Chapter 10: Treasure Hunt

Just off the shore of the main island, there lay a smaller one which everyone dubbed "the Children's Island." Nobody lived there, and so, over the years, it became a natural playground. Sora, Riku, Naminé, and their other friends loved to go there to play and explore. Its small waterfalls, caves, bridges and large tree house lent more to their imaginations than the much smaller playground on the main island. They ran back and forth across the main beach, making stories up off the tops of their heads. Other times, they'd run across an old wooden bridge to a part of the Children's Island that had gotten cut off from the rest, and they would sit on the crooked trunk of the paopu tree and watch the sunset.

And then one day, when Naminé's mother brought her to the island, she saw holes and piles of sand everywhere. Sora and Riku stood underneath the wooden bridge, digging yet another one. All of a sudden, Sora dropped the shovel and shoved Riku into the pile of sand they'd created. "This is all your fault!" he yelled.

Riku got up and shoved him back. "It's not my fault you're stupid and didn't draw a map!"

"You SAID if we marked the spot, the bad guys would find it!"

"So?! You still could have made a map, stupid!"

"I'm not stupid! You're stupid!" shouted Sora. This time, he shoved Riku into the hole. Naminé ran over to them, clutching her sketchbook and crayons so tightly that the crayon box crumpled.

"Why are you guys fighting?" she asked.

Sora started to cry. "Riku lost my birthday money!" he wailed.

"No, I didn't!" yelled Riku, as he climbed out of the hole.

"Yes, you did!" shrieked Sora, "We were playin' here yesterday, and Riku said we should pretend it was treasure, so we put it in a box and we buried it, and I wanted to mark it with an X, but Riku said the bad pirates would find it, so I didn't! And now we don't remember where we buried it!"

Naminé took Sora's hand. "I can help you find it!" she assured him.

"No, you can't! You weren't there!" he cried.

She squeezed his hand and closed her eyes to concentrate. Where had the boys hidden their treasure yesterday? After a moment, she opened her eyes again and asked, "Did you look by the shack?"

"No, we didn't put it in the shack because that's where we always hide our stuff. We wanted it to be different," said Sora.

"Not inside the shack. I mean outside the shack."

"No," insisted Sora, "That's too close to where we usually hide our stuff!"

Riku tossed his shovel away with a groan. "I give up. We're never gonna find it."

"You can't give up! It's your fault that all my birthday money's gone!" shouted Sora.

"It is not!" shouted Riku.

"IS TOO!"

"IS NOT!"

"IS TOO!"

Naminé picked up Riku's shovel and walked over to the shack.

"I'M NEVER PLAYIN' WITH YOU AGAIN!" yelled Sora. Riku shoved him a second time. That did it. Sora grabbed his sword. Riku followed suit. In seconds, their wooden swords clashed together. They swiped at each other in a vicious manner, such as they'd never done before. When Riku knocked Sora's sword out of his hands, the latter tackled him instead.

Neither one of them heard Naminé grunting as she dug around the sand next to the shack.

"Boys, boys! Stop that!" her mother cried. She rushed over from the docks and pulled the two former friends apart. "Let's all calm down and think about how we can find Sora's money."

"We'll never find it!" wailed Sora, "It's lost forever and it's ALL HIS FAULT!"

"Sora! Riku! Is this the treasure?"

Naminé ran up to them with a battered, sandy shoebox in her arms. "THAT'S IT!" screamed Sora, "How'd you find it?!"

She shrugged. "I told you. It was by the shack."

"But…" Sora scratched his head. "Oh…oh yeah! We did put it there yesterday! Remember, Riku? You said not to put it inside so I put it outside instead."

"…oh yeah," mumbled Riku.

For a moment, nobody said a word. They looked at one another and waited for somebody else to speak first. But at last, Sora turned in Riku's general direction with his head lowered. "I'm real sorry that I called you stupid and I shoved you and said I didn't wanna play with you anymore."

Riku blushed. "I'm real sorry that I called you stupid and I shoved you and I lost your money. Do you still wanna be friends?"

"Of course I do!" Sora threw aside his sword and the treasure box to hug his best friend. "C'mon, let's go hide my treasure someplace else, and this time we'll get Naminé to draw us a map!"

"Okay!"

Both boys ran off with the treasure and their toys, leaving Naminé behind with her mother. She scratched her head. "Mommy, they were really mad at each other," she observed, "But now they're friends again like they never had a fight at all!"

Her mother laughed. "Sometimes, friends are like that," she said, "Are you going to catch up with them?"

Naminé hesitated. Her mother's explanation made no sense. But at least her friends had stopped fighting. "Okay," she decided, "Sora! Riku! Wait for me, guys!"