"Mae, this is trespassing," Bea said. "We're trespassing right now."
Mae didn't respond to that. She was too busy watching Gregg try climb over the chain-link fence that surrounded Casey's backyard. She didn't know why he wasn't using the actual opening in the fence that she, Angus, and Bea had come through. Had Gregg forgotten about it? Was he just trying to impress Angus? It was a real mystery.
It was late. Or it was early, depending on how you looked at it. Either way, it was after midnight. No light was coming out of the windows of Casey's former home. The light of the stars and the full moon barely illuminated the backyard, but Mae's eyes had already adjusted to the dark. She could see fine, more or less.
"I don't think Casey's parents would press charges against us," Angus pointed out. Like Mae, he was unable to look away from Gregg's attempts to get over the fence. "And so long as we're quiet, the neighbors probably won't—"
"THE TOP! I REACHED THE TOP!" Gregg cried out excitedly. He was lying on top of the chain link fence, basically straddling it with his entire body. "CAP'N! SOMEONE! PULL ME OVER!"
Angus frowned, nonplussed. "Hmm."
Quickly and quietly, Angus walked up to the fence. Gregg was wildly shaking his hand for the big guy to grab onto, which he did when he was close enough. With a bit of a grunt, Angus pulled Gregg over and into Casey's backyard. Gregg thanked his boyfriend with a big hug, which Angus stoically returned.
Bea sighed and folded her arms over her chest. She waited for Gregg and Angus to finish hugging before she continued criticizing Mae's great plan.
"Okay, but even if they don't press charges, we're still in someone's backyard, looking to dig up a locker full of drug money."
Bea paused, a thought occurring to her.
"God, I can't believe this is my life," she sighed.
Mae turned to look at the backyard. It was pretty much exactly how she remembered it from when she'd hung out with Casey back in the day. It was still overgrown with weeds, and there was still an old, broken down grill sitting randomly in the middle of the yard. The grill had always been like that, even before Casey's bio-dad died. Mae didn't know if it had ever been not busted. Mae didn't even know if the grill belonged to Casey's family.
Mae's attention eventually turned to the ugly, dead tree at the end of the backyard. Its branches stuck out over the chain-link fence, poking into the woods behind Casey's home. Nestled in the tree's branches was the world's shittiest treehouse; a big board of plywood with four smaller board serving as walls.
That treehouse, Mae thought, was the only really selfless thing Casey's bio-dad had ever done for his son. And he'd still done a really shitty job.
It was kind of amazing that the treehouse hadn't fallen apart by now, honestly. Possum Springs had some pretty terrible weather, after all. Mae didn't know how the treehouse hadn't been blown off of the tree or drowned in a super-flood. Maybe Casey's bio-dad had actually been some sort of wizard architect.
But now wasn't the time for treehouse mysteries. Now was the time for digging.
"Okay," Mae said, trying to keep her voice to a whisper. "Let's try and figure out where Casey might've buried the lockbox. This might take a while."
Mae looked all around the backyard a few times, doing a quick survey of it from where she stood. Everyone else, meanwhile, had their eyes focused on one particular spot on the ground. It took Mae a moment to realize they were all staring at something.
"Yeah," Bea said. "I mean, it's not like he could've buried it under that patch of dirt with the shovel on top of it."
Mae blinked. At the base of the weird tree was a patch of dirt, looking like a brown island among the ocean of dying grass. A shovel had been carelessly discarded on the patch of earth, its blade partially covered with dirt. From the looks of things, it had been there for a while.
Mae stared at the spot that had clearly been dug up some time in the past.
"Okay, we don't know it's there," Mae said quickly.
"I think I can see the lid," Gregg said, pointing at the dirt. "He didn't even do a good job burying it."
Bea scoffed. "So all this time you've been agonizing over where Casey might have buried his shit, and you could've figured it out just by looking in his backyard?"
"Yeah, this wasn't really much of a mystery in hindsight," Angus muttered.
