My Little Red Notebook

I love my little red notebook. It seems odd, to have received so many amazing things for my fourteenth birthday, but only to care about this one. My uncle Simion, who always has such amazing tales of adventure, though I can never tell if they are true, gave it to me. I want to believe they are true.

The little red notebook feels adventurous. Complex indentations consume the covers and spine, seeming to spiral out from the center in almost a pattern. Yet there is no pattern. I am sure of that.

Uncle Simion says he found it, locked in a chest, sealed by wax in a sunken pirate ship that he and his small team of treasure hunters uncovered. This, I do not believe. But I want to.

What the book contains is the best part. 103 blank pages. Blank! This magical book could contain anything, and I get to decide what that is. It could be my secret diary, and I can hide it in my room, under the loose floorboard that I pulled up last summer. There was a dead rat, or rather, the bleached skeleton of one. I left it in its silent tomb, but always thought that it would be a good hiding place for something that needs to be hidden.

It could contain a true work of fiction. My own fantastical adventure. Friends would be rapt as I divulge the secrets from the book at a sleepover, holding it dramatically so they can appreciate its intricately imprinted red cover. And how amazed they would be when, at the conclusion of the tale, I tell them I was the one who put those secrets there. That it was my book. My adventure.

Or perhaps I could use it as a sketch book. I am a good artist for my age. That is what everyone says. I am unsure, because they always say, “for my age”, and I wonder if they are simply being polite and tactfully saying my art is mediocre. I would hate to fill such an exceptional book with mediocre drawings. Now that I think of it, I would hate to fill it with my mediocre life. I kept a diary until I was 12 and when I read it later, things that seemed exciting at the time were actually just dull and embarrassing.

But I could keep a diary of my future self. Surely, at fifteen, things will be better and I will probably be going on adventures of my own by then.

Exciting ones, with danger and maybe treasure.

I see now that I have already been writing it… What a funny thing… To have forgotten it…

My fifteenth birthday was grand, everything was perfect, fancier than any birthday party has a right to be. The next day, while I was waiting for the bus, a dog peed on Tracy Melborn while she was crossing the road, and then a bus hit her. She suffered a long slow death, but I did not feel bad because she had tried to ruin my fourteenth birthday party by bringing her new puppy and making sure SHE was the center of attention at MY party.

I feel a little guilty now. A pang of regret. Having written this in my little red notebook. It seems so real now that it is out where I can see it. And it is the first thing that will be read when the book is opened. I do not like that. I could rip the page out, or try to edit it, but my little red notebook demands my boldness and what is done is done. I will be a more careful as I continue. Perhaps, yes, I think I was actually mournful of her death, despite how awful she was to me. A tragic start to what was my amazing adventure.

Her death, in fact, is what started that adventure. The bus driver had been part of a secret cult that had been trying to exterminate her entire family for centuries. Her ancestors stole secrets from the cult which revealed where treasure was buried all over the world. The locations of the treasures were hidden in riddles and clues and with her dying breath, Tracy told me this. All was not lost, they had everything backed up on a USB drive, which she handed me, and it was so dramatic.

I have been writing in my little red notebook for weeks now. Time is an illusion while I write or even think about what needs to happen next. What did happen.

I am sad that my beautiful little red notebook is tarnishing. I try not to touch the outside anymore, oils from my skin are darkening it. Maybe I can get it restored when the story it will soon hold becomes famous. It is a very good story, and I have read a lot of books, so I know that.

After Tracy died, I had spent every night deciphering the riddles. Her family had moved here, to our stupid little town, trying to find one of the hidden treasures. They were not close to finding it yet, but I had a knack for this work and had found many more clues hidden in plain sight around town.

The secret cult that had killed them was getting suspicious of me. They were on the same trail as me and although I didn’t know who they were, I kept seeing people, with new faces, watching me, and looking away if I watched back. As I got close to the treasure, tragedy struck. They killed my parents. I came home from the library and saw them as they were covering up the murders, but they did not see me. I had just figured out where the treasure was. In a local cave, and I had taken spelunking lessons. Uncle Simion told me it was a necessary skill for all adventurers to learn and it had paid off.

Deep inside, using my notes to masterfully decipher etchings by torch light to take the correct turns, I found a small chest filled with ancient gold pieces. I did not keep it, though. I graciously brought it to the police and explained how I found it. A museum paid me 20,000 dollars as a reward and I got an offer to go teach archeology part time at the state college my older sister went to. I politely turned the position down. I was graduating high school early, and my uncle told me he would be thrilled if I joined his small team of treasure hunters. When I told him about the USB, that it still contained the encrypted locations of untold amounts of treasure, he was elated. It was the sort of thing he had been looking for his whole life and we will become rich and famous as we go on countless more adventures together.

This story is amazing. It took me an entire year to write, but it barely felt like effort. Writing these things down makes me feel like they really did happened, maybe because of how my little red notebook makes me feel when I hold it, tracing its intricately pressed patterns. They really are patterns. I am sure of that. I guess, though, I can hardly call it red any longer as the oils from my skin have turned it black. It does not look oily, or even shiny, but my little black notebook now absorbs light so profoundly that I can barely even see the patterns in the cover anymore... But I can still feel them.

I finished my story last night, just after my fifteenth birthday party. My party was perfect, I knew fifteen was going to be better. I’m bringing my story to show Tracy on the bus today, we have become best friends since last year. I still hate her stupid dog because she brings him to the bus stop almost every day and we always have to wait for him to plod back across the street before the bus finally puts its flashing red stop lights off and we finally continue on towards school.

Today, though, something hilarious is happening. Halfway across the road, her dog just lifted his leg and is peeing on her! She is turning so red that I can see it from here. She shouldn’t stop in the road, though, everyone knows that.

Doesn’t the bus driver see her?