Little Black Book

There it was, just sitting there. Wedged between the chair cushions. It was crumpled, slightly faded and abandoned. One of the main reasons I like visiting old bookstores is because I secretly hope I will stumble across something out of the ordinary, like a small note that someone has slid inside a book with their deepest, darkest secret written on.

I was excited for a second, I thought this was my moment to find something. However, this notebook appeared relatively ordinary. It was a classic, black one with ruled lines on the pages. I flipped through but they were mostly blank, just some scribbles in pencil on the last page. I imagined the notebook belonged to an older woman. Someone sophisticated with a name like Marilyn. She was probably sitting here with her fresh new notebook, ready to leave the corporate world behind her and start writing her first novel. Or screenplay.

I asked the young woman at the counter if she knew who the book belonged to, but she didn’t even look up from her phone. Her small shrug response was enough to tell me that she wasn’t worried about returning it to its rightful owner.

I took a look again at the scribbles. At first, they seemed incoherent but the closer I examined them, they began to appear as some sort of a guide. ‘1 – exit’. I looked up towards the door, there was no ‘exit’ sign anywhere. I wandered the store briefly, but it wasn’t a large store and there was only one entrance and exit door.

I left the store, notebook still in hand and stepped outside onto the calm street. It was a warm, sunny day and the heat enveloped me as I stood there. I glanced back at the notebook, it read, ‘2 – 20 straight, 40 right, 25 left, 14 left.’ I added the numbers up quickly in my head: 99. What does 99 mean? Surely a number like that must have some sort of significance.

I took my phone out and hurriedly started researching to see if there was any meaning relating to that specific number. All I could find was that it said the number 99 represented fate, harmony and destiny. My brain was firing, was it my destiny to find this notebook? Are these words curated just for me? I looked back at the instructions, ‘20 straight, 40 right’. I looked ahead but the street was mostly empty, there were no street signs.

I turned around and burst back into the bookstore. I darted my eyes around but there was only one other customer so I returned to the counter. I asked the young woman, “excuse me, if someone said 20 straight, 40 right, 25 left, 14 left to you, what do you think that would mean?” She looked at me like I was crazy but at least I had her attention this time. I repeated the question. She shrugged casually and said quietly, “sounds like you should just do what it says”. “And what is it saying exactly?” “Take 20 steps straight, then 40 left etc.”

The lightbulb in my head pinged – yes! That’s it. Of course that’s what it was. I thanked her quickly and ran back out onto the street. I faced ahead, took my first step in front of me and started counting. After, 20 steps, there was a street to my left. I turned and started counting again.

When I had finished the sequence, I looked up to find myself at the entrance of a supermarket car park. It was a Sunday afternoon, the car park was relatively full and there was a quiet buzz of people arriving and leaving. The notebook’s next step read ‘3 – it’ll be in the 7th one’. I began pacing around the car park, suddenly completely consumed by this treasure hunt I’ve found myself on. I paused for a moment and realised how ridiculous this all was. I had no idea what I was even searching for. But the notebook had reeled me in, I was so curious to know what was going to be at the end of these steps. A dark thought crept into my brain, what if it’s something horribly sinister? What if I find something I don’t want to find? I quickly pushed the thought away and continued around the car park.

There were no numbers on the parking spaces, there were no signs for anything other than the driving arrows on the floor. I counted every 7 cars, I examined number plates to see if they had any of the step count numbers on them. I looked underneath the cars and inside their windows. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a security guard peering over at me. I realised how this must look so I wandered over to the stack of trolleys to make it seem like I was heading inside for some shopping.

There was a huge row of them resting alongside the edge of the building. I tried to take the first one out but it was jammed. I yanked it even harder and three trolleys burst out at once. Three trolleys! It’ll be in the 7th one! I looked back and counted down the row; 4, 5, 6, 7. I rushed around trying to get all of the other trolleys out of the way so I could get to that 7th one. Finally, I had it. I glanced over it, looking all around. It was empty, other than an old, leftover receipt sitting in it.

This can’t be right, this had to be the answer to the clue. I kicked the trolley in frustration and went to storm away. Maybe I was getting too carried away, these notes could mean anything. I don’t know how I’ve even got to this place. But as the trolley crashed into the wall, I saw something fall out of the wheel. I bent down to take a look and found a used, old credit card sitting there. The numbers were faded and the name was completely washed away.

I grabbed the notebook out of my bag and flicked to the last page. It read, ‘4 – underneath the sign’. This felt like I was getting close. I quickly looked up at the large shop sign but it only had the entrance to the supermarket, nothing noteworthy. I was running on instinct now so I took the credit card and headed towards the doorway.

As I stood inside the doorwa blankly looking around for inspiration, my stomach made a huge grumble. It occurred to me that I had completely neglected my lunch at this point. The words ‘underneath the sign’ rang out in my head but the walls just stared back at me with a plain, dirty white. I turned to the right in search for food when I spotted a flickering light at the end of the aisle. Right there at the end was a cash machine embedded into the wall with a small sign above it that read ‘insert your card here’.

It all clicked in my head and I raced over. I took the card and excitedly inserted it into the machine. There was a sharp noise as it sucked the card inside and the screen came alive. But it wanted a pin number. I looked back to the notebook but the next step was blank. Now what?! I started typing in 1234, 0000 but nothing worked. I even tried 9999 thinking back to the earlier step count. It flashed at me that I had only one attempt left. I remembered my earlier search and how 99 meant your destiny, your

fate. This whole day had become a strange course of events but at this point, it felt serendipitous that I had found this notebook. Whatever is at the end of these steps is waiting for me. I took a deep breath and inputted the day and month of my birthday. There was a noise and the screen lit up.

‘Your account balance is $20,000. Would you like to make a withdrawal?’

I froze, my hands shaking. I blinked several times, not comprehending the words in front of me. Like a robot, my arms moved forward and I pressed some buttons. I heard churning inside and suddenly the machine spat out money in front of me. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

This was all extremely overwhelming. I could feel the crisp notes in my hand, my legs began to shake and I started to sweat. I thought I might pass out. Suddenly my phone rang, and it jolted me out of my nervous state. It was an unknown number but with how today went, I wasn’t taking any chances.

“Hello”, I answered with a shaky voice. A loud, cheery southern accent boomed on the other end, “well done Kelly! This is Jim from Destiny radio station 99.9fm and you’ve just won $20,000! We planted a treasure hunt around town and you are the first one to complete it – congratulations!” My mouth was suddenly so dry, it was stuck shut. Is this real?

I turned away from the machine and looked out to the supermarket. Everyone had gathered around and they were staring directly at me. They burst into applause, cheering and whooping. The noise jolted me and I dropped my phone, I could hear it smash all over the floor. I couldn’t laugh, I couldn’t cry, it was like my body was frozen to the spot.

And then I collapsed, with $20,000 in my hands.