Mae kept staring at the shovel, and the dirt, and the corner of metal poking out of the ground. Casey, it turned out, had been terrible at burying things. He never would've made it as a pirate, despite owning a boat and enjoying booty.
At least he'd left the shovel out in the open. Mae hadn't actually gotten around to buying and/or borrowing a shovel from Bea.
"So who's gonna dig it up?" Gregg asked. He held Angus's hand as they moved to stand beside Mae.
"I can do it," Mae said. "It's not that deep. Plus, I'm good at digging."
"Yeah you are, dude!" Gregg praised enthusiastically.
As it turned out, Mae didn't need to put her superior digging skills to use. All Mae needed to do was brush the layer of dirt that covered the lockbox's lid. Mae dug her fingers into the dirt that surrounded the box and began pulling it out. The metal box wasn't terribly heavy, and soon Mae was lifting it into the air and setting it down on the grass.
The lockbox was made of metal, and was colored military-green. It had probably originally belonged to Casey's bio-dad. Another piece of junk he couldn't be bothered to give to Casey back when he was alive.
"Okay, you've got the box," Bea whispered. "Now can we please get out of here? One of the neighbors might see us."
"It's after midnight, Beebee," Mae whispered back. "Who looks into their neighbor's backyards after midnight?"
"Some people do," Angus pointed out. "But, uh… they're usually weirdos."
"I just wanna take a quick look," Mae said quietly. "We can leave as soon as I…"
Mae's voice trailed off as she struggled to open up the lockbox. The box rattled softly, the handle on its side tapping against its metal surface. No matter how hard Mae pushed or pulled, though, the lid didn't so much as budge.
It was then that Mae noticed the brass keyhole on the front of the box.
For a moment, the only sound in the night was the chirping of crickets. Mae stared uncomprehendingly at the keyhole. She tried to somehow convince herself that this was a hallucination. But no; the keyhole stayed, no matter how hard Mae tried to dissociate it away.
Locked. It was locked. Why was Casey's lockbox locked?
Oh. Right. It was a lockbox. It had been kind of dumb of Mae to assume that it wouldn't have a lock.
Reality began to catch up to Mae. She took in a breath and eloquently expressed her frustration in the most restrained way she could think of:
"BALLS!"
"Mae!" Bea hissed, sensibly upset at Mae's lack of volume control.
"It's effing locked!" Mae said, trying (and failing) to keep her anger to a whisper. "Why'd Casey lock it?! Isn't burying it enough?!"
"Mae, calm down," Angus said, concern in his voice.
"Yeah, dude," Gregg said. "I can pick the lock open back at the apartment. It's no big deal."
Mae's face fell a little. In her frustration, she'd forgotten all about Gregg's sick lock-picking skills. If Gregg could pick the locks on elevators in the dark, he'd have no problem picking the lock on a thirty-something-year-old hunk of junk like this. She'd let the stress of the last few days get to her.
"Yeah," Mae said. "Yeah, okay. Let's get back to Gregg's apartment."
"Mae, it's after midnight," Bea said. "We should all go home and you can open this up tomorrow."
Mae, who had returned to trying to pry the lockbox open with her bare hands, looked up at Bea in surprise.
"Huh? Why?"
"Because we have jobs," Bea whispered impatiently. "We all have jobs. Why is that so hard for you to remember?"
"Because it's dumb and boring," Mae said. "I'll start paying attention when you all get cooler jobs."
Bea closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Mae knew what that mean. Bea was about to mutter something under her breath; something like 'Oh my God', or 'For eff's sake'. It was an experience Mae had become very familiar with ever since returning to Possum Springs.
Before Bea could actually say something, though, another voice cut in through the quiet of the night.
"What the hell are you guys doing in Hartley's backyard?" Levy asked.
Mae felt her whole body go tense.
Levy and Steve were standing on the opposite side of the fence that Gregg had only just climbed over. The two of them were staring at Mae and the gang with a mix or irritation and confusion. The faint glow of Steve's cigarette just barely illuminated his and Levy's faces in the night.
