Do It By The Book

I was bored.

And I mean, really bored. Not like, “I have a whole day off and I don’t know what to do with it,” bored. More like, “I’ve been unemployed for eight months now and I literally don’t know what to do with my whole life,” bored.

The house felt oppressive today. I mooched from room to room, searching for something to give me purpose. Finally, just after lunch, I’d had enough. I grabbed my jacket and almost ran out of the front door.

Once I was away from the house, I chose a path that wound through a small patch of trees. Eventually, I ended up in a small clearing with a large rock off to one side. I came here often when I walked. It was peaceful.

I sat down on the rock and automatically reached for my back pocket. My hands found nothing. Oh, right. I’d dropped my phone only yesterday, smashing the screen beyond repair. I couldn’t afford to replace it, and that was making everything that bit harder. For something to do, I got up and wandered around the clearing, staring at the branches that surrounded me.

And that’s when I saw it.

It was almost completely hidden in the mud and leaves – in fact, it looked like someone had deliberately tried to bury it. I was surprised it had survived all the rain we’d had recently. I bent down and extracted a small, black notebook.

It was in remarkably good condition for something that had been submerged in the mud for however long. Without much thought, I flipped it open, and looked at the first page.

There was a single sentence written there in faded blue ink, in a slightly shaky hand. Go down the path and turn right.

What can I say? I was REALLY bored.

I squinted down the path and, sure enough, there was a fork at the end of it – one path going left, one going right. I walked purposefully up to the fork and, with a slight grin at the silliness of it, I turned right.

I had only walked about two hundred yards around the bend when I came to a stop. There was a van at the end of the path, just where the dirt track became actual road. A man was sitting on the floor by the wheel arch. He did not look happy. His head was leaning back against the van, and his eyes were closed.

I absent-mindedly glanced down at the pages of the notebook, realising that I was still marking the page with the writing on with my thumb. I nearly fell over my own feet when I realised that more words had appeared.

I whipped the book up in front of my face, staring at the new writing. That had definitely not been there before. I was sure there had just been the one sentence. But there it was, bold as brass, in the same shaky handwriting and the same faded ink. Offer to help the man sitting on the ground.

I looked doubtfully at the man. He didn’t seem to particularly want help. But, against my better judgement, I stepped towards the man with the van and called out.

“Hey, are you OK? Do you need some help?”

The man opened his eyes and stared at me for a second. A small smile crossed his face.

“No, but thanks, love. I don’t think there’s anything you can do.”

Encouraged by the smile, I decided to press on. “What’s happened?”

He sighed a deep sigh. “There’s a delivery of ice-cream in this van. But the van’s broken down. Even in this weather, it’s going to melt before the mechanic gets here.”

A thought seemed to occur to him. “Hey, you know what? There’s no point it all going to waste.”

He disappeared round the back of the van. A few seconds later he reappeared, clutching a luxurious-looking chocolate-coated ice-cream wrapped in gold foil. He held it out to me.

“You want one? It was good of you to offer to help.”

I smiled the first really genuine smile I’d smiled in a while and, walking forward, took the ice-cream.

“Thanks so much!”

He grinned at me, seeming pleased that he’d cheered me up. “No worries, love. Enjoy.”

I strolled past the man onto the road, tearing open the foil, and bit into the chocolate coating. It was a bit cold for ice-cream today really, but I couldn’t stop smiling.

Once I was round the corner, I sat on a low stone wall with my ice-cream, and lifted the notebook up again. If following its instructions was going to get me free ice-cream, I wanted to see what it suggested next.

Over the next week, I did whatever the book told me. Its instructions were always cryptic – Agree to take in your neighbour’s parcel. Check your emails at precisely 11.04am – but I followed them to the letter. They always seemed to result in something good for me – the neighbour’s parcel turned out to be a second-hand phone that she’d bought a while ago, but she’d upgraded her contract in the meantime, so she gave it to me as thanks for taking in the parcel; the email was from a company I’d applied to, urgently seeking a replacement for someone (I later learned that, had I replied just a few minutes later, the job would already have been taken by someone else).

I was extremely happy. My phone had been replaced, I’d got a new job, and there were all sorts of other little good things that had happened to me, like the free ice-cream on that very first day.

