Jim Hawkins Goes Bad…
Chapter 1:
Ten years after the famous treasure hunt, Jim, the squire, the doctor, and Captain Smollet were sitting down to dinner and were reminiscing about the past treasure-hunt adventure. Jim was now married with one child; a son who was named after his grandfather. Dinner was good: roast chicken with stuffing and gravy, along with heaps of mashed potatoes and green beans with a creamy butter-sauce. Jim's stomach was rumbling after his hard day of work and he was ready to eat. He was actually doing quite well; he was a carpenter and was very good at his trade, he was making a lot of money and his dreams for even more riches than he already had stretched way above the horizon. Jim was already really rich from his part of the treasure, but he still wasn't content. Ten years later Jim Hawkins was not the same humble Jim Hawkins we knew before.
Our friend Jim was obsessed with money, his life-long goal. His love of money was taking over everything else in his life; his wife and kids, his interests, his goals, and the kind honest spirit he used to have. All that was just flowing down the drain with only the bubbles left on top; memories of when he was the old Jim, the real Jim.
Jim's wife was quite the opposite. She loved Jim very much and was always optimistic and enthusiastic no matter what the situation was. Cheerful and grateful for everything she had, she always made the best of what life gave her. And she couldn't understand why her husband cared so much about money and riches and fame. She sometimes just sat and wondered what had happened to the man she had originally married. It was a tough puzzle she could not solve.
Dinner was over now, and the four men were ready for the dessert: a double layer chocolate cake. While they were waiting for it the captain began to sing an old sailor song. The doctor covered his ears and Jim and the squire followed suit, (by the way, the captain's singing was terrible, even worse than a bunch of first graders singing Happy Birthday). They rolled their eyes at his terrible singing.
It was actually the same tune that Jim had learned more than ten years ago from the deceased Billy Bones:
Fifteen men on a dead man's chest
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Even though his singing was terrible, the song still flooded in memories of the best year in Jim's life. But the cake was coming and Jim let the thought slide out of his mind.
Chapter 2:
Jim was full and he lazily sat down on the squire's comfy sofa. The men were all full and a little woozy from the many glasses of whiskey they had put down, but they wouldn't be smiling for long. Long John Silver was staring at them through a crack in the curtain.
Ten years after the treasure hunt, Silver was the only living member on the face of the planet who was in that original voyage under the notorious Captain Flint. He possessed the treasure map and all of the secret knowledge about that voyage. And just two days before, Silver had made the most important discovery in his life.
You see, although Jim and "the gang" had found some of Flint's treasure, Flint actually had a lot more riches than all of that. In fact, he was so rich he got sick of his wealth, (if that's possible), and wanted to get rid of it and live the simple life and poor life of a true pirate. And so he buried all of the wealth that he had accumulated over the years, and that was a lot of stuff.
Yet he didn't want anybody else to find his wealth either. He had to find away to seal in some dark and forgotten place for all of eternity where no one else could find it. He knew all the other pirates buried their treasure on some deserted island, with a mysterious map, and the whole nine yards. But, Flint needed something different. Then he got a sudden flash of inspiration. He knew exactly what he would do. He would fool everybody with the most ingenious scheme ever devised by a pirate in the history of the world. He had a satisfied smirk on his face and felt very, very pleased with himself.