Looking over her shoulder at them, Mae had to guess that they hadn't seen the lockbox yet. Mae dropped the lockbox to the ground and hunched over, trying to hide it with her body. To Steve and Levy, it would just look like Mae was pointing her butt at them. For some reason.
"What are… you guys doing here?" Mae asked, trying to turn the conversation around.
Levy lifted up his hand and pointed a thumb at the shabby, one-story house behind him and Steve.
"I live next door," Levy said. "You seriously didn't know that?"
Oh, for crying out loud. Why did Possum Springs have to be such a small town? Why the hell did everyone have to be in walking distance of each other?
"Well… what's Steve doing here?"
"Your mom," Steve retorted smugly. The light of his cigarette bobbed up and down as he chuckled to himself.
Mae hated herself for falling for that one again. It was such a dumb, immature joke, but Steve still kept getting her with it. She really needed to stop interacting with this guy. The sooner, the better.
Mae stood and turned slowly, trying to keep the lockbox behind her. Thankfully, it was either too dark for Levy and Steve to see, or they weren't paying much attention to Mae. Both options were equally likely, now that Mae thought about it.
"So you guys just creep around in people's backyards now?" Steve asked, chuckling. His expression changed to one of amusement to one of confusion, however, as he recognized just who was in the backyard.
"Wait a minute… Delaney? Is that you?" Steve narrowed his eyes. "And, uh… The hardware chick? The hell're you doing here? You two are all responsible and shit."
"If you call me 'the hardware chick' again, I'm going to deck you," Bea snapped. Mae resisted the urge to run over and high-five her.
Surprisingly, Steve actually looked a little taken aback by Bea's response. He held up his hands defensively. While he still had his usual shit-eating grin on his face, his eyes looked almost genuinely apologetic almost.
"Hey, sorry," he said. "Just don't know your name is all. But why're you and Delaney in Hartley's backyard?"
Bea didn't say anything. She wordlessly looked out of the corner of her eye in Mae's direction. It looked like Bea didn't know what to say. Judging by the way Angus was fidgeting, Mae guessed he was in the same boat. That meant it was up to either Mae or Gregg to come up with a plausible lie.
"Well," Mae began, "we were hunting for ghosts—"
"They're digging up Casey's lockbox," Germ said.
Nobody had seen or heard Germ arrived. But all of a sudden, there he was, standing in Casey's backyard, behind Mae and the gang. To say everyone was shocked was a bit of an understatement. Many shouts of surprise were made, and many cusses were sworn. Thankfully, the noise didn't appear to have awakened anyone in Casey's home.
"Effing hell, Warton!" Levy snapped, trying his best to keep his voice low. "You can't sneak up on dudes like that!"
"Yeah," Germ said. It wasn't clear if he was agreeing with Steve or merely acknowledging him. A lot of things Germ said weren't all that clear.
"Wait," Steve held up a hand. "Hold up. What'd you just say about a lockbox, Germ?"
Oh effing hell. With a scowl, Mae tried to push the lockbox further behind her with her boot. Mostly, she just wound up kicking its side a little. The sound of her boot banging against the metal wound up doing the opposite of what Mae had intended.
"… The hell're you kicking, Borowski?" Scriggins asked suspiciously.
Mae swallowed nervously. She could feel everyone's eyes on her. Instead of trying to come up with a lie or excuse, Mae just said the first thing that came to her mind.
"… Eff off, Scriggins."
"Just tell him what it is, Mae," Bea insisted. "We shouldn't be messing with this shit anyway. That's drug money."
"Oh my god!" Mae yelled. "Can none of you keep quiet about this?!"
Mae looked at Gregg for solidarity. Her oldest friend nodded in agreement. It was such a shame that people couldn't keep a lockbox full of money a secret these days. What was the world even coming to?
"Hang on." In one swift movement, Steve pulled himself up and over the fence that separated Casey and Levy's yards. Mae hated how impressive that had been. Did Steve do parkour or something?
"You're telling me that the shit Casey stole from Levy has been back here the whole time?" Steve asked as he began approaching Mae. "Fork it over, Borowski."
