Ben she regained her excitement, “It’s okay Ben, you earned that money!” She said trying to reassure him.
“No, we were a team!” Ben said firmly. He looked at Lacey.
“It’s okay, really Ben.” Lacey said again.
“Okay,” Ben looked at the check, and then looked back at Stan, “So this whole thing, it was all planned?” He asked.
“Yep, every detail.” Stan confirmed.
“Wow, so the man in the lighthouse, the eagle, me almost drowning then being rescued…how’d you do all that?”
“Um, I don’t know what you’re talking about, what man and what eagle? And the drowning thing, well that was a danger that was accidentally overlooked by our planning committee and we apologize for that.” he said trying to reassure Ben’s mom. “But no, Ben, I guess I don’t know what you’re talking about with the other stuff. Oh and we really thought that you would have gotten a guide for this last cache, it said to on the sign.” He motioned back to the other entrance of the tunnel.
Ben looked at the crowd of people, they were all staring at him waiting for him to give more details about the man and the eagle he had mentioned, finally he said, “Ya know, I’m so out of it, I might have dreamt it all.” He looked at Lacey, she gave him a small smile, communicating that she wouldn’t say anything either.
“Oh, okay,” Stan said, “Anyhow Ben, we just need your permission to use photos of you on your journey for the advertising of our new cell phones.” He shoved a contract in Ben’s face, Ben signed it quickly, and then his mom signed as well. The crowd cheered, “So Ben, what will you use the money for?” Stan asked, as he motioned for the cameras to zoom in on Ben.
“Well, um…I want to fix up all the baseball fields in my town, maybe this would be enough to do that?” Ben looked at his mom. She nodded happily. Then he looked at his aunt, “and I’ll save some for college.” Lacey smiled, then laid back on the gurney and closed her eyes.
L
acey opened the door to her apartment; she hopped in, and slammed the door with her crutch. Her leg was casted past her knee, and would be for the next eight weeks. She looked at the huge stack of mail on her counter that her roommate had left for her. On top was one marked “past due” from the cashier’s office of the university. She tore it open and became instantly depressed as she looked at how much she owed the school. She sighed, then pulled the green cell phone from her purse and dialed the cashier’s office.
“University of Oregon, this is Heather.”
“Yes, I needed to make a payment on my account please.” Lacey pulled her credit card from her wallet, and gave Heather her I.D. to pull up her account.
“There is no payment due.” Heather said.
“Huh, is that the right account? It’s for Lacey Rodgers?”
“Yes, it looks like the account is paid in full, and it looks like you have a refund check here, waiting for you.” Heather seemed confused as to why Lacey wouldn’t know that her account was paid off.
“Refund check?” Lacey leaned over the bar stool she was resting against, praying that this wasn’t some sort of joke.
“Yeah, if there is any extra money after an account is paid, the school issues a check to the student, some scholarships will give living expenses to students, so we often cut checks. Can you come down today and pick it up?”
“Um, sure.” Lacey hung up and made her way out of the apartment again. She hobbled to the bus stop in front of her apartment complex, A large advertisement of Ben hiking was plastered on the plastic bus shelter, for United Cellular. The ad read, “FIND YOUR WAYPOINT TO ADVENTURE!!!!
Unitedcellular.com
” it was the only thing that made riding the bus bearable for eight weeks, thought Lacey.
After a quick bus ride she was at the University’s Cashier’s office leaning on their counter as Heather brought an envelope to her. Lacey opened the envelope, her jaw dropped and she gasped loudly.
“Are you okay?” Heather asked.
“Um, yeah, um…is this real?” Lacey shoved the check in Heather’s face.
“Yeah it is correct, that is a huge amount of money though, are you a pre med student or something?” She was still confused as to why Lacey seemed to have no clue about this money.
“Um, no, can you see who gave the money to me?” Lacey stared at the check for $463,200.00, her heart was racing. Heather’s voice interrupted the questions that were racing through her head,
“Oh, yes, here it is.” Heather pointed to her computer screen, “looks like the account was paid by someone named…hmm that’s strange I only have a first name of ‘Red?'” She looked at Lacey who was now smiling.
“That little punk!” Lacey cried out.
“Do you know them?”
“Yep, luckily, I do.” Lacey turned and headed out of the office, she sat down on a bench outside the building. The sun was blazing hot, and the heat seemed to bounce off the brick walkway, Lacey wiped the sweat from her forehead, then pulled out the green cell phone and typed a text message, “Hey, thnx 4 the $ RED!” She hit send and waited for a response.
Ben’s cell phone vibrated, indicating he had a new text; he opened it read the message, and then replied, “Ur welcome!”
Lacey laughed, then typed, “I thot u had 2 keep $?”
Ben replied, “Tax guy said I can give $ 4 college w/out problem. J”
It seemed insufficient but all Lacey could think to write was, “Thnx!”
Lacey put her phone away, thinking the conversation was over, and then heard it beep once again. Ben wrote, “What u do’n 4 thnxgving?”
“Eat w/ fam. Y?” She replied.
“Wanna geocache?” Ben typed.
“Where?” Lacey asked, suddenly a set of coordinates appeared on her phone,
“6113’22“N/14954’2“W”
appeared on her phone, Lacey switched screens and typed in the coordinates, suddenly an aerial photo of what appeared to be an enormous chunk of ice came on the screen, she pushed the button for location name,
“Alaska???” She typed.
“U game?” Ben responded. Lacey looked around the small courtyard, she felt the hot sun on her back, making her sweat through her clothes, and then she looked at her ridiculous, huge cast. Suddenly a surge of emotions ran through her mind and chest, she wiped a tear from her eye as she remembered everything they had just been through. She stared at her cell phone; fear was telling her to say
No Way!
She looked at the aerial photo the coordinates pointed to one more time, then switched back to reply to Ben’s text,
“U kidn? I’m ALWAYS game!” Ben read the text, closed his phone and dropped it in his short’s pocket, he looked at his sister, then said,
“Hey Meg, looks like we’re goin’ to Alaska for Thanksgiving.” Megan smiled,
“Really? She said yes?” Ben nodded. Megan reached over and handed her brother the chalk for his hands. Ben chalked his hands, tightened his safety harness one more time, and then pulled himself up on the climbing wall that towered over the two of them.
“You coming?” he called to his sister.
“Right behind ya!” Megan yelled up to him. Ben looked down to her, she was gaining on him. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and smiled, then reached for the next handhold.