Class was finally, finally over!
It was the end of the first day of a new week at school. High school thus far had been every bit as boring as Sandy had feared it would be. The lessons were harder and had demanded more of her attention.
Not that she had any more to give. Daydreaming about getting rich had consumed a lot of mental concentration. It was an important process that she had to keep running in her mind, always. Really. Or school would be totally unbearable.
After a few minutes of goodbye chat with her classmates, Sandy hurried to the bicycle shed. Shortly after, she was on her bike, pedaling her way home. She had unlocked the bicycle first, though.
Honestly, Sandy was not that idiotic to forget to unlock her bike before riding it! Especially after she had forgotten once before on the first day of school.
There was still no sign of the hidden wealth that her fortune had promised. It had to be in school somewhere. She had looked everywhere she could think of - in the sinks of the washrooms, under the cafeteria tables, in the flower bushes.
Members of the Gardening Society stopped her from digging up the plants, though.
Sandy had not found what she was looking for, be it an envelope full of money or a treasure chest of gold coins. Her fortune could not be wrong - she had paid good money for it.
The hidden wealth could not be at home. She had lived there as long as she could remember, ever since she was a baby. She knew the place from top to bottom. If there was anything of value there, she would have found it. And she had already checked all the likely places at home, with the exception of Momma Lois's safe in her office. She was sure that her guardian would never give her access to it.
But the fortune mentioned that wealth was where she had not thought to look. When she realized that, it occurred to her that because she thought of looking for it in school, therefore, it could not exist as some buried treasure there.
Thus, there was a new problem for her to think about. How was she to find something that was where she could not think to look? If she thought of it, it would not be there. And she really wanted the promised riches.
(What Sandy did not realize was that that burnt card of hers did not have all the pieces of the puzzle. Trying to solve that problem was like, well, doing a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces.)
(You do know what a jigsaw puzzle is, do you not? If not: Wikipedia. You do know what Wikipedia is, do you not? Does it still exist when you are reading this? If not: WOOHOO, this story outlasted Wikipedia!)
(Oh, erm, back to the story. Oh look, Sandy arrived home.)
Home for Sandy was the Sunshine Girls Home, a place where little girls without anywhere to belong to could find long-term shelter. Despite the cheery name of the place, it was a tiny two-floor house in the suburbs.
Sandy locked up her bicycle and helmet in the garage and went in. Hearing activity in the kitchen, she went there to investigate.
"I'm home, Momma Lois," Sandy greeted the ebony-skinned woman in a dress and apron working on dinner. Then she leaned close to the fair toddler playing with a rattle in the high chair. "Hi, Petra," she greeted gently while wriggling her fingers in front of the child.
Petra laughed in recognition of a familiar face.
"How's school today?" Momma Lois asked. She was a little wide, though not so much to be considered obese. Still, her extra size gave her the weight she needed to throw around when disciplining errant girls.
"It's fine," Sandy replied perfunctorily as she lightly shook Petra's little hand.
Momma Lois glanced over her shoulder at her brown-haired ward. "How about you go get cleaned up first? June will be back any minute now and she'd want the bathroom."
"Okay, Momma." Sandy waved goodbye to the toddler with her fingers and went upstairs into the shoe box that was her room.
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