✯ North Star ✯

Part 1

So you might be wondering what happens after you find the lost city of El Dorado, get blown up, two of your parents die, and you're stranded in South America with a sack full of gold. Well, let me catch you up.

First, you catch a ride back home, and sleep for like three weeks.

And when you finally get back, you make peace with the family... or not.

"No no wait. Rose you think I killed him? Are you kidding me? You think I killed dad? Rose do you understand how insane you sound?" I say into the phone pacing back and forth
"Can you please just put Wheezie on? Can I please talk to Wheezie? Can I talk to my little sister please? Or call Sarah and let her talk to her. Rose?" I beg rose but look down at my phone only to see she hung up.

I walk slowly over to John b trying not to cry.
"Hey" he says softly as he wraps his arm around me
"Hey" I manage to whisper out as we stare at the tree

Welcome home. And after all the loose ends are tied up, the gold.

All seven of us sat in the room as the men tested the gold. I'm not sure why I was nervous when I knew it was real, but I just couldn't help it.

"Twenty pounds. 98.5%.... Gold" the man says and I smile over at John b
"And that translates to...?" John b asks
"This is money. A whole lot of money." He answers and we all burst into cheers

I quickly jump up laughing and cheering, I give JJ a big hug then I give Sarah who was next to me one. I thank the men while shaking their hands, then we all run out of the office.

"Moment of truth alright. Pin is 0000. Enter" John b says as we all stand over him watching as he puts the card into the ATM machine.
"You're kidding" I say looking at John b
"What?" He asks
"Tell me that's a temporary pin" kie says
"I thought nobody could guess" John b answers
"Change that immediately" pope tells him
"I'm sorry" he mumbles before the ticket starts to come out

"Here it comes. That's me that's me!" JJ says trying to grab it but John b also grabs it, and now they were fighting over it
"Let me read it!" JJ says pulling it
"Oh my gosh" I mumble rolling my eyes before John b takes it fully
"It's not even the money it's just the receipt" pope says as we all look over his shoulder again

"Ok ok, our joint account balance... after paying JJ's restitution at 10:04 a.m. on Tuesday..." John b drags out
"Oh come on get on with it" cleo tells him
"Our joint account balance is... one point one million, seventy-two thousand, five hundred and forty-nine dollars" John b tells us

"You said mil?" JJ asks
"Million?" Pope asks
"Um" John b mumbles
"With a M?" Pope asks
"That'll do it!" Pope says
"Yeah!" John b quickly agrees as we all start to cheer again

"Holy super kook guys we did it!!" I cheer before throwing my arms around John b

"Ok ok ok, hear me out. Rally truck with yellow LED's to replace the Twinkie for right now" JJ says as we all sit in a circle as we always do
"No im not getting rid of the Twinkie" John b says
"Agreed the Twinkie can't be replaced" I butt in
"But with solar panels maybe? If it's in the budget" Kie suggests
"And a bigger boat" cleo says

"Guys hold on hold on. It's.. it's not like we can all go off and buy houses or anything. I mean, split between all of us, that's about $211,000. Minus what we owe Barracuda Mike." Pope says
"Let him try and take this. I'll mess him up." JJ says
"I'm just gonna say it. I don't wanna piss off a drug dealer." John b says
"Listen if we divide this up, we're all gonna blow it." Pope says and we all look at JJ
"Wow ok, why are you all looking at me like that?" He says

"But maybe, if we pool our money together, we can create something with actual economies of scale." Pope says
"Like what?" Kie asks
"You remember the island" he says
"Duh how could we forget" I smile
"I mean, it was our own island, and we built everything from basically nothing right?" Pope says
"It was perfect" kie says
"The best life" cleo smiles
"That whole island just to ourselves. All of us together" I smile

"I think we can have that again. Right here. JJ's property is going up for auction right? So let's buy it back. I mean, look around. A lot of land. Deep water access. Unless any of you are planning on going back to school, we're gonna need a place to work, a place to stay and live. I think we can have both of those things here. First things first, we get the land, right? And then here there, we could build a like a surf shop. And then maybe make our own dock." Pope tells us
"This place needs a dock" kie agrees
"Ooo what about a bait and tackle shop?" John b suggests
"Exactly, and.. and who knows these waters better than us? JJ you can get a new boat and run a fishing charter. We can all live and sleep in the house." Pope tells us

Pope was the mastermind. He saw not what it was but what it could be. A place where we could work and live together. A shop, a marina, a place to chill. But first, we had to buy JJ's land back from the bank.