Steve reached out to pull the lockbox from behind Mae. Reacting quickly, Mae turned, grabbed the lockbox, and ran to the other end of the yard. Scriggins didn't pursue her—he looked a little shocked by her actions. His surprise turned to anger before too long, though.
"What the hell, Borowski?! That's Levy's stuff!"
"I mean, technically it's Casey's cousin's stuff," Levy said from behind the fence. "But also, it should be Dudley's stuff."
Steve turned and glared in Levy's direction.
"Shut the eff up, Levy. I'm trying to save your ass."
"No way!" Mae hugged the lockbox tighter to her chest. "This is ours! Casey left it for us!"
Scriggins's eyes widened in confused outrage. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and glared angrily at Mae.
"This isn't a game, Borowski!" Steve hissed. "Levy's ass is on the line here. He's gonna be in serious trouble if we don't get that shit back to Dudley!"
Mae didn't say anything. She felt like a giant pair of pliers were squeezing her head. Casey had left this money for Mae and Gregg. But it was drug money, right? And Steve and Levy, as shitty as they were, would get into trouble if they didn't have this money. They might get hurt, or killed, and as much as Mae hated them, she didn't know if she could have that on her conscience.
Damn it. Mae wanted to keep the lockbox, she really did. It had been something Casey had left behind for them.
But was it worth letting these guys get killed over?
"It's locked," Mae said as she dropped the lockbox to the ground. "We were gonna have Gregg unlock it."
Steve actually looked surprised when he saw Mae drop the lockbox. He stuck the cigarette back in his mouth and walked to where Mae stood. As he bent down to pick up the lockbox, Mae almost thought that she heard him say something like 'Thanks' under his breath.
"Don't need any fancy lock-picking for this," Steve said as he slid his fingers under the hem of the lid. He pulled straneously, trying to force the lockbox open. "Just… gotta… use some muscle…!"
"I already tried that," Mae said solemnly.
Steve scoffed. "With those arms? That ain't trying very hard."
"Steve, I'm saving you and your friend's lives," Mae said. "Don't sass me."
The only noise Steve made in response was a grunt as he continued fussing with the lockbox. He was so wholeheartedly focused on the stupid thing that it looked like he hadn't registered what Mae had said. He just stood there, holding the lockbox under his armpit while his fingers tried to pry it open.
It was really stupid, but it also made Mae really sad.
This whole treasure hunt had been for nothing. All it had done was make Mae realize that she and her friends hadn't known Casey as well as they'd thought. And they'd never get a chance to know him any better.
And stupid Steve didn't even know Casey was dead. He was too busy gritting his teeth, trying to force the lockbox open. Mae really hated all of this. She didn't know how it could get worse.
"God! Damn! It!" Steve yelled as he violently tugged on the lid of the lockbox. "These things are usually shit! Why's this one so hard to open?!"
"Maybe you need to let a real man open it," an unpleasantly familiar voice said.
Steve and Mae both froze. A large figure in a heavy coat was standing on the other side of the fence, creeping up on Levy. There was something long in the figure's hand as he stomped closer in their direction. And while Mae couldn't see the figure's face, she didn't need to in order to know that he had a tribal tattoo on it.
"Oh, shit!" Gregg yelled. "It's Duncan!"
"Dudley," several voices corrected all at once.
"What the eff are all of you kids doing here?" Dudley asked irritably.
"Us?!" Mae scoffed. "What are you doing here?! You said you weren't going to stalk me anymore!"
"I wasn't stalking you!" Dudley said, sounding genuinely offended. "I was stalking Levy! I was gonna hit him with this crowbar!"
Dudley lifted the long object he held in his hand and waved it above Levy's head. Levy turned around, saw this, and collapsed onto the ground, whimpering.
"Then I heard you assholes talking about some lockbox that had my shit in it," Dudley said, lowering the crowbar to his side. "So Hartley wasn't even smart enough to take it with him when he ran off, huh?"
"It's a lot more complicated than that," Mae sighed. She was getting too tired to keep up the pretense that Casey was still alive.
