Seven days

MONDAY

Afternoon
So, I really don't know how to begin today's entry. I suppose if I said that I found a Tesco bag full of money under a tree, by the tennis courts nobody would believe me. I wouldn't believe me either. But there it was, in broad daylight. Naturally the first thing I did when I saw the bag was look to see if the owner was around but the place was deserted, except for me passing through on my way home from school. So who did it belong to, and where did it come from?

I peered into the bag (I'm too damn inquisitive for my own good) and my stomach flipped. Wads of ten pound notes were stuffed inside it. There must have been ten grand in that bag. I'd be lying now if I didn't imagine all the things I could buy with that-a ton of clothes and shoes, that dress I saw in Darcy's for the Christmas ball, a ten speed mountain bike, I might even have been able to pay off my parent's mortgage, or part of it anyway. But I didn't touch a penny of it. No. I took it to the police station. Handed it in. I figured that I'd be rewarded for being honest; not with money, but perhaps luck. I figured that by doing a good deed Johnny Evans might ask me to the ball. Is that twisted logic? Who knows, but a girl can hope, right?

Anyway, I took it to the police and what did they say? They took my name and address and stuff and asked me all sorts of questions about when and where exactly I found it, and then said that unless someone claimed it in seven days, provided it wasn't stolen money, it was mine. MINE. Finders keepers.

TUESDAY

Morning
I was itching to tell people about my discovery but I didn't. The more I thought about it the more I realised that I'm actually on a seven day adventure, a story that as yet has no ending, so rather than tell people half a tale I decided to wait for the outcome before the reveal. All I had to do was occupy my mind until Sunday. That didn't take too long as all I kept thinking was, where did that money come from?

Afternoon
Mrs Carter showed us a video about drug cartels in Modern Studies today, which got me thinking. What if that money was drug money? I mean drugs aren't just in South America, they're all over the place, a seedy underworld that most of us don't notice exists, but it does. Some countries are more relaxed about supposedly non-addictive drugs, like Holland for example, but most want to get rid of them. I don't blame them. That boy in the year above, Mathew Roberts, was an advert on reasons you shouldn't take drugs. He used to be a real sporto. Into Rugby big time. I think he even coached first years at one point. Then he got into a bad crowd and within a year he was high on heroine. He lost a ton of weight; his skin was literally hanging off his bones. He became really spotty, short-tempered, even a little psychotic. Everyone was afraid of him. He'd start fights for no reason. The last I heard he got expelled and spent some time in prison for theft. What a complete waste.

Evening
So did that money belong to a drug buyer? If it was a buyer surely they wouldn't leave a bag full of money in broad daylight. If they were that desperate to feed their habit they'd hold onto that money. No, it couldn't be a buyer.

What about a seller? It's possible. Perhaps the police were onto him or her, perhaps they dropped the bag in a hurry so they wouldn't be caught with it. If that was the case, they'd probably be really mad when they returned and discovered it wasn't there anymore. But then if they were going to drop the bag surely they'd find somewhere a little safer to stash it than just leaving it beside a tree near tennis courts that are usually busy. No. I don't think it was drug money.

WEDNESDAY

Morning
Kasey's getting suspicious about me. She keeps prodding me, wanting to know what's up with me. "Holly, you've been acting weird the last two days. Are you gonna tell me or do I have to tell your mum on you?" she asked. Of course I told her nothing was wrong but she didn't believe me. She says I keep wandering off all the time, even though I'm right there with her. I had no idea what she meant at first, but she does struggle to say what she's thinking. It was only when the bell went at the end of lunch and I realised I hadn't even eaten my sandwich that I got what she meant. My mind was adrift on a sea of curiosity.

