One day I decided to visit my cousin, Matthew. He lives in Laurel on a great big farm. I like to play with Matthew because he has a big barn and I like to explore inside it. We decided to play hide and go seek. I wanted to hide in the barn so I did. I saw pigs, cows, and horses in the barn. They stood still and looked at me when I came into the barn. I saw a cow with big brown eyes and next to him in the hay was a note. When I picked up the note and read it I was excited because the note told me there was a treasure somewhere in the barn. The place where it was hiding rhymes with the word soft. I thought and thought. Then I looked up into the loft! It rhymes with soft!

I climbed up the ladder and when I got to the top I looked everywhere but couldn't see anything except something strange in the corner. It looked like an old bag of feed. I walked over to the corner and I opened the old, dirty, smelly bag. Inside the bag was a brown, wooden box. There were letters on the box. T R E V O R was written on the box! That was my name. I opened the box and I saw gold and diamonds. There was, a note inside the box that said, "Here is a gift for Trevor and his cousin Matthew. I am an old man now and I want to give this gold and these diamonds to you." The note was signed "Pop-Pop".

I was excited when I saw the note. I ran to find Matthew and I shouted, "Matthew, where are you?"

Matthew said from somewhere outside the barn, "I'm hiding. You have to find me."

I said, "The game is over! I have to show you something!"

Matthew came out from behind the barn and I showed him the dirty, smelly old bag.

Matthew said, "Ewwwww... why do you want to show me this old bag?"

I told him that there was something in it that he would like a whole lot. When I showed him the gold and diamonds inside he couldn't believe it. We took the bag home and showed it to Matthew's mom. We decided to give our moms the diamonds so that they could have pretty jewelry. The gold we wanted to save for our dads because dads need money to keep the house and feed the family.

Our moms were happy with the gold and diamonds and they hugged us and kissed us and said that we would go to college some day.

Patti Weeg
pweeg@shore.intercom.net

March 21, 2000