"Also, I'm not an asshole," Germ said matter-of-factly.
"Who said that?" Dudley asked, struggling to see in the dark. "Was that Warton? Jeremy Warton? Of course you're not an asshole. I'd never call you an asshole."
Mae blinked. "Wait, you know Germ?"
"Everyone knows Germ," Dudley said irritably.
Mae looked over her shoulder at Germ, who just nodded matter-of-factly. Somehow, Mae wasn't surprised by this. Maybe she was just running out of energy to be surprised by Germ's weirdness. It was pretty late, after all.
"Look, we can forget about all that for now," Dudley said. "I'm willing to let Levy's eff-up slide if my shit's really in that box. I just wanna get this over with so I can get outta this shithole."
As Dudley bent down to crawl through the opening in the fence, Steve dropped the lockbox to the ground. He backed away from it, as if he wanted to distance himself from all of this. Mae didn't know how involved Steve was in all of this drug stuff, but it was clear that he wanted to wash his hands of it.
When Dudley had finished crawling into Casey's backyard, he stood and looked around him. After a second, he walked towards the lockbox, glaring intently at it. He came to a stop right above it and knelt down to take a closer look.
"The key to something like this," he said, "is that you gotta use finesse."
Dudley lifted the crowbar up into the air and swung it down hard on the lid of the lockbox. He kept swinging it over and over like it was a baseball bat, hitting the lockbox with enough force to make it dent. The air was filled with the loud sound of metal against metal.
"What the hell!" Steve whispered under the din. "What are you doing?!"
"OPEN UP, YOU PIECE OF SHIT BOX!" Dudley screamed as he smashed the crowbar into the lid. "YOU HEAR ME KNOCKING, ASSHOLE?! OPEN UP!"
Holy shit! Mae kind of loved Dudley now. If there was anything that could change her opinion on someone, it was them wailing on an inanimate object with a blunt instrument. She wanted to start cheering him on, but he was already making a lot of noise. There was no need to add to it.
"Would you quiet down, you maniac?!" Bea whispered. "We're trespassing!"
"I don't give a shit!" Dudley yelled. "I want my shit! Gimme my shit, stupid box!"
The stupid box had been crumpled liked a soda can under the force of Dudley's swings. Mae had to imagine Dudley was either really strong or the crowbar he was using was really heavy. In any case, as Mae stared at the box, she saw that the lid was beginning to bounce under the force of Dudley's swings.
"Whoa, whoa!" Mae said. "Hold up!"
Dudley, to Mae's surprise, actually stopped beating on the poor box. Mae took the opportunity to rush forward and grab the lockbox.
"The hell are you doing?" Dudley asked warningly.
"Relax, dude. I'm just opening it." Mae felt like she at least had to do that. Even if she wasn't going to be able to keep the contents of the box, she wanted to see what Casey had left. She wanted to see the money Casey had left for his friends in the event of his untimely demise.
Mae tested the lid with her thumbs. Sure enough, the lock had been broken. With a bit of effort, Mae was able to push the lid off. The lid popped off of one of its hinges and fell back at an angle. Mae looked down into the crushed, metallic contents of the box. Her eyes widened in shock as she slowly became aware of just what she was seeing.
"Well?" Dudley asked. "Is my shit in there?"
"How much money did Casey leave?" Gregg asked eagerly. "A hundred? Five hundred? A million?!"
Mae blinked once. Then twice. Slowly, she looked up from the box and looked at everyone gathered around her. After a moment, Mae gave the answer to the question on everyone's mind.
Finally, the contents of the box that everyone had been curious about were revealed.
"There's, like, fifteen dollars in here," Mae said, stunned.
Everyone stared at Mae in shock. Dudley, stumbling, walked over to Mae and checked the contents of the box for himself. When he saw the ten dollar bill and the five ones in the box, he dropped his crowbar onto the grass in silent disbelief.
Nobody knew what to say. The night was heavy with silence.
Well, it was heavy with silence for a few seconds. Because it wasn't long after that that everyone heard the police sirens.