Afternoon
My new theory as to the owner of this money is a hitman. Wanna know why? I overheard a conversation today between the Cameron twins. They're sixth years and renowned for being the biggest jerks in the school. They're parents are super rich. I mean so rich they could probably buy my town if they wanted to. I have no idea why they're not at a public school. To be honest I wish they were as they always strut down the halls as though everyone else is like a bug that they can squish. Anyway back to my point. The twins were arguing in the lockers. I'm nosy-I think I've mentioned that-so I couldn't stop myself from earwigging. One of the brothers, Mitch, had taken their dad's car without asking and ended up scratching it all along the side. Something about overtaking road works and hitting some road signs. I don't remember the circumstances, that's not what's important. What is important is what Mitch did to stop his parents finding out. He offered to give his brother money so he would keep quiet. In other words he offered hush money. New theory.

Evening
It's 11.30pm and I'm wide awake. I've been thinking about this whole hush money thing all day. It's been seriously bugging me. I have no leads, nothing I can evaluate, nothing I can breakdown. Could it have been to cover up a shady business deal or to keep someone out of, or in, prison? How would I know?

That's when it dawned on me. The answer was in my theory. HUSH. In other words, quiet, off the radar, undetectable. If it was hush money there was no way I'd ever find out. And if it was hush money nothing screams louder than an open bag full of money in middle of the day. Not hush money.

THURSDAY

Morning
Is there a connection between recessions and an increase in robberies? I have no idea. But after hearing a news report about the recent ten million pound bank robbery, the biggest in town ever, it occurred to me that the money might have been dropped by one of the robbers. When I found out which bank was robbed I checked where it was on the street map and it was literally two streets away from where I found the money. It was so close it made me shiver. Did they drop it by accident? And if so did they see me pick it up? Did they follow me to the police station? Are they following me now?

Afternoon
I really ought to stop letting my imagination run away with me. Pretty much all of today I've been sweating over being jumped by burly guys desperate to get their booty back. From what I read that robbery was pretty violent. Five men turned up with sawn off shot guns. I thought that was a type of gun until dad told me that they actually saw the tip off shot guns to give them a wider spread of shot and make them easier to conceal. Hearing that put me off my dinner. Mum now thinks I've caught something-she not that far from the truth, but it ain't a bug, that much I do know.

Evening
I would personally like to thank Sir Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the internet. What a marvel of useful and useless information! The teachers keep telling us that we should always be cautious when using it for research as a lot of the information out there is rubbish. That may be true but on this occasion it has put my mind and body to rest. Phew! I can sleep tonight. I found out that the money the robbers stole couldn't possibly be what I found by that tree. Banks tellers put a fake wad of cash in bags when demanded to by robbers. The fake wad explodes and covers the notes in the bag with a dye which means they can't be used. My notes were clean. Quite how those thieves expected to get at the cash I don't know and to be honest I don't care. All I know is the money couldn't have belonged to them.

FRIDAY

Morning
There are many things about the 60s that are pretty cool: the mini skirt was invented, a man walked on the moon, the first computer was created. There were also some uncool things; the Berlin wall was built, President John F Kennedy was shot and there was a major baby boom in Britain which means there are loads of oldies around. The 60s was also the era of the famous London gangsters, Ronnie and Reggie Kray. We were talking about them in History class today. They had a reputation for being really violent and supposedly made a lot of money, controlling businesses, pubs and gambling dens the owners of which paid the brothers protection money. I'm sure there are probably a lot of gangsters still in London but for reasons I don't know they're not famous. Perhaps there are more serious problems in the world to talk about. But I'm now wondering if the money by the tree belonged to a gangster. Was it protection money?

Afternoon
Unlike yesterday I didn't get so worked up about my latest theory, with good reason. I come from a small town. It has a population of 16000 people when it's not over run with tourists and screaming kids. It has two shopping streets filled with family run businesses; a tailor who'll fix anything for £5,a chemist that only stocks aspirin, a grocer who smells of cabbage and is at least a hundred years old and a butcher who cut off one of his hands in an unfortunate accident with a pig and a meat cleaver. It's a small town. Ronnie and Reggie Kray controlled fourteen square miles of London. That's three and a half times the size of my town, including all the houses. If a gangster had half a brain about them they'd quickly realise that St Michaels is slim pickings; a lot of work for very little money and certainly not thousands of pounds worth. So that pretty much sums up that it's not gangster money.

