Mysterious Book

Jerome is a 18 year high school student, who helps his single mom run her small shoe store. He picked up an extra job to help his mom pay the bills, since and due to her shoulder injury picking up heavy boxes.

It seemed to be a normal Friday morning Jerome's mother was in the kitchen cooking eggs and blueberry pancakes for breakfast, which is Jerome's favorite. He was upstairs preparing for school. Jerome's mom yelled out “Breakfast is ready!” He rushed downstairs ready to chow down on his favorite. “Mom, you should've let me cook breakfast this morning. You know the doctor said take it easy on your shoulder,” he said. “I know son, but those doctors don't know what they're talking about,” she refuted. “I just don't want you to make it worse,” he said. “Thanks for caring son!,” she said. While he was at the table eating breakfast he could hear his mom mumbling something under her breath about bills or something else, as she flipped through the mail. “Is everything alright mom?” “Yeah son just eat your breakfast,” she said softly. He knew something wasn't right and wanted to get to the bottom of it. “I'm getting ready to head out. I'll see later at the shop.” “Okay have a good day at school.” She went upstairs to lie down. He noticed that his mom left the mail on the counter, before he left out he skimmed through the paper to find that she was behind on the mortgage and their house was about to get foreclosed. His heart instantly dropped and stomach turned. He softly closed and locked the door behind himself and began walking to school. He couldn't fathom why she would hide that from him. It made no sense to him. Jerome's high school was only seven blocks away from his house. It usually takes him fifteen minutes to get there. On that beautiful vivid Friday morning he noticed a little black rectangular shaped object laying on the curbside across the street. He couldn't help to think what was on the inside. He crossed the street to satisfy his curiosity. Watching for cars before doing so. The rectangular shaped object turned out to be a worn out 50 page notebook filled with a long list of lucky numbers with dates written next to it. Jerome thought himself this had to be some kind of joke from someone in the neighborhood. Who would leave a book like this on the curbside unattended.

And why hasn't anyone picked it up yet? This was too good to be true. Jerome didn't believe in luck anyway, so he left the book on the curb and continued his walk to school. As he made his way down the street, he couldn't stop thinking about that book. It could've been the universe telling him something. No longer resisting the temptation of finding out if it was real or not, he turned around to go retrieve the notebook. When he returned to the location the book was longer there. “Where did it go? Who could've picked it up that quick?”, he asked himself. Jerome went door to door asking the neighbors if they had seen the little black notebook. Every answer was a no, Jerome chose not to go to school until he found that mysterious small black book. He paced up and down the street looking through trash cans, under cars, and even checking mailboxes, and still there was no sign of the book. He got tired of looking for it, so school was the only place left to go, he was already ten minutes late, so didn’t bother to rush. Once he got to school he went to the principal’s to get a tardy slip, and then headed off to his locker to get his math books. Right before closed his locker he looked and saw the same black notebook he was looking for earlier this morning. Jerome now felt his mind was playing tricks on him or he was going crazy. One minute he couldn’t find it and then the next minute it was right in his face. “What is going on with this book? It really must be special, magical or something.”, he said to himself. Jerome began to have a dilemma about whether he should ditch school to play the numbers or wait until after school. The temptation of him finding out if all of this was real or not drew him in even deeper. He couldn’t resist, he just had to find out as soon as possible, he watched his surroundings before attempting to escape the building. Everything seemed to be going smooth. Surprisingly there weren't any hall monitors patrolling the hall, that allowed him to dash out the back door. He still took precaution, exiting there were two teachers out by the dumpster smoking cigarettes. He hid behind the dumpsters, staying out of sight, while covering up his nose with his jacket avoiding the horrible aroma of old food. The teachers continued their conversation for a minute or two before going back inside. Jerome quickly ran to the nearest convenience store in the area to play the numbers that were written in the book. He finally made it to the store and rushed to the counter to play the numbers for that specific date. “23,27,20,7,33,50,12”, he said as he panted from running. “Do you know how much is in the pot for the lottery?”Jerome asked. “It’s at 20 grand right now.” the clerk said. The clerk punched the numbers in for him, and then Jerome paid for the ticket and placed it in his pocket, and went on his way. Jerome took his time heading back to school, he felt there was no need to rush, since he already missed half of the first period. The only thing left for him to do was get through the rest of the day and wait for the lottery pick to come on tonight.

After a long hard day of school and work, Jerome couldn’t wait to surprise his mom with the lottery ticket. Although she didn’t believe in the lottery too much. He still wanted to prove to her there was a possibility they could win. He told her about everything that happened that day. She didn’t believe anything he said she just sat there on the couch and laughed uncontrollably while eating her pint of butter pecan ice cream. Jerome looked at the clock and noticed the lottery pick was about to begin shortly. He ran upstairs and grabbed the mysterious book and lottery ticket. When he came back down he was very eager to show her the book and ticket. She quickly glanced at the book and then looked away, still not taking it seriously. “Look son, anybody could have written that.” she said. He calmly grabbed the remote off the couch to change the channel to the state lottery and didn’t say anything, Jerome was so confident that this was real and could’t wait to prove it to his mom. They patiently waited and watched everything unravel. He placed the ticket and book on the table so his mom could look at the numbers as the host called them out. The first number he picked and called was 23. And then 27, 20,7,33,50,12 just like it was written in the book! His mom's eyes dang near popped out of her head. “Son how did you know and where did you get this notebook!?” she excitedly yelled out. “I trust my gut and my intuition. Like I said before I don't know where it came from I just saw it laying on the curb. The reason I did all of this is because I saw the letter earlier stating the house was about to get foreclosed. That's why I went on and took the risk of trying to figure out the unknown.” he said. “I’m glad you did son! I’m sorry for not telling you I didn’t want you to stress about it like I was stressing about it.” she replied. “I love you mom.” “I love you too son.” All of sudden the strangest thing happened. The book rose up and floated around the living room in the air as if someone had it on a string or something. They looked at each other scared and amazed at the same time. Right before their eyes the book vanished into thin air. “Magic?” Jerome said. “Or you know what.” she refuted. “It’s been a long day let’s go get some rest sweetheart.” she said naturally like nothing ever happened. After all those strange things occurred on the weekend, that Monday morning Jerome’s mom signed the ticket and drove downtown to turn it in with Jerome right there by her side. The transaction went smooth, they received the check, cashed it in for twenty thousand dollars. Jerome was stoked to know his mom was going to be able to keep her house.