Treasure

Treasure

It had to be a map! Maybe a treasure map! It looked old, all crumply and stained. A little torn here and there, dirty of course, but how long had it been stuck in the corner of the barn?

If he could figure out where it was, he could follow it. This big thing on the top corner would put everything in perspective. It wasn’t the barn.

He twirled it around, studying it. If the big thing was at the bottom, maybe it could be the barn... and the rest would be behind it. But why would the barn be round? A silo!! The Smith’s had a silo! He wracked his brain to remember how the land went behind Smith’s silo.

The silo was at the edge of their property near the woods. The squiggle could be a path through the woods. Good, they wouldn’t be able to claim the treasure, he thought. The woods ended at a stream. Excited, he decided to follow it.

It went nowhere. If there had been a path, it was long gone. The stream was dried up for summer and he got about a thousand mosquito bites. Later, at home, he was sitting looking at the map when his Mom came in.

“What ya got there?” she said, picking it up. Then, “Pffft,” and she crumpled it up.

“Mum! That’s my treasure map!”

“Why do you think that?” she asked.

“See, this is Smith’s silo, and this,” he pointed to the squiggle, “is a path through the woods behind it. But the path’s not there anymore.”

“Sorry Honey, it’s not a map. It’s a shopping list I threw away because it got wet. That round shape is where I set down my coffee mug, and the squiggle,” she turned it upside down, says Bananas.”