SATURDAY

Morning
Today's a pretty sad day. I heard that the head teacher from St David's Boys School fifty miles away was shot by one of its pupils. What would possess someone to do that? Was it hatred? Spite? Did she fail him in a test? How did he get hold of a gun? Did he have some sort of mental illness? I can't get my head around this one. Two lives completely destroyed in a fraction of a second. Then there's the ripple effect; both their families have to come to terms with it and their relatives and their relatives and so on. It's such a senseless waste. What angers me more though is that I heard a group of kids laughing in the supermarket, suggesting that the boy was paid to do it. That there was a whole gang of kids that wanted to wipe her out. That doesn't bear thinking about. Assassinated for money.

Afternoon
With those kids' voices ringing in my head I couldn't help myself. I grabbed the papers from the last seven days from the rack in the lounge and laid them out on the dining table. One by one I went through them looking for candidates for assassination. The idea of a teacher being shot for money was too gruesome to even consider so I wiped that clean out of my head, or as much as I could. It didn't take long for me to find some candidates; a politician who had just passed a very unpopular tax; a man convicted of the unnecessary suffering he inflicted on his ten horses who all died of starvation in cramped stables; a housing developer who managed to get permission from the local council to bulldoze a five hundred year old forest to make way for luxury flats and a shopping centre and a recently freed rapist and paedophile. It made me realise that there is hardly ever any good news in newspapers. It's all bad.

Evening
Mum is now considering whether I have some sort of temporary mental illness. When she saw me flicking back and forth through the papers, making notes in the margins, circling passages, highlighting sentences, tearing out articles she froze. She's actually on the internet right now researching OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I think she needs more help than I do. Then when I asked her if the people on my list were still living she ran out of the kitchen and grabbed the phone. "I'm calling Dr Swanson. You need an appointment." She never did answer my question but as far as I can tell all the candidates I listed are alive. So what else could this money be?

SUNDAY

Morning
When I woke up and couldn't think of any other ideas as to where that money had come from I thought I'd exhausted all the possibilities until I looked over what I'd read and realised that every one of the options I'd investigated were in some way immoral. Why did I automatically think that? What is it about large sums of money that instantly gets people suspicious? Is it because there is so little money around nowadays? Is it because we expect or demand to have too much of it? Is money ever 'good'?

Afternoon
Yes, is the answer to my previous question, or at least that's my opinion. They say 'money makes the world go around' and I can't argue with that. Without it we'd all be living on the streets. So having sufficient money is a good thing; sufficient money to pay your bills, keep a roof over your head, feed yourself and your family. Money can also be good if it helps others; whether it's to help buy equipment for hospitals, to look after abused animals, to provide food and water for third world countries, to research diseases we don't have a cure for. There is good in money.

Evening
All this makes me wonder whether there was never anything sinister about the money at all. What if it was a moral test? What if whoever left it wanted to see what would happen when it was found. Would that person be honest or dishonest? And what would happen to them as a result. Were they watching? I couldn't help but steal a glance outside between the curtains of my bedroom window, just to check. Nobody there, or at least nobody I could see.

MONDAY

Morning
It's Christmas day in three days time. I have a pile of presents that need to be wrapped. All bought and paid for with money I earned working at Simpsons Shoe Store. More Saturdays than I can care to count have I spent working with sweaty, smelly feet, kids that have tantrums about trying on shoes, old people that try on every pair of shoes in the shop before settling on the first pair they tried and a Manageress that makes us wear Day-Glo pink blouses as part of our uniform. But at least my money was earned honestly.

I have another pile in my bedroom too. A pile of money; money found a week ago in a plastic bag beneath the boughs of a Spruce tree. Nobody claimed it. Nobody even reported anything lost.

I'm staring at it now, still wondering where it came from. Perhaps I'll never know. One thing I do know though is I can't keep it. Good or bad, it's not mine to keep.

There's only one thing for it, I guess.

I think I'll wrap up my presents with it.