Even the weather had taken a turn for the better. The sun was shining down, radiant and warm for the first time in months. I decided to take a walk down to my favourite spot and see if the notebook was going to suggest anything else. It had gone oddly quiet over the past couple of days, and I was hoping that taking it back to the place I’d found it might jolt it back into life.

I reached the spot under the trees, settled down on the rock, and eagerly flipped through the pages. I stopped on the page with the most recent instruction but, to my frustration, nothing new had appeared. I glared at the book. What was I supposed to do with my day now? But then, as thought it could sense what I was thinking, the now-familiar faded blue ink started to appear. Go down the path and turn left.

Excitedly, I jumped up from my seat and half-ran to the fork in the path. This time, I turned left. I walked almost to the end of the path, where it joined the road on this side, and then paused to study the book again.

Look under the bench.

I looked to my left, where there was an old wooden bench. I could see something stuffed under the seat. I knelt down by the end of the bench and reached underneath it, grabbing the hidden thing with both hands.

It was an old gym bag, black, with scuffed edges and muddy marks on it. I looked around uncertainly. Had this just been abandoned? I checked the notebook, which I’d laid on the ground beside me.

Open the bag and look inside.

I couldn’t shake the sense of unease I felt, but the book had never steered me wrong before. I opened the bag.

If I hadn’t already been sitting on the ground, I would have fallen over with shock. Bundles of money filled almost every inch of the inside of the bag. There must have been thousands of pounds in there.

This was definitely starting to feel like something I didn’t want to be involved in. I zipped up the bag, and was about to stuff it back under the bench and pretend I never saw it, when I noticed a new instruction in the notebook.

Take the bag.

Almost against my own will, I lifted the bag and put it over my shoulder. Following the book’s orders had become second nature. If it told me to do something, I did it.

I looked to the book again, but no further instructions appeared. I was going to have to make my own decision.

I turned on my heel and walked resolutely off towards my favourite spot under the trees. When I got there, I scrabbled about in the bushes until I had made a suitable space, and pushed the bag in amongst the leaves and branches. I rearranged them carefully until the bag could not be seen. Then I went home, still slightly shaken by this turn of events.

I kept waking up in the night to look at the notebook, but it remained stubbornly blank. By the time the sky had started to lighten outside my window, I was getting desperate. That money could not stay where I had hidden it. I needed guidance, but the book was providing none. I would have to act on my own.

I left the house and made my way to my favourite spot as quickly as I could. I rushed straight to the place where I had hidden the bag, pulling the branches aside. And then my stomach plunged into my feet. Because the bag was gone. I fumbled blindly through the foliage, knowing I wasn’t going to find it. I had hidden it well, but not that well.

I didn’t know what to do. For a second, I was almost relieved. The bag was no longer my responsibility. And then I heard a very small cough from behind me. I whirled. And, for the first time, I noticed. There was someone sitting on the large rock.

It was a tall, thin man. He looked… dirty was the first word that came to mind. Like he hadn’t had proper shower or bath in weeks. I looked more closely and realised that his thinness was unnatural, like he hadn’t had proper meal in weeks either. Truthfully, I didn’t pay much attention to his physical appearance. Something else was drawing my eye more insistently.

The bag with the money in was on his lap.

He hadn’t opened it, but I knew immediately, with another lurch in my stomach, that he hadn’t needed to. He knew exactly what was in the bag. I had found its original owner.

He looked almost amused by my presence, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Aaaaaah.” He drew out the word, his smile broadening. It was still not a friendly smile. “I was wondering when you would arrive.” The smile dropped. “Do you know what happens to people who take things that don’t belong to them?” Very slowly, his gaze never leaving mine, he placed the bag beside him on the rock and stood. With the same measured pace, he started to move towards me. I saw a glint of light in his hand, and realised that he was holding a short, but very sharp, knife.

My breath was coming in short gasps now. I knew I had done something very, very stupid. I looked around for an escape, but I was trapped at the back of the clearing, hemmed in on all sides by trees. Instinctively, I glanced down to the notebook, which was clutched, open, in my right hand. Please, I thought. Please, get me out of this.

To my joy, a sentence started to appear. The joy quickly turned to horror as I read it.

I only told you to take the bag.

In a flash, I realised my mistake. The book had not mentioned the money. It had only told me to take the bag. But surely it would have realised how I would have interpreted its words?

I looked desperately at the pages for more instructions. But no more came.

And the man kept coming closer.